Twist of the Blade

by Edward Willett

  She was at the end of the pool where there were fewer trees, and where, she realized now, there were several cows, most of them kneeling, presumably asleep. It looked as if there was a lower hill in that direction, and one that wasn’t covered in forest, so she headed up it to reconnoiter.

  Once at the top, she found herself looking down on a cozy farm. A single-storey thatched-roof house, covered with white plaster through which showed thick wooden beams, stood at the edge of a cobblestoned courtyard surrounded by half a dozen outbuildings. A light on a high pole illuminated the scene, but the farmhouse windows were dark.

  Now what? Ariane thought, staring at it.

  She needed to get to Lyon, but she had time. She’d done a lot of back-and-forthing to find her route, but she knew she’d still traversed the Atlantic faster than any airliner could, and of course Wally wasn’t even flying straight to Lyon: he was going to Frankfurt and then changing planes. She’d made the journey in one evening; he wouldn’t be in Lyon until afternoon.

  I’ll camp out by the trees, Ariane thought. I can be gone at first light, before the farmer even knows I’m here.

  Exhausted as she felt, she was sure she’d sleep like a baby even stretched out on bare ground. But she was also so hungry she was a potential danger to any horse in the vicinity.

  Or any cow, she thought, and grinned in the dark. Guess it was smart to run away.

  She descended to the pond, then skirted to its far edge, well inside the trees. All that camping equipment they’d packed had stayed in the van, and was presumably at Emma Lake by now: she and Wally had only put ordinary clothes in their backpacks, since they’d expected to stay at a hotel. But at least she was warm enough, since she’d been dressed for November in Saskatchewan, not France. She spread some of her extra clothes on the leaf-covered ground, pulled out a spare jacket with which to cover herself, then sat and munched the only thing she had to eat, an Oh Henry! bar. At least it’s one of the giant ones, she thought, doing her best to ignore her stomach’s complaint.

  Finally she lay down and closed her eyes. This really isn’t very comfortable was her last thought before exhaustion pounced on her and dragged her down into sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SLIPPERY CHOICES

  “Réveille-toi! Réveille-toi! Que fais-tu ici?”

  Ariane opened her eyes and blinked at bare black branches silhouetted against grey sky. Where...?

  Then, suddenly, she remembered. She shot to a sitting position. A very short man wearing a yellow windbreaker, thick white sweater, blue trousers and high rubber boots glared down at her, dark eyes narrowed over a prominent nose supported by a ludicrously large mustache. “Que fais-tu ici?”

  “Um....” Even the tiny amount of French she knew deserted her. “Je ne parle pas français,” she said at last.

  “Anglaise?” the man said, frowning. “Américaine?”

  Well, at least she understood that. “Non. Canadienne.”

  “Ah?” The man’s frown deepened. “What are you doing here?” he said, every word slow and deliberate and thickly accented, but understandable.

  “I’m sorry,” Ariane said, relieved he spoke English. “I’m...lost.”

  That was certainly true.

  “You are travelling?”

  “Yes,” said Ariane. “I’m heading to Lyon.” She hesitated, thinking how foolish she was about to sound, but she needed to know...“Is it far?”

  The man snorted. “Oui. Sept cents kilomètres.”

  Numbers, she knew. “Seven hundred kilometres?”

  “Oui. So better you start, n’est-ce pas? I show you back to the road.”

  Ariane took the hint. Cold and stiff from sleeping on the ground, she rose awkwardly to her feet, then bent over again with a groan to gather the clothes on which she had slept. They were damp with dew, but she could dry them later. She stuffed them into her backpack then turned back to the farmer. He jerked his head in the direction of the low ridge hiding the farmhouse and started off, Ariane trailing behind him.

  They passed the pond. Ariane glanced at the spot where she had materialized the night before and winced. The nice soft mud she had clambered through consisted mainly of cow patties of various vintages. She shuddered and suddenly wished more than anything for a hot shower...but she didn’t think she could ask the farmer for that.

