Lake in the Clouds

by Edward Willett

  The shard is on that island, he thought. He didn’t know how he knew. He just knew, somehow, that it wasn’t buried in the mud at the bottom of the lake or under a stone near the shore or any of the million other places it could logically have been. It wasn’t in any of those places because it was there, on the island.

  And then he heard the sound of approaching vehicles, from the direction of the parking lot. Suddenly feeling unpleasantly exposed, he hurried in the opposite direction. There were some large boulders not far away, and he crouched behind them to see who arrived.

  It was not a big surprise when the arriving cars proved to be a black limousine and a black SUV. The limo didn’t have any insignia, but the black SUV, a Range Rover, had the Excalibur Computer Systems sword-logo on its side.

  The door of the limousine opened. Rex Major got out, and as he did so, Wally glimpsed Ariane inside the car. His heart leaped.

  He’d seen enough. He knew where the shard was. If he got it first, he could present it to Ariane at the same time as he told her that Aunt Phyllis was no longer a hostage – and maybe, just maybe, she’d forgive him, or at least start to forgive him.

  Maybe.

  He picked his way carefully along the shore, keeping out of sight of the parking lot, until the mist hid it. Then he hurried. When he had circled the lake to a point where the dark lump of the island was between him and where he judged the parking lot to be, he stopped. The island was closer to the shore at this end, and there was a flat spot on the side facing him that would make it easy to climb out of the water.

  The very, very cold water. He could tell that just by looking.

  But there was nothing for it.

  He hadn’t had a lot of swimming lessons, but he could manage a front crawl as far as the island. He just wished he’d brought a swimsuit. Or a wetsuit, he thought uneasily, thinking again of how cold the water would be.

  But he hadn’t come this far to get cold feet. He smirked at his own joke, and then, reasoning that if he moved quickly he wouldn’t have time to get cold, he stripped out of his clothes in two minutes flat. Wearing only his undershorts, he stuffed his jeans and T-shirt and shoes and socks into his backpack, took a deep breath, and waded into the water.

  It bit at his legs with exactly the icy snap he expected. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought; then, amused at his own turn of phrase, I read too much British fantasy fiction; and now he plunged full-length into the lake.

  It didn’t quite take his breath away. He gulped more air anyway and set out for the island, splashily but effectively. It took him five minutes to cross the distance. He hauled himself out onto the flat gravel-covered beach, teeth chattering and limbs shaking. But he had reached the island first. And one look at the mass of rocks at its centre showed him the dark opening that led to where he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he would find the third shard of Excalibur.

  He hurried forward, shivering, and crawled on his hands and knees into the small cave. Inside was a pool, still and clear as crystal. Even in the uncertain light he could see a dark object on the bottom. Lying on his stomach, the rocks pressing into his bare stomach and chest and legs, he reached for it. His fingers touched something hard. He almost had it…he wriggled forward a bit more, and it was in his hand. There were splinters of wood around it, as though it had been in a box, like the one he had seen in Yellowknife when the steam shovel had uncovered the first shard. But the box had long-since disintegrated. I wonder if that’s why there wasn’t a box for the second one? he thought, but the thought was distant. He had the third shard! And as soon as he told Ariane the truth about Aunt Phyllis…

  He rolled over, crawled out of the hole, straightened up –

  – and saw Ariane staring at him, wide-eyed. “Wally? What are you doing here?” She blinked at him. “And why are you naked?”

  “I’m not naked,” he said indignantly, as best he could between chattering teeth. “I’m wearing shorts.”

  “Very wet ones,” she said. “Practically transparent.” He felt himself blushing. “Hold on –” She stepped forward, and suddenly he was dry as a bone, the water exploding from his body in a brief spray.

  “Thanks,” he said. His mouth was suddenly as dry as the rest of him. He held out the third shard. “I got it for you.”

