Ariane shook her head furiously. “No! Merlin would be a dictator, Wally. We might have peace and food and health – might, because we don’t know if Merlin has that much power – but we’d also have secret police and show trials and political prisoners...and there’d be no Amnesty International to complain to, either, because no one would be allowed to criticize the High King. Wally, you’re the history buff. What did the old-time kings do to anyone who posed the slightest threat to their kingship?”
“They executed them,” Wally said impatiently. “But Merlin is a sorcerer! No one could seriously threaten his kingship except...” He suddenly saw what she was getting at. “Oh,” he finished in a small voice.
Ariane nodded. “Oh. Except someone else with magical powers. And the only person we know of besides Merlin who has magical powers is...me.”
The cinnamon bun he’d already eaten congealed into a solid lump of indigestible dough in Wally’s stomach. “He’ll kill you.”
“Probably.”
“Then...” Wally swallowed. “That man who grabbed you – he didn’t want to just kidnap you, he wanted to...” his voice trailed off.
Ariane frowned. “I don’t know, Wally. He said he wouldn’t hurt me. He might have been lying, of course, but...I think – I hope – that maybe there’s some reason Major doesn’t want to kill me yet. Maybe he needs something from me.” She shook her head. “But even putting aside what Major – Merlin – might do with Excalibur…I can’t give up the quest, Wally. Not now that I have the Lady’s power. Excalibur is...” She broke off. “It’s hard to explain,” she said after a minute. “But I can’t let him have it. I can’t.”
Wally pushed away the remains of Ariane’s cinnamon bun. It no longer looked appetizing. “Major has been up at the Thunderhill Diamond Mine since yesterday. He may already have the first shard.”
“He doesn’t. I’d know it if he did.” Ariane paused, looking a little puzzled. “I don’t know how I’d know. But I know I would. I need to get up there. I need to get up there today.”
“And you think you know how? That’s what ‘it worked’ meant in your email?”
“Yeah. But I warn you, it’s pretty weird...”
Wally snorted. “Weirder than everything else that has happened?”
Ariane smiled a little. “I guess not.”
But as he listened to what she had done, Wally thought she’d guessed wrong. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You stuck your hands into the water, and you...dissolved? Went down the drain?”
“Yeah,” Ariane said. “I guess so.”
“But to...um, pull yourself together, you had to be somewhere with enough water to cover you.”
“Yeah...”
“Why?” Wally said. He laughed at her startled look. “Well, why? If you’re already violating the law of conservation of mass and energy, why can’t you do whatever you want? This is magic, right? No rules!”
“There are rules,” Ariane said. “They’re just not the ones we’re used to.”
“But what are they?” Wally scratched his head. “I mean, there has to be a cost. TANSTAAFL.”
“TAN-what? Speak English.”
“TANSTAAFL. There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” Ariane frowned, and he hurried on. “Never mind. So this water-teleporting, or whatever, works for you. The question is, can you take me with you?”
Ariane looked out the window into the cold gray street. “I think I can. I don’t think I should.”
“What?” Wally stared at her. “Why?”
She turned her gaze back to him. “Because this is dangerous, Wally. Even if Major needs me alive for some reason, he doesn’t need you.”
“But you do!” Wally shot back. She’s offering you an out, a cowardly part of him noted. You could agree with her, forget this whole thing, stay safe...
Forget? Forget meeting the Lady of the Lake? Forget that Rex Major is Merlin, that Excalibur is out there, that Ariane is trying to find it? Are you nuts?
“You need me,” he said, his voice low and intense. “To talk to. To carry things. To Google stuff. To whack the bad guys with hockey sticks. To...I don’t know what else. And neither do you. You can’t do this alone, Ariane!”
Her lower lip trembled and for a horrible moment he thought he had made her cry. But when she spoke, her voice was steady. “I know. I just...I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, there’s something we agree on, anyway,” he said, and was rewarded with a small smile. “So. No more argument. I’m coming with you...” He paused. “Um...if you really can take me along, that is.”