  She could ask him for something else, though, something she desperately needed. “Can I use your bathroom...um, votre toilette?”

  The farmer sighed. “Oui.”

  “And, um...could I get something to eat?” She needed all the energy she could muster to carry on to Lyon and wherever the shard might be hidden. She thought of the euros tucked away in her backpack. “I can pay –”

  The farmer glared at her, but she gave him her best smile and his suspicious frown relaxed a little. He shook his head. “Non,” he said brusquely. “There is no need. Ma femme...my wife will find you something.”

  The farmer’s wife, Chantal, a short round woman with bright blue eyes and graying hair drawn back in a bun, knew no English at all, or at least didn’t attempt to use it. That limited their conversation to “Bonjour,” and “Merci,” but though she gave her husband a questioning look, Chantal responded to his stream of French by putting slices of crusty bread alongside butter and grape jelly on a wooden table whose thick, dark wood looked as old as the massive beams spanning the low ceiling. Ariane used the tiny-but-spotless bathroom first, then devoured the food – she couldn’t remember ever being more hungry. Meanwhile, Chantal busied herself at the stove. As Ariane reached for her third slice of bread, Chantal brought her a steaming bowl of hot chocolate. Ariane sipped it gratefully, and as it took the chill off her bones, repeated, “Merci,” and “Merci beaucoup,” as often as she could.

  The farmer seemed to thaw at about the same rate she did. From him she learned that she was not far from the coast, near the city of Dieppe, a name she knew from history books as the place of an ill-fated raid during the Second World War in which many Canadians had been killed or captured. Lyon lay far to the southeast. “You cannot walk there,” the farmer said, though earlier he had been perfectly willing to have her try. “It would take days...weeks. Did you really think you could?”

  “I was planning to walk some, take the train some,” she lied. “I’m meeting someone in Lyon.”

  Chantal said something to her husband. He responded, and she said something back. “Chantal says you look very young to travel on your own. How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” Ariane lied again. “I’m older than I look.”

  The farmer raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  After breakfast, and another round of “Merci,” and “Merci beaucoup,” plus an “Au revoir,” to Chantal, Ariane followed the farmer down a long lane bordered by high, thick hedges. At the end the lane joined a paved road, straight as an arrow and lined with tall, skinny poplars. A car whizzed by. “Dieppe is that way,” the farmer said, pointing to his right. “Lyon that way.” He pointed left. “You should go back to Dieppe, take the train. I could drive you to la gare, the station....”

  “Non, merci,” Ariane said. “Thank you. I’m fine.”

  The farmer looked at her a long moment, then shrugged. “Very well,” he said. “But a warning. This camping sauvage...wild camping...it is permitted some places but not others. Some farmers will not like it. There are also dangerous vagabonds you must watch out for. Much better you take a train.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Ariane said. “Thank you again. Merci beaucoup.”

  “De rien,” said the farmer. “Au revoir.”

  “Au revoir.”

  Aware of the farmer watching her, Ariane hitched her backpack higher and set off at a brisk walk, for all the world as if she meant to hike the seven hundred kilometres to Lyon in a single day. Only when the farmer had gone back down his lane did she slow her pace and begin looking for what she really wanted: water.

  She found it soon enough, a stream that pass
ed under a bridge. She left the road, clambered down the rocky bank and stepped into the bridge’s shadow. Out of sight, she slipped into the water and away.

  Refreshed by both sleep and food, she felt the call of the shard instantly, far to the south, not so far to the east. But before she went there, she had to meet Wally, and that meant finding Lyon.

  She knew roughly where it was from the maps she’d looked at with Wally before they left. She rushed along streams and through lakes in that direction, the song of the shard crescendoing as she went. For a moment she was tempted to simply find it, grab it, get out and get home. She could be back in Canada within hours....

  And Wally would be left all alone in Lyon until he could fly back. He’d never forgive me.

