Lake in the Clouds

by Edward Willett

  They took Wally’s backpack and another one filled with some of Flish’s old clothes that would fit Ariane, including a swimsuit. “We may have to materialize in a swimming pool again,” she’d said. “Easier to get away with it if you don’t look like you’ve fallen in.”

  “You’ll still be in the swimming pool with a backpack,” Wally pointed out.

  “Easier to explain than being fully clothed.” She gave him a wicked smile. “Or in your underwear.”

  “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

  Her smile widened. “Nope.”

  As they approached Flish’s room they heard a man’s voice. For a second, Wally thought it must be a doctor…but then he recognized it. He and Ariane stopped dead at the same instant, and exchanged startled looks. “Rex Major?” Wally whispered, and Ariane nodded. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Talking to your sister,” Ariane said grimly. “Maybe he’s planning to take her hostage next.”

  “Crap,” Wally muttered, and hurried forward.

  They came around the edge of the door just in time to see Flish stand up and half-fall against Major. She saw them, and gave them a grin that would have looked at home on a shark. Major turned and saw them, too. “Hello, Wally, Ariane,” he said. “Nice of you to visit.”

  Wally felt his hands clench into fists as anger surged through him and he took a step forward. Let the shards take over now if they wanted. He’d gladly stick a knife in Rex Major…

  But the shards remained quiescent. The anger was all his. And he couldn’t really attack Major in the middle of the Regina General Hospital. He let his fists relax. “What are you doing here?” he snarled.

  “I just healed your sister’s leg,” Major said. “Magic can be used for more than hurting people. I told you that. I thought you’d agreed with me.” He shook his head. “You’ve really disappointed me, Wally.”

  “Boo-hoo,” Wally said. He stared at Flish. “Is that true? He fixed your leg?”

  “I’m standing, aren’t I?” Flish said.

  “Felicia,” Major said, “is going to come live with me in Toronto. She’ll have the life I offered you.”

  “She’s not doing anything of the sort!” Wally snapped. His fists clenched again. “Take her hands off her, or I’ll…”

  “What? Beat me? Hit me with a poker like you did my poor guard?” Major smirked. “You’d find that harder than you think. You cannot draw on the shards’ power to attack me while I carry one of the shards myself. And I am more than a match for you without that.” He put his arm around Flish’s shoulder, who smiled smugly. “Felicia has agreed. Your parents have agreed. You really have no say in it, Wally. Now if you’ll excuse us, I believe we need to find a doctor to examine Felicia and confirm she is well enough to leave the hospital.”

  He walked forward, passing Wally without another glance. Flish brushed past him with a nasty grin.

  But Ariane, standing behind him, blocked their way. “You’re beaten,” she told Major. “I have two shards. You have one. I’ll hear the song of the fourth shard soon. I can draw on the power of the shards and you can’t.”

  “Can’t I?” Major said softly. He regarded her for a moment. “Are you going to let us pass, or do I call security?”

  Ariane stared at him, her eyes cold. “You don’t have a hostage anymore. Unless that’s what Flish is.”

  “Felicia is my guest, not a hostage,” Major said. “She’d hardly work as a hostage when you’ve already tried to kill her yourself.”

  “She’s Wally sister.”

  “Well, you almost killed him once, too. Now will you let us pass?”

  Lips pressed tight, Ariane stepped to one side. Major went into the hallway and turned back to wait for Flish. But she’d stopped to confront Ariane. Face just inches from the other girl’s, she said in a poisonous whisper, “I promised you I’d make you pay for everything you’ve done. And I will. Don’t ever think I won’t.”

  “Follow your master like an obedient bitch, why don’t you?” Ariane said levelly.

  Flish tensed, and for a moment, Wally thought she would hit Ariane. But then she relaxed. “Your time will come,” she said. “Oh, it will definitely come.” She went out to Major.

  From the hallway, he looked back at Ariane. “As far as hostages go,” he said, “don’t think for one moment I have exhausted the possibilities. You’ll be hearing from me.” And then he was gone, Flish walking behind him as though her leg had never been broken.

