“All right,” Wally said again. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Wally hung up much more quietly than Ariane had. Major pocketed his cell phone and turned back to Phyllis. “It’s a very scenic drive, isn’t it?” she said, a remark that came entirely out of her own self-generated delusions, since it was almost pitch dark outside. “I can’t thank you enough for inviting me to visit.”
“Believe me,” Rex Major said, “the pleasure is all mine.”
•••
Wally stared at the phone handset he had just put down, then at the computer screen. That tears it, he thought savagely. Wally Knight, you’re an idiot. He’d let himself be sucked in by smooth words and vague promises of greatness. He’d betrayed his best friend while telling himself it was for her own good…heck, for the good of the whole world. He’d really thought Rex Major – Merlin, the ancient sorcerer who once manipulated all of Camelot from behind Arthur’s throne – had been telling him the truth, had Ariane’s best interests at heart, had his best interests at heart, had Earth’s best interests at heart, instead of being ruthlessly focused on his own dreams of conquest and “liberation.”
Like I said. You’re an idiot.
It wasn’t just the lying phone call from Major that had convinced him of that inconvenient truth. It was also the photo he had opened on the man’s computer just before the phone rang.
It wasn’t a very good photo. It wasn’t in colour, it was only vaguely in focus, and the composition left a lot to be desired. But it wasn’t the photo itself but the person it showed that had hit Wally like a punch to the stomach.
The photo was a single frame from a cheap security camera in a convenience store. It showed the sales counter, at the odd angle that seemed strangely familiar to Wally from countless YouTube and Crime Stopper videos of robberies and customer confrontations. There was a male clerk at the counter, who had apparently just served a woman wearing a hooded coat who, on turning away, had lifted her head just enough for the camera to capture her face.
Wally had never seen her before. But someone had helpfully captioned the photo in block letters at the bottom. EMILY FORSYTHE. 98% CONFIDENCE. STOP-N-RUN CONVENIENCE STORE. CARLYLE, SASKATCHEWAN. There followed a date.
The photo had been taken a little over six weeks earlier.
The photo told Wally two things: Ariane’s mother was alive – and Major was looking for her.
Major hadn’t told Wally about that. He certainly hadn’t told Ariane. And Wally could think of only one reason Major would even be interested in Ariane’s mother: to turn her into a hostage. Just as he’d apparently done with Aunt Phyllis. All to force Ariane to give up her quest and surrender the shards of Excalibur to him.
I’ve got to tell Ariane, Wally thought. I’ve got to help her find her mother. I’ve got to get away from Rex Major. I’ve got to…
I’ve got to make up for being an idiot.
He sighed. Regrets were all very well. Actually doing anything to make right what he had done wrong was likely to prove seriously difficult. He didn’t even know exactly where Major was, aside from Prince Albert.
But maybe I can find out, he thought. He opened Major’s email program.
There was no guarantee, of course, that Major would have his business email forwarded to his home computer, or that the messages he sent from his cell phone would be copied to it – but Wally would have been willing to bet on it. And he would have won, because there were the messages Major had been sending and receiving while he was away, plain as day. And one of them told Wally exactly what he wanted to know. The email address was [email protected].
Mr. Major, it read, We have a secure location for you, fitting the specifications you provided. It’s a gravel quarry some twenty kilometres southeast of Prince Albert. The quarry has been closed for three months due to financial difficulties. We have been hired to provide site security, and thus have access. We have placed a camper in the middle of the quarry floor. As you specified, there are no bodies of water within two kilometres and no running water at the site. Please advise if this will meet your needs. Frank.
To which Major had simply replied, Perfect. Will call with details.
I wonder, Wally thought, staring at that email, how far rescuing Aunt Phyllis from Rex Major would go toward making up for my betrayal?
Realistically, maybe not very far. But whether it helped Ariane forgive him or not, he owed it to Aunt Phyllis to free her from Major if he could. The question was, could he?
