Cave Beneath the Sea

by Edward Willett

  “Do you feel that?” Mom gasped.

  “I do,” Ariane said. Tears had started in her eyes, and once more made it hard to speak. “Oh, Mom, I do.”

  They stood like that for a long moment. At last Emily Forsythe released her daughter and stepped back. She put her hands on Ariane’s shoulders. “You’ve grown,” she said. Tears still glistened in her eyes and on her cheeks. “As tall as I am, now.”

  It was true. Ariane hadn’t registered it until that moment. Her own eyes filled anew. Two years. “Taller, I think.” She brushed at her eyes. “Mom, I’m sorry. What I just said. I –”

  “I deserved it,” her mom said. “I know I hurt you. I...” She looked up. “Here’s the staff nurse,” she said in a falsely bright voice. “Hi, John.”

  “Hi, Emily.” John, a small, wiry young man, shorter than Ariane or her mom, wore a pale blue golf shirt, black trousers and black shoes. Aside from a nametag reading “John McIntyre, R.N.,” there was nothing to indicate he was a nurse, unless it was the black doctor’s bag he carried. “You don’t look sick, but Jim said you fainted?”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Emily said. “I didn’t sleep well last night, so I overslept this morning, which means I skipped breakfast, and I’ve been on my feet all day.”

  “Hmmm.” John looked at Ariane, and gave her a professionally friendly smile. “And who’s this?”

  “My niece....” Ariane’s mom began, then hesitated.

  “Felicia,” Ariane said. “I haven’t seen Aunt Emily in a long time.”

  “And you just happened to show up when she fainted?”

  Ariane nodded. “Scared me half to death,” she said truthfully.

  “Hmmm,” John said again. He turned to Emily. “Any other symptoms? Palpitations? Previous dizzy spells? Have you been sick recently?”

  “No, no, no, and no,” Emily said, ticking off each negative by bending down a finger on her left hand. That left her with a closed fist with thumb extended, which she turned into a big thumbs-up.

  John laughed. “I’ll just check your blood pressure,” he said.

  While John got out a stethoscope and wrapped the cuff of the blood-pressure machine around her mom’s upper left arm, Ariane finally looked back toward the hallway. As she’d suspected, Wally stood there, looking worried. She gave him her mom’s thumbs-up signal, and he smiled – but only slightly. He held up his wrist and tapped his watch. She knew what he meant: their time here was limited. Every minute they spent in Victoria was one less minute they’d have in the Caribbean to look for the shard.

  But she ignored the signal and turned back to her mother.

  John finished reading her mom’s blood pressure and opened his bag again to stow away the stethoscope and the...the... “What do you call those things?” Ariane asked.

  John looked up at her. “Hmmm?”

  “The blood-pressure thingie. What’s the scientific name?”

  “Sphygmomanometer,” John said. He grinned. “Why? You thinking of becoming a nurse...or a doctor?”

  “It’s crossed my mind,” Ariane said, which earned her a startled look from her mother.

  “Good for you.” John straightened. “Blood pressure is normal, pulse is good, your colour is good, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. But if it happens again, you should see your doctor.”

  “I will, John. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” John gave a friendly wave to Ariane, and went off to talk to Jim, who was hovering near one of the pillars, watching them.

  Ariane sat down again across from the table from her mother. “A doctor?” her mom said quizzically. “Last I heard, you wanted to be a ballerina.”

  “That was when I was seven,” Ariane said. “And I haven’t taken dance lessons since you disappeared.”

  Ariane’s mom’s face fell. “Oh,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, Ariane. I’m so sorry this happened to us. To both of us. But you have to believe me. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know the Lady would offer you the power, too. I thought that if I left, I’d take the power with me, that you’d be safe from it, and from Rex Major.”

  “I believe you,” Ariane said, and despite all the harsh things she’d said before, it was true. But it didn’t change the hurt and heartache of the past two years. And it didn’t change the facts now. “But none of us are safe, Mom. Not as long as Rex Major is still after the sword.”