  Wally walked over to the bed and fingered the shattered remains of the cast. “How did he do that?” he said angrily. “He’s never shown that kind of magic to us before. Why is he getting stronger?”

  Ariane shook her head. “It’s the shards,” she said. “I guess. More of them found, more magic leaking out for him to use.”

  Wally turned to her. “Unless it’s Flish.”

  She blinked. “Flish?”

  “Think about it,” Wally said. “When I touch the shard at the same time as you, your power increases. What if she can do that trick, too? We’re brother and sister. If I’m some kind of heir of King Arthur, maybe she is, too.”

  Ariane groaned. “Oh, no.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” Wally said, but he was very much afraid he wasn’t.

  “Maybe,” Ariane said, but it didn’t really sound as though she believed that, either. “What did he mean about other hostages?”

  Wally had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what he meant. “There’s something I haven’t told you,” he said. “When I had access to Major’s computer, I…found something. A picture.”

  She looked at him expectantly.

  “It was of a woman, at a convenience store in Carlyle. Taken a few weeks ago. You couldn’t see her very clearly, but someone had labelled it. Major is convinced…it was your mother.”

  Ariane’s face went pale. She put out a hand to clutch the doorjamb. “Mom? She’s alive?”

  “Major thinks so,” Wally said. “That was all he had, that picture. But if he’s found something else…” his voice trailed off.

  “He’s after Mom,” Ariane said. “He’ll take her prisoner like he did Aunt Phyllis. And this time he won’t make any mistakes.” She stared at him, eyes haunted. “Wally, if he gets Mom, I’ll give him everything. Every shard. I’ll do anything to get her back. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Wally said quietly. “But will the shards let you?”

  “I control the sword, it doesn’t control me,” Ariane said. It had the sound of something she’d said often to herself, but it lacked conviction. Then her voice changed, became harder and angrier. “And you took this long to tell me this because…?”

  “We were busy,” Wally said. “Surviving and travelling and beating Rex Major and stuff like that. I just…forgot.” It sounded lame, but it was the truth.

  For a moment Ariane’s anger remained visible on her face, but then she took a deep breath and the tension vanished. “The picture was weeks old, you said. So I guess it didn’t matter much. But Wally…we have to find her. Even while we’re looking for the fourth shard, we have to find my Mom.”

  “Absolutely,” Wally said.

  “Does Aunt Phyllis know?”

  Wally nodded.

  “Good.” Ariane straightened, took another deep breath. “We’d better go get her. We’re going to have to figure out a safe place for her to stay, somewhere Rex Major can’t track her to.” She opened her backpack, and took out the old swimsuit of Flish’s. “Swimming pool time,” she said.

  “We’re going to change here?” Wally said in alarm.

  “Where else? I’ll go in here,” she indicated the bathroom, “and you can pull the curtain and change by the bed. When you’re ready come into the bathroom and we’ll use the taps to escape.”

  This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, Wally thought a few moments later as he stripped behind the curtain and then pulled on the trunks he’d packed in his backpack. He st
uffed his clothes into the pack and stepped out from behind the curtain.

  A nurse had just come into the room. Of course there’d be a nurse, Wally thought with resignation. That’s the way my life works. She stared at him. “Why are you wearing swimming trunks in the hospital? And where’s the patient?”

  “Talk to the doctor,” Wally said. “He’ll…explain everything.”

  “He may know where the patient went,” the nurse said, “but I’ll be really interested to hear his explanation for you.” Her expression hardened. “Get dressed and get out of here or I’m calling security.”

  “I’ve just…got to use the bathroom first,” Wally said, and padded over to it, bare feet cold on the tiles. He opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind him.

  Ariane was wearing a bikini he remembered his sister wearing a couple of years earlier. He tried not to stare, but it was a tight fit and she was right there, and the mirror gave him a view of the other side of her. “Nurse,” he squeaked. “In room.”

  Ariane sighed. “Pull yourself together. It’s just skin.” She turned to the taps and started the water running. “Let’s go.”

