[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 142/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 3rd June, 2023
For an instant, Waltolomew could only stare, dumbfounded.
Barbara changed that. "Walt," she said, her voice full of pain.
Reality snapped back into place. "Barbara!" He rushed to her, fell to his knees, put pressure on her wound. "Call an ambulance!" Waltolomew snapped, looking up at the waiter, who looked as incredulous as Walt had just felt. The young man nodded, eyes wide, and pulled out a cell phone, edging away even as he swiped and dialed. "Hold on, Barbara," Walt told her, turning his attention back to the injured woman. "Hold on."
Her smile was pained, but wry. "It's an arm injury," she said. "I'm not exactly bleeding out, Walt."
"There are still arteries in there!" He increased the pressure. Her blood was all over his fingers, and the cuffs of his jacket. He didn't care.
"You're so sweet."
"You're going into shock."
Her breath held a ragged edge. "All those centuries and you can still get flustered."
"Barbara!"
"It's cute." Despite the flirty words, however, pain grated through her voice.
"The ambulance is on its way," their waiter reported. "What can I do?"
Barbara shook her head at him. "I'm a doctor," she said. "Not much." Her gaze returned to Walt's. "Just keep pressure on the wound," she told him. "Just hold on."
Numb and desperate at the same time, Waltolomew nodded.
And held on.
The emerald gem shone with inner light when Myrddin's hand rested on it.
Do all master wizards end up with focal gems the color of our innate magic? Douxie wondered briefly. Taliesin's was an opal....
The thought of rainbow magic passed away as Myrddin opened his eyes and said quietly, "This one."
Douxie nodded. "The emerald it shall be." A flick of his fingers sent all the other gems flying back to the shelves and chests he'd found them on.
"What now, Master Taliesin?" Myrddin's blue eyes met his, and the haggard face wore an expression that... well, if it wasn't hope, it was close kin to that sentiment.
"Now," Douxie said, "you learn how to forge a staff." He gestured at the ingots and bars laid on the far end of the table. "Tell me the names of these, and why you think each might be good or ill used in the construction of a master wizard's staff."
Myrddin's eyebrows rose. "A test?"
The note of incredulousness in his voice almost made Douxie smile. "Even so," he said calmly, not allowing himself to dwell on the sentiment of sweet, sweet payback. "Tell me."
Myrddin glared. "Very well. "Dragon's gold, for conduction of magic. Fae iron, for grounding. Dragon's tooth iron, for strength...."
Douxie listened, nodding as his to-be-teacher went over the properties of the metals. Most, Myrddin rejected, properly; only a few were chosen for the material of his staff. Only once did Douxie have to offer a minor correction. It was taken with better grace than he would have expected his master to have ever been capable of.
Fortunately, Myrddin's Roman compound included among its outbuildings a forge. Even more fortunately, as he didn't have a dragon handy to stoke the flames and manage the heat, there was a goodly supply laid in of both wood and charcoal. Even the cooling barrel was filled with rainwater, albeit with a scummy surface. Douxie set a manning spell on the bellows, but let Myrddin spark the fire.
(Everyone, everyone, had always been better at fire lighting spells than him. Morgana's had been things of pure beauty. Zoe showed off and used localized lightning strikes to light campfires. Claire... all right, Douxie admitted he didn't know for sure that she was better at pyromancy, but he was willing to bet on it, and he made a mental note to teach that to her when he got back home.)
Home.
How much time had passed, back in Arcadia? He and Jim had been here for nearly two weeks. Was the passage of time identical? Would they return exactly when they'd left, two weeks later, or months on...?
Homesickness welled up in him. Not so much for the bare walls room in the Lake house, as for the people. Archie first, foremost, and always, but Douxie missed so many other people now too. Claire. Barbara. His bandmates. Krel. Steve, strange as that seemed sometimes.
I want to go home, Jim had said.
Douxie sympathized.
Swallowing his heartsickness, he turned his attention back to the task at hand. He'd never forged a master wizard's staff before, and hadn't been paying too much attention when Merlin had made his. He'd had his own projects to work on at the time, after all, creating the Trollhunter amulet to Merlin's exact specifications.
But Douxie hadn't worked with master smith mages off and on for centuries for nothing.
"All right," he said, physically and metaphorically rolling up his sleeves. "Let's do this."
Finally. At last. He had the future of House Tarron within reach, and once he had them, and gave them to General Morando....
