[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 138/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 5th May, 2023
Jim unpacked their supplies while Douxie - beg pardon, Taliesin - dragged the insensate Merlin-to-be out of the kitchen and into the courtyard the house surrounded.
At least, Jim thought, Myrddin Wylt hadn't thrown up. That they'd found. In this room. Because vomit was disgusting and gross and one of the thousand reasons Jim was never, ever going into the medical field like his mom.
Also, it was weird seeing Merlin younger. His hair was black instead of white, and not rapidly receding under the metal plate he'd worn on his head. He was wearing clothing, not armor, and it wasn't even all black. And the bags under Merlin's eyes were nowhere near as bad as Jim was used to from him. Douxie's, in fact, were worse.
Merlin didn't look any older than Jim's mom, and that fact was downright freaky.
"All right," Douxie said, coming back into the room. "I've left him on a bench out there. The fresh air, gods willing, will help him sober up." There was a gleam in his newly blue eyes and a mad smirk on his face. "Let's take stock and see what we've got here." He started rummaging through the kitchen.
"I am so glad you didn't change your voice," Jim told him. "Because it's the only thing keeping me from thinking you're a stranger."
"Ha." Douxie flashed a grin at him. "You've not spent nearly long enough around wizards yet if this is throwing you, Sir Steve."
"I will hurt you," Jim threatened. But Douxie had a point; "Jim" would eventually be too recognizable a name, particularly paired with magic armor. So Jim needed a different name, and it had to be one he would react to. And Merlin had never, ever remembered Steve's name. "What are you making, anyway?" Douxie was pulling bottles out of a cabinet, uncorking them, and sniffing at each one. Most, he put back; a few, he didn't.
"Sobering-up potion and hangover remedy."
"Uhh. You're not good at potions?" Jim reminded the wizard.
Douxie held fingers up. "I am good at a few, very specific, potions. And if you think I've gotten through nine hundred years on this planet without knowing how to treat a hangover, you've not spent enough time with Zoe."
"What does Zoe... never mind, I do not want to know," Jim decided as Douxie let out a soft "ha!" and triumphantly added a jar to his array of ingredients. "What do you need from me?"
"Find me a bowl, and crack in about half a dozen of those eggs," Douxie directed.
Jim obeyed. "Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble," he muttered, looking for a fork or spoon to beat the eggs with even as Douxie started measuring various powders into his hand and dumping them in atop the eggs.
Douxie laughed. "It's actually 'double, double toil and trouble'," he corrected.
Jim stared at the unfamiliar dark face. "You're kidding me."
"Nope!" Douxie said cheerfully. "Now that you've mastered Romeo and Juliet, we'll start you on the Scottish play next." His knuckles made a quick rap on the wood of the table.
"Double makes no sense," Jim complained, finally giving up on the organizational principles of the medieval kitchen and pulling out one of the spoons Douxie had carved. "Bubble does! It's a cauldron."
"Yeah, but we're talking witches here," Douxie said as Jim began to mix the potion. "It's double, as in double the toil and trouble. Think a misfortune spell."
Jim paused. Leveled the dripping spoon at the wizard. "You performed in it."
"Of course," Douxie said easily. "I have footnotes from the bard himself."
"I am siccing Miss Janeth on you," Jim muttered, and returned to beating the eggs-and-stuff.
After a minute, Douxie finished dumping various items into the bowl. "All right, that's mixed enough," he said, picking it up. There was a gleam in his eyes and a vicious smile slashing its way across his face. "Time to go pour this down Merlin's throat."
The first assassination attempt came early in the morning.
Leaving his apartment, Waltolomew made his way to his reserved parking space, going over his plans for the day. The district was still searching for a new principal for the high school, and while he liked power, he liked teaching better. His term as an interim principal had only ever been intended to be a short one. Yet given the apparent dearth of acceptable candidates, there had been mention of offering him the position on a permanent basis. Did he want that? How would Barbara feel about it? What would Jim's opinion be, when he returned?
