Door Into Faerie

by Edward Willett

  Even the Lady of the Lake was no match for him. At the same time as he contemptuously smashed Wally to the ground, a vast chasm opened at the feet of the Lady’s water giant, just as it stepped forward at last to strike him down, and it drained away, losing coherence, falling as a massive waterfall deep into the Earth, a waterfall that seemed to carry with it all the Lady’s strength, for she swayed, and then dropped to her knees in the mud at the very edge of that gaping hole, into which all the remaining water of the small lake from which she had formed her giant likewise poured. Fifty metres of fencing dangled over the hole, clumps of earth clinging to the feet of the wooden posts.

  Ariane wondered briefly how the farmer would explain the damage to his insurance company, but the thought flitted through and out of her mind like an insect. She saw Wally struggling to breathe, and tensed, ready to spring up and run to his rescue, futile though it would be. Even now, four of Merlin’s men were racing toward them from the direction of the church, and with her own powers over water rendered useless, they would strike her down and take Excalibur before she could even –

  Flish leaped, strangled, bit, fell. Merlin screamed, clutching his hand to the side of his head, blood pouring through his fingers, then lunged after her, grabbing her booted foot. But Wally had the ear, and the ruby stud. He tried to scramble up and run.

  Ariane cried out as lightning struck the ground between her and Wally, but the bolt vanished and he was still there, on his back, but already scrambling to his feet again. He staggered toward her, but the knights were almost on top of them, he’d never make it to her in time…

  But though she could not form a water-woman, she could still make some use of the water in the air, and suddenly she knew what to do. “Throw it!” she screamed at him. “Throw it!”

  Wally looked puzzled. He couldn’t hear her! She shouted again, and whether at last her voice penetrated the howl of the wind, the rumble of thunder, Merlin’s shouts, Flish’s shrieks, and the pounding clatter of the approaching, running knights, or whether he read her lips, or whether he just trusted her…

  He threw the bloody scrap of flesh, and Ariane formed the water into a long, thin lasso that seized it and pulled it back to her, fast as a striking snake.

  “Kill them both!” Merlin screamed. “The girl first!”

  The knights changed direction, angling away from Wally and running straight toward the flour mill basement. But Wally was still closer, and scrambled into the basement just ahead of them. Even as he did so Ariane, heedless of the blood and the “Ick!” factor, ripped the ruby from the tattered remnant of Merlin’s earlobe, and placed it in the hole in the pommel of Excalibur.

  The ruby glowed, red as fire, red as wine, red as blood, as it settled into the hilt. And as it did so, at long last, at long, long last, the song of the sword rang out full-throated, pure and whole. A wave of fierce joy overwhelmed Ariane. She shouted, a wordless cry of pure pleasure and happiness.

  The Faerie knights leaped down into the basement, raised their swords…

  …and Wally seized Excalibur from Ariane’s hand and met them head on.

  •••

  Wally felt the sword’s shout of fulfillment, echoed by Ariane, as the missing jewel at last settled into its place – and also felt the sword’s sudden keen awareness of impending battle. Without even thinking about it, he seized Excalibur from Ariane and turned to meet the advancing knights.

  Wally had had less than two years of fencing training, and he hadn’t been the best on the team by a long shot. The knights of Faerie must have had centuries – millennia, even – to hone their skills.

  But with Excalibur in his hand, none of that mattered. His opponents seemed to move in slow motion. He knew what they were doing almost before they did it, could dodge every blow, could judge exactly where he needed to be, and where his blade needed to be, to parry, and then to strike. In what felt to him like leisurely fashion, he cut the knights down, killing none of them – though the sword wanted him to, it was fully under his control, despite what Wally and Ariane had often feared, and it let him choose the blows that would incapacitate and cripple but not kill. Still, the quantity of blood that splattered him and his foes and Ariane and the blade would have made the scene R-rated in a movie, he thought with a strangely detached part of his mind.

