Chapter Fifteen

Gunfire and Thunder

If Wally were perfectly honest with himself, the best part of the effort to free the fourth shard of Excalibur from its stony prison was the chance to lie crammed up against Ariane in the cozy confines of the little crevice into which she’d tucked herself while she worked her magic. You’re a walking cliché of a teenage boy, aren’t you? he told himself. All you can think about is –

Magic! He gasped as he felt it drawn from the shard he held with Ariane. And then he saw the white crystals of ice erupt between the boulders below them, and saw two small rocks hurtle across the chamber, and forgot everything else as he marvelled at what Ariane could do – was doing – even though he’d suggested it.

The jumbled boulders, tons of rock, came apart like a pile of blocks kicked over by an impatient toddler. He didn’t need Ariane to tell him when the fourth shard was at last exposed: he’d been feeling its presence since they returned to the chamber, but that had been like distant sheet lightning from the approaching storm – the moment it was truly revealed, it blazed in his mind like a bolt striking directly overhead.

And then he saw Rex Major and Flish and Jacob Lewis walk out onto the dock.

He swore. Then he did the only thing he could think to do.

He ran.

He scrambled over top of Ariane, got onto the rocks, and climbed up and out of the cavern, the water foaming around him. Once outside, he stumbled to the bank to his left and scrambled out of the water.

The wind had howled to a gale and the lighting flickered constantly, but the storm hadn’t truly broken yet – the thunder still lagged the lightning by several seconds, grumbling distantly instead of shattering the sky.

He glanced behind him. Lewis charged into the open at the top of the stairs, gun in hand. Wally gulped and dashed across the path, hoping to lose the skinny black man in the jungle. But as he plunged in among the wind-whipped trees, he heard a flat cracking sound that definitely wasn’t thunder, and something tore a chunk out of the trunk of a palm tree just above his head. He flung himself to the ground, gasping.

Lewis had shot at him. Lewis had actually shot at him!

And just like that, his fear vanished, swallowed up in an immense, burning anger, a rage both hot as a lightning bolt and as cold as the ice Ariane had conjured below. The heat of that fury drove him to do what he did next; but the ice told him how to do it.

Flat on his belly, he wriggled through the heaving trees, not away from the cave, but back toward it. He could see the boardwalk over the cataract through the leaves. He saw Lewis dash across it, saw him slow as he reached the footpath and drew closer to the spot where Wally had disappeared.

And then the man was within reach.

Wally exploded from hiding like an attacking jungle cat. He leaped up and slammed into Lewis. Lewis was much taller and outweighed him by a considerable amount, but even the biggest man would go down if hit properly, and Wally crashed into him like a defensive back taking down a receiver, right at the knees. Lewis cried out and fell, the gun flying from his hand. Wally leaped over him, rolled across rock, picking up new cuts and bruises, feeling the wound in his shoulder tear open anew, but coming up with the gun.

Lewis froze as Wally aimed the pistol at him. He’d never even held one before, and it felt alien in his hand, far heavier than he’d expected. Yet somehow he knew, if he chose to fire, he would not miss. “I know it’s not your fault,” Wally growled at Lewis. “You’re under Merlin’s Command. But I can’t let you stop us.”

Lewis said nothing. He hardly seemed to hear Wally. Maybe he couldn’t, under Merlin’s Command. He simply ignored the gun and leaped.

Wally’s finger started to tighten on the trigger – then something inside him rebelled, pushed back at the sword-fed impulse to kill. Instead he dodged, the shard’s power making him far fleeter of foot than the man. The gun seemed to reverse itself in his hand without his thinking about it, and he brought the handle down on Lewis’s head, just above the ear.

Lewis went down like he’d been clubbed – which, of course, he had – and didn’t move. A trickle of blood flowed from the cut the gun had opened.

Wally threw the gun into the jungle, then ran for the stairs, as lightning exploded directly overhead in the now-black sky, and the crack of thunder hard on its heels brought the storm down upon the island in earnest.

<•>

As Lewis dashed up the stairs and into the gathering storm in pursuit of the vanished Wally, Ariane kept her eyes on Merlin.

“I want to thank you for this,” the sorceror said. He indicated the scattered and shattered boulders. “I’d hoped you’d solve this problem for me. I had some ideas of my own, but having you do the work that hands me the fourth shard...well, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Ariane looked at Flish. “Rex Major just sent a man with a gun after your brother. Doesn’t that bother you at all?”

Flish laughed. “He’s not going to shoot him. Just catch him.”

