[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 179/?

[sakon76]

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 8th November, 2024

Gunmar was displeased. Not that this was such an unusual state of affairs; there was much, General Aaarrrgghh thought, for the Skullcrusher to be displeased about. Chief of which was the continued existence of Camelot and its king and knights' insistence on harrying Gunmar's army.

At the moment, Camelot was burning. Which ought to have been a good thing.

But that too displeased Gunmar, as it had not been done on his orders. Aaarrrgghh could see the sense in Gunmar's ire. It meant there was a new player on the field, one who might be yet another enemy.

Or, as it turned out... someone with an offer of alliance.

She swooped in golden and green, glowing with a power that had Aaarrrgghh shying away. A witch. Another human witch. He had little fondness for them, given his memories of the one who had singed him with pink lightning some moons ago in the Wild Woods - let alone that purple-tinged one who had stolen half of Gunmar's army, not to mention himself, not a night past.

Witches were not to be trusted.

So he was wary.

But her words were silken, her confidence unshakable. Gunmar was beguiled.

Oh, not by magic - or at least Aaarrrgghh didn't think so. No, instead it was the promise of an ally equal in strength and drive that lured him.

The promise of an ally who despised Arthur as much as he did.

Aaarrrgghh glanced at Bular. But there he saw no ally; the Skullcrusher's son was just as entranced as his father, by words and promises that Aaarrrgghh did not trust.

Still, he needed to speak. If there was a chance that the witch might betray them, someone needed to be ready and alert against it.

"Skullcrusher," Aaarrrgghh rumbled. "Be wary of witches."

The burning gaze that turned on him showed that he was heard. That Gunmar valued his words. Aaarrrgghh was the recipient of a dark smile. "Always looking out for me, old friend."

He bowed his head, never taking his eyes off the glowing figure of the witch. "Always."

Gunmar glanced at the witch, his gaze calculating. The smile grew into a toothy grin. "War comes, General. Go tell the Dwoza trolls it's time to pick a side."

Aaarrrgghh nodded. "Yes, Skullcrusher."

"And if it isn't ours... kill them all."

Aaarrrgghh felt his pupils widen at the thought. Unchecked violence, doing away with all their enemies. It was a bribe, a reward for his vigilance - but nonetheless it would be a good thing. To cleanse out all the weaklings who would not stand and fight with them. "With pleasure," he growled.

The damage was immense. As evening set in over Camelot, what had been a day of feasting and revelry turned to a night of loss and lament. Torches - and the wizards' magical orbs of light - cast their illumination over toppled buildings, crushed forms, wrecked lives. The survivors sought safety in undamaged structures. Galahad could hear the sobs and wails - and far too rarely, cries of joy as someone believed dead straggled in to find friends and family. The castle's lesser hall had been turned into an infirmary, and was packed full of the injured.

"'Tis as much as we can do tonight, my king," he reported to Arthur near the witching hour. The king stood in his throne room, taking reports from his men. And no small number of those, too, were dead, crushed by falling stone and timber. "We must wait until the safety of dawn's light to assess and search for more survivors."

The king's face was drawn, etched with lines that Galahad would have sworn hadn't been there a day earlier. But it was late, and the torches, magical though they were, cast strange shadows upon men. He dearly wished for a barrel of ale - or something stronger. But he would stand his post and do his duty for so long as his king needed him.

"So many gone," Arthur lamented. "And for what? Morgana's vengeance upon me." Something dark passed over his expression. "Better that I had let her slay me, than to have Camelot destroyed."

"My king--" Galahad protested.

"What, and hand her everything she desired?" a new voice broke in. Galahad turned to see Merlin crossing the Round Table, set flush as it was into the floor. "No." The wizard shook his head. "Better that she had stayed dead. I fear, my king, that dark forces are at work and have resurrected her from a peaceful grave."

"Tell us something we don't know," muttered the apprentice who followed him. A sharp gesture from Merlin drew up the boy's spine and clearly shut his mouth for fear of repercussions.