“It seems like I should be able to.” Ariane’s uncertain tone didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. “But until we try it, I won’t know for sure.”
“Your clothes went with you?”
“What – oh! I see what you mean. If my clothes went with me, then maybe I can take anything I’m touching.” She nodded. “Yes, they went with me.”
An intriguing vista of interesting possibilities vanished from Wally’s imagination. “Oh, well…” Ariane raised an eyebrow at him, and he hurried on. “Logically, it should work, then. Except, of course, we’re talking magic, so logic may not have anything to do with it.” Oddly, the cinnamon bun looked appetizing again. He pulled it back toward his side of the table, picked it up, and took a huge bite out of it. “S’whedyawanuryt?”
Ariane gave him a puzzled (and slightly disgusted) look. He hastily chewed and swallowed. “Sorry. Where do you want to try it?”
“I’m not sure. It has to be somewhere private, and Aunt Phyllis is home – we can’t do it there. And we need a large body of water to materialize in when we return. Large enough to submerge both of us. I don’t think a bathtub will do it – not for two of us.”
Wally nodded. “My house, then. You probably didn’t notice the indoor pool –”
“You have an indoor pool?” Ariane’s voice implied she had never expected to be friends with someone who had his own swimming pool. Wally felt embarrassed.
“Yeah, just a little one, but big enough for both of us to, um, materialize in.” I feel like I’ve fallen into Star Trek, Wally thought. “Better yet, Ms. Carson is at church, and Felicia won’t crawl out of bed for hours yet.” Wally stuffed the rest of the cinnamon bun in his mouth. “Tinfinitynbond!”
Back to being a faithful sidekick, he thought a few minutes later as they left the Human Bean. He couldn’t argue with Ariane’s logic. If Merlin succeeded in setting himself up as King of the World, Ariane would be a threat to his power. He might need her alive now for some magical reason, but after he’d won...he would kill her. Or at least imprison her. No question. Abandoning the quest would only buy her a brief reprieve, not a full pardon.
But in the back of his mind, a little seed of doubt still lingered.
How do we know we can trust the Lady of the Lake any more than we can trust Rex Major?
Another phrase from Tolkien came to mind: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards...
He snorted. Good advice. But it looks like we don’t have a choice.
~ • ~
Half an hour after leaving the Human Bean, Ariane and Wally stood on the edge of the Knights’ swimming pool, about to try something that, even though she knew she had done it the night before, seemed completely nuts in the cold light of morning.
But, like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, she was getting used to believing several impossible things before breakfast...or just slightly after breakfast, in this case.
As promised, Ms. Carson was at church and Felicia still asleep. They’d crept through the house silent as mice to ensure she stayed that way. Now Wally looked around the cedar-walled room, dimly lit by the blue-green glow of the submerged lights around the edges of the pool. “So what do we do?”
“Jump in,” Ariane said.
“With our clothes on?”
Ariane gave him an over-sweet smile. “Well, I’m keeping mine on. I guess you can take yours off if you
want to...”
He blushed. “Uh, no.”
“All right then.” She looked at the water. “On three. One...two...three!”
They splashed into the water simultaneously. It came up to Ariane’s chest, and almost to Wally’s shoulders. “I just feel silly,” Wally said. He pushed wet hair out of his face. “Now what?”
“Just...be quiet.” Ariane closed her eyes, listening to the song of the water, urging her to join in, to flow and frolic with it to river, lake, and sea. And mixed in with it...yes, there it was. Distant, faint, but unmistakable and exciting: the song of the sword. Keeping her eyes closed, she reached out to Wally. “Hold on,” she said.
Wally said something as he took her hand, but it was lost in the sudden whirling surge of water as she gave herself over to its call and let it carry her away...
...no, not just her, both of them. She could feel another presence with her in the rush and tumble of the water, holding on to her for dear life, and for a moment she resented it. She didn’t want to share the water with anyone else. She wanted to brush off the offending presence, let it swirl away into nothingness, but faint alarm bells rang in her mind at the thought. That’s Wally...it worked...he’s supposed to be here... What would happen if she did break loose from him? Would he materialize somewhere or would he simply dissolve, never to be seen again?