His people, his world, would be avenged.
"Hey!" Something struck him, bouncing harmlessly off his armor.
Tronos' head whipped around, to find the standing red-haired human who had thrown one of this planet's primitive communicators at him.
The boy glared at him. "You can't blame them for what their parents did," he spouted off, proving he knew nothing of the way the galaxy worked, let alone the way House Tarron ruled. "It's not their fault. They didn't do it."
Tronos stared incredulously for a second, then let a laugh well up at the poor child's naivete.
"Seamus," said Aja Tarron, "that is not exactly helpful...."
"Why not?" demanded the yellow-haired human who had broken a crystal against the desk.
Tronos snorted. "A House stands together, or falls together," he grated. As had his planet.
"The responsibility of one," said Krel Tarron, "is the responsibility of all."
The humans in the room, to a one, stared at the Tarrons.
"Well, that's just stupid," said a dark-haired female. "I mean, like, white people are responsible for slavery in this country, but that doesn't mean everyone in this classroom is guilty of it, either." Heads nodded.
Tronos shared an unexpected commiserating glance with both the Tarron brats.
Prince Krel sighed. "Earth is so weird."
"And yet you like it here," his sister muttered.
"Hey!" A different red-haired human, this one short and round, objected. "Do we go around dissing your tastes, Aja? No we do not."
"Well," said Krel, "I do...."
"Yeah, but you're her brother," the boy argued. "That doesn't count."
"ahem" The dark-haired female with the colored streak in her hair coughed into her fist. "We're getting a little off topic here."
"Oh yeah." The tubby male turned back to Tronos. "So, death, dismemberment, electricity?" His hand dug into his pocket and he grinned ferally. "For the doom of Gunmar, Eclipse is mine to command!"
A moment later, the boy had armor.
Tronos stared.
This planet was perhaps even stranger than he had imagined. Especially since the girl with the colored streak had also somehow donned armor in that moment.
The girl's gaze flicked around the room, assessing. "Too many civilians," she said. Behind her, a swirling black rift opened in the air. "Aja, Krel?"
The Tarrons likewise looked around, making their own assessments. Almost as one, they nodded.
And ran through the rift.
"Catch you later, dude," said the armored redhead, throwing Tronos a salute as he followed them through the rift.
The girl smirked, and the portal swallowed her, vanishing.
Tronos howled and dove through the space-between-spaces, pursuing his rightful targets to wherever the girl had taken them.
"No!" Omega's fist slammed on the console. "Where have they gone?" Her fingers flew across icons, trying to track their erstwhile partner's signal.
His arms crossed, Beta growled at the viewscreen. His expression was clearly doubting Tronos - whether he had fled, died, or lost their quarry. Whatever the truth was, it was plain that he thought this new partner was an inadequate replacement for the one they'd lost.
Tronos Madu was not a Zeron, and never would be.
"Gotcha," Jim breathed, once again under the cover of trees. Before and beneath him, where he lay on his stomach atop a rocky outcropping, peering over the edge, was what he'd dub a field camp of Gumm-Gumms, deep in the forests' deepest shadows. Raucous warriors roared and jostled. Nearby, others sharpened their weapons. There had to be at least thirty Gumm-Gumms. Under guard, a group of half a dozen terrified troll children huddled close together, the older ones clearly trying to protect the younger.
Some of the kids looked a little familiar. In fact....
"Bagdwella?" Jim asked curiously, tilting his head to the side as a pint-sized youngling shrieked at her captors. Beyond her, another whelp growled, yanking her back from the Gumm-Gumm fist that almost struck her. Jim's eyes widened. "Kanjigar?" On the ground, Bagdwella whimpered, then glared at their captor. Kanjigar stood before her and the troll, defiant.
"Guess some things never change," Jim murmured to himself, amused despite the dire situation.
"Tell me," a voice murmured in Jim's ear, "what brings you here?"
Jim yelped, rolling, sword in hand.
Beside where he had been, Herne crouched, one hand on the ground, a thin smile on his face.
Heart hammering in his chest, Jim managed to stand. "Douxie's not here right now," he said through gritted teeth. Asshole, he managed not to say.
Herne snorted. "The little wizard's run off to play with others of his kind," he said. "How typical. Right now, I'm more concerned with you, little king." His teeth were very white, and seemed sharp in the shade of the trees. "Your hunt caught my attention. Trollhunter."
