He’d been doubtful himself when the notion had first come to him, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
As much sense as anything to do with this quest did, anyway.
As much sense as finding his house empty.
“Even if you’re right – I’m not saying you are, but if you are – I’m not sure what good it does us,” Ariane said. “Suppose your great-grandfather brought the hilt to Saskatchewan. Cannington Manor doesn’t really exist anymore, does it? Nobody lives there.”
“No,” Wally said. “It’s a provincial park. A heritage site. There’s a church and a cemetery, a few old buildings, some museum-type stuff – old furniture, things like that – and a bunch of holes in the ground.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Once, about four years ago. Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Knight are buried there.”
“So how do we figure out where your great-grandfather hid whatever it is he hid?”
“That’s why I want to look at Grandma’s book,” Wally said. “It might have something in it I’ve forgotten. But…” He spread his arms to indicate the empty house.
“If your mom has it, we could go back to Scotland and you could ask her if you could have a look,” Ariane said, but she didn’t sound very certain that was a good idea.
Wally, on the other hand, was very certain it wasn’t. “No,” he said firmly. “I changed the subject the minute she mentioned Great-Grandpa Knight because I didn’t want Flish to think what I was thinking. If I ask Mom anything about it, it will be like sending up a flare to alert Rex Major. Mom will tell him everything I say to her. She has to. She’s under his Command. So is Dad.” Maybe I could get him to Command them to get back together, he thought, and then wished he hadn’t. He had a feeling that thinking he could use magic to force people to do whatever he wanted was a very bad habit to get into for someone who might very soon be wielding Excalibur.
“So we don’t ask,” Ariane said. “We sneak into her hotel room, like we did Major’s in Yellowknife.”
Wally thought about that, and felt himself grin. “I like the way you think,” he said. “But we’ll have to be very careful. If we find the book, we can’t take it. That might alert Major to what we’re searching for, too. We can only look at it. And we have to do it without Mom finding out for the same reason – she’ll tell Merlin, and it won’t be hard for him to put two and two together and figure out what interested us. And then…”
“Then we’d be in a race with him. Again.” Ariane sighed. “I hope you’re right about him not knowing anything about this already, Wally. Because if the race has already started, we’re handicapped. I’m still in no shape to take us anywhere.”
“I’d like to offer you a bed, or at least a couch, but…” Wally looked around the empty living room. “It looks smaller now than it used to,” he murmured.
“Everything looks smaller when it’s empty,” Ariane said.
Wally blinked at her. “What?”
Ariane laughed. “It sounded good before I said it. Look, I can manage without sleep, but I can’t manage without food. And caffeine seems like a really good idea, too. Caffeine and carbs. Let’s go find a coffee shop.”
“How about the Human Bean?” Wally said. “For old time’s sake.”
“The last time we went to the Human Bean, one of Major’s henchmen jumped us,” Ariane pointed out.
“Ancient history,” Wally said. “That poor guy’s still in jail for breaking into your bedroom. It’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Fine,” Ariane said. “The Human Bean it is.”
Wally stood up. “We’ll go through the back yard again. Don’t want anyone to see us coming out.” He took another look around the empty house. Already it felt like someone else’s, like an empty show home he’d wandered into.
But then, in some ways it hadn’t really felt like home for a long time.
They went out the back door. “Hold up a sec,” he told Ariane. He turned and closed the door, made sure it was locked, then leaned down and slid his key under it, giving it a good shove so it couldn’t be seen.
“Are you sure about that?” Ariane said softly.
“Yeah,” Wally said. “I’m sure. Come on.” He turned his back on the house he’d grown up in, and walked away without looking back.
•••
The wet road to Inverness slipped by under the Jaguar’s wheels. Merlin glanced at Felicia, who was staring out the passenger-side window, forehead against the glass, her breath rhythmically fogging it. So it’s moody teenager time again, apparently. “Tell me exactly what you and Wally and your mother talked about,” he said, as much to pass the time – it was a good hour’s drive to the city – as because he thought he’d learn anything useful. He’d question Felicia’s mother with the Voice of Command that evening anyway.
“It doesn’t matter,” Felicia said sullenly.
“Humour me,” Major said, with just a flicker of anger, wishing for the umpteenth time he could Command the girl the way he could her parents; but then, if he’d been able to do that it would have meant she wasn’t an heir of Arthur, she’d be no use to him at all, and they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
If you could call it a conversation.
Felicia sighed so heavily the whole window fogged for a moment, but she didn’t turn around. “Wally tried to convince me you’re the devil and you’re leading me to hell, Mom tried to convince both of us we should just kiss and make up and all go down to the village to get ice cream, and then for some reason Wally started bugging Mom about this stupid film project.”
That caught Merlin’s attention. “Bugging her how?”
“He just wanted to know about it. Mom went into this long explanation about how weird our family is, Knights and MacPhaidens marrying each other down through history, all that crap. God, I wish I’d been born into a normal family.” Felicia traced an aimless pattern on the misted glass with her finger.