That horrifying thought snapped her back to her senses. They had been rushing along with the water with no aim or control. Now she cast around for some clue as to their whereabouts, and with some strange sense she had no name for – not quite sight, not quite smell, not quite hearing, and yet with elements of all three – she knew they were in the same lake she’d materialized in the night before, and realized it must be Buffalo Pound Lake, the reservoir that provided Regina’s drinking water.
Farther, she thought. Let’s see how far we can go...
Onward. She found the Qu’Appelle River outlet on the other side of the dam, and took it, following the water from river to river to river, over rocks, over waterfalls, through the great inland freshwater sea that was Lake Winnipeg, out into the Nelson River. The song of the sword began to grow too, as they moved north, but she still couldn’t quite pinpoint its source. She exerted more power. They streaked through the water like twin meteors crossing the night sky. Swirling currents, waterfalls, rapids, all meant nothing to the power of the Lady of the Lake...they sped through them as if they weren’t there. North...north...north, the sword calling to her...and then she sensed that it was no longer just north, but off to the northwest...
...and then they hit Hudson Bay.
Once when Ariane was ten years old and dashing down a sidewalk she had turned her head at the wrong moment and run into a telephone pole. More than the pain, she remembered the shock – the instant change from moving full flight to sitting motionless and bleeding on the sidewalk.
This was like that, but ten times worse. As soon as the water changed from fresh to salt, her power deserted her. With an explosion of spray, their bodies materialized. By instinct, she kicked, and her head burst out into the open air.
Wrapped in the cocoon of her power, she had been oblivious to the temperature of the water through which they raced. Now cold gripped her with breath-stopping suddenness. To her left she glimpsed a gray sky. Tossing waves stretched to the indistinct horizon, lost in a haze of distant rain, or snow. To her right she saw a shore as barren as the surface of Mars.
A hand still gripped hers, pulling her down...
“Let go!” she spluttered, jerking at it. The hand released her. Her head sank beneath the water at the same instant, but her feet were touching the bottom, and when she straightened up, her head and shoulders broke out into the frigid air. She heard coughing and saw Wally glaring at her.
“Not exactly first-class travel!” A wave splashed into his mouth, and he choked and sputtered. “Take us h-home!”
She reached for the power...and couldn’t find it.
Salt water. She could feel it on her skin, but to her power it was invisible. Lady of the Lake, not Lady of the Ocean...
“I can’t,” Ariane shouted. “I can’t do anything with salt water. We have to find the river that brought us here. It c-can’t be far away. Let’s get onto the sh-shore.” Ariane’s teeth were chattering.
They splashed onto the rock-strewn shore. Again Ariane reached for her power, intending to order the water off both their bodies...and again she failed. She felt a pang of fear. “I may h-have made a s-serious mi-mistake. We could f-f-freeze out here.”
“Not if I h-have anyth-thing to s-say about it.” Wally looked around. Ariane followed his gaze. Rocks. Water. Clouds. A high bluff that blocked the view inland. “How far n-north are we?”
“S-southern end of H-Hudson Bay, I th-think.”
“Still s-south of the tree line, then. Let’s c-climb up there,” he pointed to the top of the bluff, “and see what’s what. It’ll help k-keep us warm, if n-nothing else.”
They scrambled up the steep slope. The exercise did make Ariane feel a little – a very little – warmer. As their heads cleared the top of the bluff, Wally whooped. “Trees! Come on.” He scrambled over the lip of the bluff and onto the level ground beyond, then pulled her up after him.
“You’ve got m-matches?” Ariane said, her teeth starting to chatter again.
“No, but I’ve got something better.” Wally grinned at her. “A knife – and knowledge.”
Puzzled, but hoping desperately Wally knew what he was doing, Ariane followed him through the trees. At least here they were out of the wind’s reach. Wally cast around on the ground for dry wood, and built a pyramid of good-sized sticks over a small pile of twigs. In the centre he scraped dry, powdery punk from the underside of a dead log. Then he searched the ground until he found two branches, one quite thick, the other little more than a stick. He came back to Ariane and sat cross-legged, placing the branches in front of him.
