CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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Sinks, Pools, and Toilets
The sorely puzzled Drezner cuffed Ariane and Wally. He saw the spreading bruise on the boy’s cheek and pointed. “How’d that happen?” But neither Wally nor Ariane answered him.
What’s the point? Ariane thought. No one but them had seen what Major had done, and Drezner apparently had no idea he’d even been asleep. He’d never believe a wild story of a successful businessman like Rex Major threatening a teenage boy with a stolen gun. Ariane could already see him brushing away his curiosity like an annoying insect.
The radio crackled, and Ariane heard Major’s voice over the open radio channel. “Security? Rex Major here.”
“Mr. Major!” Ursu’s voice crackled back at once. “Where are you?”
“Just driving out of the pit. It looks like your people have your little problem under control.” A little problem, Ariane thought bitterly. That’s all I was.
“This is highly unusual, Mr. Major. I assure you, we rarely have –”
“No need to apologize, Mr. Ursu. I was very impressed by the professionalism of your security staff. Very impressed. And, I might add, impressed by everything else I’ve seen today.”
“I’m pleased to hear it, Mr. Major.” Ursu sounded relieved. “I’d still like to show you the crushing facility, if you’ve –”
“That won’t be necessary – or possible. I’m afraid I must ask to be flown back to Yellowknife immediately.”
“So soon? But there’s so much –”
“I’ve seen enough, Mr. Ursu. I’ll be directing my financial people to make a sizeable investment in your company. Once I’m back in Yellowknife, we can finalize matters.”
A pause. “Really? I mean, that’s wonderful but –”
“Have the pilot meet me at the airfield immediately. I trust that won’t be a problem.”
“No, sir.” Another pause, filled with the indistinct murmur of voices in the background, then Ursu said, “He’s on his way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ursu. You’ve been most helpful.”
The radio crackled and went silent.
That’s it, then, Ariane thought. He’ll be gone before we’re even out of the pit. She leaned her head back against the tire and closed her eyes, letting her exhaustion take her.
“Taking a nap?” Drezner’s voice snapped her back to wakefulness. “Get up.” He pushed her and Wally through the pickup’s open passenger door and rounded the front of the truck to climb into the driver’s seat. As he started the engine, he glanced at Ariane. “I don’t know how you got away last time, young lady, but don’t think you can manage it again. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Ariane said nothing. She could feel her power seeping back...but slowly, so slowly. Food or sleep might bring it back faster, but there seemed little chance of either.
She’d just have to wait.
They drove out of the pit, passing half a dozen trucks headed the other way, probably full of maintenance workers and mine officials going to have a look at the crippled shovel. Ariane had no doubt she’d cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I didn’t even manage to hang on to the shard. I actually made it easier for Merlin to get it! Lady of the Lake? What a joke!
She leaned her head against the cool glass of the window and stared at the ground rolling past, wishing she had never heard the singing of the water in Wascana Lake.

~ • ~
Wally glanced at Ariane. It didn’t take a mind reader to see she was upset. He couldn’t blame her. He felt more than a little low himself. Some Companion of the Order of the Lady. Kidnapped by the villain. Used to blackmail the heroine. I should have stayed home.
He touched his bruised cheek and winced. He’d been bullied his entire life, thanks to being both small and smart, but no one had ever threatened to kill him before – not someone who really meant it anyway (Flish didn’t count). It proved Major’s – Merlin’s – ruthlessness, of course, proved he couldn’t be allowed to get Excalibur...but there was something Major had said, about needing the sword to free his own world from tyranny, and waiting fifteen centuries for this moment, that had struck a chord in Wally. He could almost sympathize with him...probably would have sympathized with him, if he had been a character in a book. Locked away without magic for centuries, freed at last but almost powerless, fighting to free his world? When you thought about it that way, Rex Major was a character straight out of a fantasy epic.
Wally snorted. He’s Merlin.Of course he’s a character straight out of a fantasy epic!
They rolled out over the lip of the pit, and Wally saw a Twin Otter lifting into the sky from the airfield beyond the lake. “Major, headed back to Yellowknife,” Drezner commented. “And after he finishes up his business, he’ll be heading to Toronto.” He leaned forward to see the plane better. “Lucky dog. I’m stuck here six more weeks before I get any leave.”