And perhaps more importantly, could Waltolomew trust anyone else to competently run what was turning into a rather open minded school? One with aliens and witches as students, trolls and wizards as guest speakers?
Frowning in thought, he got into his car, placing his briefcase on the passenger seat, and closed the door. Buckling himself in, he had only an instant to realize the shield ring on his finger had grown hot and buzzing as the seatbelt latch went click.
The car exploded.
Ears ringing, he crouched in the middle of the crater the blast had made. The vehicles to either side of his had been rocked onto their sides. Others farther away had their car alarms shrieking, a deafening, cacophonous array.
On his green stony finger, the ring gleamed.
Waltolomew gritted sharp teeth together, then consciously made the shift back to human. His clothing was undamaged; his hair, impeccable.
It was only his nerves that were shattered.
Breathing deeply, he forced himself to calm, and walked out of the crater. Twenty feet away, he stopped and turned, looking back at the disaster. His teeth gritted together again. "Blast it," he said, conscious of the pun even as he said it. "My briefcase." Which had been full of graded essays, now lost to some disgruntled changeling's vendetta.
Huffing through his nose, he walked on, until he was at the curb and the volume of the alarms was muted by the building. Pulling his cellphone out of his pocket, he dialed a number and waited.
"What is it?" an annoyed voice demanded as she picked up.
"Nomura. Might I trouble you for a lift to work?" He kept his voice light. She would want to know about this; if he was in danger, she likely was as well.
A deeper voice rumbled a question in the background. Waltolomew's brows raised as he placed it. My, my. It seems Draal's courtship is progressing well.
"Strickler," Nomura said, both answering her paramour and addressing her caller. "Why can't you drive yourself?"
"I've had a bit of car trouble," Waltolomew told her. "Positively explosive engine issues."
Silence.
"I'll be there in five," she told him, and hung up.
"Drink this," someone said, and tilted a bowl full of ambrosia under Myrddin's nose.
He opened his mouth and willingly imbibed.
It was warm, it was delicious, it was soothing to his raw throat...
...it hit his stomach and exploded.
The bowl was yanked away and Myrddin turned onto his side as the contents of his stomach, days and days worth of alcohol and little else, came boiling back out of him in great heaves and bulges, bile splattering on the ground by an unfamiliar pair of shoes.
The hand on his arm never let go. Another rubbed circles on his back. "That's it. Get it all out," the man said. Finally Myrddin was reduced to gasps and spitting, a sharp, vile taste in his mouth. A square of white linen appeared before him; he took it and used it to wipe specks of vomit from his face. A stench rose from the spattered ground, piercing and repugnant. "Now, drink the rest." The bowl was picked up, reappeared in his line of sight. "It'll settle your stomach."
"Foul lies," Myrddin grumbled, and spat again.
That earned him a chuckle. He looked up, into striking blue eyes set into a smiling dark face. No one he knew. "Drink, young wizard," the man said, though he himself looked significantly younger than Myrddin was. "The posset will not upset your stomach again."
If he was lucky, Myrddin thought, the potion would kill him and he'd be in the ground with those he loved. But he knew he was not that lucky. And this man - this wizard - giving him a command irked.
Still, he seized the bowl.
And drank.
Never let them see you sweat, Hisirdoux thought as Myrddin drank. This was the greatest con of his life, and it was absolutely terrifying. But he kept smiling, because he could not afford to slip.
He was an actor, playing a role. He hope Taliesin would forgive him, from whatever afterlife he was in, for the use of his name and certain of his characteristics. Because Douxie couldn't be Douxie right now, and inhabiting someone else's skin leant so much verisimilitude to any role.
He only hoped Jim was getting on as well in his role as Sir Steve.
Speaking of.
Jim popped his head out into the courtyard and made a face at the mess Myrddin had made there. "Yuck."
Myrddin, for his part, hunched gremlin-like over the bowl of potion, glared at Jim. "Who the blazes are you?"
"Steve," Jim said defiantly. His dislike of Merlin colored his tone. "Sir Steve."
"And what are you doing in my household?" Myrddin demanded.
