For now, though, there was only one place she wanted to go: home.
Unerringly, the power took her there, but then she was confronted with a new and terrifying problem: she could flow through her own bathroom, one with the spray in the still-running shower, but she couldn’t materialize there. Again and again she tried, looping through sewer and lake and filtration plant and pipe, but her body would not take shape. Worse, she could feel herself tiring, her power waning. What would happen if she reached the limit of her endurance while her body remained immaterial?
Join with me... Though it had no words, she clearly understood the water’s call. Join with me forever...
She tried to think. It didn’t seem to matter how little water was present when she dematerialized, but when she had rematerialized before, she had been out in a lake, fully underwater when she reasserted her own shape…
Frantically she began casting around for the nearest body of water large enough to submerge her.
There! Not too far from Aunt Phyllis’s house, a pool of some sort.
She emerged in hot, steaming water. She looked around. Tile floor and walls. Stacks of towels. A frosted glass shower stall –
– and the blurred pink shape of someone – a naked someone! – on the other side of the glass! Ariane couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, and didn’t want to. I’m in someone’s hot tub! she thought in horror.
She’d never moved so fast in her life. Up and out of the tub, ordering the water off her body as she moved. Dry, she opened the door a crack and looked out into an empty hallway that ran deeper into the house to her right and ended at a door to her left – a door with shoes scattered around it, a sure sign it led outside.
Seconds later she stood gasping for breath in an alley, having set some kind of record for the twenty-five-metre dash. At last she knew exactly where she was. Aunt Phyllis’s house also backed onto this alley, just a couple of trash bins to the north.
Unfortunately, Aunt Phyllis’s house had a motion-activated light in the backyard. Ariane had hoped to sneak back in without being noticed, but her aunt must have seen the light come on. She opened the back door just as Ariane climbed the steps. “Ariane?” Aunt Phyllis looked bewildered. “How did you get here? You were upstairs taking a shower. I can still hear the water running...”
“I...” Think fast! “...um, thought I heard a, uh, cat. Meowing. Like it was hurt. Before I even got undressed. I went out to look. You must not have noticed. I guess I forgot to turn off the water.” She hugged herself and pretended to shiver. “I didn’t even stop to put on my coat.”
“But...” Aunt Phyllis blinked at her, then shook her head and laughed. “Well, that book must be more engrossing than I realized...I never noticed a thing.” She moved aside. “Did you find the cat?”
“What? Oh, no, no sign of it...guess I imagined it. Good night!”
Aunt Phyllis opened her mouth to say something else, but Ariane hurried past her without giving her the chance. The sooner she ended this conversation, the better.
A minute later she was standing in her bathroom again. She turned off the water and looked at herself in the now steamed-up mirror.
She still didn’t look like a powerful sorceress. But after what she had just done...
It frightened her a little, but also emboldened her. Maybe she wasn’t helpless against Merlin after all.
She wouldn’t know until she tried to beat him. But she would try. The power of the Lady, the music of the water, the song of the sword – they were hers, something solid to hold on to, something that couldn’t be taken away from her in an instant...as her mother had been. She knew where to find the first shard of Excalibur. She knew how to get there.
But could she take Wally with her?
Only one way to find out. She went into her room, turned on the light, and sat down at her computer. She opened her email software, entered Wally’s address, and typed, My idea worked. Meet me at the Human Bean tomorrow morning at 9:30?
She clicked SEND. She leaned back in her chair, feeling an immense weariness. By the time her computer beeped, she had changed into her pajamas and was brushing her teeth.
Wally’s message was to the point. I’ll be there! – Wally. He’d added a P.S. Bring some of your Aunt Phyllis’s cookies.
Ariane laughed. And as she climbed into bed, it occurred to her she’d laughed more in the two days since she’d met Wally than she usually did in two months.