Finishes up his business? An idea suddenly blossomed in Wally’s head. What had Major said? “Once I’m back in Yellowknife, we can finalize matters.”
He’s not heading straight back to Toronto, he thought. He could be in Yellowknife for hours. There’s still time! Wally glanced at Ariane. We have to talk...
But Ariane didn’t seem to have noticed the exchange. Her head remained pressed against the glass, and her eyes stayed closed. Wally could only imagine her exhaustion. How much energy would it take to lift a slab of rock that size that high and that fast?
He spent the rest of the short ride trying to calculate it, but hadn’t managed to figure it out before they rolled to a stop in front of the main building. Drezner ushered them inside. “The Mounties are on their way. They’ll be here in a couple of hours. Then we’ll get to the bottom of this. For now, you can cool your heels.” He knocked on the glass of the reception booth. The guard inside, who had switched from Sports Illustrated to a five-year-old National Geographic, looked up and frowned. “What is it, Drez?”
“Is 104 still empty, Ben?”
Ben heaved an exaggerated sigh, put down his magazine, and tapped the computer keyboard to his right. He peered at the screen. “Until the crew refresh next Saturday.”
“Let me have the key.”
Ben sighed again, hauled his rather large bulk out of the chair, and disappeared from sight. He returned with a keycard and slid it through the small square opening at the bottom of the glass window that separated him from the world. “Is that all?” His tone implied that it had better be.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Drezner slipped the keycard into his shirt pocket, then took Wally’s arm with one hand and Ariane’s with the other. “I’m going to lock you in one of the apartments until the Mounties get here. But don’t think you can use the time to get your stories straight because I’m going to be with you every second.”
To Wally’s surprise, Ariane spoke for the first time since Drezner had loaded them into the pickup. “What if I have to go to the bathroom? Are you going to follow me in?”
“Maybe I should, since you got out of one locked bathroom already,” Drezner growled, but then he unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and said into it, “Security One, this is Security Five, over.”
“Security One here. You got those kids locked up yet, Drez? Over.”
“Just about. I’m going to put them in 104. But I need a female guard too, to watch the girl in case she...you know. Can you send Jenny down? Over.”
“Roger that, Drez. I’ll have her there in two minutes. Over.”
“Thanks. Over and out.”
Drezner clipped the walkie-talkie back onto his belt. “Satisfied?”
Great, Wally thought. Her best chance to get away, and she blew it.
Not that it would help him if she pulled a disappearing-from-the-bathroom act again.
Drezner led them down the corridor to the main hallway, and across it through fire doors into what looked for all the world like a hotel – not a fancy Banff Springs kind of hotel, maybe, but at least a Travelodge in Moose Jaw. The door Drezner opened with the keycard, though, led not into a hotel room but into a small – very small – apartment, with its own kitchenette, a separate bedroom and a bathroom located just inside the front door. The main living room featured a couch, a desk, bookshelves, a TV (complete with a video game console) and a couple of big armchairs covered in leather dyed an unfortunate shade of purple.
Wally barely had time to take all that in before someone said “knock, knock” behind them. He turned to see another security guard, a skinny blonde with pouty lips, an angular face and way too much eye shadow.
“Hi, Jenny,” Drezner said. “Will you watch the door?”
She nodded.
Drezner settled into one of the chairs. “Make yourselves at home,” he told Wally and Ariane.
Jenny dragged one of the two chairs away from the tiny dining table, placed it in front of the door, and then sat down on it and leaned back, legs stretched out, arms folded, face impassive.
Wally looked at Ariane, then at the kitchenette sink. She followed his glance, but turned away from the kitchenette and sat down on the couch. Not knowing what else to do, Wally sat next to her. “I guess we wait, then?”
“I guess you do,” Drezner replied, though Wally had aimed the question at Ariane. Her only response was to lean back and close her eyes.
Drezner picked up the remote control from the arm of his chair and turned on the TV. Two men were scrubbing little brooms against a sheet of ice, trying to stay ahead of a round chunk of granite with a blue handle on top of it. “You like curling?”
Wally groaned. “No!”
The sliding rock slammed into a stationary one with a sound like a thunderclap. The crowd roared. Drezner shrugged. “Too bad.”