  “But with the power...” Her mom glanced around, then leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “I felt it when I hugged you. I can still feel it. You’ve got so much power, Ariane. It was like hugging a giant battery. What can you do with it?”

  “I can...use water,” Ariane said. “Shape it and wield it like a tool or a weapon. I can travel through water...fresh water, not salt.”

  “But how could you use that power to get here?” Emily Forsythe said. “We’re on an island.”

  “I can fly, kind of,” Ariane said. “Through the clouds.”

  Her mom’s eyes widened. “Is it dangerous?”

  “No,” Ariane lied. Because of course it was – everything about the power of the Lady was dangerous. Always there was that seductive urge to let go, to dissolve into nothingness in stream or cloud. And if she ever ran out of power before she could safely materialize...She remembered barely saving herself on the crossing back from France after Wally’s betrayal by plunging into the swimming pool of a fortuitous cruise ship.

  “And I’m not travelling alone,” she added. “I have a friend with me. He’s over there by those window-things at the entrance.”

  “I figured he was with you,” Mom said dryly. “We don’t get a lot of teenage boys hanging around the Tea Lobby hoping for a chance at a few crumpets.” She raised a hand and waved at Wally, gesturing for him to join them.

  “Mom, no!” Ariane jumped up and waved Wally back. Since he hadn’t moved, that was easy.

  “But I want to meet him,” Mom said.

  “I want you to meet him,” Ariane said. She lowered her voice in turn. “But not while he’s carrying one of the shards of Excalibur. That’s what made you faint.”

  Mom blinked. “What?”

  “What did you feel, just before you passed out?”

  Her mother frowned, thinking. “Everything was normal, and then there was this weird feeling, like something was pushing me away – not physically, but my consciousness – pushing it out of my body...you think that was the sword?”

  “I think so,” Ariane said. “Mom, I don’t understand the Lady’s power any more than you do, even though I’ve got so much more of it. But...” She hesitated. “I think the Lady is the right one for us to be allied with, but I don’t think for a minute she’s entirely friendly. Or kind. I think...I know...she was angry that you refused her. That anger bled over into the power she gave me. I felt it a minute ago. What I said...that wasn’t me.”

  Not entirely, she inwardly qualified, but didn’t say it. “A lot of that anger came from the sword. When a piece of it came close to you, I think it tried to punish you, to strike you down. It’s not a complete sword, but it’s still a weapon. It did what it could to you. If Wally comes any closer, it could happen again.”

  Ariane’s mom let out a low whistle. “We really aren’t in Kansas anymore, are we?”

  “No.”

  Jim came over the table. “I think you should take the rest of the day off, Emily,” he said. “The nurse says he doesn’t think there’s anything too much wrong with you, but after fainting...”

  “Thanks, Jim,” Emily said with a smile.

  “I’ll let your niece look after you.” Jim grinned at Ariane. Ariane smiled back. Jim went away. But then Ariane had to turn back to her mom and tell her the truth.

  “I can’t stay,” she said.

  Her mom’s face fell. “What? But –”

  “I can’t tell you too much.” I don’t want to tell you too much, Ariane thought. For your own safety. “Wally and I have to go somewhere else,
right away. We’re after the fourth shard of Excalibur and we think Rex Major knows where it is. We have to get to it before he does.”

  “Ariane...” her mom said, worry in her voice. “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. By accepting the power of the Lady, you’ve put yourself in danger.”

  “I know,” Ariane said. “And I’ve put you in danger, too.” She took a deep breath. “Rex Major’s men were in Horseshoe Bay this morning, just like we were. They know you took the ferry to Nanaimo. I don’t think they know you took a job at the Empress, but they might. You’ve got to leave, without telling anyone where you’re going.”