  That should have decided it, but then her mind added in a seductive whisper, But you’d have the shard. And really, what help was he in Yellowknife? Merlin took him hostage to force you to give up the first shard. He almost cost you everything. What do you really need him for?

  The thought made Ariane stop her headlong flight, abruptly materializing in a pond surrounded by leafless trees. She waded ashore, dried herself, walked a few steps to the trees and sat on a fallen log.

  She’d thought something similar once before, right after she’d discovered her new ability to move through the clouds, and wondered if the shard had planted the notion in her head. And perhaps it had. But that didn’t mean, especially under these circumstances, that it was a bad idea. Why shouldn’t she simply grab the shard? It felt as if she could travel straight to it. Rex Major probably didn’t even know where it was yet. It was the perfect opportunity. You could explain to Wally afterward, her mind whispered. His childish hurt feelings won't matter a bit if you can seize the second shard before Merlin....

  The moment she considered ignoring Wally’s feelings – not to mention calling those feelings “childish” – she was sure these strange thoughts were coming from outside herself, from the shard of Excalibur at her side. It wanted her to put finding that second shard above everything else, above her only friend....

  Even above my own safety?

  She’d never wanted to really hurt Flish and Shania and the others, not the way she had. The shard had done that, pulling her anger out of her and using it to turn the Lady’s power into a weapon. Now it was trying to make her hurt Wally too. Because if she attempted to find the second shard without him, it would hurt him...terribly. Going off to get the shard without him would be like...like ditching some guy you’d gone to a movie with because a better-looking guy had just walked in to the theatre.

  But...

  But against that thought, she put the memory of Rex Major pressing the barrel of a pistol into Wally’s cheek at the Thunderhill Diamond Mine. Major could have killed Wally then. To save him, Ariane had handed the shard, already in her hand, over to Major. That had forced them to follow Major to Yellowknife and steal the shard back from his hotel room. If she had been on her own, she would have simply laughed at Rex Major and escaped with the shard then and there.

  Wally could have been killed, and he almost cost you the first shard.

  Cold and sharp the thought came, cold and sharp as Excalibur itself, and again she knew where it had come from. But I might never have gotten that far in the first place without his help, she countered. She remembered Wally charging toward her when Major’s sales manager, Pritchard, had grabbed her in the alley, Wally wielding a broken hockey stick like a sword, striking away Pritchard’s knife and then knocking Pritchard to the ground. If Wally hadn’t been around, my quest would have ended right there.

  But even as she rejected the idea that Wally had almost cost her the first shard, she had to accept the other thought the shard had planted: Wally could have been killed. Again she reminded herself that the shard was a piece of a weapon – its attitude was brutal and direct. It didn’t care about Wally, or anyone else, it was just trying to manipulate her...but that didn’t change the truth of the sword-driven thought. And the stakes were only going to get higher. Yes, she had power, but so did Major, and he’d already shown he’d use it ruthlessly. She might be able to use her power to retrieve the second shard and escape, but could she protect Wally at the same time?

  She might hurt Wally’s feelings if she retrieved the second shard without his help, but she might save his life...especially if they were wrong and Rex Major did know where the second shard was, and they ran into him again.

  It’s worth a shot, she thought. If I can get it, great. And if I can’t, if it turns out I do need Wally’s help, I still have time to meet him at the airport...and he’ll never even know I tried to get it without him.

  She closed her eyes. She’d been focused on finding her way to the airport, but all the time the second shard had been pulling at her, almost due south from where she was now. For the first time she concentrated fully on its song.

  It was strong, and yet...there was something odd about it....

  She needed to get closer, and so she went back down to the shore of the little lake, stepped into the water, and dissolved.

  In the water, the second shard practically shouted at her: I’m here! I’m here! Come get me! She followed that clarion call through wild lakes and streams until she knew she was almost on top of it....