At that moment, a gunshot echoed through the cave from outside, loud even above the sound of water and wind and grumbling thunder. Ariane’s heart leaped in her chest. Wally!

Flish, eyes suddenly wide, shot a shocked glance at Rex Major.

“He won’t kill him,” Major said. “That was just a warning shot. I’m sure Lewis will bring Wally back safe and sound in a few minutes.” He jerked his head at the water. “Get in there and get that shard. It’s exposed. I can feel it.”

Flish looked at the cave opening uncertainly a moment longer; then she took a sudden sharp breath and turned toward the pool. “So can I,” she breathed.

What? Ariane stared at the older girl, feeling outrage. Flish flashed Ariane a mocking smile, then climbed down the ladder into the water.

The cataract still poured around Ariane. The moment Wally had fled, she’d lost the extra power his touch on the shard gave her – and discovered just how much of her own power she’d been pouring into her ice-making.

She felt exhausted, hammered flat, as if the boulders she’d forced out of their spots had fallen upon her instead of into the sea. She wanted to seize the water flowing past her, hurl it at Rex Major as a weapon, hurt him, drive him to his knees, kill him if she could...

But she couldn’t. She had almost nothing left. She needed time to rest, to regenerate.

And she wasn’t going to get it.

Below her, Flish pulled herself dripping out of the water, and knelt among the rocks Ariane’s magic had shifted. Her hand plunged into the turbulent pool of fresh water into which the cataract now fell before pouring over the dam of boulders into the seawater.

And came out holding the fourth shard of Excalibur.

It was the twin of the third shard, a piece of metal perhaps twenty centimetres long, with a groove down its middle. Ariane heard its song crescendo as Flish pulled it out – but that swelling power was not directed at her. She could do nothing with it. Instead, it was at the beck and call of...

Her gaze jerked back to the dock.

Merlin.

“I must say,” Rex Major called, “I am impressed you were able to trace me here.” Wearing a Tilley hat, a loose-fitting flowered Hawaiian-style shirt, loose khaki pants and sandals, he looked every inch a vacationing businessman rather than an ancient, ruthless, and alien magician. He leaned casually on the railing of the dock.

“When I heard about the two ‘shipwrecked’ teens mysteriously found in the hut up above, who then even more mysteriously disappeared, I knew immediately it was you and Wally. And while I understand how you knew Felicia and I were visiting the Caribbean, I am quite astonished you managed to make the leap from ‘Caribbean’ to Cacibajagua Island.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t really care to be astonished. Would you like to tell me how you did it?” When Ariane made no answer, he sighed. “Never mind. You’ll tell me later.”

“No,” Ariane said, trembling with fatigue. “I won’t.”

Felicia’s attention had remained tightly focused on Ariane. Now she chimed in with, “Yes, you will, you bitch. We’ve got two shards now, and we’ll find the hilt.”

“You can’t take my shards from me,” Ariane said. “You can’t kill me. You can’t hold me. I can vanish in an instant.”

“Without Wally?” Flish said, her voice dripping with venom. “You two made it yet or has he realized what a skank you are?”

Fury roared up in Ariane at her words, fury fed by the shard she still held in her hand. Despite her exhaustion, tentacles of water rose up around Felicia, turned to ice-tipped spears. “Give me the shard,” she snarled. “Give it to me, and maybe I won’t kill you.”

Flish’s eyes widened. She froze in place.

“Tsk,” Merlin said. He sounded bored. “You shouldn’t try to threaten. You don’t do it very well.” He dug into his pocket, pulled out a smartphone. “Did you know they have cell phone service on this island?” he said conversationally. “They’ve really spared no expense.” He poked at the screen. “I know it’s kind of noisy in here, but you can probably hear this.” He held up the phone, screen toward her. “Mr. Axelrod,” he said loudly. “Please tell the young lady what you’ve done today.”

“Just like you said, Mr. Major,” came a voice, tinny and thin, but still somehow carrying above the rush of water from the cataract – boosted, no doubt, by some small magical trick of Merlin’s. “We drove down to Victoria from Nanaimo. We found Emily Forsythe working in the Tea Lobby at the Fairmont Empress. Grabbed her on her coffee break. She’s safely tucked away. We’re just awaiting further orders.”

“Just hold her, Mr. Axelrod,” Major said. “Until I tell you otherwise.”

“As you say, Mr. Major.”

Major drew back the phone, turned it off.

The rush of water all around Ariane faded to nothing beneath the roaring of the blood in her veins.