  “I can’t,” Mom said. “Ariane, I have to eat. I have to have a place to live. And that means I have to work. I don’t have any money saved up, not anymore. I took out everything I could when I...ran away, but it’s all gone. It’s been gone for quite a while. I was at my wit’s end when I got this job. I’ve only been here a week. I can’t just quit.”

  “But Rex Major’s men –”

  “How did you find out I was here?”

  “A lady...in that First Nations art gallery in Horseshoe Bay. The one right down on Bay Street.”

  “Did she tell Rex Major’s men?”

  “No,” Ariane said. “She hadn’t talked to them. And she promised me she wouldn’t tell them anything if she did.”

  “Well, then,” her mom said. “I didn’t tell anyone else, I swear. They can trace me to Nanaimo but they’ll never trace me here.”

  “You took a bus.”

  “Actually, I didn’t. I got a ride with a nice woman I met on the ferry. I didn’t tell her my real name. We got in her car down on the car deck, quite early, before most of the crowds came down. Nobody saw me. There’s no way they’ll be able to trail me down here.”

  “Rex Major has men in Victoria, too,” Ariane said desperately. “And he’s searching the Web all the time. If someone takes a photo of you –”

  “No one will take a photo,” Emily said.

  “They might. People take pictures of themselves in here all the time. You just have to show up in the background, like you did in Horseshoe Bay, and –”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Mom!” Ariane pleaded.

  Emily Forsythe shook her head. “No, Ariane. I’m sorry, but I’m not running any more. I can’t. I’m staying put. You go do what you need to do, and you’ll find me right here when you’re done. And then...” She reached out her hand and covered Ariane’s with it. “And then we can be together. A family.”

  Ariane wanted to argue, but she could tell her mom’s mind was made up, and what else could she do? Call Wally over in the hopes her mom would pass out again and they could...what? Drag her to the swimming pool and then spirit her away somewhere else? Would that even work? Ariane had a feeling it wouldn’t: that the touch of power that remained in her mom, and her rejection of the larger portion of it that Ariane had claimed, would make it impossible for Ariane to use the Lady’s power to transport her mother anywhere against her will.

  “How’s Phyllis?” her mom said then. “I’ve felt so badly about her, too. But I couldn’t tell her I was all right any more than I could tell you.”

  “She’s fine,” Ariane said. She’s been held hostage, ensorcelled, and threatened, but she’s fine, she thought – but again, didn’t say. Her mom had tried her hardest to take herself out of this whole mess. Anything Ariane said about what had happened so far would only worry her, make her feel guilty, and she could do nothing to help – nothing except do her best to avoid being taken hostage herself. “Will you call her?”

  “Oh...” Ariane’s mom looked down at the table. “I don’t...what would I say? What could I say?”

  “You’ll have to talk to her sooner or later,” Ariane said. “I can give her the number where you can reach her. But don’t use a cell phone. Do you have a cell phone?”

  “No.”

  “Keep it that way. And don’t use any computers.”

  “Why?”

  “Merlin’s magic is all through the Internet,” Ariane said. “Are you using your real name to work here?”

  “Only my first name.”

  “What last name?”

  Emily sighed. “Smith. Not very imaginative, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s good,” Ariane said. “Mom, please be careful. He really is trying to find you, just like you were afraid he would. And if he finds you...he’ll hold you hostage, to force me to give up the shards I have.”

  “And would you?” her mom said softly.

  Ariane nodded fiercely. “Yes,” she said. “The sword doesn’t mean anything compared to you. I’d give it all up if he had you. So don’t let him get you.”

  “He’ll never track me here,” her mom said again. “I’m sure of it.”

  Ariane wasn’t, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to say about it. She got to her feet. “I’ll come back when I can,” she said. “When it’s safe.” Her throat constricted and she had to swallow around a lump. “I don’t want to leave,” she whispered. “I just found you. But I have to.”

  “Do what you must, Ariane,” her mom said. “We’ll be together again soon. I promise.”