Jim swallowed. He didn't remember giving Herne that name. "You said the trolls don't live in your forest," he accused, gesturing at the other side of the rock. At least they were downwind of the Gumm-Gumms. And the small army was making enough noise that his and Herne's voices shouldn't be heard. Because after all the video call lessons and hints Aaarrrgghh had given him, Jim would feel like he was disappointing his trollishness mentor across time if he hadn't even managed that much.
"A raid party, passing through." Herne waved a hand in dismissal. "Does that truly look like their king and kingdom to you?"
"Their king?" asked Jim. Gunmar, he thought.
"Orlagk," Herne said.
Jim blinked. "Wait. Who?"
Herne tilted his head to the side, a superior, pleased smirk on his face. "You hunt without even knowing your prey, boy. Not very good at this, are you?"
Jim ignored the baiting. "Who is Orlagk?"
"Orlagk the Oppressor. King of their faction." Herne nodded his antlered head in the direction of the noisy party. "Do you think they'll eat you?" He sounded almost curious.
Jim's grip tightened on Excalibur. "They can try. And fail. I'm here to rescue the kids, that's all."
Herne gave a low, dark chuckle. "I'll be amused if you succeed, little hunter."
"WHAT?!" Varvatos roared, standing. Jerry hastily steadied the card table he'd upset; Phil reached forward and with one finger steadied a wobbling knight. "What do you MEAN Morando is on his way?!"
"Exactly what I said, Commander Vex," Mother's voice said through his communications device.
Varvatos pulled it away from his ear. "You mean we have been playing the Dog Fight game for nothing?" he demanded, glaring at the screen.
"Not nothing," Mother assured him. "The Akiridion resistance was able to assure us that Morando's ship took significant damage before departure."
"Hmph. Well, at least that is not nothing." Varvatos sat back down, considering his options. "At top speed, they would reach Earth in just over three delsons. And perhaps they may not be able to reach top speed."
"Precisely," Zadra's crisp voice broke into the conversation. He turned to look; she stood, tall and blue, just outside the shade of the canopy. "But we must not count on their being delayed. Defensive preparations must begin at once."
"Indeed," he agreed with her. Phil and Jerry, he noted, were staring gape-mouthed at the Lieutenant. Varvatos thumbed his comm off and slid it into his pocket. "Why are you here, Lieutenant Zadra?"
"There is a communications blackout at the educational penitentiary," she informed him. "All players of that game within the vicinity dropped offline at the same time."
Varvatos' eyes narrowed and he stood again. "That sounds most suspicious," he agreed.
"Uh, Vex," Phil managed, "you going to introduce us to your friend?"
"Lieutenant Zadra, of the Taylon Phalanx," Varvatos obliged with a wave. "Lieutenant, these are Jerry, Phil, and... Nancy." He was well aware that he spoke her name with reverence.
"Ah," Zadra said. "Your strategic simulation group."
"Oh, indeed," said Nancy with a waggle of her fingers. "Tell me, dear, do you play chess?"
"I... could be taught." Zadra looked intrigued.
Which was when the wizardly necklace around Varvatos' neck flared to life, blinding and brilliant. He choked.
"What is that?!" Zadra demanded, the tip of her ionic scythe resting just shy of the pulsating crystal.
Varvatos smacked the blade away. "It is a panic signal. Emanating from the educational penitentiary."
Zadra's eyes flared wide. "The royals!" She was off in a flash.
"Excuse me," Varvatos said gravely to Nancy, and followed, shifting to his natural form between one step and another. He let out a feral war cry as he ran.
Behind him, he could just barely hear Jerry say, "Man, those guys are intense."
Not far away, Stuart raised his eyes at the woman standing in front of his food truck. Her necklace, like Varvatos', had just flared with light. "Not going to help?"
Nomura considered the pair of warlike Akiridions running toward the school. "I doubt I'll be needed," she said, taking her order from his hands. "But I'll saunter that way anyway. See what's up."
"Well, good luck, Miss Nomura, and let me know if you need any backup."
She snorted. But nodded.
"WhooaAAAh!" Toby flailed mid-air, cartwheeling through space.
"Huh. Zero gravity." Krel was seated crosslegged and floating upside down from Toby's point of view.
"It is just like on the satellites back home!" enthused Aja. She managed to grasp a passing asteroid and turned blue in a flash.