For the next hour and a half, Wally watched sliding rocks and men with brooms while Ariane napped, or so it seemed. Nobody said anything. After forty-five minutes, Drezner changed places with Jenny. She sat just as silently as he had, staring at the TV.
Finally, ninety minutes later, Ariane opened her eyes and stood up.

~ • ~
Ariane knew very well what Wally had meant by his pointed look at the sink. She hadn’t missed the significance of Rex Major stopping in Yellowknife before returning to Toronto either. In Toronto, he would have the shard locked up, and unless his safe had running water, they’d never be able to get their hands on it. But in Yellowknife...
If only she wasn’t so tired!
Drezner had said the Mounties would arrive in “a couple of hours.” So, while Wally suffered through curling, she dozed, trying not to use any more energy than she had to.
She needed even more time to fully recover...but they were running out of it.
She stood up. Wally’s eyes snapped to her. So did Drezner’s. So did Jenny’s. She tried to keep her voice casual. “Anything to eat in the kitchen?”
“I doubt it,” Drezner said. “Place should have been emptied out when the guy living here went south.”
“Mind if I take a look? I’m starving.”
Drezner shrugged. “Go wild.”
She glanced at Wally. “Want to help?”
Wally grinned. “Sure!”
She winced. Don’t sound so eager! But Drezner’s gaze had already shifted back to the TV.
Ariane made a show of searching the cabinets while Wally looked in the refrigerator. Except for a stack of plastic cups, an empty two-litre Coke bottle and a box of sugar cubes (Ariane ate six – calories were calories), the shelves were empty.
Wally closed the refrigerator. “Nothing in there but a bad smell.”
Ariane took a couple of cups from the stack and handed one to Wally. “Guess we’ll have to settle for a drink of water.”
Wally grinned again. “Good. I’m thirsty.”
Ariane turned on the tap.
“They have really good water up here,” Wally said. “At least, they do in Yellowknife.”
She almost laughed. “So I’ve heard.”
“What are you two up to in there?” Drezner stood up from his chair and took a couple of steps toward them. “You’re wasting water.”
Ariane hardly heard him. The water had begun to call to her the moment she turned on the tap, but what she needed to hear was the song of the sword...and there it was, a faint echo of what she had heard in the pit, but much stronger than it had been in Regina. West...and south.
Yellowknife. It had to be.
“Just running it to get it cold,” Wally said.
Ariane touched the stream of water, and felt the power surge within her – not as strong as it had been at its peak, but strong enough. She grabbed Wally’s hand. Some perverse impulse made her call, “’Bye, Drez. ’Bye, Jenny. Wish I could say it’s been fun – but it hasn’t.”
She delayed long enough to see Jenny leap up from the couch and Drezner lunge toward them – and then she let the flow take them. She heard the beginning of twin shouts before everything vanished.
They rushed through the pipes to the sewage treatment plant, through the outflow pipe into the depths of a lake, through rivers, muskeg and underground aquifers. She followed the song of the sword, feeling the shard grow closer and closer – until she knew they were as close as they could get.
They emerged in warm water that stung her eyes. She straightened her legs, and her feet touched concrete instead of mud.
She found herself standing beside Wally in a swimming pool. A little girl, maybe four years old, stared wide-eyed at them from the coils of a floating green plastic donut with the head of a dragon. “You shouldn’t go swimming with your clothes on,” she said.
Ariane smiled at her. “You’re right!” She looked around. Three older children, two girls and a boy, and a couple of very startled-looking adults stared back from the other end of the pool, which was inside a three-story greenhouse-like structure attached to a larger building. Waterslides towered at one end. Balconies with sliding glass doors overlooked the pool on the building side, which they were facing. Behind them, outside the moisture-fogged glass, sunlight glared off deep snow. Inside, the temperature was tropical.
It’s a hotel, Ariane thought. Major must be staying here.
“Hey! You kids get out of there!” A man in a blue janitor’s uniform appeared from behind the waterslides.
“Yes, sir!” Ariane called. She and Wally climbed from the pool using the nearest ladder. They stood dripping on the tiled side of the pool while the janitor gave them a long lecture about fouling the pool and the dangers of drowning and where were their parents anyway? He ended by banning them from the pool for the rest of their stay and told them to get out before he reported them to the management.
