Song of the Sword

by Edward Willett

  “I don’t know.” But that was a lie. Yes, he will...and after those I love. And there were other shards out there, somewhere. This one, the sword’s point, had been the first. Now that it had been found...would she hear the call of the next? She could hear nothing now, with her power drained...but her power would return. And if she heard the call of the second shard...

  ...she would have to go after it. She’d have no choice. The Lady’s power, the power she had willingly – foolishly? – accepted into herself, would insist on it: would not let her rest until she once more followed the song of the sword.

  But those were problems for a new day. What she needed now, more than anything else, were food and sleep.

  Wally looked as though he were about to say something else, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead he squeezed her arm, then released it. “Good night. Call me tomorrow.”

  He went inside.

  Ariane walked home through a thickening mist. She ran her hand over a parked car as she passed, her fingers skidding over a thin, rough layer of ice. Winter is coming...

  A warm yellow light glowed in the windows of Aunt Phyllis’s house. She went inside to find her aunt sitting in her favourite chair in the living room, watching the local news with Pendragon curled up in her lap, the announcer’s voice booming, “Police are continuing their investigation into the shocking case of a respected local businessman allegedly caught breaking into the bedroom of a fifteen-year-old girl...”

  “Hi,” Ariane said.

  Aunt Phyllis started, then jumped to her feet – much to Pendragon’s annoyance – and ran to Ariane, enfolding her in a hug that suddenly, achingly, reminded Ariane of her mother. “I’m so glad you’re back. I was getting worried...”

  “I lost all our camping equipment.” It was the first time she’d thought about it.

  Aunt Phyllis laughed. “As if that matters!” Her laughter died. “Did you get...it?”

  Ariane hesitated, then pulled the shard of Excalibur out of her pocket. She felt that greedy surge of aggressive power again – both revolting and...attractive. She held up the shard. “Here it is.”

  Aunt Phyllis looked with wide eyes at the piece of pitted steel. “Oh, my!” She reached out to touch it...and then pulled back before her fingers made contact, as though aware of its menacing power. She looked back at Ariane. “But now what?”

  Ariane shook her head. “I don’t know.” She tucked the shard away. “Is there anything to eat?”

  ~ • ~

  Wally had a surprise – hardly the first one of the night – when he entered the living room. Instead of Ms. Carson, whom he expected to find sitting ramrod-straight on the couch watching reality TV, and for whom he was already preparing an elaborate story explaining why he’d missed school that day, he saw a portly, balding man with a thick salt-and-pepper beard sitting in the corner armchair, reading the newspaper. A glass of dark beer rested on the table by his right hand. Wally stopped dead. “Dad?” Then he ran to the chair. “Dad!”

  His father lowered his newspaper and smiled at him. “Hey, son. Miss me?”

  I always do, Wally wanted to say, but something like shyness held him back. His father was so seldom around anymore, it seemed too intimate, like telling a stranger he loved him. He settled for, “Yeah, I guess. Is Mom here too?”

  “Ah.” His father folded the newspaper with great deliberation, and set it beside his beer. “I think you’d better sit down, Wally. There’s something about your mother and me that you need to know...”

  Ten minutes later Wally was sitting on the frost-covered grass in the back yard, his back pressed against the big tree that had shaded every summer of his life, his knees pulled to his chest. His cheeks were wet from more than the thick, freezing mist. He heard footsteps in the grass, and turned to see Flish, still in her gym clothes, wearing an expression so hard and frozen it wouldn’t have looked out of place on an ice sculpture. To his astonishment, she put her back against the tree and slid down into the grass beside him.

  “You heard?” he said.

  “I heard,” Flish said in a voice as cold as the mist. “But I already knew.”

  “How?” Wally had never guessed. He’d known his parents weren’t home much, and that they were travelling separately, but he’d thought it was just work. He’d never dreamed...

  “Because I live in the real world!” Flish snapped. She glared at him, her eyes glittering hard and sharp as diamond in the light spilling into the yard through the kitchen window. “Because I’ve been paying attention. I knew about Dad’s twenty-something bimbo months ago. In fact, I told Mom about her.”

  “Months –” That was when Flish had started to change, to become so distant and cold. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I figured you’d take Dad’s side. You’ve always been his favourite.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “That’s what it looks like from here.”

  Wally didn’t want to fight, not now. He looked away, softened his voice. “So what do we do?”

  “I’ve already done it. I’m moving out.”

  Wally’s head snapped around to face her again. “What?”

  “I’m old enough. Dad can’t keep me here against my will. Shania already lives on her own. I’m moving in with her. Tomorrow.”

  “But –”

  Flish got to her feet. “You’re stuck. Too young. Too bad.” She put her hands on her hips and stared down at him. “One word of sisterly advice. Stay away from that bitch Ariane. I don’t know how she’s pulling those tricks, but they won’t save her forever. And if you’re with her when we take her down...well, don’t come crying to me.” She walked into the house without looking back.

  And Walter Arthur Michael Knight the Third, Companion of the Order of the Lady, Sidekick to the Seeker of the Shards, the lucky boy who had found himself on exactly the kind of quest he’d always dreamed about, living the kind of adventure he’d thought only existed in books and video games, put his head down on his knees and bawled like a baby.