"Wait, we're in outer space?" Toby demanded. "How am I breathing?!" He slapped his hands over his mouth and nose to keep the air in while he could.
"This is far too warm to be outer space," Krel dismissed.
"Then where are we, little brother?"
Aja's question was answered by Claire speeding out of a portal, her arms held to her sides like she was streamlining a dive. "Coming through!" The shadowmancer landed easily on another asteroid and crouched there. "Let's see if he followed us."
"Followed us where?" asked Toby.
Claire flashed him a grin. "The Shadow Realm."
Toby blinked. "Whoa. Seriously?"
"Ah, so this is what it looks like." Krel was looking around. "Not exactly what I would expect from a magical dimension."
Aja scoffed. "Like you are an expert on magical dimensions."
"More of one than you," Krel shot back.
"Hey," Claire cut in, "let's concentrate on the problem here. Angry electric alien arriving any second now?"
"Angry Voltarian," the Tarrons chided in unison, just as Tronos Madu burst into the Shadow Realm, looking as mad as a wet cat.
"Master Toby!" The door to the classroom was flung open by a mop-wielding Blinky. Behind him loomed Aaarrrgghh's bulk, as well as Draal's horns. "We came as swiftly as we could--"
"Uh." Eli stood, pushing his glasses up. "Sorry, Mr. Blinky, but they're gone."
Señor Uhl, meanwhile, was seated at his desk, his head in his hands, muttering vociferously in German about aliens and monsters. His teeth might have been grinding. It was hard to tell.
"Gone?" Blinky demanded. "Where?"
"Uh, so, like, this alien guy showed up, hunting for Krel and my ninja angel," Steve put in. "He was named Tronos Mad-dude...."
"Aja and Krel called him a Voltarian," Mary put in. "Electric powers, I guess?"
Aaarrrgghh nodded. "Lightning bounty hunter," he told Draal. "I remember him. Weak against stone. But strong."
Draal's smile slowly widened. "I will enjoy encountering him," he told Aaarrrgghh, rotating one fist inside the other.
"He dodged one of Claire's portals," Darci added to Mary's information. "She and Toby and Aja and Krel went through another, and he followed them."
"So. They could be anywhere," Draal summed up.
Blinky grabbed his crystal pendant. "Accursed thing! Why do you not have a tracking function?!" he demanded of it.
Huffing, Señor Uhl stood. "If you are not here to learn, out!" he told the trio of trolls, pointing at the hallway. "This is a school, not a battle arena!"
Blinking, Blinky looked around the classroom. "My apologies," he said, backing toward the door. "If your wayward students return, please let them know the rest of us would like to assist."
"OUT!"
"See you after school, Mr. Blinky!" Eli called as the door closed behind them.
Herne, clearly, was not interested in helping Jim. He wasn't being as directly adversarial as he was with Douxie, but the god was clearly equally willing to see Jim kill or get killed, so long as he was entertained.
I guess associating with a wizard doesn't matter as much as being one, Jim thought, and ignored the god to crawl back up the rock.
First things first. He scanned the Gumm-Gumm encampment, counting heads. He got to thirty-one. Can I take that many?
Probably, Jim decided. The tricky bit's going to be making sure none of them think to take the kids hostage. Because, hoo boy, if he did something stupid and accidentally got Kanjigar killed? That would royally screw up the timeline.
The problem was, though, that Jim couldn't rely on some of the trolls falling asleep while others kept watch the way he might with humans. Eight minutes a week, Blinky had once told him, and he hadn't been kidding.
That said....
"Hey, pass the grog! Stop hoarding it!" One Gumm-Gumm hit another and stole his tankard.
"That's mine!" The injured party snarled and seized it back.
Hmm. Jim summoned a glaive and hefted it thoughtfully. If I can make them fight each other....
Barbara would be all right. Waltolomew clung to that thought with his fingertips, feeling himself close to slipping. Control, he told himself. Keep in control.
The image of her face, white with shock and blood loss, flashed through his mind. He dug his nails into the chair he was sat in, waiting. In the very ER where Barbara worked.
Time ticked on glacially. Each sweep of the minute hand around the clock seemed to take hours. Years.
The angle of the bullet, the timing... it had very obviously been meant to slay him, the unknown assassin merely missing due to Waltolomew's unexpected motion.