Jim shrugged and gestured at Douxie. "Following him. And cleaning up after your drunken ass, I guess."
"My friend," Douxie butted in before things could devolve further, "is under a geas to aid the trolls. Charlemagne directed us to you, said you might know where to find them."
"And who might you be?" demanded Myrddin, with a glare.
Douxie drew himself up to his full height. Not as tall as Myrddin, but the codger was sat on the bench, and he was standing. "I am Taliesin," he said. "Of Atlantis."
Myrddin's eyes widened at that. His gaze darted to the intricate embroidery embellishing Douxie's robes - all of it Atlantean motifs. Finally his gaze returned to Douxie's face.
"Bollocks," he said.
Jim's eyes met Douxie's.
Douxie shrugged. "Believe what you like," he told Myrddin, and with a flick of his fingers, swept the man off his feet even as he downed the last dregs of his hangover cure. He only had a firm telekinetic hold on one of Myrddin's shoes, but that was enough to ferry him along, upside down and cursing. "Come along, young Myrddin."
Jim had to admit that watching Douxie magically manhandle young Merlin, literally kicking and screaming, into a bath was going to go down as one of the highlights of this trip.
Well, he had to admit it to himself. Because this was going to be one of those things that Jim was going to have to take to the grave. If Merlin ever found out that "Taliesin" had been Douxie....
Jim reflexively winced and turned away from the enforced telekinetic dunking and scrubbing.
He couldn't tell Blinky about this. Couldn't tell Toby. Couldn't even tell Claire.
Ever.
Because they might accidentally let things slip, and Merlin had already been willing to seal Douxie away. Who knew what worse he'd do if he found out his apprentice had conned him and "Taliesin" had been a lie?
As a matter of fact, he and Douxie were going to have to be highly selective about what they did say about this trip. Met Charlie, probably okay. Learned some surprising things about what happened to Atlantis, sure. Met a unicorn, definitely fine. Saved some trolls, well, that was already in the Book of Ga-Huel. But any hint of Merlin having been a connecting point between A and B? Would have to be scrubbed as thoroughly as Merlin was getting right now. Because Merlin had already shown no compunction about changing Jim's species or sealing away his own apprentices.
It seemed wrong, somehow, that the man who had for so long been in charge of saving the world was someone Jim had to look at as an enemy. And it was probably even worse for Douxie, who genuinely loved and admired Merlin.
But neither could either of them deny the man's actions.
"All right, I think that's enough." Douxie dumped another bucket of warm water over the spluttering man. "Sober and clean, can't get better than that."
Merlin, looking like a drowned rat, glared at Douxie and said an impressively vitriolic string of words that Jim was very sure would've gotten his mouth washed out. Some of them, Jim even understood.
Which, he supposed, was his cue.
Jim disappeared into the kitchen, where he'd started a small fire going, and retrieved the linen towel he'd hung nearby. Going back to where Douxie had set up the tub, Jim balled up the towel. "Catch," he called, and lobbed it at Merlin. He barely waited to make sure it hadn't hit the dirt before going back inside and pulling the layers of clothing off the other pegs around the fire. Linen undershirt, embroidered wool overshirt, what Douxie assured him were leggings, a pair of socks. All clean and, maybe more important, warm.
No underwear, because apparently that hadn't been invented yet. Which thought made Jim shudder.
"A pox upon your houses," snarled Merlin, still dripping wet but wrapped in the towel, as he followed Douxie into the kitchen.
"Now is that any way to talk to the men who saved you from drinking yourself to death?" Douxie asked lightly, accepting the bundle of clothing from Jim and passing it in turn to Merlin.
Who glared balefully at the pair of them. "I had rather be dead."
"And unburied, and unhallowed," Douxie countered cheerfully. "Though I suppose it wouldn't be long until the wild beasts scattered your bones, seeing as you've clearly driven off your neighbors."
"What do you know about it?" Merlin snapped, struggling into his shirt.
"I know quite a lot," Douxie said, exchanging a glance with Jim. Douxie nodded toward the fire and gave Jim a smile and a thumbs-up.