  The “battle” was over almost before it began. The knights lay moaning around the basement. Wally took a deep breath, and moved either by some impulse from the sword or from memories of Aslan’s advice to Peter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, wiped the blade clean of blood on his shirttail.

  “You still haven’t won,” snarled a hated voice, and Wally looked up to see Merlin standing at the edge of the basement, Felicia held tight against him, his left arm around her neck – and the point of a dagger at her throat.

  •••

  Merlin had moved far beyond mere anger to incandescent murderous rage, burning inside him hot and bright as the lightning he hurled all around him, exploding trees, shattering buildings. Most of Cannington Manor was ablaze now, burning despite the rain. Only the church stood unscathed, for he was bound by an ancient oath he had made to the Christians, when Arthur ascended the throne of England, not to harm their holy sites.

  He dared not bring his lightning down on the two brats while they had the sword, and he had used all his earth magic swallowing his sister’s water giant. The earth would object to being called upon again, and he really didn’t want the land to be angry at him.

  His torn ear burned, but he ignored the pain. He would heal the wound with magic when all this was over, and it would be as though it had never happened. It did irk him to think of how the blood had ruined his suit, but he supposed the rain and wind and mud and everything else had damaged it beyond repair anyway.

  That was a minor annoyance. The major annoyance, the insufferable annoyance, the thing that fed oxygen to the raging fire of his fury, was the stubborn refusal of Ariane Forsythe and Wally Knight to give up, to give him what he wanted – what he needed. What he deserved. They were nothing, nobodies, teenagers, children, and yet they had thwarted him at every step. If not for the fact the shards could not be taken from Ariane by force until the sword was reforged, if not for the fact that killing her before all the pieces were found would have shattered the power of the sword, she would have died long since.

  For one brief moment he had had his chance. With Excalibur complete but for the jewel – his jewel – the sword, angry at being still unfulfilled, would have let him take it from Ariane by force. But that fool Koris had failed him in the same moment he had so wonderfully not failed him. All those years – not as many years in Faerie as it had been on Earth, since time moved differently in the two worlds, but years enough – Koris had remained faithful to Merlin, had cultivated others who remained faithful, and when the Lady had called on him to lead the expedition to Earth to retrieve the sword, had clearly arranged for the surprise attack that had thrown the Lady’s plans into such chaos.

  And yet he had failed to seize the sword, and somehow, while Merlin had been pursuing his sister, Ariane and Wally had slipped past the battling knights to be in just the wrong place at the wrong time – again!

  And Felicia – he squeezed the brat harder. Heir of Arthur or not, she was clearly made of the same inferior metal as her brother. Neither could serve him. Neither was worthy of serving him, of leading his armies. He would kill them both and carry on alone, as he had fully intended to do before the dark day he had learned of Wally Knight’s existence and heritage.

  Wally was soft. Felicia was soft. He’d assumed they had shattered their filial bonds long since, as he had shattered his with the Lady of the Lake, as Arthur had shattered his with his half-sister, Morgause, mother of his bastard son Mordred, who had slain him in the end at Camlann. But far from it – Felicia had actually chosen her little brother, chosen him over everything he, Merlin, had offered her and could offer her.

  More fool she. Let her pay the pri
ce. Let Wally pay the price.

  “Give me Excalibur, or I will cut your sister’s throat while you watch,” he snarled at Wally.

  He knew the sword’s power. He knew Wally, carrying Excalibur, was the equal or better of any swordsman who had ever lived in either world. The crippled knights moaning in the old basement were proof enough of that. But not even Arthur himself would have been able to reach Merlin before he drove his dagger into the girl’s throat.

  He saw the same realization cross Wally’s face, and knew he had won. Wally Knight would give him Excalibur to spare his sister, as Ariane had once given him the first shard to spare Wally. And once Merlin had Excalibur, no one could touch him. Wally’s surrender would be futile, of course. No one would leave Cannington Manor alive except for Rex Major. On the morrow, his conquest of Earth and Faerie would begin in earnest, and then…

  Something struck him from behind, so fierce a blow it felt like his skull had exploded. He found himself on his hands and knees. He’d dropped his dagger. Felicia had escaped. What…?