The thought didn’t make her laugh again, but it did make her smile, as she drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Ponytailed Man
The Learjet bucked like an angry horse as it descended through the clouds above Yellowknife, jerking up and down and from side to side as though determined to throw out its sole, white-knuckled passenger.
Rex Major gripped the arms of his seat and gritted his teeth. He hated flying – or rather, he hated flying in these cursed contraptions held up by nothing more substantial than air flowing around their wings, without a whiff of good solid magic. When he did have to fly – and in this strange age, it was necessary in order to conduct his business – he usually took Excalibur Computer System’s Boeing 737, whose massive size he found comforting. But on this trip, the “optics,” as his public relations advisor called it, dictated that he use the Learjet, whose luxurious interior was a plus but whose small dimensions he found alarming. By his using the Lear, owned by him personally rather than Rex Major Industries, his PR staff hoped to enhance the plausibility of his claim that he was making this trip purely out of curiosity. As it was, the stock price of Thunderhill Diamonds Inc. had risen because of speculation that he was about to invest in the company. If he’d flown to Yellowknife in the ECS Boeing, complete with entourage, that price might have skyrocketed – and made it that much more expensive for him if he did decide to invest.
At the peak of his powers, he had loved to fly, sometimes putting his mind into a bird and soaring through the clouds on two honest, feathered wings – not like the ugly, rigid metallic things now holding them so tentatively in the air – sometimes simply rising from the ground in human form, using his magic to counteract the constant, hungry sucking of the Earth...gravity, they called it now.
Once he had re-forged Excalibur, claimed it as his own, and forced open the doorway between Earth and Faerie, he would fly like that again. But right now his powers were so diminished he couldn’t even ensure that the metal monstrosity in whose belly he rode didn’t immolate itself and him in one final angry plunge. If that happened, he would die, and all his ambitions with him. Though all-but-immune to aging, he could still be killed. And if he were, the Queen and Council of Clades might continue their tyranny over Faerie for another millennium, without challenge.
A lurch made him gasp and squeeze the armrests so hard his fingers turned white, but it was immediately followed by a second, softer lurch, and then the roar of the jet’s engines, and he realized that while he had been busy convincing himself he was about to die, they had landed.
He looked out the window for his first glimpse of Yellowknife and saw nothing but swirling snow, lit intermittently by the flashing lights of the plane, as they taxied to the tiny terminal. A few moments later he was out in that storm, flipping up the collar of his overcoat and muttering two-thousand-year-old Faerie curses (the old ones were the best ones).
After that unpleasant interval, the terminal seemed almost homey. Its warm yellow walls were offset by hanging banners the color of northern skies and ice, a reminder that they weren’t in the soft southland any more – as if the storm raging outside wasn’t reminder enough. A tall, heavyset man with no hair on his head but lots on his chin approached, his hand outstretched.
“Mr. Major?”
Major shook the proffered hand. “Victor Ursu, I presume?”
“That’s me. Vice-president for investor relations. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.” Ursu’s deep voice, as big as the rest of him, boomed through the terminal.
Major saw people turning to look, then whisper to each other, and knew he had been recognized. He sighed. As Merlin, he had often gone about his business incognito, but a millennium and a half ago he hadn’t had to deal with mass media and the Internet splashing his photo all over the place.
Of course, he consoled himself, he was still incognito in the most important sense: nobody knew who he really was.
“What time tomorrow will we leave for the mine?” he asked.
Ursu shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think we’ll be able to go tomorrow at all. This storm is going to get worse before it gets better. They’re closing the airport. You made it in just under the wire.”
Major was glad he hadn’t had that knowledge a few minutes earlier, when he’d been gripping the arms of the Learjet’s seat. He felt a flash of annoyance at hearing it now. In the old days, no storm could have delayed him. “Then when is it expected to clear? I’m a busy man.” It was a foolish thing to say. He knew Ursu could no more control the weather than he could…now. But his new persona as a hard-nosed businessman was so ingrained that phrases like that came to him almost automatically. They usually got results.