Merlin’s eyes narrowed. If Wally was that interested, maybe his wild-goose chase wasn’t so wild after all. He still hoped to find, when he got back to Toronto, that Ariane had conveniently dissolved into nothingness – and taken Wally with her – and he could take his time recovering her two shards from wherever they had fallen, then easily locate the hilt. But he knew from bitter experience how adept Ariane and Wally were at wriggling out from under his thumb just when he was about to squash them, and so it wouldn’t hurt to continue to explore all other avenues to finding the hilt.
“What exactly did Wally show interest in?” he said. “Think hard, it’s important.”
Felicia shrugged. “Something about Great-Grandpa Knight.”
“What about him?” Merlin said, trying very hard, and almost succeeding, not to let his impatience colour his voice.
Felicia sighed. “Great-Grandpa Knight was nutty as a fruitcake,” she said. “Apparently he told Grandma that he’d had to leave Scotland to protect some sort of family secret, and that he’d brought a treasure with him. Mom’s convinced he thought he had the Holy Grail.”
“No,” Merlin said absently, mind racing. “I know where the Grail is, and it’s definitely not in Saskatchewan.” He pulled out to pass a lorry. When he was back in his own lane, he said, “Change of plans. I’m going to fly to Toronto on my own. You’re going to rejoin your mother.”
Felicia jerked upright and her head snapped toward him, eyes blazing. “I am not!”
“Yes,” Major said. “You are.” He saw a turnoff for a village coming up; he slowed, turned into it and swung the Jaguar around, turning onto the road to head back the way they’d come just as the lorry he’d passed minutes before roared by, the driver giving him an unfriendly look. He accelerated back toward Castle MacPhaiden.
“I told Mom I was leaving!” Felicia shouted. “I stormed off. I can’t go back!”
“You’ll do as I tell you!” Major snapped, patience worn thin at last. He glanced at the girl, her hair still hanging wet and l
ank around her shoulders, that ridiculous black dress clinging damply. “I’ve given you everything you’ve wanted, these past few months. That necklace, that dress, those shoes, and dozens more of each. As much spending money as you want. Parties. Rich boys to flirt with.”
He let his voice sharpen, like a swordsman revealing just an inch or two of steel to emphasize he was armed and dangerous. “But remember this, Felicia Knight – I can take it all away. I can make you a virtual prisoner in my condo if I choose. Anyone you might think to complain to, I can buy off or simply Command to ignore you. You will do as I tell you, or your little I’m-a-celebrity fantasy will come to a very abrupt end.”
Felicia’s nostrils flared. “You wouldn’t dare,” she snarled. “You need me. I’m an heir to Arthur. You can’t use your precious shards without my help.”
“Need you?” Merlin drew his verbal sword a little more. “Don’t give yourself airs, little girl. Your help is desirable, yes – but never, ever think you’re invaluable. I did not even know heirs to Arthur still existed when I began this. Yes, having you at my side will make my conquest of Earth and Faerie easier, but make no mistake – once I have the complete sword I will have power enough to open the door into Faerie and carry out my plans for its liberation with or without you. Annoy me enough now, or keep crossing me, and ‘without you’ will come to seem a very attractive option. Do you understand me?”
Felicia’s lips pressed together so tightly they turned white. She nodded, once.
“Good.” Major sheathed his metaphorical blade and instead let a smile flicker across his face “Good. So. To reiterate. You will return to your mother. You will find out everything you can about your great-grandfather Knight and his treasure. Especially, you will try to find out where he hid it. The moment you know that, you will phone me. And if I am satisfied with what you tell me in that phone call, then I will send for you and you may return to Toronto. Clear?”
Felicia nodded, once. Then she turned her back on him, folded her arms across her chest, and stared out into the rain-swept Scottish countryside again.
“Sulk all you want, child,” Merlin said to her back. “Just do what I tell you.”
A sign flashed by. Twenty kilometres back to Castle MacPhaiden.
They drove the rest of the way in silence broken only by the rhythmic thumping of the windshield wipers.
Chapter Eight
The Laird of Castle MacPhaiden
After a breakfast sandwich of egg and ham and cheese on an English muffin, plus a very large coffee and a cinnamon bun, Ariane felt, if not exactly on top of the world, at least able to once more magically transport people around it.
The tranquilizer Rex Major had shot her with had to have been powerful stuff to have knocked her out almost instantly. She wondered exactly how that worked, when she’d immediately dematerialized into the clouds. It couldn’t have circulated through her bloodstream when she didn’t have a body. Or could it?
Maybe it just started to take effect as I dematerialized, then asserted itself again the minute we rematerialized, she thought. That would explain why I passed out the second we hit Wascana Lake, and why it’s taking so long for it to wear off completely.
She supposed that made sense. Their clothes dematerialized and rematerialized with them, after all, as did backpacks and the shards themselves, so presumably anything in her bloodstream would do the same.
She shuddered. If not for the fact that killing her directly would apparently somehow destroy Excalibur forever, she was certain the tranquilizer pistol would have been a real gun.
She wondered what Rex Major thought had happened to them after they dematerialized. Did he think they’d simply vanished into the fog, the shards dropping out of the clouds to land wherever they happened to be when they disappeared forever? Did he believe Ariane and Wally were dead, and all his troubles were over?