Well, that was something Jim would be able to talk about, back home: Douxie taught me how to build a fire.
"How about something to eat?" Jim offered. He had a feeling they'd be based out of Merlin's home for a while, so he'd already unpacked the supplies Charlie had loaded them down with. Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the wooden tray of thick slices of artisanal bread, and set it on the table. He'd started some stew reheating in a pot hooked over the fire; now, he pulled the pot away from the flames, and started ladling its contents into the bowls he'd found. A bowl of nuts went on the table, along with a round of cheese, a ball of butter on a plate, and some apples, only slightly wizened, that Jim had found packed in straw.
Merlin subsided, grumbling, as Jim fed him.
"Burnin' tha midnight oil, are ya?" NotEnrique asked, appearing head-down in Claire's open window.
"Mom's going to be mad you're up and clawing into the woodwork at this time of night," she told him, looking up from her textbook.
"Same back at ya," the ex-Changeling told her, popping the screen out, coming in through the window, and then refastening the screen in place behind himself. "'Sides, there's good eatin' out there at night. 'Specially if you got a flashlight."
"Ugh." Claire made a face.
NotEnrique grinned. "Moths are real, real tasty," he told her, rubbing at his belly.
"Agree to disagree, bro."
"Your loss. So whatcha readin'?"
"Right now?" Claire tilted the book toward him so he could see the drawings. "The differences between jackalopes and other horned hares, including wolpertingers, and skvaders."
NotEnrique hummed as he looked at the sketches. "Gotta say, I ain't sure any of 'em are real. Let alone easy to catch and eat."
Claire laughed as she pulled the book back toward herself. "Well, according to Blinky's natural history books, they're all real. And hard to catch."
"Joy." He tilted his head to the side and looked at her. "So why're you readin' up about 'em, then?"
Claire sighed, marking her place with a finger. "I don't know. Is it stupid to say this is like light reading, compared to all the history and political crap in there?" She nodded at her main magical textbook, the deceptively thin A Brief Recapitulation of Wizard Lore.
She was very sure she was a lot further through the book than Jim and Toby were.
She was, depressingly, not even a fifth of the way through it yet. Each volume was longer than the one before it.
"What about you?" Claire asked. "You packed and ready to go?"
Her green brother snorted. "I was born ready," he boasted. But his posture gave away his nerves. "You, uh, mind if I spend some time with you before I go?" NotEnrique asked, clicking his claws together. "Just, y'know, in case something happens. To you. While I'm gone."
Claire smiled wide. "Sure," she said. "Want to bunk in with me tonight?"
"Yes." NotEnrique beelined for her bed and burrowed under the covers.
Claire found a strip of ribbon and used it to mark her place before shutting the book. Glancing at the clock, she gritted her teeth. Yeesh, when did it get past midnight?
"All right," she said, getting in bed and turning off her lamp, "no kicking me in the middle of the night, okay?"
"Pinky promise," NotEnrique swore. He was covered up to his chin with her blanket. It was honestly almost adorable.
Claire swallowed. Tomorrow he was going into the Darklands, and Chompsky was going with him, and probably nothing was going to happen, but what if--
She blinked back tears and shoved down the lump in her throat. It was going to be all right. It was. She just couldn't start thinking that way, because if she did, between Jim and Douxie and NotEnrique all being in some levels of danger that she could do absolutely nothing about--
Claire hated being helpless.
"Goodnight, bro," she whispered, her arm over NotEnrique.
"G'night, sis," he replied, and snuggled into her, holding on tight.
Dinner was uncomfortable. And not just because Merlin was apparently actively suicidal. Which was something that Jim, even at his lowest, had never experienced.
Douxie, on the other hand... he probably sympathized all too easily with Myrddin Wylt.
Myrddin, though, kept sneaking glances at Jim. Douxie, by the way he kept stifling snickers, didn't miss that.
Jim just smirked at Myrddin, having a pretty good guess about exactly what the hedgewizard was seeing. Or, rather, not seeing.