  Something struck him another stunning blow, this time in the ribs. He rolled over and over across the ground and ended up on his back, gasping for breath, staring up at a woman made of water…

  No, not a woman. A girl.

  Ariane.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Lady and the Lady

  Not again, Ariane thought, as Merlin seized Flish and threatened her with his dagger. Not again!

  She did not have Excalibur in her hand, but she didn’t need it. Wally had it, and the power flowing into him was flowing into her, too, through the link between them – the powerful link of love she had discovered there after he had pulled her from the brink of dissolution during their near-disastrous journey from Scotland, after Merlin’s tranquilizer dart had found her. It didn’t matter which of them had the sword. It served them both.

  It served them, they did not serve it.

  Merlin’s winds had died, but the rain continued to pour down, and with the power of the sword coursing through her, she closed her eyes and formed a water-body for herself, a perfect replica made of rain. The Lady of the Lake herself still knelt at the edge of the pit into which her water giant had collapsed, but Ariane’s power had never felt greater. She looked out through the eyes of her water-body. Merlin was focussed on Wally, on Excalibur. He never turned around.

  She froze the end of the water-woman’s right hand into a fist of ice, and smashed it against the side of Rex Major’s head.

  Stunned, he dropped the knife and Flish, who scrambled away from him, running to Wally’s side. Wally took a step forward with Excalibur, eyes blazing, but Ariane shook both her head and the water-woman’s, and he stopped.

  Merlin was on his hands and knees. Ariane kicked him in the side with an icy foot, and he rolled across the ground, away from the basement. She strode after him. Her anger was boiling within her now, raging, and some of it was from herself, and some of it was from the sword. Kill your enemies. Kill your enemies!

  Her watery right arm lengthened and hardened, and suddenly she held a replica of Excalibur, made of ice. She stood over Merlin, and put the frozen tip against his throat. He lay perfectly still, staring up at her. He didn’t look frightened. He only looked furious.

  She stared down at him. Hatred filled her. He had threatened her mother, her Aunt Phyllis, Wally. He’d almost killed her, and she knew if he had been the one with Excalibur at this moment, and she the one lying helpless at his feet, he would not have hesitated to drive the point of the sword through her throat and into the ground and walk away without a second thought as she choked to death on her own blood.

  Kill your enemies.

  I control the sword, the sword does not control me.

  Kill your enemies. Kill him!

  The icy blade trembled, but still she stayed her hand.

  Wally joined her. He held the real Excalibur in his right hand, and his left arm held his sister around the waist. Ariane realized for the first time that he had not just grown taller than her in the months since all this had begun, he had grown taller than Flish.

  “Ariane,” Wally said. “Don’t.”

  The water-woman could not speak, and Ariane dared not release her control over it to speak with her own mouth. She didn’t move.

  “Don’t,” Wally said again. “Please.”

  “Listen to the heir of Arthur,” said a new voice, and Ariane turned the water-woman’s head to see the Lady of the Lake approaching at last, her long silver gown bedraggled and mud-spattered, her hair tangled and full of wet leaves instead of silver mesh and glittering diamonds. She looked very much as Ariane’s mother had looked on the night Ariane had found her on their doorstep after Mom’s own encounter with the Lady, and Ariane took some grim satisfaction from that. “Let my brother live.”

  Ariane turned the water-woman’s head toward Wally, then nodded at Merlin.

  Wally understood at once. “I’ve got him,” he said. He put the point of the real Excalibur close to Merlin’s throat, and at last Ariane let the water-woman dissolve, the water washing over Merlin’s face so he coughed and sputtered, and returned to her own body. She climbed out of the flour mill basement and stood to face the Lady.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why shouldn’t I kill him after everything’s he done?”

