Twist of the Blade (7 page)

But he wasn’t about to hang up after that bombshell about the Lady being Merlin’s sister. The Lady had never mentioned
that
little fact.

“We were allies,” Major continued. “She believed then, as I still do now, that we must overthrow the tyrants who rule Faerie. But...” he sighed. “She succumbed to the temptations of wealth and power. Rather than fight tyrants, she decided to become one, seizing control of Clade Avalon.”

“Avalon? Isn’t that an island?”

“A
legendary
island,” Major said. “No one knows where it was, because it was never really here. It could appear in any lake, or at sea. In reality it was a doorway to the real Avalon, my realm...until my sister betrayed me.”

“And I thought I had problems with
my
sister,” Wally muttered.

“How
is
your sister?” Major said. “I know she was seriously injured by your girlfriend this evening

“Ariane is
not
my girlfriend,” Wally answered automatically. He was used to the words by now – he had repeated
them a lot over the last two weeks, after his classmates noticed how much time he and Ariane spent together.

“Perhaps that’s a good thing,” Major said softly. “She seems...dangerous.”

Wally said nothing.

“But you still haven’t told me,” said Major again after a moment. “How is your sister?”

“Broken bones. Cuts and bruises. She’ll be in the hospital longer than I will.”

“And your parents? Your father was home just a short while ago, was he not? Has he or your mother come rushing back to her side...or your side?”

“Why bother asking?” Wally snapped. “If you know my Dad was just here, you’ve obviously got somebody watching Ariane and me. You already know they haven’t come back.”

“Of course I’m keeping an eye on you, Wally,” Major said. “I’m concerned about you. You’re an admirable young man, with the best of intentions. But I know my sister. I know how dangerous she is, to those who follow her as much as to those who stand against her.” He paused. “So...your parents haven’t been there. Or even called?”

Don’t listen to him
, Wally warned himself.
He’s not worried about you. He almost
killed
you to get the shard.

On the other hand, no one else seemed concerned at all.

“No,” he said at last.

“I’m sorry, Wally,” Major said. “My own father abandoned my sister and I when we were quite young, and our mother, too, was...elsewhere. Like you, we were mostly raised by a surrogate. It was never easy.”

Wally said nothing.
Yeah, he
sounds
sincere,
he thought.
But so what? He’s a good actor.

“And Ariane? Have you seen her since you were admitted?” Major continued after a moment.

Wally found it surprisingly hard to speak for a moment. “No,” he finally managed to squeeze out.

“Perhaps,” Major said softly, “you should give serious thought as to where your loyalties should lie.”

Wally chewed on his lip. The only sound was the heavy breathing of the old man asleep in the next bed.
I should hang up
, he thought again. It was obvious that Major was trying to drive a wedge between him and Ariane.

But he kept the phone to his ear. He’d had some doubts about the Lady shortly after she’d first appeared. Ariane had allayed them. But now those doubts were back, redoubled.

Ariane, though, was his friend. He wasn’t about to turn on her just because she hadn’t made it to the hospital to see him, hadn’t been able to control the power she hadn’t even asked to be given.

The best defence is a good offence
, Wally thought. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “Ariane has you worried, especially now that she has the first shard. She beat you in Yellowknife.
We
beat you.”

“Doesn’t she have
you
worried?” Merlin countered mildly. “She hasn’t come to see you. She could have killed your sister and her friends. Are you sure you even know her anymore?
She can’t handle the shard
, Wally. Or the power my sister gave her. It’s changing her. She’s already different from the girl you met, and she’ll keep changing, becoming colder, harder, less human, caring less and less about the things
you
care about.” His voice grew warm, soft, conspiratorial. “You’re just a tool to her, Wally. A tool she needs now, but one she won’t need forever. As soon as she has
another
shard, she’ll toss
you
aside like a broken hammer. And that will be the end of your part in this quest.” His voice dropped further, to almost a whisper. “That’s assuming, of course, she doesn’t get you killed first.”

Wally squeezed his eyes shut.
I shouldn’t keep listening
,
he thought.
I shouldn’t....
But there was something almost
...mesmerizing about Major’s voice.

Magic
, he thought.
He used it on me before, in Yellowknife, he made me tell him what we were doing there...but I fought it off then. And it’s not going to work now!
His eyes shot open.

“Why should I listen to you?” Wally snarled. His elderly roommate grunted and rolled over, and he lowered his voice. “You’re
way
more dangerous than Ariane. And you’re no more of this world than the Lady of the Lake!”

“On the contrary, I’m very much of this world,” Merlin said. If Wally’s outburst had taken him aback, his voice betrayed no sign. “I’ve been here more than a thousand years, whereas the Lady left long ago. And over the last forty years I’ve built a successful business that gives liberally to charity, employs thousands of people, and makes possible the fast, stable Internet you and millions of others take for granted. I’ve
already
made this world a better place. Why do you doubt I will continue to do so, with Excalibur in hand? I want to unite this world, stop the wars that flare all over the planet, use my power to ensure that everyone is clothed and fed, clean the world of pollution, restore the natural balance....”