Not this time, of course. “I know you are, sir. And I’m sorry things turned out this way. But they’re saying this storm won’t let up until tomorrow night. It’s a big one. Best we can hope for is to get out to the mine Monday morning.”
Major sighed. “I assume my hotel has high-speed Internet access?”
Ursu nodded. “We made sure of that, sir.”
“Then at least I can get some work done. Where are my bags?”
An extra day, he thought as Ursu led him to the baggage claim area. A stuffed polar bear snarled at him from a plaster ice floe at the centre of the carousel. Major bared his own teeth at the long-dead predator. I’ve waited fifteen centuries. What’s one more day?
His hotel was nice enough, in a generic sort of way, though it fell far short of the plush accommodations to which he was accustomed. His usual hotel suites put the royal apartments in Camelot to shame – although in one sense, even the lowliest motel could say the same, since unlike Arthur and Guinevere’s drafty rooms, modern motels had both running water and central heating.
And he had to admit, as he returned to his room late that night after a leisurely supper with Ursu in what he was told was the city’s best restaurant, followed by a few drinks in the hotel lounge, that both food and wine were better in this age than they had been in Arthur’s.
Feeling pleasantly stuffed and just a little tipsy, Major set up his laptop and checked his email. There were, as was usually the case after he’d been offline for a few hours, dozens. Several were flagged as urgent, but his eye immediately went to one from Keith Pritchard.
Pritchard had told him, the last time they had spoken by phone, that the magical program Major had sent him for his smartphone had worked like a charm, homing in on a young girl named Ariane Forsythe, little more than a child, the power of the Lady that clung to her drawing the magic in the smartphone app like a magnet. If she were the same person the Lady had tried to contact two and a half years ago, Major suspected the Lady’s previous failure had been due to her young age. And the fact she was still so young, he’d thought, would make her easy to intimidate. He’d sent Pritchard another magical program, one that would deliver a terrifying warning right to the girl’s computer. Major had fully expected that to be the end of the matter.
He opened the email, and discovered he was wrong. I delivered the warning. I don’t think it worked. The girl and that boy I told you about, the one she’s been hanging out with, spent the evening on her computer. The tracer you had me put on her computer usage shows they were researching you.
Then, after the boy left, something very strange happened. There was a surge of magic, and then the girl vanished from the scanner completely. A few minutes later she showed up again, from outside the house, even though I never saw her leave.
I await your instructions. Pritchard.
Major stared at the email, feeling a sudden unfamiliar sensation: worry.
They spent the evening researching me? Then they’ve figured out I’m Merlin. And they must know I’m heading to the Thunderhill diamond mine. And that means...
“She knows,” he whispered. “By the Tree, she knows where the shard is!”
And a surge of magic, followed by her disappearance, and then her return from an unexpected direction? It could only mean translocation.
Major swore. She didn’t just have a little of the Lady’s power. She had all of it – or at least much of it. He nervously fingered the ruby stud in his ear. Magically, she’s probably stronger than I am. She is the Lady of the Lake in this time and place, while I...
While he, until he had Excalibur, could barely claim to still be Merlin.
But non-magically...non-magically, she was only a girl. And if she would not heed his warning...well, there were other ways to dissuade her.
The most direct method would be to have her killed, but that was impossible. The power of the Lady and the power of Excalibur were inextricably bound. Now that she had the Lady’s power, if she were to die, at his hand or even accidentally, the power would die with her. Excalibur would become nothing but a rusting sword, the door to Faerie would slam shut, and he...
He would still be Rex Major, powerful, wealthy...but no longer ageless. Trapped outside of Faerie, with the door to its magic no longer even ajar, he would live out a normal human lifespan – then he, too, would die.
Killing her would be killing himself and all his hopes.
He was going to pull that ruby right out of his ear if he didn’t quit fingering it. He forced himself to place his hands palms-down on the desk and hold them still.