  ...but she couldn’t reach it! Yes, it was in water, but not enough to materialize in, and now she was so close she could also tell that the shard was deep underground. Even if she found another pool down there in which she could materialize, there was no guarantee she could get from it to where the shard was, and the thought of materializing underground in absolute darkness, perhaps in water completely enclosed in rock, with no airspace, terrified her. Would she even be able to dematerialize again and escape if that happened? Floundering in darkness, unable to take a single breath, would she have the courage or presence of mind to call on her power? Or would she die there, entombed deep beneath the earth, a puzzling fossil for some far-future paleontologist?

  No, thanks! She chose instead to materialize above ground, more than half a kilometre from where she had sensed the shard.

  She burst into a pool at the edge of a winding river. High cliffs of rough grey stone towered above her, but there was a narrow flat space of tumbled rocks between the water’s edge and the nearest cliff; at times, obviously, the river had far more water in it than now. She splashed ashore and ordered the water off herself, then closed her eyes and concentrated again on the call of the second shard. It was that way, behind her, so she turned, picking her way over the stony shore, until she finally found a gully that led up through the cliff face a few hundred metres downriver. She scrambled up it on all fours and emerged at last into a pine forest, perhaps three hundred metres wide, growing on a broad shelf of land between the cliff behind her and a second, higher cliff in front of her.

  She glanced around...and saw, no more than the length of a football field away, a large blue tent.

  It could have belonged to ordinary tourists, except most ordinary tourists wouldn’t bother to surround their tent and the rock face with a chain-link fence that ran right up to the cliff, forming a compound about ten metres on a side. The only way into the compound was through a narrow gate between Ariane and the tent.

  Most tourists also wouldn’t have looked as unfriendly as the two men in grey, vaguely military uniforms who sat at a folding table in front of the tent, playing cards. They glanced up as Ariane emerged from the forest, and one of them immediately stood and shouted, “Va-t’en! C'est la propriété du gouvernement!”

  She hesitated. She could almost understand that...something about government property and....

  The man took a menacing step toward her. “Je t’ai dit, va-t’en!”

  Ah. Go away. She held up her hands. “Pardonnez-moi,” she said. She gave the two guards...because that was obviously what they were...her biggest smile, then turned and went back into the forest.

  Once she was out of sight, she circled back through the woods, making sure
she didn’t get too close and moving as quietly as she could.

  From off to one side, she could get a better glimpse, stolen through a screen of branches, of the cliff face behind the tent. She saw a dark opening in the rock, a crack that didn’t look big enough for a man to slip through...though even as she watched, a man emerged from it. His orange overalls, smeared with dirt and mud, the helmet with a lamp, and the rope, hammers, and other climbing equipment hung all over him, made it clear he’d been in a cave.

  And it was equally obvious to Ariane, reaching out with her magical senses, that the second shard of Excalibur was inside that same cave.

  Has Merlin found the shard? Is this his way of keeping it safe until he can get here to claim it?

  But none of this looked like a Rex Major operation. Two apparently unarmed guards, who had chased her away but not arrested her, an ordinary chain-link fence, and nothing but a tent to hide the entrance? Major would have locked the cave behind a steel door as thick as a bank vault’s, guarded by a dozen armed men and a pack of killer dogs. These guys might not want anyone sneaking into the cavern, but they didn’t seem to think whatever they were guarding was likely to invite serious trouble. Maybe it’s just got some nice crystal formations and they’re hoping to set up a tourist attraction, she thought. Well, fine. I’ll be the first visitor.

  If she could get past them.

  The man who had emerged from the cavern disappeared into the tent, and came out a few minutes later without his overalls, helmet and climbing equipment. Dressed now in a casually elegant suit, he stopped and spoke to the guards for a couple of minutes, then left the fenced compound and disappeared into the woods away from the river, toward the second, higher cliff. A moment later he reappeared above the trees, climbing a path she hadn’t noticed until that moment. She watched him until a bend in the path took him out of sight, then turned her attention back to the guards, the tent and the cave entrance. The guards had resumed playing cards. All she had to do was sneak past them, get inside, find the shard and flow away through whatever underground stream she might find.