“Willow,” he said, patting the thicker branch. “Softwood.” With his pocketknife, he carved a groove in it. Then he picked up the stick. “Tamarack,” he said. “Hardwood.” He shaped the end of it, then braced the thicker branch on his hip, slipped the stick into the groove, and began rubbing it back and forth, pressing down. Within moments he was breathing hard and sweating.
“I can see how it m-makes you warmer,” Ariane said, “b-but it’s not doing m-much for m-me.”
“Give it time,” Wally panted. To Ariane’s amazement, a tendril of smoke rose from where the sticks met, and the wood dust that had formed in the groove in the willow branch began to glow. Quickly, Wally scraped the glowing dust onto the dry, rotted wood he’d already put in the middle of his pyramid. A tiny flame licked up. The twigs ignited, then the larger sticks, and moments later, a fire was blazing cheerfully at Ariane’s feet.
She plopped down on the ground beside it, so close her clothes steamed in the chill air. As the warmth seeped into her bones, she realized she was exhausted. Not just physically, but mentally and in some other way she could hardly put a name to. Magically? Spiritually? Whatever reservoirs of inner strength she relied on to guide the Lady’s power were empty. She could feel her strength seeping back, but slowly...so slowly.
“Maybe if I had something to eat...” she said, thinking out loud. “I’m starving.”
Wally frowned, then suddenly brightened. He dug into the right pocket of his jeans and held out a small plastic box. “Tic Tac?”
Ordinarily Ariane hated mints, but she grabbed the box and poured the entire contents into her mouth, chewing and swallowing them in moments. “That’s better. But...” She gave Wally an apologetic look. “I can’t send us back. Not for a while. I’ve got to get my strength back.”
“Told you,” Wally said. “TANSTAAFL. ‘There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.’”
“Too bad, because I could sure use a free lunch right about now,” Ariane said. She looked at him hopefully. “Anything else to eat in those pockets of yours?”
“Don’t get lost.”
“I won’t. A-plus in orienteering.” He moved off among the trees, and disappeared from sight.
Ariane couldn’t keep her head up – the heat from the fire had relaxed all her muscles. The ground was covered with spruce needles, but she curled up on it anyway. It was hard and the needles were sharp, but she was so tired...
She jerked awake an indeterminate time later to find Wally crouching on his heels beside her, holding out a branch covered with berries. “Arctic Bilberry,” he said. “Pretty much dried out, this time of year, but there ought to be some nutrition in them. Think of them as raisins. That’s about the best I can do.” He looked grave. “You’d better be able to get us back, or we’re going to get very hungry very soon.”
The berries, small and shriveled, were the most delicious-looking things Ariane had ever seen. She stripped the branch of them, stuffing them into her mouth. They took a lot of chewing, but again she felt a surge of power within her. Between the berries and the sleep...
“I think we can try it,” Ariane said. “Even if I can’t get us all the way home, I can get us most of the way...somewhere with people, anyway.”
“Then let’s go.” Wally jerked his head toward the western horizon, where the sky was several shades darker than the light gray clouds overhead. “I think there’s a storm coming. I really don’t want to be here when it hits.”
Ariane nodded. “We have to find the river,” she said. She went to the top of the bluff and looked both ways along the rock-strewn shore. It was hard to spot anything among the tumble of boulders, but something silvery-white caught her eye. She squinted, and caught a hint of movement, the flicker of water foaming across submerged stones. “There!” She pointed.
Together they clambered back down the bluff and picked their way through the stones until they reached the mouth of the river, where the water poured over wet rock into Hudson Bay. Ariane hesitated. The white-flecked, steel-gray water looked as cold and sharp as a frozen knife blade, and her flesh recoiled at the thought of stepping into it...but she remembered how the icy water of Wascana Lake had felt milk-warm around her bare feet. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about how cold water – well, fresh water, anyway – was anymore. At least, not when she was fully charged.
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