He stared at Major’s computer. Then he started opening other files. He clicked over to a few websites. He started to smile.
Oh, he could do it.
The smile faded.
Provided, of course, that he could get past the guard at the door. But he even had a plan for that.
First, though…
He settled to work on the computer in earnest.
Chapter Six
The Dreaming Hostage
Five minutes before the limo was due, Ariane emerged from Aunt Phyllis’s cabin into the frosty November air. There had been a skiff of snow overnight, just enough to highlight the ground with white. She yawned. She’d been busy during the first part of the night and then had had trouble sleeping. It felt odd not to have the first shard of Excalibur strapped to her side, but even though she’d left it far away, she could feel it in her thoughts as always. It was still “hers.” Somehow, it knew it hadn’t been abandoned.
She didn’t think she could have called on its power even if it weren’t blocked by the second shard’s being in Merlin’s grasp. It felt too distant for that. But she could “hear” it, just as she had heard the second shard while she had had the first, and just as she was sure she could hear the third shard if only Wally hadn’t…
Anger flared in her again at the thought of Wally. That hadn’t changed with leaving the sword behind, either. Its anger still fuelled her own. I’ll never forgive him for what he did, she thought. Never. He betrayed me. He betrayed Aunt Phyllis. And now Major has her.
The next time I see him…
I should have done more than trash his room, she thought. I should have burned down his house.
A quiet, rather fearful part of her objected to that thought, but she shoved it aside with the force of Excalibur’s righteous anger and stood, arms folded, glaring at the road, waiting for the limo.
It appeared a minute later, making a U-turn and pulling up right beside her. She opened the door and got in beside the driver, who said “Buckle up,” and then didn’t say another word for the rest of the drive.
They started off as though heading for Prince Albert, but before they got to the city the limo turned onto a side road that led through the forest. Ariane frowned. No water anywhere around them that she could sense. Major wasn’t taking any chances.
After a few more minutes the trees thinned and they came to the edge of a giant pit, a quarry of some kind, piles of loose stone all around the edges. The limo nosed down a narrow track that slanted down one wall of the pit to the snow-dusted gravel of the bottom. In the very middle of the pit sat a camper, an old-fashioned cream-and-brown Winnebago. A second vehicle was parked next to it, an SUV as black as the limo. On the side a decal read OCHRANA SECURITY in big silver block letters, and Private Protection Since 1976 in a smaller, cursive font. Two men in black suits stood guard on either side of the door to the construction trailer. They had the same no-nonsense attitude as her driver – and the same massive builds.
Rex Major making sure nobody directly connects anything he does out here with Excalibur Computer Systems, Ariane thought.
They pulled up next to the trailer. One of the guards strode forward and opened the door, then extended a hand. Ariane ignored it and climbed out on her own. He lowered his hand. “Rex Major is expecting you,” he said. “This way.”
“I know the way,” Ariane said. “It’s right in front of me. It’s not like I can get lost.” She strode past him before he could react, feet crunch
ing in snow and gravel, and up to the trailer door. Jerking it open, she stepped inside, the camper rocking slightly beneath her weight. “I’m here,” she snapped. “What do you want?”
Rex Major sat on a loveseat-sized couch the colour of old mustard, watching a tiny black-and-white TV on a shelf on the opposite wall. Aunt Phyllis sat next to him. Both of their heads turned as the door opened. “Ariane!” Aunt Phyllis said with a bright smile. “How nice of you to join us!” She looked at Major. “Rex,” she said, waggling a finger at him. “You didn’t tell me you’d invited Ariane, too.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise, Phyllis,” Major said with an indulgent chuckle. And then his voice altered, becoming strangely resonant and compelling. “Take a nap.”
Immediately Aunt Phyllis yawned, closed her eyes, and slumped down where she sat.
Ariane’s fists clenched. “Leave her alone!”
“Or what?” Major said, unruffled. “You’re unarmed. You have no water to draw on. There is nothing you can do to me here.”