  Ariane nodded. Her mom got to her feet. They hugged, tightly, and again Ariane felt the connection between them, stronger than ever, a connection made of love and magic. She closed her eyes and wished the moment could last forever.

  But it couldn’t. The shard Wally carried tugged at her, too. And the fourth shard waited to be found – if not by her, then by Major. She released her mom abruptly, and stepped back. “’Bye,” she whispered around the renewed lump in her throat, then turned and crossed the Tea Lobby without looking back.

  “’Bye,” she heard, just barely, as she left her mother behind.

  Chapter Nine

  Sweet and Salt

  Wally watched Ariane’s reunion with her mother from the hallway outside the Tea Lobby, the shard she had pressed into his hand tingling in his pocket. Tingling? He glanced down at his jeans. Maybe tingling wasn’t the right word. Vibrating? Thrumming? Neither seemed quite right, for clearly the shard wasn’t vibrating in the usual sense of the word: if he’d pulled it out and held it to his ear, he wouldn’t have heard it emitting a pure metallic tone like a tuning fork.

  And yet that was the sensation, somehow. Some sense he’d never known he’d had before, the sense that had told him this shard had been hidden on the island in the middle of the lake in New Zealand, and led him right to it, was reacting to the shard’s presence, to the magic with which the original Lady of the Lake had imbued the blade centuries ago.

  What would it be like, he wondered, to hold the entire sword, whole and reforged? What had Arthur – his distant ancestor, Wally was coming to accept – felt when he’d wielded it? What had his followers seen and reacted to?

  Arthur had been an astonishing leader of men, a war captain beyond compare, winning battle after battle as he united ancient Britain – invincible, it had seemed, while he held Excalibur. Though somehow Mordred had managed to get through the sword’s defences. Maybe, Wally thought, because Mordred was Arthur’s illegitimate son by his half-sister, Morgause, at least according to some legends. Maybe the fact Mordred shared whatever magical gift his father possessed had interfered with the sword’s powers.

  Merlin could probably tell me, Wally thought. He snorted. He doubted he’d have the opportunity to ask him – or if he did, it would be only after Merlin captured Wally and held him hostage again.

  He stared across the Tea Lobby. Ariane leaped to her feet. He thought she was about to leave. But then her mother got up and hugged her. After a few moments they sat down again.

  A man with a blue shirt and a doctor’s bag brushed past Wally and headed to the table where the mother and daughter sat. While he talked to Emily, Ariane turned and glanced at Wally. She gave him a thumb’s-up. He held up his wrist and tapped his watch, reminding her that every minute spent in Victoria was another minute spen
t not searching for the fourth shard on Cacibajagua Island – and another minute closer to the time when Rex Major arrived on the island and started looking for it himself.

  Ariane turned back to her mother. Wally turned and stared down the hall toward the upper lobby. He felt antsy, restless. He could tell some of that feeling – maybe most of it – came from the shard of metal in his pocket. It didn’t want to be there. It wanted to get away.

  Get away from what? he wondered. Then he looked across the Tea Lobby at Ariane and her mother again. Or whom?

  The sword clearly didn’t like Ariane’s mother. He wondered why.

  He turned away again abruptly. A little aimless pacing seemed in order. Down to the upper lobby, then back again. Down to the lobby, and back. And again. And again. And...

  When Ariane at last emerged from the Tea Lobby, he felt irritated beyond reason at the wait. “Nice of you to finally join me,” he snapped. “We do have other places to be, you know.” He turned and walked toward the upper lobby once more.

  But he’d only made it as far as the entrance to the Empress Dining room before Ariane grabbed his right arm and spun him around. She released him and thrust out her hand. “Give me the shard,” she snapped.

  Wally glowered at her. The shard thrummed in his pocket. He put his hand in, but didn’t take it out. It felt almost alive to his touch. “Maybe I should carry it,” he said. “Probably safer with me.”