  ~ • ~

  Ariane dreamed.

  She stood again on the shore of Wascana Lake, staring at that impossible opening in the water. Again she descended the watery stairs and saw the Lady on her throne.

  “You have done well,” said the Lady. “And now that you have the first shard, I can reach out to you more easily in dreams, to help you as I can. But understand that this is only the beginning. You must find the remaining four pieces of Excalibur: three more shards of the blade, and then the hilt. You must find them before Merlin does. With each piece you possess your power will grow...but with each piece he possesses his power will grow. And beware: once all the pieces are found, if Merlin holds the greater part of them, he can call the rest of the sword to him and everything you have tried to achieve will have been in vain.”

  “I don’t like the power I get from Excalibur,” Ariane said. “It frightens me.”

  “It is the power of war. The sword is only happy when it is being wielded in battle. Even when it dwelt with me, I seldom used its power. I feared I would come to love the taste of it too well and seek to rule, as Merlin seeks to rule, instead of to protect. I feared it so much that when I scattered the shards, I even hid them from myself. I cannot tell you where they are. You must listen for them with your power. Listen for the song of the sword, and shard by shard, Excalibur will be yours. But do not use its power unless you have to. It may destroy more than you wish to be destroyed.”

  “Did it corrupt Arthur?”

  “Arthur was incorruptible, or as near incorruptible as a mortal man may be. No, Excalibur did not corrupt him. It empowered him. He remade his world, and gave birth to a golden age. But he was still human, and that was his undoing. Guinevere betrayed him with his best friend, the kingdom fell into civil war, and his bastard son Mordred fought against him. Both fell and Excalibur returned to me. I broke it and scattered it. The golden age of Camelot fell into chaos and bloodshed. A dark age desce
nded. But not as dark as the age which awaits your world if Merlin re-forges the sword.”

  “She liesss,” a new voice said from behind Ariane, a voice as soft as silk and as sibilant as a snake’s hiss. If she turned around, she would see the speaker, but so horrifying was the voice, she feared coming face-to-face with its owner. “Liesss...my massster bringsss order in place of chaossss...he will thrust thisss world to greatnesss and remake hisss own...give him the shard...help him find the othersss...he will reward you well...”

  “How came you here?” the Lady thundered. “This is not your world! Begone!”

  “I think not.” The voice held a hint of a cold chuckle. “Thisss is not your world either, Lady. And the door isss almossst closed. Your power is ssstretched too thin for you to command me. Though my massster’s power hasss waned with the agesss, he dwellsss in thisss world, on thisss ssside of the door to Faerie. It isss you who mussst begone, Lady. For now, and for alwaysss!”

  A flare of red light like that of a bonfire, a hiss like water falling on hot coals, and the Lady cried out and vanished in a thick cloud of steam that erupted all around Ariane, wrapping her in dim grayness.

  She turned and turned and turned again, seeking an exit. She saw a dim glow and stepped toward it, but as she did so it resolved into two red gleams, side by side.

  Eyes!

  “I cannot touch you, Lady,” said...whatever it was. “You know thisss...the sssword, until my massster takesss it from you, protectsss you...

  But know thisss, too, Lady. My massster will take it from you...sssoon. And when he doesss...I will be here, in your dreamsss...and you will be mine!”

  And then suddenly, with no transition at all, she woke up, staring at the dark ceiling of her room, her heart pounding.

  She rolled over and looked at the shard, lying on the table beside her bed.

  Do not use it unless you have to, the Lady had said in her dream.

  But she had also said, It is a thing of war...and like it or not, she was in a war, a war between ancient powers who had somehow reached forward through centuries and across whole worlds to ensnare her in their conflict.

  Her half-night’s sleep had replenished her powers. Deep inside, she could hear a distant song, faint, diffuse, impossible to pinpoint yet, but definitely there – the song of the second piece of Arthur’s legendary sword.

  She had won a battle, but the war...

  ...the war was just beginning.

  She put the first shard of Excalibur under her pillow, stared into the darkness, and waited for the morning.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Matthew Hughes for his insightful editing, everyone at Coteau Books for their enthusiasm, talent and hard work, and especially thanks to my wife, Margaret Anne, and daughter, Alice, for putting up with a husband and father with, as Aunt Phyllis says of Ariane, “too much imagination.”

  About the Author

  Edward Willett is the award-winning author of nearly 50 science-fiction and fantasy, science and other non-fiction books for both young readers and adults. His latest publication, the just-released Masks, under the name E.C. Blake, received a glowing review in Publishers’ Weekly. Other science fiction novels include Lost in Translation, Marseguro, and Terra Insegura. Marseguro won the 2009 Prix Aurora Award for best Canadian science-fiction and fantasy novel.

  His non-fiction writing for young readers has received National Science Teachers Association and VOYA awards.

  Edward Willett was born in New Mexico and grew up in Weyburn, Sask. He has lived and worked in Regina since 1988. In addition to his numerous writing projects, Edward is also a professional actor and singer who has performed in dozens of plays, musicals and operas in and around Saskatchewan, hosted local television programs and emceed numerous public events.