  She reached for it. As she took it, for one instant, they were both touching it, and her eyes widened and she gasped a little. Then she snatched it from his hand. She held it up and stared at it. “But I don’t understand,” she said. “There was no need. Why swim to the island? I was coming to get it anyway.”

  “I wanted…I wanted to be able to hand it to you. So I –”

  “So Rex Major will be proud of you,” she said cuttingly. “So you can enjoy watching when I hand it over to him.”

  He felt like she’d stabbed the shard into his heart. “No,” he said, desperately. “Major doesn’t know I’m here. That’s the other reason I swam to the island. I don’t want him to see me.” Wally wrapped his arms around himself. He was still shivering. Dry was warmer than wet, but the chill mountain mist enveloped them both.

  Ariane looked down at the third shard. Longer than either of the first two, cold pitted metal with an indentation down the middle, it gleamed dully in the grey light. “This doesn’t change anything, Wally,” she said. Her voice sounded dull and defeated, very unlike the girl he remembered. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but it doesn’t change anything. I have to give it to Rex Major. He has Aunt Phyllis.”

  “No,” Wally said, “he doesn’t.”

  Ariane’s head shot up. “What? How do you know?”

  “Because I rescued her,” Wally said. “I tricked the security guards into handing her over to me. And then I put her on a bus to Estevan. She’s safe. You don’t have to give Major anything.”

  Ariane suddenly…well, she didn’t really grow, Wally thought, but it seemed like it. She straightened, and seemed to draw power to herself. He blinked. How did he know that? It was as if he was sensing something from the shard, just like Ariane. But why? he thought. What’s so special about me?

  He didn’t think that after this Major was going to be much inclined to tell him.

  “Then let’s get out of here,” Ariane said. She held up the shard. “I have two again. Major has the second one. He wouldn’t let me bring it with me. But I still have the first one. And he doesn’t know where I hid it.”

  There came a shout from the shoreline. Wally shot a glance that way. One of the men from the SUV had come far enough around the shore to see Ariane and Wally standing together on the shore. “We have to go,” Ariane said.

  “My backpack,” Wally said. “My passport. My clothes. On the shore.”

  Ariane nodded. “Come on.” She ran down to the water, Wally close behind. She grabbed his wrist. There was the momentary horrifying feeling of dissolving into nothingness he didn’t think he could ever get used to, and then they were clambering out of the icy water onto the shore. Ariane ordered the liquid off of both of them at the same moment there came a shout from the right.

  “Stop!”

  Not a very original command, Wally thought. He turned. One of the men from the Range Rover appeared. He had a pistol in one hand…and Wally’s backpack, his clothes stuffed roughly into the open top of it, in the other. Crap! “Get us out of here!” he cried.

  “Not yet,” Ariane said quietly. And then, from the water of the lake, Wally saw a sinuous tentacle emerge, like a giant snake.

  “Don’t move,” the man said, pistol aimed at them.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Ariane snarled, and the tentacle of water struck. It lashed out faster than any real snake had ever moved, striking the man’s wrist. Wally heard a sickening crack and the man, crying out in pain, staggered back, his wrist bent at an unnatural angle. The pistol skittered across the rocks.

  Something cracked, a loud, flat sound, and for a second Wally thought the gun had gone off when it was dropped – but he’d read th
at that was a Hollywood myth: in general, guns don’t go off when dropped. Which meant that…

  He spun. The second man from the SUV was coming up from behind them, lowering his gun from having fired it into the air. “I don’t know how you did that,” he growled, “but stay still or –”

  But of course it didn’t matter if Ariane stayed still or not. She still had her power, and before the second man had finished his command a second tendril of water had smashed down on his wrist. Wally didn’t hear a bone break this time, but the gun dropped all the same, and then the same tendril of water lashed around the man’s legs and knocked him backward. He thumped to the ground so hard Wally heard the breath whoosh out of him.

  Ariane grabbed Wally’s hand and pulled him to the water. “Wait!” Wally cried. “My –”

  He was going to say, “backpack!”, or maybe, “clothes!” but he never got the word out. The water sucked them down, and they left the Lake in the Clouds behind.