"Merlin's got stronger Sight than me," Douxie had said earlier, tapping a thumb by his own now blue eyes. "He might not at this point, but I don't want to risk it. Because if he does, he'll be able to read all kind of things off you. My magic, your magic, time travel magic... his own magic. Mind if I lay a spell on you to cloud all that?"
"What the blazes is wrong with your aura?" Myrddin finally demanded over bread and cheese.
"I don't know," said Jim evenly. "You tell me."
Myrddin glared. "It's obscured. Like... like seeing stones in a brook through moving water."
"Huh." Jim took another bite of bread. It was really good bread. He underlined his mental note to get some sourdough starter from Charlie once they returned to the present day.
Myrddin's glare switched to Douxie. "Did he cast this upon you?" he demanded of Jim.
Jim snorted. "I was hip deep in magic before I ever knew him," he told Myrddin. Which was the absolute truth. It just wasn't the truth that Myrddin was asking about. "So. Trolls. Where are they?"
Douxie visibly choked on a snort. "You are rather single-minded."
"It's my job," Jim deadpanned.
Which earned him an eyeroll. "Fair enough," Douxie said. "So, Master... Myrddin," he managed to save himself in time, "Charlemagne said you knew the local trolls, and my friend here has business with them. Can you point us in the right direction?"
"Point me," Jim butted in. Which earned a sharp look from Douxie. "You have your business," Jim told him quietly, with a nod toward Myrddin. "And I have mine. Splitting up will get things done faster." And they both wanted to go home. The sooner the better.
Douxie hesitated before replying. He dipped a hand into his robes and pulled the time map out of a pocket. He opened it; the blue globe of the timeline sprang into being. Douxie dialed it slowly forward, eyes narrowed in concentration. Various things spun in and out of focus: books, a fierce-looking troll Jim didn't recognize in the slightest, a very familiar master wizard's staff, a cluster of troll children huddled on a battlefield of corpses, Jim holding his sword before himself, teeth gritted.
Mouth in a line, Douxie shut the map, leaving Myrddin staring, wide-eyed. "I don't like it," Douxie said, "but you're right."
"What," Myrddin croaked, dry-mouthed, "was that?"
"A time map." Taliesin's thumbs caressed the ivory box, then he made the map disappear. "You'll learn to use it too. So. Sir Steve asked a question. You were going to tell us where your local trolls are?"
Myrddin narrowed his eyes. "Why should I tell you?"
"Because my job is to save them," Sir Steve replied evenly. "The Tr-- a knight," he said, "answers every call."
"Geas~," Taliesin sing-songed.
Sir Steve made a gesture that Myrddin didn't recognize, but easily interpreted as an insult.
Taliesin laughed. "All right," he said. "We split up." He fished a small crystal on a hank of cord out from under his clothes. "Use yours if you need me. Promise me."
"I promise," Steve said, nodding. His eyes, a stark and brilliant blue, met Myrddin's. "Tell me where they are. Please. Before it's too late."
Myrddin hesitated, then huffed, looking away. "Five miles to the southwest," he said. "Beneath the stone outcropping that looks like a goshawk's head."
"Right." Steve stood to go, but Taliesin put a hand on his arm.
"Wait until nightfall?" he suggested. "You'll make better time."
Steve hesitated.
Taliesin turned to Myrddin. "Do they have a heartstone?"
Myrddin nodded. "Small, but extant."
"You could use the wait to try to lock in on it," Taliesin suggested, turning back to Steve.
"You just don't want to be alone," Steve told him.
Taliesin flinched. His face was suddenly older; he seemed to have aged many years in an instant. But he drew a breath and when he spoke, his words were calm. "You're probably right."
Steve leaned forward across the table, his armored hand curling around the back of Taliesin's neck. "It'll be all right. I promise."
"Don't promise things you can't guarantee," Taliesin mumbled, closing his eyes. He breathed for a moment, then opened them again. He smiled. It seemed forced. "Sooner gone, sooner returned. Stay safe."
"You stay safe," Steve retorted, then stood, picked up a small travel pack, and vanished out the door.