  And just like that, they went.

  •••

  Ariane had no trouble finding a route to Estevan. She’d been to the smaller city a couple of times and had even gone water-sliding at the Estevan Leisure Centre. She brought them in underwater in the deepest part of the pool and they swam to the surface. Wally no longer has any problem in the water, she thought. He’s way better than he should be from just having a couple of lessons. That swim to the island in Lake Putahi…I wonder if that’s from the shards, too?

  They attracted a couple of puzzled looks from swimmers who obviously found it peculiar two people had just emerged from a pool they hadn’t seen them enter. The looks grew more puzzled as they slung the backpacks out onto the edge of the pool and clambered out themselves. Ariane touched the backpacks, sending the water spraying off of them – and what that looked like to the swimmers, she had no idea – then she and Wally went off to their respective change rooms, emerging fully dressed a few minutes later.

  Wally had money and the address Aunt Phyllis was staying at, so they called a taxi and rode there in style.

  Ariane knocked on the door of the modest bungalow. An elderly woman, surprisingly tall and rather gaunt, answered. She looked down at Ariane, puzzled. “Yes?”

  “Is Aunt…is Phyllis Forsythe here?” Ariane said.

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Oh, my! You must be…Phyllis!” she called over her shoulder. “Phyllis! It’s your niece and her boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my –”Ariane began, but the woman had already disappeared.

  And then, there was Aunt Phyllis.

  She looked the same as always. But then, she’d also looked the same as always the last time Ariane had seen her, when she’d been living in a dream world under Merlin’s Command. This time, though, the joy that lit her face on seeing Ariane was one hundred per cent her.

  Ariane burst into tears and ran to her.

  Aunt Phyllis enveloped her in a deep, comforting hug. “There, there, sweetie,” she whispered. “It’s all right now. Everything is all right now.”

  Ariane desperately wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that now they were together again they had nothing else to fear. She wanted to go back home to Regina, back to poor Pendragon, left alone in the house and being looked after by the neighbour, back to her room, even back to the hated Oscana Collegiate. But it wasn’t going to happen. None of it. Everything was not all right now. Everything would not be all right until she’d seen the Lady’s quest through to the end.

  And so, much sooner than she wanted, she pushed herself away from Aunt Phyllis. “We’ve got a lot to tell you, Aunt Phyllis,” she said. “And then we’ve got to leave.”

  “Leave?” said the gaunt woman.

  “Oh!” Aunt Phyllis said. “Where are my manners? Emma, this is my niece, Ariane. And this is Wally, her –”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Ariane said automatically, and then wished she hadn’t when she saw Wally’s expression. She blinked at him. Wait, she thought. He used to deny it, too. Is he…? Does he feel that way about…?

  Everything he’d done he’d said he’d done to protect her and help her. Of course, he felt that way about her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t guessed until now.

  She felt a sense of alarm. But then a strange sort of…warmth. Wally Knight is in love with me, she thought. And I…

  But she didn’t finish that thought. Later, she thought. I’ll think about it later.

  “Her friend,” Aunt Phyllis finished dryly. “Ariane, honey, I don’t understand. Why should I have to leave?”

  Ariane glanced at Emma. “It’s…complicated.”

  Aunt Phyllis waved a hand. “Don’t worry, I’ve told Emma everything. She knows all about the shards and Rex Major and the Lady of the Lake.”

  Ariane blinked at the other woman. “You do?”

  “Fascinating story,” Emma said placidly. “Of course Phyllis had previously told me her tale of seeing the Lady in Emma Lake all those years ago. I’ve long wondered if there would be more to it.”

  “O…kay then,” Ariane said. She turned back to Aunt Phyllis. “Let me tell you what’s happened…”

  •••

  The tale took awhile to tell, and Emma insisted on making tea before she really began, so they finished almost an hour later sitting at the dining-room table, sipping from beautiful gold-rimmed china cups, so delicate Ariane felt ham-fisted holding one. “You came down here on the bus,” Ariane said. “That’s too public. Sooner or later, Rex Major will be able to trace you here. And when he does…”

  Aunt Phyllis sighed. “He’ll take me hostage again. And probably use that…what did you call it? Command?...power of his to make me perfectly all right with it. You’re right, dear, we’ll have to leave.”