  •••

  Rex Major paced the shore by the parking lot, peering futilely into the mist. He could not sense the shard as strongly as Ariane could, but he knew it was out there. He saw, dimly, Ariane materialize in the water and climb onto the island. He saw her pick her way around the rocks and disappear from view. He waited for her to reappear.

  Instead he heard shouts, and then, unmistakably, a gunshot.

  What the hell…? Rex Major started running around the shoreline, trying to get a view of the far side of the island. He tripped and fell, ripping the knee of his expensive suit and drawing blood, but he hardly noticed.

  What he did notice was that he could no longer sense the shard. Ariane had stolen it after all.

  But what about the shot…?

  He saw dark figures ahead, resolving into his two employees. As he got nearer he saw that one was grimacing in pain, cradling a wrist that was obviously broken. A blue backpack rested on the ground at his feet. The other was staring around as though looking for something, his gun held loosely in his right hand.

  As Major approached, the gun swung up. The man had a panicked look. “Don’t shoot, you idiot!” Major snapped. “It’s me. What happened?”

  “I don’t…we saw them…the water…” The man with the broken wrist was pale and clearly in shock to the point of incoherence.

  “Quiet!” Major Commanded. He turned to the other one. “Stevens. What did you see?”

  “The girl met someone on the island. A boy. In his underwear. They were there, and then somehow… they were climbing out of the water onto the shore. Axel shouted at them, told them to stop, and the water…sir, I know it sounds crazy, but the water...or something in the water, a giant snake of some kind…but that’s even crazier…it rose up and smashed his wrist. I came up behind them, fired a warning shot into the air, but then the water hit me, too…knocked my legs out from under me. Then they stepped into the water together and they just…vanished. Like the water sucked them down.” He shook his head. “Sir, I swear. I’m not crazy. I’m not drunk. I’m not on drugs. I saw what I saw.”

  “I believe you,” Major said grimly. He glanced at the backpack. He recognized the T-shirt stuffed into it on top of a pair of jeans and some ratty sneakers. Wally Knight. The brat had somehow outwitted him, managed not only to get to New Zealand but get to the lake before him. He must have told Ariane the truth about her Aunt Phyllis, and as soon as she knew, she’d felt free to use her power and escape with the third shard.

  Good thing I made her leave the second one with me, Major thought. He couldn’t use its power while she still held one. He didn’t know if she could use the power of the third since she also held the first – which she technically still did, even though she had left it behind. He didn’t know if she knew. But even drawing on the power of one shard, which was surely all she could manage at best, she would struggle to make it across the Pacific, especially if she tried to travel with Wally. She could never get back before he did.

  And he would return to Canada. Because he knew something Ariane didn’t know he knew: he knew where she had hidden the first shard of Excalibur.

  “Forget what really happened here,” he Commanded the two men. “You both slipped on the rocks. Your weapon discharged accidentally,” he said to the man who had fired a warning shot. “You never saw the girl or the boy. Return to your vehicle and seek medical attention.”

  Without a word, they turned and began working their way around the lake again, the one with the broken wrist groaning with every step, breath coming hard. As they moved away, Major reached down, picked up Wally’s backpack, and threw it as far as he could out into the lake. It splashed into the water and sank without a trace.

  He started around the lake after his men, checking his cell phone as he walked – carefully, he didn’t want to fall again – and wasn’t surprised to find there was no service. But once they were back on the main road, he would call his pilot.

  They were heading to Regina.

  •••

  Ariane didn’t have a destination in mind when she whisked Wally and the third shard away from the lake. She only wanted to get away. And she wanted to get Wally warm. He’d looked so cold, all-but-naked, blue and shivering, that she was afraid he was tipping into hypothermia.

  I shouldn’t even care what happens to him, she thought.

  But she did.