Trying to look sheepish, they slipped past the giggling kids, lined up on the edge of the pool like spectators at a water polo match. A short carpeted corridor, with doors leading to the men’s and women’s change areas, connected the pool area to the lobby. By the time they reached the end of it, they were dry but the walls were dripping. Serves the old guy right, Ariane thought, then felt a little guilty – the janitor hadn’t really done anything they didn’t deserve, from his point of view – but there really was nowhere else to send the water.
They entered the lobby. Two armchairs upholstered in green plaid stood on either side of an artificial fireplace, and Ariane led Wally to them. “OK,” she said in a low voice once they were both seated. “That was the easy part. Now we have to figure out how to get into Major’s room and find the shard.”
“Wait until he’s taking a bath and materialize in his bathtub?” Wally suggested.
“Uh...no.” But the mental image of the two of them emerging in a bathtub while a naked Major stared at them, shocked, made her grin a little – and then a lot when she thought of all the water their arrival would spill across the bathtub floor. “Got it! What we need is a diversion...and a way to get into Major’s room.”
“What if he’s in it?”
“Then we’ll wait until he isn’t,” Ariane said.
“First we need to figure out which room it is,” Wally pointed out.
“Shouldn’t be hard. In fact, let’s do it right now.” She hopped out of the chair and cocked her head, listening to the song of Excalibur, coming from... “Follow me.”
A hallway ran the length of the building. They entered a stairwell at one end and climbed up to the first landing, where Ariane hesitated, listening. “At least one more floor...” Up another flight. “This one.” Into the hallway. “Other wing.” Past the elevators. The shard’s song was so loud now she could hardly believe Wally couldn’t hear it. She placed her hands on the wall, and began walking slowly along the corridor, running her fingers over the paint. Stronger...stronger...and then, suddenly, weaker. She backed up. “Here!”
Wally checked the room number: 303. “OK, so now how do we make sure he’s not in there with it?” he whispered.
Ariane led him back down to the lobby, and picked up the handset of a white courtesy phone on the desk. She dialed Major’s room number, listened for a moment, then hung up. “No answer. He’s not in there.”
“And here I thought you’d use magic,” Wally said. They left the lobby, and this time took the elevator to the third floor. As the door opened and they stepped into the hallway, he said, “So, what’s your diversion?”
“Watch.” Once again standing outside Room 303, Ariane pressed her forehead against the wall, feeling for water. “Got it,” she whispered, and tugged.
A rumbling in the wall, a gurgling, a loud clanking sound – and Ariane stepped back, smiling.
“Now what?” Wally said.
“Now we run downstairs and tell them the toilet in our room overflowed.”
“The toilet in our...oh!” He laughed. “Sweet!”
They raced back down the stairs and down the hall, but Ariane stopped Wally before they reached the lobby. “Allow me,” she said. She sauntered into the lobby and banged on the bell on the desk. A clerk emerged.
“Yes, miss?”
“There’s something, like, wrong with the toilet in our uncle’s room?” Ariane said, trying to sound both bored and annoyed and making sure to add a little uptick at the end of each sentence to make everything sound like a question. “There’s, like, water running all over the floor? And, like, into the corridor and everything? It’s really gross?”
The desk clerk looked stricken. “I’m so sorry, miss! We’ll have that looked after right away.” He grabbed the phone. “Maintenance, we’ve got a broken toilet in Room –” he looked at Ariane and Wally.
“303,” Wally supplied with a helpful smile.
“303. Hurry, please.”
“Our uncle is going to be so bummed,” Ariane said. She heaved an exaggerated sigh, and then sauntered back out of the lobby. The moment they were out of sight of the concierge, she grabbed Wally’s arm and ran to the elevator.
“Uncle?” Wally said.
“He’s going to look up who’s in Room 303,” she said. “He may know who Rex Major is, but there’s no way he can be sure we’re not Major’s niece and nephew.”
“Smart,” Wally said.
They exited the elevator on the third floor and strode down the hall to where, sure enough, a dark stain was spreading across the blue-green carpet beneath the door to Room 303.
The janitor who showed up a moment later, a little out of breath, was the same man who had ordered them out of the pool. His eyes widened. “You two! What did you do this time?”
“Nothing,” Wally said, which was true – for him. “The water just suddenly came over the top of the toilet.”