Since he couldn’t kill the girl, he could see only two possible ways to remove the threat she posed. One was to sequester her until it was too late for her to act against him. In a way, he liked that better than killing her: it echoed his own centuries-long imprisonment, imposed on him with the help of the Lady of the Lake. The Lady might be beyond the reach of an appropriate revenge, but her heir was not.
The second way was through fear. He didn’t know what the Lady had told her. Quite possibly she didn’t know that he couldn’t kill her; if that were the case he could at least make her fear for her life. After all, just because he couldn’t kill her, that didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt her...badly. And he could also make her fear for the lives of those close to her – the boy, for instance. Her loved ones were not protected by the power.
Abduction first, I think, he decided. Lock her away and she will no longer be a threat.
He had already Commanded Pritchard to obey all his instructions, no matter what the sacrifice to himself, so his minion would certainly do what must be done. Major sighed. A pity to lose him, but I can easily replace him. And lose Pritchard he most likely would. If – when – he was caught, he would serve a very long sentence in prison for kidnapping a teenage girl.
Ah, well. An operative in prison might be useful.
And if Pritchard failed...well, there was still fear. She had a computer, and that computer could serve as a doorway, for him, or for...something else.
He smiled. Then he picked up his cell phone and dialed Pritchard’s number.
~ • ~
Ariane started awake and sat up in bed.
Gray morning light filtered through the curtains. She could hear Aunt Phyllis singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” downstairs, accompanied by Pendragon meowing for his breakfast, but none of those things had awakened her.
What had jerked her out of sleep was a dream. As she had done the night before, she had been rushing through pipes and drains and streams and lakes, water among water, but unlike the night before, she had been unable to find any way home, anywhere where she could re-form her body, and she had felt herself growing thinner and thinner, more diluted, until she had been on the verge of vanishing completely...
She shuddered, and threw
off the covers, glad for once to be getting out of bed early on a Sunday.
She pulled on her favourite old jeans and a worn-but-warm Saskatchewan Roughriders sweatshirt. She checked her e-mail. Nothing from Wally.
After a stop in the bathroom – no surprises when she touched the water – she descended to the kitchen. Aunt Phyllis, wearing a pink terrycloth bathrobe over a long flannel nightgown, turned from the counter and held out her favourite rose-patterned teapot. “Good morning, dear. You’re up earlier than usual. Would you like some tea?”
“No, thanks. I’m supposed to meet Wally at the Human Bean for a latte.” Trying to ignore Aunt Phyllis’s raised eyebrows, she hurried on, “We’re going to talk about our project.” She remembered Wally’s request. “Oh, yeah – and can I take some of those cookies you made last night?”
“Of course, dear. But dress warm! It frosted last night and the radio said it’s barely going to get above freezing today. We might even get snow.”
Ariane knew exactly how cold the night had been, having been splashing around in a prairie lake in the middle of it. But she couldn’t very well tell Aunt Phyllis that. “I will.” She gave Pendragon’s head a good scratch, then headed out.
The Human Bean was a coffee shop located in an old house seven or eight blocks from Ariane’s home. It was within easy walking distance of Oscana Collegiate and St. Dunstan’s High, which made it a favourite of the smallish coffee-drinking subset of the high school crowd...but not on a Sunday morning, when most of her fellow students were sound asleep. Ariane didn’t really care if anyone saw her with Wally, but she thought it might be better for Wally if no one saw him with her.
Oh, who am I kidding?, she thought as she headed down the front walk, carrying a dozen of Aunt Phyllis’s cookies in a brown paper bag. A thin layer of frost had made the concrete slippery, and gave it and the still slightly green grass bordering it a pale, washed-out look. Her breath rose in white clouds. The tipsy gnome under the spruce looked as cold and miserable as she had been when she’d crawled out of the lake. Wally and I couldn’t be worse social outcasts if we came down with Ebola.
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