Taliesin looked out the door of the kitchen for a long minute, the expression on his face unreadable, before he turned back to Myrddin. "Well," he said, long dark fingers picking at the remains of his meal, "it seems we're on our own, young hedgewizard."
Douxie did not like having to admit when he was wrong. But the memory of another Merlin stayed with him.
"You must have botched it up," Merlin had accused, when Douxie had told his master the time travel plan had been his own. "My planning is flawless."
I will never, Douxie swore to himself, be so arrogant as to believe I'm above fault.
The thought of being alone with Myrddin terrified him. He was in no way qualified to do this. How was he supposed to turn this hedgewizard into the greatest sorcerer the world had ever known? He didn't even have his staff.
Douxie swallowed, and breathed.
At least, with Jim gone off to figure out what he was supposed to do with the trolls, they were at less risk of slipping up and accidentally calling one another by their real names. One small patch of sunshine in the midst of an ominous sky.
"So," Douxie said quietly, looking back up at Myrddin, "who is buried on that hill? Whose loss has made someone with your potential seek their death in the bottom of a bottle?"
"That," said Myrddin, "is none of your business."
"No," Douxie said softly, looking away. "I suppose it's not."
Myrddin snorted. "Besides, if you're such a great wizard, you should be able to find out for yourself."
Unbidden, Douxie's head snapped up. Anger licked inside his heart. Anger at Merlin, who had never seemed to see his worth. Even his own Merlin, the one he counted as a father, hadn't approved of him until the very end. The one in his and Jim's present? No way. And this Myrddin, who wasn't even Merlin yet, and was objectively less powerful and less skilled than Douxie....
"Perhaps I will," he retorted, before he could think better of it. And pulled the time map back out of his pocket.
Myrddin paled as Douxie opened it. Douxie kept eye contact with the hedgewizard for a long moment, then turned his attention to the map, gently guiding it backward in time. Days of drunkenness sped past, followed by shouting and fights with the neighbors, then a funeral, two shrouded figures being lowered into the ground.
His eyes widened, turning the map back more, seeing them ill. A boy. A woman. Further back in time. The boy grew smaller and smaller, until he was a swaddled babe in the woman's arms, Myrddin looking lovingly on both of them. More time sped past. A marriage. Before that, a courtship. Young Myrddin, barely a teen, first seeing the girl, and looking at her with hearts in his eyes.
Looking at her the way Jim looked at Claire.
Douxie swallowed, gazing at that image, frozen in time.
He closed the time map, and met Myrddin's eyes. Saw the tears spilling down the man's face, etching lines of grief on him.
"Your wife," said Douxie quietly. "And your son." That latter thought stung, and he knew why.
Merlin's true son had died.
No wonder Douxie had never been an acceptable substitute.
Myrddin's hand tightened to a fist, then was obviously consciously relaxed. "Lost to the plague," he said, his voice as hoarse as that of any man who had railed at the gods. "For all my magic... nothing I tried saved them." Red-tinged eyes met Douxie's. "You say you are of Atlantis. Tell me, was there any sorcery that might have spared them?"
Douxie drew a breath, prepared to lie... then realized he didn't have to.
When Taliesin had shown him Atlantis, he had seen a girl singing a tree to strength. Bardic magic, turned to healing.
The very thing Merlin had spent his life looking for.
Yet Douxie couldn't teach it to him. Because he didn't know it.
He swallowed. If Atlantis' magic hadn't been lost....
Could I have saved my parents? Douxie suddenly wondered. Could I have lived in my village for all my life, if I'd known how to heal? He never would have met Archie, he realized, but for being cast out. Never would have become apprentice to Merlin. Never would have survived, and survived, and survived, for nine hundred years until he'd come to Arcadia where one day a human fifteen-year-old would pick up Kanjigar's amulet and change everything. Lord and Lady, that's a mixed bag, Douxie thought, and resolved to think about it later. Much later. Probably while lying sleepless in the dark of night.
"There was healing magic," said Douxie. He met Myrddin's gaze. "I'm sorry. It was lost beneath the waves."