Arthur's gaze narrowed in on the saucy-mouthed chit. "Tell me, boy. Why were there two of you earlier?"

The boy's eyes grew wide; his mouth opened.

"A magical accident," Merlin cut in. "Hopefully soon to be remedied," he added pointedly, glaring at his apprentice.

The apprentice glared back. "It's not up to me," he rejoined, his tone just as pointed as his master's.

Galahad felt his eyebrows bounce; this was new. The boy had never dared gainsay his teacher before. He wasn't sure he liked the flavor of this insubordination.

Merlin, however, merely sniffed and turned his attention back to the king. "Hisirdoux and his double are of no consequence," he said, earning a soft "Hey!" of protest from the boy. "What matters," Merlin continued, ignoring the interjection, "is the safety of Camelot."

Arthur nodded. "In that, we are in agreement, old friend."

"The news is dire," Merlin continued. "The town, and parts of the castle itself are in shambles. Our forces are reduced; our defenses, lowered. We need allies in the war to come." His face darkened. "The war against Morgana."

"Not just Morgana," his apprentice said softly. Merlin turned to look at him. The boy fiddled with his leather bracelets for a moment before looking up. "You said something had resurrected her," he reminded his master, finally meeting Merlin's eyes. "Something more powerful than her. The war... wouldn't it be against them?"

Several flavors of astonishment washed across Merlin's face. After a moment, he nodded. "We need allies, my king," he repeated, turning back to Arthur.

"Our enemies are many," said Arthur thoughtfully. "We have always faced them alone. But now... I am a king with but half an army," he stated, looking to Galahad for confirmation. Galahad nodded. He wished it were not so, but sad truth compelled him to agree with his king's assessment. "And Princess Aja, even assuming she agrees to an alliance... her people, she has said, are too far away to provide assistance to ours."

There was a long bitter moment of silence in the throne room before Merlin turned back to his apprentice. "Well, Hisirdoux?" he asked. "Doubling your presence seems to have doubled your brains. Have you any insight?"

The boy grimaced at Merlin's sharp tone, but reluctantly nodded. "We must go to the good trolls."

Arthur's eyes met Galahad's again. It was plain that neither of them liked this plan of the boy wizard's, but....

But the begrudging truth of the evening made it clear there were no other options.

The trolls it would have to be.

Blinkous stared, aghast. "What do you mean, you cannot read?" he demanded, volume a touch louder than was perhaps wise.

The green female troll crossed her arms and glared. "What I said."

"But-- but--" he stuttered.

The slim armored troll who had come into the Galadrigal brothers' humble library with her rested hands on her shoulders. "She's been locked up under Camelot for most of her life, Blinky," he said gently. "It's not like she's had anyone to teach her." His blue eyes were light; his tone, leading.

Blinky understood the implication without question.

"My dear lady," he said, seizing one of her hands between his own. "It would be my pleasure - no, my honor - to introduce you to the world of literacy!"

She scowled. "I dunno...."

"Hey." The armored troll, whose name Blinkous had yet to catch, patted her on the shoulder. "It's a skill, right? Once you have it, you can choose to use it or not. But until you do have it, there's whole worlds you're missing out on. And he's a good teacher."

"I am?" asked Blinkous. Then, at the green troll's glare, "I am!" he declared, puffing out his chest.

She glowered for a few seconds, then let out a huff. "Fine. All right. I'll learn."

"Oh, excellent!" Blinkous crowed. "Please, allow me... ah, may I have your name?" he finally thought to inquire.

She hesitated. Then, "Deya," she said.

The armored troll smiled.

Hisirdoux stared at the wreckage of Merlin's workshop, aghast.

"Oh dear," remarked Archie by his side, adjusting his glasses.

"Those blasts were contained, but still... this!" Hisirdoux gibbered, taking it all in. Or at least trying to.