  “Wally understands,” the Lady said. She looked down at Merlin, whose eyes flicked from one to the other. “He is my brother. Despite all and everything, that is true.”

  “You intend to take Excalibur back to Faerie and exile him to Earth,” Ariane said. “Where he will die. What difference does it make if he dies of old age fifty years from now or dies today?” She turned and looked down at Merlin, and she suddenly realized something else, something that added a bubble of terror to her still-boiling anger. “Wait,” she said. “You told him that he would still be rich and powerful after you left. You don’t just intend to leave him here, you intend to leave him here as Rex Major.” She glanced at Wally, whose eyes narrowed, and at Flish, whose eyes widened. “He’ll still be one of the richest men on the planet, and we’ll be helpless.” She glared at the Lady. “You intended to abandon us to his tender mercies – and he doesn’t have any!”

  The Lady’s face grew stern. “It is not your place to question the ruling of the Queen of Faerie. She has decreed that he is not to be killed. I will exact a promise from him that –”

  “No,” Ariane said. “His promises are worthless. And how will you make him keep a promise once the door into Faerie is closed and you can no longer enter Earth?”

  The Lady’s expression darkened further. “You are my creation,” she said dangerously. “You will do as I say.”

  “Your creation?’ Ariane’s anger blazed again, burning new fuel. “Creation? You said I was your heir.”

  “Chosen heir,” the Lady said. “Not blood heir. I have no blood heirs on Earth. I am not human. You have my power because I chose to share it with you to accomplish my goals on Earth. You are a tool, and you have proved to be a very fine tool indeed. As a reward, before I close the door into Faerie, I will leave you treasure enough that you will never again want for anything. But that will be the end of it. My true power lies in Faerie, and you can never share in it, because you are merely human.” She turned to Wally. “Your quest is at an end. Give me Excalibur, and I and all those who came with me will withdraw into Faerie. The door will close, and Earth will never again be troubled by magic.”

  Wally looked at her steadily for a long moment, and then, the point of the sword never wavering from Merlin’s throat, turned his gaze to Ariane. “What do I do, my Lady?” he said, and for the first time, Ariane didn’t object to him calling her that. In fact, she could have kissed him.

  Later, she thought.

  “Keep the sword,” she said. She turned to the Lady. “You don’t want us to kill Merlin? Fine. He can live. But he cannot remain Rex Major.”

  The Lady’s eyes narrowed. “What do you propose?”


  “You imprisoned him once,” Ariane said. “For a millennium. Imprison him again. Restrain him so he can never again threaten us, or those we love. A century, two centuries, forever, I don’t care.”

  A strange glow lit the Lady’s face, and her eyes suddenly flicked past Ariane. Ariane glanced behind her to see the wounded knights Wally had bested in the battle in the basement vanishing, glowing bright and then disappearing into thin air as though they had simply evapourated. From all around Cannington Manor, similar glows brightened and faded – Faerie reclaiming its own, the wounded and the dead.

  “I’m guessing that means you don’t have a lot of time left here,” Ariane said softly. “So what will it be? Imprison your brother, or watch him die?”

  The Lady, glaring at her, took a deep breath. “Very well,” she said. She walked over to Merlin and looked down at him.

  “Don’t do this,” Merlin said. His eyes flicked from Wally to Ariane, then back to his sister. “You shared my vision, once. We were going to remake Faerie, rejuvenate our world with the resources of Earth. Arthur proved flawed, but our plan was sound. Join me again. We could still take this world, and then take Faerie. Together we could be King and Queen.”

  “It was a foolish dream,” the Lady said. “These humans cannot be relied upon. As Arthur proved. As my own ‘heir’ has proved.” She shot an icy look at Ariane. “If we ever let them into our world, they will be a cancer that will eat away at everything we have built there, until it becomes as befouled as their own. The Queen was right. The door between the worlds must be closed, and kept closed.”