“There’s nothing you can do to me, either,” Ariane snarled. “You can’t kill me. You can’t take the first shard from me by force. I have to give it to you willingly. And guess what? I didn’t bring it with me. It’s hidden where you’ll never find it.”
“I told you,” Major said, “that I don’t want you to give me the first shard. I want to give you the second. Didn’t you believe me?”
“Of course I didn’t –”
But then, to her utter shock, Major reached into his coat pocket and drew out the second shard of Excalibur.
It looked just as she remembered it: broken at both ends, pitted but not rusted. And the most shocking thing was that she hadn’t even known she was in the same room with it. Before, in France, even after Wally had taken it from her, she’d been able to tell where it was. Now…it was like she was looking at any ordinary piece of metal.
Major laughed again. “I see I’ve surprised you,” he said. The ruby stud in his right ear glinted as he glanced down at the shard in his hand. “It’s true I have little enough power in this world at the moment,” he said, “but that is not the same as no power at all.” He jerked his head at the old woman. “As your snoring relative proves.” He held up the shard. “I have power enough to cloak the presence of this shard from you if it is on my person.”
“So what,” Ariane said, trying to sound hard and confident. “There’s a giant pile of junk that used to be a mining shovel in the Northwest Territories that shows the kind of power I have.”
Major’s eyes narrowed just a fraction at that. A hit, a palpable hit, she thought with more than a little pleasure.
But Major took a breath and stepped forward. “A useless discussion,” he said. “Let us advance to the point.” He held out the second shard. “Take it. It’s yours.”
At first Ariane couldn’t even make sense of the words. Even when she did, she made no move to take the shard. “Is this some kind of trick?”
“Does it look like a trick?” Major said. He stretched his hand out farther. “Please, I insist. Take the second shard. I give it to you freely.”
Ariane hesitated a moment longer, then, as though trying to grab a snake before it could turn and bite her, seized the shard. The instant she touched it she heard its song as she should have all along, vibrant, excited. Not for the first time she felt the sword knew she was the heir of the one who had had it forged in Faerie, and approved of her touch.
“Now that that’s done,” Major said, “let’s talk.”
“What’s to stop me from just turning and walking out with it?” Ariane said.
Major glanced at Aunt Phyllis. “Did you miss the part where I kidnapped your aunt and put her under a magic spell? Just like in the old fairy tales?” He smiled. “I wrote some of those, you know. The original versions. The really dark ones. I was pleased upon awakening in the twentieth century to discover many of them have been told for centuries.” The smile faded. “Although Walt Disney has a lot to answer for.” Then the smile returned. “I assure you, however, that neither your kiss nor the kiss of a handsome prince will break that spell.” He jerked a thumb at Aunt Phyllis.
Ariane clenched her hand on the shard. “So what’s all this about?”
“You have the first two shards now,” Major said. “That should make it easy for you to hear the third. I want you to locate it. Then you’re going to lead me to it, and help me retrieve it, if it is hidden in water, as it almost certainly is. And once we have it, you will give all three shards to me.” He glanced at Aunt Phyllis again. “Or Sleeping Beauty…dies.”
Ariane’s heart pounded. She knew he wasn’t bluffing. “If you kill her, I’ll never give you the shards.”
He shrugged. “So what? Her only value to me is as a hostage. If she’s not even any good to me as a hostage, I might as well kill her so she can’t interfere in any other way…and to punish you.”
“Wally would never forgive you.”
“Wally would never know I had anything to do with it,” Major said. “Wally is living in luxury in Toronto, having the time of his life playing a next-generation virtual-reality game my company has under development. I’ve told him he’s important to my plans. Which he is. But only,” and he smiled again, though it had more in common with the grimace of a death’s head than ordinary human amusement, “as long as I still have a chance of getting all five shards. If I were to lose that capability – because, for example, you decided to flee with the shards once we had found the third – then his potential for greatness in my service would become instead a potential for greatness in yours, and I would have no choice but to execute him, too.”