His elder self's wards had contained the damage to the structure of the tower, which was surely some kind of miracle when Hisirdoux thought about it, given the wreckage he'd seen in the rest of Camelot, but.... Merlin's possessions were thrown about. The floor was littered with books and magical knickknacks. Shattered crystals ground underneath Hisirdoux's foot as he shifted his weight, and he shuddered at both the sensation and the implications. Because Merlin's belongings were valuable and he wasn't to touch them and now they were destroyed--

Well, not all of them. Most of the books didn't look so much as charred, and despite the evidence of the smashed crystals, Merlin kept all the really valuable stuff in his safe, so that, presumably, would be all right....

"At least he can't lay the blame at our feet," mused Archie. He sprouted wings in a poof of fiery draconic magic and took to the air, surveying the wreckage. "This time."

"This will take hours to clean up," Hisirdoux moaned.

Archie landed on the worktable, miraculously still in place. His tail curled around his feet. "Well. Best to get started, then."

Hisirdoux groaned, but held up his hand nonetheless.

Lined with blue light, the broom flew to it.

As always, he started cleaning.

"Ugh, this is not usefully organized!" Krel groused as the four of them searched high and low for Gems and Geodes volume twenty-three. A stack was collecting in the middle of the cave of all the other volumes of Gems and Geodes as they came across them - but no number twenty-three.

Yet. He had to hope to Seklos that it was no volume twenty-three yet because his other option for finding the information he needed to go along with Jim's plan was probably Merlin and Krel didn't trust himself not to make cutting remarks to the elder wizard. Ones that would probably break the timeline. More than it already was broken, anyway. And unlike Douxie, Krel did not know the spell to erase memories.

On the other side of the cavern, Toby sighed happily. "Yeah, it's just like being back home, isn't it?"

Krel turned, brandishing another useless book at him. "I cannot wait for trolls to discover the art of categorization and useful information filing techniques!"

"Hey, just because not all of us can learn through your cosmic osmosis thing--"

"It is thermogenic cosmosis," Krel snapped. "And it is vastly superior."

"Question," said Toby, raising a hand and a point, "if it's so much better and you both had to go through it, how come you know so much more than Aja?"

"Because I was interested!" Krel fumed. "Not that it ever mattered to my parents. But... if you know how things work, then you can figure out how to fix them when they are broken." He looked at the volume he held. It was a primitive method of recording and passing on information. But he had to admit it had weight, satisfying in his hand and perhaps nicely signifying the importance of the knowledge inside. Or maybe not. Even magical creatures had to have junk data. Krel took a breath, letting his frustration fade. "If I only knew enough, I could keep everyone from getting hurt," he said quietly.

"Hey." Toby had crossed the room and put a hand on Krel's shoulder. "You know we're going home safe, right?" his friend asked.

Krel thought of everything they had left behind. Everyone they had left behind. A whole universe that might be erased if they did the wrong thing. And much though he would love for Val Morando to be erased.... Mama. Papa. Mother. Even Luug.

His core felt cold.

He was afraid.

What if they did the wrong thing, and there was no home left to go back to?

"Dude." Toby's armored fingers tightened on Krel's shoulder. "Does being a wizard mean having panic attacks? Because you're looking kinda like Douxie does when he ties himself up in knots."

"I do not get 'panic attacks'," Krel retorted. "The biological mechanism that causes them is physically impossible for me."

"Biology means bupkis," Toby informed him. "Trolls and humans are completely different from one another, and you know what? It doesn't matter. So don't try to tell me that Akiridions - or Stuart! - are so much different either." His voice softened. "You holding up okay, Krel? I mean, doing stuff to heartstones is kind of big. I'd be shook too."

"It is not the heartstone." Krel shook his head. "That is a simple problem of applied physics - and applied magic. It is...." He drew a breath. "What if we can never go home?" he asked quietly. "If we destroy the timeline by accident...."

"Huh." Toby considered that. "Well, Jimbo and co. have already done this trip once before, and not borked it. So we've got pretty good odds. Plus I think Douxie said something once about the timeline prefers to heal itself. So hopefully we'll just get ejected like... I dunno, kidney stones or something... and go back to our normal business back home. Defeating tyrants and murderous gods. You know, the usual."

