CHAPTER TEN

North. North. North!

Ariane’s heartbeat shifted into high gear. “He knows where I am. We’re idiots for using the computer!”

“No kidding.” Wally massaged his throat. “Are we ready?”

No, Ariane thought. Out loud she said, “Ready as we’ll ever be. We’ve packed everything.” She slung the pack onto her shoulders. “Oof. Including the kitchen sink, it feels like.”

“Not quite everything!” Wally dashed into the bedroom and grabbed the sheets of paper protruding from the mouth of the printer. He flipped through them. “Looks like we got it all except the last page. We got the map, anyway.”

Aunt Phyllis pointed at the backpack. “Will you be able to...um...‘move’ all that?”

“I think so.” I hope so.

“Then go. I don’t know what our friend outside has planned, but he could be breaking down the door any minute now.”

“We can’t leave you –”

Aunt Phyllis cut her off. “Go!” She lifted the baseball bat, expression fierce. “I told you, leave him to me.”

It didn’t feel right, but they had no choice. “Be careful,” Ariane said, then surprised Aunt Phyllis – and herself – by flinging her arms around her. “Don’t take any chances.”

Aunt Phyllis squeezed her tightly with her one free arm. “Look who’s talking.” She pushed Ariane away. “Now go. Go!” She hesitated. “Um...how do you go, exactly?”

Ariane laughed. She suddenly felt giddy with excitement and eagerness. It felt like...like the day she had finally mustered the courage to dive off the high board at the swimming pool. “We start by going to the bathroom.”

Wally and Aunt Phyllis both laughed. Once in the bathroom, Ariane started the tap. Her heart pounded, and when she reached out and took Wally’s hand, she felt his pulse racing too. “Good-bye, Aunt Phyllis. I don’t know how long this will take –”

“However long it takes, take it,” Aunt Phyllis said.

Wally blinked. “I just thought of something. When I don’t come home tonight, Ms. Carson will –”

“Leave her to me,” Aunt Phyllis said. “I’ll tell her you’re staying here overnight – and not to worry, I’m chaperoning. And I’ll make your excuses to the school tomorrow too. I can cover you for one day, anyway. Now, both of you, go! Just...be safe.”

“I promise,” Ariane said, though they both knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep. She put her free hand into the stream of water falling from the tap, paused a moment to listen for the water’s call, and then...

Plunged.

The water embraced her instantly and warmly, but she could feel it resisting Wally and the backpack. Her power poured out and overcame that resistance. She couldn’t keep it up for long. But this time, unlike last time, she knew exactly where she wanted to go. Keeping her mind fiercely focused, she raced north, through pipes and ponds, rivers and rapids, creeks and cataracts, toward the shard of Excalibur.

North. North. North!

Though she had no way to measure time, the journey seemed to be taking far longer than the trip to Hudson Bay. Wally and the backpack dragged at her, and Ariane began to fear that the duration of the journey would exceed the limits of her power.

All the time, the song of the sword sang in her head. She could almost see the shard, burning in her mind like a fiery beacon, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reach it. It seemed to be in a tightly enclosed space, too small to accommodate them. All she could do was get as close to it as possible, and hope that was close enough. With the last strength remaining in her, she found a body of water that would serve, and released the magic.

Water geysered as they materialized. With her power depleted, the cold lashed around her body and limbs like steel cables squeezing out her breath, and belatedly she realized their simple, deadly mistake:

She couldn’t swim wearing a backpack.

It pulled her under like an anchor tied to her back. She clutched instinctively at Wally’s wrist, even as she remembered that he couldn’t swim and she would pull him down with her. But he was holding her up somehow. Amazed, she quit struggling...and found that her feet touched bottom. Feeling more than a little foolish, she straightened up, and her head broke into the open air.

The clouds glowed a sickly gray-orange, reflecting dozens of sodium-vapour lights hung on posts and buildings at least half a mile beyond the far shore of the large pond in which they’d materialized. The cloud-light cast a ghostly pallor across the snow-covered ground. Somewhere out of sight, machinery growled and grumbled like restless dragons.

Ariane wrapped her arms around her shivering body and splashed toward the shore. “We’ve g-got to g-get warm!”

~ • ~

Wally splashed onto the icy shore just ahead of Ariane, his teeth chattering so hard he thought the enamel would crack. Having to materialize in water really sucked. Especially for someone like him, who swam about as well as a rock. And especially when the first shard was in the Northwest Territories. Why couldn’t it have been in Florida?

At least it was warm for the Northwest Territories: right around freezing, he guessed. Otherwise they might have materialized under ice too thick to break through. He shuddered (or shivered, it was hard to tell the difference) at the thought.

Still, even if their clothes weren’t freezing solid in the wind, it was plenty cold enough for him to sense Old Man Hypothermia lurking just around the corner. “C-can’t you w-wish the w-water off of us, l-like you d-did last t-time?”

Ariane had collapsed on the ground, head down, and didn’t even look up. “C-can’t,” she said dully. “I’m u-used up. N-nothing left.”

“G-guess we do this the old-f-fashioned way, th-then.” With clumsy fingers, Wally helped Ariane take off the backpack, opened it up, and started pulling out supplies.

Everything was dry – the waterproof bags and backpack had seen to that. The tiny two-person pop-open tent went up without a hitch, and he had the space heater with its frighteningly small tank of propane running in moments. Wally stood outside the tent and froze for an agonizing additional five minutes while Ariane put on dry clothes, then it was his turn to strip and struggle into dry things while she waited outside. Shortly after that, though, they were both snug in their super-lightweight fold-to-next-to-nothing “space-blanket” sleeping bags. They sat quietly, warming up and munching on high-protein hiking bars.

Wally licked the last crumbs of his bar off his fingers and crumpled the wrapper. “So far, so good. But what happens next? Do we try to find the shard tonight?”

There was no reply. He glanced over at the other sleeping bag. Ariane had slumped over onto her side, eyes closed. Her mouth hung slightly open and something very close to a snore issued from it.

I guess that answers that. Wally grinned. Wally’s Second Law of Sidekickery: Sleep when the heroine sleeps.

If he could. Wally had learned tricks like making a fire and what to eat in the forest in his Outdoor Education class, but so far, they’d only made day trips, never slept outdoors. And for the Knights, “camping” meant a trip in the big silver motor home tucked away in the third bay of the garage. The thin floor of the tent wasn’t exactly the air mattress he was used to on those trips, and the ground felt hard as...well, as frozen ground, though the layer of snow helped cushion it some. Well, it’s just as well if I don’t sleep. Someone should probably keep watch...just in case.

He lay back in his own sleeping bag, hands behind his head, resigning himself to a sleepless night.

He woke inside a tent aglow in sunlight, just as the flap was flung wide from outside.

“All right,” a man’s voice said gruffly. “Come out where we can see you.”

From somewhere nearby came the roar of a low-flying airplane.