“I’m sure you understood what that meant,” Major said. “I’ve found your mother, Ariane. I’m holding her prisoner. You have no way of knowing where.”

“Ha!” said Flish. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”

Major held up a hand to quiet the girl. To Ariane he said, “And unless you hand over the shards of Excalibur you possess, immediately and of your own free will, I will have her killed. Am I clear?”

The tentacles of ice-tipped water surrounding Flish fell splashing into the pool. Ariane hardly noticed. All her attention had turned inward. Deep inside herself she found the tendril of power that led from her to her mother, the thread of shared magic that had linked them, heart to heart, when at last they had come face to face – the thread that had remained constantly humming with life at the core of her being every moment since.

They were both heirs of the Lady of the Lake. Ariane had accepted the power though her mother had not, but her mom still held a portion of it – and Ariane discovered, in that moment of need, that she could draw on her mother’s power as well as her own, at least for one thing:

To go to her.

She forgot all about the shards of Excalibur. She forgot all about Major, all about Flish, all about Wally.

The cataract chamber of Joju Cave vanished from around Ariane in an instant as she dissolved into the water of the cataract and then leaped up into the lightning-riven clouds.

No one threatened her mother.

No one!

<•>

Few things could surprise Merlin after two lifetimes on Earth and many, many long years before that in Faerie, but Ariane’s disappearance after he issued his threat managed it. He gaped at the spot where she had been until, suddenly, she wasn’t. She must be going back to Victoria, he thought. But she doesn’t know where my men are holding her mother. I don’t even know – I made sure I didn’t know.

Instinct. That had to be it. Her mother having been threatened, she’d run off to try to save her, even though it was futile. She’d clearly been exhausted. She wouldn’t even have the power to get to Victoria, and fast though she seemed to be able to get around, it would surely take her a couple of hours at least.

Even if she got there, it wouldn’t change anything. She couldn’t find her mother. She would come crawling back to him soon enough, not only willing but eager, desperate, to give him the two shards she still held.

By which time he would also have two. The ice-tipped tentacles of water that had been threatening Felicia had fallen away. “What are you waiting for?” he shouted. “Bring me the shard.”

Felicia, who had been staring in astonishment at the spot from which Ariane had vanished, turned toward him. “How did she...?”

“Really? You still have to ask?” Major said. “Magic, you stupid girl. I would have thought by now you’d figured out it’s real. Now bring me the shard!” The shard was right there, but not in his grasp. It was infuriating – but even as the sharp reply left his lips, he regretted it: he needed Felicia’s good will, and he could no more Command her than he could her brother, thanks to the blood of Arthur in their veins. “I’m sorry,” he called at once. “I’m just anxious. Please, Felicia, hurry.”

There, that was better, though from the look the girl gave him, not much. Something had changed: her face held a wariness that hadn’t been there since he had healed her leg. “You said you’d kill her mom,” she said slowly. “I mean, I hate her, but...that’s murder.”

Major felt contempt. And murder is a step too far for you? he thought. We’ll have to change that if you’re going to be my warrior queen.

But for now...

He composed his face into an expression of innocence. “It was just a threat. I have no intention of killing her mother, or anyone else. But I had to find a way to get her to stand down before she hurts someone...or gets hurt herself.”

He saw the doubt fading from Flish’s face. She wants to believe, he thought. And that’s almost as powerful a force as the Voice of Command. “And it worked. Ariane’s gone. Now bring me the shard. That’s why we’re here.”

“Yeah,” Flish said. And, at last, she moved. She waded back into the seawater, looked doubtfully at the shard, looked down at herself, tucked the shard carefully into the waistband of her bikini bottom, and then finally – finally, while Major maintained his reasonable expression through sheer force of will – launched herself into the water and started swimming toward the dock.

Major went to the ladder to meet her. From behind him he heard the slap of bare feet running on wood and half-turned – then fell head over heels into the seawater of Joju Cave as Wally Knight slammed into him at a dead run.

<•>

Wally had dashed headlong back toward the cave, leaving Jacob Lewis bleeding and unconscious on the trail behind him. The rain arrived as he reached the top of the wooden steps leading down into the cataract chamber, pouring down with sudden force as though the whole sky had become a waterfall. Wally ignored it, as he ignored the lightning and thunder and the pain of his cuts and bruises. He knew Rex Major would expect Lewis to bring him back. Dead or alive, he thought angrily. Standing over the black man’s body, he’d been able – barely – to withstand Excalibur’s urging him to kill Lewis. But the fury still fulminated inside him, some of it his, some of it the sword’s, and he could no longer tell which was which.