Krel cracked a smile. "The usual," he agreed.

"Oh, haha!" A few meters away, Dictatious popped up from his perusal of the lowest shelves, a tome held in either of his top hands. "Volume twenty-two," he pronounced, "and volume twenty-three!" He brandished it with glee.

"Well," said Krel, exchanging a look with Toby, "time to get to work, I suppose."

"We go now," said Arthur, standing.

"My liege!" protested Lancelot. "It is the middle of the night. Your men are wounded. We have not enough hale-bodied souls to make an appropriate honor guard--"

He ignored his best knight. "I need no honor guard." Arthur felt his face shift as his new political position became clear. "I go to beg for aid, from those I have treated as enemies." Treated most shamefully, a voice in the back of his head whispered. It spoke with Morgana's voice. With Gwen's. For once, he did not ignore it. "I must speak on bended knee - as a supplicant, not as a king."

The expressions of shock on Lancelot's face, on Galahad's, said it all.

But Arthur swallowed his pride. He hadn't always been a king, nor even a prince, and it was that history of being helpless, unwanted, that he drew on now. This is for Camelot. I must preserve her. If I do nothing else, let me do that.

"My liege," spoke Merlin, drawing his attention. "Dwoza is hidden. We do not know the way."

His apprentice, standing to the side of the master wizard, cringed, drawing Merlin's attention.

Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, Hisirdoux?"

"Ahh...." The youth looked abashed. Then his shoulders slumped and he looked up to the ceiling, as if asking for divine aid. "Fuzzbuckets," he said. "Claire?"

Arthur didn't jump, though Galahad did, when a slender maiden melted out of the shadows behind the columns. "Yeah, Douxie?"

"King Arthur needs a lift to Dwoza," the junior mage told her. "You up to it?"

She smiled and slugged him on the arm. "I'm not the one who spent the afternoon making all those wards that saved the castle's bacon. I'm fine." Her dark eyes were like shadows on the face of the moon as she met Arthur's gaze. He shuddered inwardly, but he held his ground. "I can get you to Jim, who's supposed to be in Dwoza. You're on your own for talking to Vendel, though."

"Impertinence," sniffed Merlin.

"I'm not your apprentice," the girl shot back.

"You're not anybody's apprentice," Merlin's boy murmured.

The girl smirked at him and raised a hand. Darkness swirled into being before her, as black as a room without window or candle. "Well. Shall we?"

Arthur nodded, and stepped forth.

As did Merlin's apprentice - before he was barred by Merlin's staff. "Hisirdoux," barked Merlin. "You stay here."

"But--"

The elder wizard turned a serious expression on him. "Camelot needs a wizard to guard her, against anything... uncanny that Morgana, or her new masters, may send forth. I am entrusting you with this."

The younger wizard looked like he didn't know how to respond to that. After a moment, he sighed, shoulders slumping, and nodded. "I won't let you down."

A brief shoulder squeeze, and Merlin strode beyond him, toward the portal.

"Gentlemen," said the maiden. "Follow me." She led the way into darkness. Arthur and Merlin followed.

Mary stood in the doorway, looking at the long lines of wounded knights and squires who lay on cots or sat against the walls. After King Arthur had left with Claire, Sir Galahad had stumped off to organize a mundane defense of the castle by its remaining able-bodied warriors. But Sir Lancelot had come here and joined Zadra, Darci and Aja as they went around offering firm clasps of fists, hands on shoulders, words of comfort. Mary guessed it was what warriors did for one another. Varvatos, though, mostly just glowered.

Steve had taken one look at some of the injuries (and they were gruesome; Mary could quite clearly see some missing limbs) and turned green. Eli had gone after him when he'd fled. They were probably having their own man-to-man talk somewhere. Medieval ladies (or maybe they were servants; Mary didn't know enough about their clothes to tell the difference) went back and forth between the wounded and other rooms, carrying bandages, pastes, bowls of soup or drink, offering what medical care they could. Which was, Mary was absolutely sure, less than modern medicine could offer.