The janitor grunted. “Likely story.” He used his passkey to open the room. While he walked into the bathroom, Ariane and Wally moved over the soaking carpet into the main room.
The room looked unused, except for a single soft-sided suitcase that lay on a stand below the curtained window, and a closed laptop computer on the desk.
The shard sang to Ariane from the suitcase. She wondered why Major had left it unattended...and when he would be back. They might not have much time. She hurried to the suitcase and tried to open it...
...and only then saw the bright orange miniature padlocks that held each zipper closed.
“It’s locked,” Ariane whispered to Wally.
He fingered the locks, then glanced back at the bathroom. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. He tiptoed toward the bathroom, and Ariane, wondering what he was up to, followed him.
As they came close to the door, she could see the janitor’s boots and hear his muttered cursing. He was kneeling on the floor pulling at something in the toilet tank. His back was to them. All she could see was his rear end...
...and his tool belt. Wally pointed, and Ariane followed the gesture. Hanging from the belt was a heavy pair of tin snips, the kind plumbers used. “I’ll distract him, you grab,” he whispered.
“What? Wait –”
But Wally didn’t wait. He stepped into the room. “Can I help?” he said eagerly. He leaned over the toilet tank. “What’s that thing do?”
“Don’t touch –” The janitor reached into the tank as Wally pulled on something. The toilet flushed, more water poured over the edges of the bowl, the janitor swore, and in all the confusion Ariane jumped forward and pulled the snips from the tool belt. Then she turned and dashed for the suitcase.
“Hey!” The janitor tried to get to his feet, but was understandably hampered by having his hand in a toilet tank and water running over his pants. Wally was faster. He escaped the bathroom on Ariane’s heels and slammed the door behind him. Then he grabbed its handle with both hands and held on with all his strength while the janitor yelled furiously on the other side and tried to pull it open. “Hurry!” he panted.
The tin snips made short work of the padlocks. She unzipped the suitcase and flicked it open. “Ariane!” Wally said urgently.
She plunged her hands into the clothes inside the suitcase, feeling through shirts, underwear, slacks...and there it was, something hard, inside a pair of socks. She tried to pull it out...
And couldn’t. She might as well have been trying to lift a building.
Magic. She tugged uselessly at the sock that held the shard while the janitor continued to jerk the door handle and roar expletives. “Ariane!” Wally yelled. “Quick!”
Ariane closed her eyes, tried to reach inside herself as she had in the séance – the “meditation exercise” – with the candle in her bedroom. She couldn’t counteract magic with physical strength. She needed her own magical power, the Lady’s power. But how...?
And then she realized the answer had been right in front of her all along. She quit tugging at the sock and concentrated instead on the shard. Its song was urgent, powerful. As she had in the pit, she felt that the shard wanted to be with her, wanted to come to her. All she had to do was...
...call it.
Into Ariane’s head spilled a new song, her own song, the language of the sword, the music of the water. It welled up into her throat and she heard herself singing out loud. And just like that, the shard released itself, the point slicing through Major’s sock and his spell as easily as a knife through butter.
Ariane stopped singing and opened her eyes. The shard rested in her right hand. Its song rang in her head, the essence of joy. On impulse, she raised it to her lips and kissed its cold metal before slipping it into her pocket.
“Ariane!” Wally shouted as the doorknob slipped out of his hands. The janitor slammed the door open and emerged like an angry bull.
“What the hell are you playing at?” he roared. “You’re coming down to the...” And then his gaze slid to the open suitcase and the pieces of padlock littering the carpet. “What the...?”
Wally backed away from him. Ariane scuttled sideways to join Wally.
“Forget talking to the manager, you’re going to be talking to the police,” the janitor snapped. He stepped out of the bathroom, his feet making squishing noises in the soaking-wet carpet.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Ariane said, taking Wally’s hand. She pushed down with her right foot, and heard a satisfying squelch.
The janitor stepped forward. “Come on,” he said. “Give back whatever you took.” He held out his hand...
...and Ariane let the water in the carpet take them away, into the bathroom, into the overflowing toilet, down into the sewers.
Ariane regretted for a moment that she wouldn’t be around to hear the janitor try to explain to his boss exactly what had happened to the two kids who had been giving him trouble all morning...
...or to see what happened when Rex Major returned.