I'll kill them. No hesitation, no doubt. Just a simple plain fact, accompanied by a cold calculation of how many pieces he should leave the perpetrator in.
Of course, if they were a changeling, as he suspected, that equation became very simple. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
He would have been fine. He had a shield ring.
He should have given it to Barbara.
Walt stilled.
There was another ring....
The Inferna Copula.
He could give the shield ring to Barbara, to protect her.
He could don the Inferna Copula and go to India.
His fingers tightened, then released the chair arms, interlacing beneath his chin as he thought. He'd been planning to take a leave of absence anyway. And the presence of the renowned assassin Angor Rot on the battlefield might clear out certain... obstacles.
But Jim had told him, months ago, to leave the ring and its soul-slaved troll alone.
Jim wasn't here now. And no one knew when he and Douxie might return.
With Barbara in the hospital, Walt thought... rather a lot had changed.
Unbidden, his eyes flashed red.
The trolls ran into, almost literally, the Akiridions coming around a corner in the interior of the school.
"The trouble, my friends, has taken itself elsewhere," Blinky informed Varvatos and Zadra once they had all gotten themselves sorted.
"Elsewhere?" Zadra demanded. "Where?"
Draal snorted. "Unfortunately, he does not know," he said, gesturing at Blinky.
"Shadowmancer portals," Aaarrrgghh explained.
Zadra blinked. But Varvatos, at least, looked enlightened. "Ah, excellent. They have relocated the battle to a location of their choosing."
"Which still does not let us know where," Blinky pointed out. "But, nonetheless, I concur: Claire's abilities have given our allies a decided tactical advantage."
"Aaagh! Help! No!" Toby screamed, trying and failing to swim through space while Voltarian electricity arced around him. "Claire, this is your fault!"
"Will you stop whining and help us fight?" demanded Krel, clinging easily to one of the floating boulders with two arms while he braced and aimed his serrator with the others.
"I totally would if I could, dude!"
"Heads up, Toby!" Aja caroled, launching herself from another asteroid, feet first. Her feet contacted Tronos' midsection, the both of them rebounding off one another - Aja back to her rock, Tronos heading straight for Toby.
Tronos managed to twist mid-air. His eyes narrowed as his growl transmuted into a howl.
"Oh no," Toby whimpered, and barely managed to summon his helmet before he was struck by lightning.
"Toby!"
Nine hundred years of scraping up every advantage, learning and practicing everywhere he went, and it came down to this. To the Staff of Avalon, his true masterpiece. Helping to create the Trollhunter amulet, Douxie understood now, had been Merlin's test of his skill. This, this was different. This was knowledge transmuted alchemically to art. Because while he understood intrinsically how the staff needed to look... that was the simplest layer of what he needed to do.
Spell after spell was whispered into molten metal, worked and worked and worked again with hammer, with air strikes, cooled and reheated and folded and folded and folded again. Alloys sang bright beneath his fingertips, burning. Every moment he had spent with Hiccup, with Gobber, with every other master of the forge he had ever met, Douxie knew, led up to this point.
There had never before been a staff like this. Not since the days of Atlantis, at least, and possibly not even then.
I give you the metal of the Earth and stars. I give you the fire of the forge. I quench you in the water of the casket. I breathe into you the air strikes that hammer your name and nature into you. And in your heart, I give you magic itself.
The emerald floated precisely into the space left for the focal gem. It locked into place and, for the duration of one heartbeat, shone as bright as a sun. Myrddin shielded his eyes.
Douxie did not.
"It's done," Hisirdoux said after the long sleepless night of work. He felt hollowed out, empty. But it was done.
Myrddin stared at the staff. Wonder and reverence were writ large on his face. "What is it called?"
Douxie held the staff aloft. "The Staff of Avalon," he said softly. He released his grip; the staff floated to Myrddin's hands. The wizard took it as gently as he probably had his own child. Douxie swallowed, knowing his part was almost done.
He remembered Nimue's words, her charge to him when she had repaired Excalibur. "Do good with it," he told Myrddin, "Merlin Ambrosius."
Merlin the Immortal.
Author's Note: Sorry this is a day late! My Friday was taken up by chaperoning my younger son's school field trip... and when that finished, literally as I was walking to my car, I got a call from the school letting me know my older son was sick and needed to be picked up. So posting this was on my mind, but ended up having to wait a day. Sorry!