Less than Douxie's healing magic could offer.

"Shouldn't we... help them?" she asked.

The wizard in question stood beside her, fiddling with his magic bracelet. His lips were pressed together. "I--" he said with a quick glance at the injured. Then he looked away, lips pressed together even tighter. "I can't," he managed. "Don't ask that of me, Mary."

"Why not?" she demanded, hand on her hip. "Isn't 'heal the sick' in your mandate, or whatever?"

Douxie drew a deep breath, then another. He pulled her away from the door, to the other side of a column. They couldn't see the injured anymore; that didn't mean the low sounds of misery stopped. "I am not a doctor," he said lowly. "And despite... I have finite power, Mary," he explained. "And I've wasted so much already. What is more important: those knights in there, or battling Gunmar at Killahead?"

She crossed her arms, unimpressed. "If they were healed, they could fight with us at Killahead."

"Killahead will be a slaughter," he argued. "You'd have me heal them up just to let them get torn apart?"

She'd sat through too many civics classes and too many of Mister Strickler's history lectures to buy that. "One man more to hold the line," she retorted.

He looked pale. Paler than usual, anyway. "Mary...." His voice was almost a whisper. He closed his eyes, shook his head. "I can't," he said. "Not them. Please don't ask that of me."

She shifted her weight, considering. "Why not?" she finally asked.

Douxie looked away. "I've... there are very few bones of my body which have not been broken," he said slowly. "Being a wizard means I heal fast, but... I really hope Barbara never has the opportunity to do an x-ray scan of me, because she would not be happy."

"Uh?"

His eyes met hers. "Who do you think did most of the breaking?" he asked, with a nod toward the infirmary.

Mary's eyes widened. "Wait. The knights of the Round Table?!"

Douxie nodded, a small miserable expression on his face. "The knights whose mandate was to stamp out all magic."

"Those--" Jerks didn't seem a sufficient word. "Those bastards!" Mary whirled, set to dole out retribution or at least a scathing lecture. Static electricity sparked between her fingers.

Douxie's hand caught her arm. "Leave it," he told her. "All they'll see is another witch yelling at them."

"But--"

"But they're all dust, and I'm still alive," he told her solemnly. "Let them take Merlin's painkilling possets and whatever salves and ointments the stillroom has, and forget about them, Mary. You and I need to save our strength for the battle to come."

"Not happy about this," she warned.

It won her a thin smile. "Now you sound like Zoe."

"That's a compliment," Mary informed him.

"Indeed."

"Where is she, anyway?" Mary glanced around, as if her errant pink-haired teacher might suddenly appear. "I know she's mentioned Camelot, so she was here, right?"

"Ah." Douxie's eyes unfocused, as if he was searching for a memory. "I know she was, but my memory is a bit piecemeal around these last few months here, and I know why... I think she's already gone?" He blinked and refocused. "She was one of Morgana's maids until her temper exposed her magic, and I think Morgana helped her make a run for it."

"Oh." Mary deflated. "Too bad. We could have used someone else who could call lightning."

"That was well done, by the by." Douxie nodded. "And regrettably, I don't know where Zoe is now. Arch and I didn't run into her again for another fifty years or so. Over in France - Montpellier, if I recall correctly."

"Was her hair pink then too?"

Douxie laughed and hooked his arm in hers, drawing her gently away from the room of injured jerk knights. "No. The color is very much a modern thing for her. As is the length," he added thoughtfully. "She cut her hair to a flapper bob in the 1920s and has never looked back."

"Ugh, old people," Mary groused by rote.

It won her a smile, which was her goal. "Some day you, too, may be an old person."

She slugged him lightly. "Here's to hoping."

A familiar black portal spun open near Jim. He brightened. Not that listening to Blinky teach wasn't always great (especially when Deya bickered with him about writing), but seeing Claire was better yet.