Possibly, but they couldn’t count on it.
They had no clue where Major was now, or Felicia. From Wally’s description of his conversation with his sister, as he ate a white-chocolate-and-saskatoon-berry scone and downed a giant mocha latte, it seemed unlikely Felicia had stayed with their mother. Which might at least make it a little less likely that she or Major would twig to what Ariane and Wally were up to, if they carried out their plan to break into Jessica Knight’s hotel room.
The trouble was, of course, they had no idea where that hotel room might be, other than “somewhere in Scotland,” which wasn’t much help. It was presumably not too far from Castle MacPhaiden, but there hadn’t been any place to stay in the nearest village, unless you counted the rooms over the pub, and neither Ariane nor Wally thought it likely Jessica Knight and her crew would settle for those.
“We don’t dare call her,” she pointed out to Wally as she came back to their table by the window with her refilled coffee cup. The more caffeine the better, this morning.
They had the Human Bean almost to themselves. It was still pretty early and the grabbing-coffee-on-the-way-to-work-or-school crowd hadn’t arrived yet. An elderly man sat at a corner table reading a book, and the two baristas had vanished into the back room. The Eagles’ Hotel California played in the background.
“I agree,” Wally said. “But it’s still only early afternoon in Scotland. She’ll still be at the castle. If we go back there, I can see her again. But this time, Flish won’t be around.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“The way she stormed off? I’m sure,” Wally said confidently. “I won’t ask Mom anything about family history, so she won’t tell Major what I’m interested in. But at least I should be able to find out where she’s staying. Then tonight…”
“Not the most solid of plans,” Ariane said doubtfully. “You don’t even know if she has your grandmother’s book with her.”
“I know it’s a long shot, Ariane,” Wally said, “but it’s the only shot we have at the moment. Unless the shards are telling you anything about the hilt’s location?”
Ariane sighed. They weren’t, of course. No more than they had for months. Wherever the hilt of Excalibur was, it was beyond the reach of the Lady’s magic. Perhaps hidden in salt water, as it had been on Cacibajagua Island, or somewhere with no water at all. The desert, maybe? “No,” she said.
“Well, then,” Wally said. He finished off his scone and wiped his fingers on a napkin, then wiped his mouth. He put the napkin down on the table. “Do we stop in at Barringer Farm before we go?”
Ariane wanted to say yes – wanted to talk to Mom and Aunt Phyllis and Emma – but what good would it do? They’d just worry, and every time they were in contact with the three women, they put them in more danger. If Major ever figured out where they’d been hiding all these months…
So instead she shook her head. “No,” she said. “Let’s just go. If this really does pan out, maybe we’ll have the hilt by evening and this will all be over.”
“Right,” Wally said. “Could happen.” But he didn’t really sound as if he believed it. He looked around, taking in the mostly empty coffee shop. “I think we can risk going into the bathroom together.”
Ariane nodded. They got up from the table and walked to the hallway at the back of the brightly painted shop. The coast was clear as they opened the door, but just as they stepped inside the old man who had been reading in the corner appeared at the end of the hall. It was too late to hide. Ariane gave him a bright smile and then followed Wally into the bathroom.
Well, she thought, I didn’t recognize him. He probably doesn’t know who either of us are…
Wally started the water running, then held out his hand to her. She took it, put her other hand into the stream, and took them both down the drain.
She knew at once she was in trouble.
The “caffeine and carbs” might have masked the effects of the tranquilizer, but the drug still clearly lingered in her system. She felt as if she were pushing her way through molasses, with Wally, a dead weight, slowing her even more. She never felt
in danger of losing herself, not with Wally holding tight to her with his somehow both very real and yet immaterial hand, not with the new glimmering link, forged from love, tying her to him, and not with the two shards in her possession shining hard and bright in her senses. But she could tell this journey was not going to take mere minutes as the last trip to Scotland had. This one was going to take as long as – or longer than – their journeys before Cacibajagua Island, before she had realized how many of the limitations on her power were self-imposed.
Yet she had no choice but to struggle gamely onward, through lake and river and cloud. At least, with two shards and Wally to help her draw on them, she was never in danger of running out of power. But all the same, when at long, long last they rematerialized in the same small loch they had appeared in before, she almost passed out again as she had when they’d materialized in Wascana Lake, this time from sheer exhaustion.
Together they staggered out of the loch. The earlier rain had subsided to a fine drizzle, but she was in no shape to do anything about it, because she was too busy leaning over and throwing up the remains of her breakfast and coffee, which had dematerialized and rematerialized along with her body, only to end up in an ignominious jumble in the Scottish mud.
Wally lay flat on his back in the grass, panting. “I thought we’d never get here,” he panted. “That was almost worse than last time.”
“Tranquilizer…hadn’t worn off completely after all,” Ariane gasped out. She spat, then gathered up a handful of the loch water, managed to find just enough magic left in her to purify it, rinsed out her mouth, and spat again. It took about three rinses to get rid of the awful taste.
Door Into Faerie Page 8