But angry didn’t have to mean stupid. He crept down the stairs to the very edge of the platform.

He could see Rex Major’s back, where the sorcerer stood pressed against the railing, as though it were between him and the one thing he loved most in the world – which, clearly, it was. He couldn’t see his sister, but he could hear her voice, asking a question, though between the rush of the water in the cavern and the rush of wind and rain and thunder outside he couldn’t understand what it was. If Ariane were still in the cavern, she wasn’t talking.

But he was plenty close enough to Rex Major say, “Now bring me the shard.” He sounded like a man coaxing a dog that was reluctant to bring back the stick he’d thrown for it. “That’s why we’re here,” he added.

Even through his anger, Wally’s mind remained wondrously clear, his thoughts arraying themselves in perfect order, like bullets in a magazine. What Major had just said meant Flish was down in the water – and she had the shard. She had it...not Major.

And Major, who had Commanded an innocent man to come after Wally with a gun, had just moved to the top of the ladder, the only part of the platform that didn’t have a railing, to help Felicia climb out.

Without thinking, it seemed, or else thinking thoughts shaped and sharpened by Excalibur itself, Wally hurtled across the platform and slammed into the centuries-old sorcerer who had threatened him and the girl he loved.

He hit him low and hard. Merlin toppled into the water, and Wally followed him.

Still driven by the strange, sharp knowledge of exactly what he needed to do, Wally twisted like a fish the moment he hit the sea and struck out for his sister, who had stopped in the middle of the cave, treading water, her eyes wide. He knew she had the shard on her and it wasn’t in her hand, so it had to be in her swimsuit. He dove beneath the surface, and saw it glimmering against the skin of her left flank. She tried to twist out of his way, but like his thoughts, his swimming ability had grown sharp as the shard itself. He snatched it from the waistband of her bikini, feeling cloth give as he did so, and struck out for where the water of the cataract foamed against the surface of the seawater.

She grabbed his foot, but he kicked, hard, and broke free. A moment later he was clambering out onto the boulders of the cataract, and climbing out of the cave, rain and wind in his face, lightning splitting the sky, thunder cracking and growling and rumbling. He glanced back. Felicia remained in the water, screaming at him, though he couldn’t hear her; for some reason she hadn’t tried to follow him up the rocks. Major floundered his way back to the ladder.

Wally knew exactly where he had to go with the shard: up the zigzagging path to Lake Tanama. Wherever Ariane had gone, she would be back for him, and she would appear in the lake. He only had to keep out of Merlin’s clutches until that happened, and then Ariane would have her three shards – and Major would be done. With the power of three shards, Ariane would be unstoppable. They’d have the hilt within days, and take Merlin’s shard from him soon after.

He reached the path and ran, the rain still pouring down in sheets, sluicing around his body. His wounded shoulder ached. The stones, sharp beneath his feet, had to be cutting them, too, but pain seemed unimportant with the shard in his hand. He felt nothing but strength and razor-sharp mental clarity.

Lewis no longer lay where he had fallen; presumably he’d woken up, and, free of Command and no doubt horribly confused as well as injured, staggered back toward the resort.

Wally reached the bottom of the lake trail, now its own mini-cataract: water poured down it, lit every few seconds by flares of lighting. He didn’t hesitate: he knew he had the skill to climb it, knew he would not slow or slip until he reached the top, knew that his plan was sound and Ariane would be back for him, knew it all with an absolute confidence that would have seemed utterly foreign to the Wally Knight who had begun the Lady’s quest, or even the Wally Knight who had arrived on the island just a little over an hour earlier – but that Wally seemed to have vanished, subsumed by this new, improved version: less Wally, a lot more Knight.

He glanced back as he reached the first switchback in the path, to see Merlin at the top of the stairs, Flish with him, a towel wrapped around her waist. He resumed climbing, reached the second switchback, glanced back again to see Merlin and Flish at the bottom of the path. But Major stopped Flish there. He was shouting up at Wally, Wally could see that, but he couldn’t hear the sorcerer, and he didn’t care. They couldn’t catch him, and he could elude them forever in the jungle covering the island – or for at least as long as he had to, until Ariane came back.

And she would come back. For the shard, and for him. He was certain of that, too.

He reached the third switchback, the last place from which the bottom of the path was still visible before trees hid it.

The world turned white.

Wally felt himself flying through the air, head ringing like a hammer-struck bell...

...and then the world faded from white to black.