“...and then use Earth as a jumping-off point from which to invade your own world,” Wally finished. “Don’t try to convince me you’re a saint. I know the truth.”

“
Liberate
my own world,” Major corrected. “And then
two
worlds will be free from tyranny, not just one. Is that not a worthy cause? Especially compared to my sister’s? All
she
wants is to close the door between Earth and Faerie forever, to shut off this world from all magic, all the healing power that I – or she, if she cared to exercise it – could bring to bear.” For the first time, Major’s calm facade cracked, real anger breaking though, coarsening his voice. “My cause is just, in both worlds, Wally. My sister wants to keep things the way they are. I want to change them, and change them for the better. Which cause is nobler?”

Wally had no more arguments, and his head was pounding, both from the concussion and from the effort of fighting the seductive attraction of Major’s voice. He pulled the handset away from his ear, glared at it, and then, convulsively, as though killing a poisonous snake, smashed it into its cradle. The old man stirred and muttered before subsiding into sleep again.

Wally rolled over onto his other side, away from the phone, half-expecting it to ring again. It didn’t, but that didn’t stop him from hearing Major’s words repeating in his head.
Which cause is nobler?

He’s the villain
, he told himself.
He’s lying.

Just one problem: he couldn’t point to a single thing Major had told him about the Lady or Ariane that wasn’t true.

He didn’t trust Major. But at the moment, he didn’t really trust anyone.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE RETURN OF THE SONG

When Ariane finally dragged herself through the doors of the house, Aunt Phyllis was waiting for her. “Are you all right?” her aunt said anxiously. “You’re an hour late...and I heard sirens!”

Ariane had never felt so utterly drained. With the surge of energy she had drawn from the shard now gone as though it had never been, her exhaustion was so complete she couldn’t bear the thought of trying to explain to Aunt Phyllis what had happened. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Mr. Merle kept me even later than usual...working on polynimin...polymani...polynomials....”

Aunt Phyllis laughed, but then her face grew concerned. “I think you should go straight to bed, Ariane. If you wake up later, I can heat up dinner...but right now you need sleep more than anything else.”

Ariane nodded numbly and climbed the stairs to her room, every step an enormous obstacle she could barely surmount. She’d tell Aunt Phyllis the truth in the morning. Ariane didn’t want to keep secrets from her, not anymore, but she just couldn’t handle that conversation tonight.

She stumbled through getting undressed, hid the shard under her pillow, lay down, pulled the covers over her, and fell instantly asleep.

For the first time in weeks, her dreams were ordinary, and they vanished from her mind when her alarm clock rang. She stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of being well-rested, her pleasure only slightly offset by the fact she still had to tell Aunt Phyllis what had happened at the tennis courts the night before. But without the fog of fatigue clogging her brain, even that seemed doable.

She glanced at the dark window. The sun wasn’t even up yet, but somehow the morning already seemed bright.
A hot shower and I’ll be able to face anything
, she thought as she got out of bed. She stripped off her pajamas, pulled on her bathrobe, and crossed the hall to the bathroom, smiling when she heard Aunt Phyllis singing along to Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” playing on the radio in the kitchen...for once
not
tuned to the CBC.

She took off the bathrobe, stepped into the shower, started the water, reached for the shampoo....

...and froze.

As the water touched her, she heard a song within it, a distant, shimmering thread of music, cold as steel, hot as flame, inhuman, beautiful...and unmistakable. It was the song of the sword, the second shard of Excalibur, calling to the Lady of the Lake...calling to her again at last.

She leaned both hands against the tiles, the water sluicing down her body, closed her eyes and concentrated.

The song came from far away, much farther away than the first shard had seemed when she had heard its music, so faint she couldn’t even tell from which direction it came.

The first shard
, she thought.
What if...?

Ariane jumped out of the shower without turning the water off, ran naked and dripping across the hall to her room, grabbed the shard from under her pillow, and rushed back to the bathroom. Holding the pitted, pointed piece of steel in her left hand, she stepped back under the streaming water.

It was as though she’d been listening to the song of the sword through ear buds, and had just plugged her music player into an amplifier. The thin thread of music swelled, and suddenly she knew where it was coming from: east. A long,
long
way east...and no way to get there through fresh water. Which meant another continent, somewhere beyond the Atlantic.

Europe? Africa? Asia? She couldn’t tell. She opened her eyes and stared down at the dark tip of the ancient sword. The old steel looked out of place in her aunt’s shower, its sharp edges and merciless point contrasting starkly with her pink, bare flesh.
How am I supposed to cross the Atlantic Ocean?
she thought in despair.
I can’t travel through salt water!

With a sigh, she put the shard in the soap dish and reached for the shampoo again. The hot water would run out in a minute, and she still had to get ready for school. She’d talk to Wally and....

He’s in the hospital
, Ariane remembered with a start.

For the first time, it occurred to her that by now someone would have told him that Flish was in the hospital too. Once he heard
how
his sister had been hurt, he’d have to be a complete idiot not to figure out what had really happened – and Wally was definitely not an idiot.