Song of the Sword Read Online Free

hand. She could feel the cool brush of liquid, but when she drew her fingers back, they weren’t even damp.
    “Come in, daughter,” said a feminine voice from beyond the veil. “Don’t be afraid.”
    That voice...! “Mom?” Ariane cried. She pushed through the veil.
    She found herself in a flickering, shimmering chamber. Shafts of watery sunlight struck the rippled floor, glancing off it in spikes of diamond light that nearly blinded her. “Mom?” she called again.
    “No,” answered the voice. “I’m sorry.”
    A wrenching sob escaped Ariane. She had been so sure .
    “Come closer,” the voice called. The shafts of sunlight coalesced around a raised platform at the far end of the chamber. A woman, tall and regal, clad in a long, flowing dress, watched her from a liquid throne. Behind the woman, a wall of water fell soundlessly into white foam.
    Then Ariane felt a chill, as though she had been plunged into a cold pool. The woman was made of water . Her hair and dress were only foam, and her arms, fingers, neck and head were as smooth and transparent as polished glass.
    “At last,” the watery apparition said, and Ariane wondered how she could ever have mistaken that rippling, musical voice for her mother’s.
    She found her own voice. “Who are you?”
    The woman spread her glass-like hands. “I am, or was, the Lady of the Lake.”
    Ariane blinked. “Like in King Arthur?”
    “It was I who gave Excalibur to Arthur,” the Lady said. “I received it back again when he lay dying at Camlann. I sent Lancelot to Camelot. And I persuaded Viviane to imprison Merlin more than a thousand years ago.” She shook her head. “Little did I know how short a millennium truly is.”
    Ariane stared at the Lady. Everything she said was impossible. Everything that had just happened – that was still happening – was impossible. Ariane was standing in a chamber deep under the water of Wascana Lake – deeper, in fact, than the lake itself! – conversing with a living water-sculpture. It couldn’t be happening. None of it.
    Her knees gave way and she sat down heavily on the watery floor – the dry watery floor, she noted with a tinge of hysteria. She pushed her palms against it. It felt like hard rubber. “I’ve gone crazy, haven’t I?” she whispered. “Just like Mom.”
    The Lady stepped down from the dais, and knelt beside her. Her transparent hand caressed Ariane’s cheek for a moment, and her cool, dry fingers felt as solid as her own. “You are very like your mother, you know,” she said softly, and Ariane’s head shot up at that. She stared at the vision.
    “My mother? You knew –”
    “We met,” the Lady said. “Two and a half of your years ago, I tried to give her what I now offer to you. She refused.”
    Ariane blinked. “What…what did you try to give her?” And then she felt a surge of anger. Her mother had come home soaking wet, had gone crazy… “What did you do to her?”
    “I did nothing to her,” the Lady said sadly. “She would not let me. She refused the power I offered her. Power to save the world.”
    “Save the world?” Ariane looked about her. “From what?”
    “Not from what, but from whom,” the Lady said. “Merlin.” She made the name sound poisonous. “Merlin seeks the shards of Excalibur, scattered around the world. He seeks to re-forge the sword and use its power to seize control, first of this world, then of our world, the world of Faerie. He must not succeed . The shards of Excalibur are mine, and must remain mine.”
    “Then why don’t you –”
    “I no longer live in this world, and the door between Faerie and Earth is all but closed. I can do very little here now but send dreams and, with great effort, this pale projection of myself. But my heir can act in this world. If she accepts the power I can give her, she can defeat Merlin. She can find the shards of Excalibur. She can save your world. And mine.”
    “Your…heir?” Ariane stared at the Lady’s