  So she headed back to Queenstown, to an indoor pool she sensed as they zipped that way through pipes and filters. It wasn’t until they were already materializing that she realized this was about to get very awkward for both of them…but especially for Wally.

  Even as she thought that, she thought, Serves him right – and then, suddenly they were in the swimming pool, the sting of chlorine in her eyes. She surfaced, spluttering, and looked around. They were in a huge open recreation area, crowded with people, mostly children in the pool they were in, adults in swimsuits sitting around the pool edges on white plastic chairs. There was a hot tub not far away, three men and four women basking in it. There was a weird yellow giant-mushroom thing spraying water in all directions, children screaming as they ran around in it. Light streamed in through big glass windows in the strangely slanted walls.

  She hauled herself out of the water. She didn’t dare order the water off herself with all those people around, so she spluttered and held out her hand for Wally. “Come on,” she said. “We have go get out of here.”

  “I can’t get out!” Wally protested. “I’m in my underwear!”

  “You can’t stay in the water either,” Ariane said.

  “At least get me a towel!”

  “Fine.” She turned away, took a step, and stopped. “Uh-oh.”

  A lifeguard, a girl just a little older than Ariane in a black one-piece bathing suit, was making her determined way toward them. “What are you doing in the pool in your clothes?” she cried. “You’ll foul the filters!”

  “Sorry,” Ariane said. She tried what she hoped was a winning smile. “Fell in.”

  The girl pointed at her feet. “And you’re wearing street shoes. I could have you banned from the pool for that!”

  “Sorry,” Ariane said again.

  The girl gave her a closer look. “You’re not from here,” she said. “American?”

  “Canadian.”

  “Well, even in Canada they should know better,” the girl said with a sniff, and Ariane decided she didn’t like her. “Now get out of here before I report you.”

  “My friend…” Ariane gestured at Wally, who was treading water with only his eyes showing above the surface.

  “At least he’s dressed for swimming,” the girl said with a glance. “You can wait for him in the viewing area.” She pointed to big glass windows that overlooked the pool in the slanting wall above the yellow mushroom. “Go on.”

  Ariane gave Wally an apologetic look, though she was smirking inside. She meekly crossed the pool and found the stairs up to the second-floor viewing area. Halfway up, she wished herself dry, spraying the concre
te walls with water. Once inside the viewing room, empty except for her, she sat in a comfortable chair, folded her arms, and waited to see what Wally would do.

  He swam over to the edge of the pool and hung there for a long time, staring up at the viewing area. She waved at him.

  Five minutes went by. She didn’t move. He didn’t move. And then, finally, convulsively, he hauled himself out of the water. Head down, arms wrapped around himself, dripping, undershorts sagging with water, he trudged along the verge of the pool, head down. Ariane saw people pointing at him and laughing. Even from where she sat she could see he was turning red. He grabbed a towel from a stack by the entrance and wrapped it around himself, then disappeared, presumably into the men’s change area.

  Ariane debated letting him just stew in there for a while, but in the back of her mind was the realization that Rex Major must be heading down from Lake Putahi by now. She didn’t know what he would do, but she knew he’d never give up.

  We need to make plans, she thought, getting to her feet and heading back down the stairs to the main floor. We need to…

  She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, hand on the rail, staring at nothing.

  We?

  Wally Knight had betrayed her to Rex Major. Wally Knight had stolen the second shard from her and given it to Major…to Merlin. He had lied to her. He’d…

  He just handed you the third shard, she reminded herself. He rescued Aunt Phyllis.

  He told you he rescued Aunt Phyllis, she thought. But he hasn’t exactly given you reason to believe everything he says, has he? What if he’s still helping Major? What if this is all some kind of plot of Major’s?

  Some ridiculously overcomplicated and obtuse plot, she told herself. Because she would have handed Major the third shard without any fuss at all if Wally hadn’t appeared on the island. She would probably have given him the first shard, too. There was no way this was helping Major. Which had to mean Wally had betrayed him just as he had betrayed her.