“This is the twenty-first century,” Ariane said desperately. “You can’t just kill people on a whim like you did in…whenever it was.”
“Have you watched the news recently?” Major said. “Of course I can. In fact it’s easier today than it was in Arthur’s day. More people. More ways to die. More ways to cover up who really killed them.” His voice hardened. “Enough of this. Do it. Find the shard. Tell me where it is. And then we’ll see about going there…together.”
Ariane had never felt so helpless. “I don’t have the first shard with me.”
“I’m not surprised,” Major said. “But that shouldn’t have any effect on your ability to find the third, now that my possession of the second is no longer interfering with it. Listen.”
Ariane closed her eyes and concentrated. And almost at once, she heard it – like the first two, but subtly different, and far, far away. “It’s…south,” she said, speaking almost without realizing she was doing so. “Very far south. And…west. Or is it east?” She frowned. “No, west. But also very, very far.” She opened her eyes. “That’s the best I can do,” she said desperately. “It’s not like a GPS. It’s just a…a…sense.” She had been going to say song.
“Very far south. And west. Farther than France?”
She nodded. “Much farther.”
“Could be Asia, but if it’s really far south…” He shrugged. “Well, we’ll track it down. We’ll start in Australia and work out from there.”
Ariane stared at him. “Australia? You’re taking me to Australia?”
“I already explained my plan,” Major said. “Weren’t you listening?”
“But what about Aunt Phyllis?”
“Aunt Phyllis,” Major said, “will stay here. Continuing to believe that she is an honoured guest living, like Wally, in the lap of luxury. That way, when we find the third shard, there will be no opportunity for you to do anything to rescue her. And if you do not then immediately give me the two shards you have – and take me to wherever you have hidden the first – she will suffer for it. Are you perfectly clear on the plan now?”
Ariane nodded, feeling sick to her stomach. There was no way she could see to prevent Major’s plan from working. He held all the cards, and they were all aces. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Good.” Major went to the door, opened it,
and stuck his head outside. “We’ll need a ride to my hotel,” he said. “The old woman will stay here. Take good care of her.”
“Yes, sir,” the goon outside said briskly.
Major pulled his head back inside. “Let’s go, Ariane,” he said. “We have a long journey ahead of us. I will retrieve my belongings from the hotel and talk to my pilot. Then I’ll need to make some phone calls and conduct other business. It will be some hours yet, but never fear, we’ll be on our way before the day is out.”
Stomach churning, still clutching the second shard of Excalibur in her hand and hearing the call of the third in her head, she stepped out into the chill air.
Chapter Seven
Arrivals and Departures
The fireplace poker wasn’t shaped like a sword, and it wasn’t weighted or balanced like a sword, but Wally thought – or at least devoutly hoped – it would serve. He stood just inside the condo’s main front door. He’d spent a restless night reviewing his plans, then had gotten up early, figuring if he were going to make a break for it, it had to be before he was hauled off to play the King Arthur game again…and hoping the element of surprise might be greater if he acted while the guard might expect him to still be sleeping.
He’d had breakfast (he hadn’t bothered to clean up), pulled on his backpack, reviewed his plans one more time, and double-checked to make sure he had erased all signs of his presence on Major’s computer. Not that he could keep secret everything he had done on the machine. Eventually, for example, Major would notice the rather large withdrawal of money from his chequing account. At some point he might even discover the new “Rex Major” email account Wally had set up that Wally had the password to and he didn’t. But it should all remain a secret long enough for him to get to Prince Albert and rescue Aunt Phyllis.
And, Wally hoped, find out where Major had gone in pursuit of the third shard – and maybe even where Ariane was.
But first he had to get by…whomever was in the hallway.
He wasn’t actually sure. It could be Emeka. It could be Iftekhar. It could be some minion he hadn’t met yet.
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