Unfortunately, the first figure that stepped out of the shadow portal wasn't Claire.

It was Merlin.

Jim's expression immediately morphed into a frown even as Blinky jumped up from his chair, knocking it backwards with a clatter as he shrieked.

Worse, the second person through the portal was Arthur.

Now Jim stood, unable to stop the growl that rumbled low through his throat and chest.

Deya shrieked and flailed as her own personal boogeyman stood before her, his burnished silver armor gleaming in the crystal light.

Jim stepped forward, putting himself between Arthur and the noncombatants. His fingers itched to summon Excalibur - but he couldn't. He couldn't tip off zombie Arthur of the future in any way.

"Please," said the king, his voice low but clear despite the cries of the two trolls. "I am not here as an enemy."

The two trolls were loud and fearful. The third, Arthur recognized. "I can get you to Jim," the witch had said - but he'd seen this cursed troll turned human again. Arthur knew he had, with his own two eyes.

Yet here he was, troll once more, with eyes and face as defiant as they'd been when he'd stepped into sunlight and broken his shackles.

Was the boy human? Troll? Something else entirely? Arthur didn't know what to think.

It didn't matter, he reminded himself. He was here to seek an alliance, not to unravel the mysteries of curses or magic. That was Merlin's job.

Merlin, who was looking quite curiously at the hostile boy-troll, his eyes narrowed and sharp, even as the witch stepped out of the portal and it closed behind them.

"Jim!" she said, face lighting up as she flew to the troll.

His face lost an iota of its glower. "Claire." His arms came easily around her. "What're you--"

"They're here to ask for help," she explained.

He sighed, his eyes rolling skyward. "Of course they are."

"Douxie's holding down the fort," she explained even as the cries of the noisy green troll attracted others from the next room. One of whom quite resembled Princess Aja's other form. Another wore armor that seemed oddly familiar. The third was a troll who clearly took Arthur's presence as a threat, brandishing a broom at him as though it was any sort of useful weapon.

Humility, he reminded himself. I am a supplicant. It grated - he was a king! But for Camelot....

Penitence. And the penitent man kneeled. So Arthur went to one knee, his hands empty, spread for them all to see. "Please," he said. "We need aid."

"Why should we--" the female troll demanded. But the boy troll's hand on her shoulder cut her off.

"Deya," he said, "this is for Vendel to decide."

"He's not going to thank you for bringing him another proposition," she said. "I know his type - all sour and vinegar." She eyed Merlin. "Like others I could name."

It earned her a breath of laughter. "Yeah, probably. But he's the leader here, so this is his problem to deal with."

"Your words," said the other green troll, "are both wise and sage, stranger." He gave Arthur a dubious look - and with six eyes, that was quite a look. "Very well. Get this human out of my library, and let Vendel deal with him. Brother, take them to him."

"But, Dictatious!" the blue troll with six eyes wailed.

"No! I will not be gainsaid, Blinkous. Not when we have just discovered the volume we sought."

"Oh, very well," the blue one grumbled. "Follow me." And he stumped off, leaving them to follow behind.

Arthur followed.

Author's Note: Apologies for the three-week wait. The eight-year-old was sick for two whole weeks; then Wonderful Husband caught it; then I caught it. (I still have the lingering remains.) Add to that losing someone I'd thought a friend when she abruptly decided I was an enemy; making a Toothless costume for the eleven-year-old in thirty-eight hours start to finish; and the whole debacle that was the US election, and here we are. We are all, as they say, going through it right now. I'd hope for quieter times to come, but I have the feeling that hope will not become reality. Buckle up and stay safe.

Deliberate references in this chapter are: Arthur's description of Claire's eyes is an homage to chapter six of inexplicifics' The Witcher story Lost in Meeting Eyes; Douxie and Archie meeting again with Zoe in Montpellier is a tip of the hat to varve's excellent ToA story Take My Hand; and Arthur's line in the last section about the penitent man kneeled is a reference to the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.