  “I can take you anywhere,” Ariane said. “Where would you like to hide out? Wally tells me Major has unwittingly donated a large sum to your bank account, but if you’re going to stay in a hotel, it has to be one that doesn’t use a computer system for check-ins.”

  “There’s a lovely bed and breakfast out in the Cypress Hills,” Aunt Phyllis said. “I stayed there for a week once. The couple who run it are elderly and old-fashioned. There’s no computer access. There’s no cell-phone coverage. Just a landline. I would be very happy there. There were some very interesting books in the parlor.”

  “Is there a pond or lake nearby?”

  Aunt Phyllis nodded.

  “Then that’s our place. Can you call them?”

  “I’ll make the plans.”

  “Book for two,” Emma said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Really, Emma, there’s no need –”

  “Oh, balderdash. We’ve seen far too little of each other these past few years. Besides, we can book it in my name and then there’s no way any of Rex Major’s nasty magic computer fingers can trace it to you.”

  “Well, I would be glad of the company,” Aunt Phyllis said. “Come along, then.”

  Ariane gaped after them. “Great,” she said. “Now I have to take two of them.”

  “Can you take two at once?” Wally said.

  Ariane thought about it. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “Especially not with first-timers. I might manage you and another person, since you’re not likely to panic anymore.”

  “Oh, no, I quite enjoy being dissolved and reconstituted in some random lake or swimming pool,” Wally said. “One of my favourite things ever.” But he grinned as he said it.

  She’d used to think that grin was ugly. Now she found it rather endearing.

  “If you can do that,” he went on, “can I go with you when you take Aunt Phyllis? I really want to see her reaction at the other end. Especially if you’re materializing in a cow pond. And it might make her less scared.”

  “Sure. But I think she�
�ll be fine with it.” Ariane looked out of the dining room toward the hallway where she could hear Emma talking on the phone. “She’s a surprising lady.”

  “Is she a lot like your mother?”

  “I didn’t used to think so,” Ariane said. “Now…I’m kind of hoping so. Because if Mom is like Aunt Phyllis, wherever Mom is, she’s doing fine.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Wally said. To her surprise, he reached across the table and took her hands. “And if she’s not, you’ll rescue her and make her fine.”

  Ariane looked down at the hands holding hers, and felt that strange warmth inside her again. She squeezed. “We’ll rescue her. From now on, we’re in this together.”

  Smiling the crooked smile she was beginning to love, Wally Knight squeezed her hands back. “That,” he said, “suits me fine.”

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks first to my terrific editor, Matthew Hughes – who, by the way, is himself a fabulous science fiction and fantasy author. You should read his stuff: www.archonate.com.

  Second, thanks to the wonderful folks at Coteau Books for doing such a great job with design, publicity, and promotion. You’re the best!

  And third, thanks to my wife, Margaret Anne, and daughter, Alice (to both of whom I read this entire book aloud), for being loving, supporting…and putting up with a husband and father who spends his days making up stories.

  About the Author

  Edward Willett is the award-winning author of more than fifty science-fiction and fantasy novels, science and other non-fiction books for both young readers and adults, including the acclaimed fantasy series The Masks of Aygrima, written under the pen name E.C. Blake.

  His science fiction novels include Lost in Translation, Marseguro and Terra Insegura. Marseguro won the 2009 Prix Aurora Award for best Canadian science-fiction and fantasy novel.

  His non-fiction writing for young readers has received National Science Teachers Association and VOYA awards.

  Edward Willett was born in New Mexico and grew up in Weyburn, Sask. He has lived and worked in Regina since 1988. In addition to his numerous writing projects, Edward is also a professional actor and singer who has performed in dozens of plays, musicals and operas in and around Saskatchewan, hosted local television programs and emceed numerous public events.