[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 168/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 8th March, 2024
The torches in the great hall flared once, then died completely, casting the room into darkness. Only the high windows let in any light.
The nobles and knights at the table faltered, their conversation halting. The servants paused in their work, looking around and up for the cause of the disturbance. Squires Steven and Elijah, currently demonstrating their flyting skills with a freestyle rap praising Camelot and its knights, hesitated. Even the musicians, valiantly trying to match the rhythm of the foreign duo, stopped playing, lowering their instruments and casting wary gazes about.
"Merlin?" asked King Arthur.
Merlin was pale.
The suits of armor that stood decoratively around the room, immobile most of the time, suddenly clattered into heaps of metal, rust creeping in at their edges.
"No," whispered Merlin hoarsely, his eyes huge and disbelieving.
Not bothering to answer his king, he stood, shoving back from the table and striding off without another glance at anyone.
Further (much further) down the table, his apprentice stood also, grabbing a few spare rolls and stuffing one last bite to eat in his mouth even as he stumbled backward over his seat and made after his master, mumbling "'Scuse me, 'scuse. Gotta catch up with Master Merlin..." as he made the rolls vanish into one of his pouches.
The cracks raced out like a spiderweb from the point of impact, shattering the surface of the Heart of Avalon and, Douxie feared, reaching just as deeply into its core.
The brilliant green light, which had wavered and danced like the sun shining on an emerald sea, sputtered out until the room was nearly black. Only the deepest of greens remained, emanating from somewhere far, far beneath their feet, with the tiniest glimmers of the more electric color dancing, weak and elusive, along the fracture lines like a comb jelly's fugitive iridescence.
"Uh," said Callista, gazing about her, "what just happened?"
Douxie was speechless with horror. No. No, not again--
He'd lost the Heart of Avalon once, seen it broken by the hands and weapons of the Arcane Order.
He hadn't thought he would see it destroyed in this timeline too.
Trollmarket's great heartstone, he thought, was Jim's, in some inexpressible untouchable way.
But the Heart of Avalon was Douxie's heartstone, the one he'd grown up near, feeling its magic in the air of Camelot, its power humming under his feet every day of the apprenticeship that had made him the wizard he was.
And now it was gone.
Forever.
Aaarrrgghh roared in triumph.
"Douxie?" whispered Claire.
"Get him out of here," Douxie said, barely knowing what he was saying.
"But Doux--"
"Get him out!" he snapped.
Claire's eyes widened at the reprimand, but she obediently raised her hands.
Aaarrrgghh, though, saw the gesture and leapt for her.
Jim leapt for him.
"Watch out!" Callista cried, even as the pair tumbled into Claire. She emitted a cry, her arms jerking up. The shadow portal swept down on her, all three of them winking out of existence together.
"Claire!" cried Douxie, hand outstretched to where she had been.
The hidden door at the top of the stairs banged open, admitting Merlin, who stumbled in, his face drawn. The corridor behind him was dark, lit only by the glow of Merlin's staff and the witchlight of the apprentice who followed him, dragon-cat at his ankles. All three stared out across the destroyed heartstone, with differing expressions of horror on their faces.
After a long, silent moment, Merlin's gaze drew to a sharpened point, focusing on Douxie.
"Hisirdoux," he said, with more wrath than Douxie had ever heard from his master, "what have you done?!"
A swirl of black formed in the air, disgorging two colossal figures onto the floor of the great hall.
"Trolls!" bellowed Sir Galahad.
"Knights, to arms!" Sir Lancelot commanded, standing, even as the hall filled with screaming, nobles and peasants alike taking stock of the situation and deciding they wanted to be anywhere but here.
"Jim!" cried several overlapping voices even as the two trolls snarled and fought, pouncing and punching, rolling and throwing one another into the columns. A warhammer flared to life in one figure's hand; swords and less identifiable weapons in others'.
In the shade of one column, a slender figure in a purple dress stumbled out of the shadows and fell unconscious to the floor, a white streak in her hair where there hadn't been one before.
"Handmaiden!" cried Morgana, going to the girl, careless of the chaos and mayhem behind her.
"Claire!" called two other overlapping voices, Morgana's other handmaiden and the dark-skinned squire girl rapidly joining her, taking on the care of their shield sister.
King Arthur snorted, drawing Excalibur. "Why is there never a wizard when you need one?" he asked rhetorically, and strode forward.
The bluer of the two trolls paused, his gaze on the three women tending the one. His eyes widened.
The distraction earned him a punch across the face. "Weak," taunted the greener troll.
But rather than folding, the taunt, and the sight, seemed only to enrage the blue troll. "You," he said with venom, "hurt Claire!" And the punch he threw in retaliation knocked the green troll clean through a column and more than a few inches deep into the stone wall beyond. The green troll seemed dazed by it. He tried to stand. Shook his head. Wobbled.
And collapsed.
The blue troll, for his part, breathed hard, staring at his felled opponent. Then his gaze shifted to the girl. He took a step toward her.
And collapsed himself.
As wary knights edged closer to him, his form shivered. Blurred. Shrank.
Into a dark-haired boy, clad in silver armor.
"Jim!" cried several voices again, princess and prince and duke and squires all pressing forward, to reach their fallen companion.
Arthur sat on his throne, head in one hand, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as he listened to his knights' reports.
"...and the stonemasons have placed a temporary support in the great hall," Sir Kay concluded. "It will be a few weeks until the stone can be brought from the quarry to make permanent repairs, my liege."
"Thank you," Arthur told his foster brother. He sighed. "At least our feasts cannot be called 'boring'?" he asked, trying to find a measure of levity in the situation.
"There is that," Kay said dryly, and bowed himself away.
"The beast is secured in our finest dungeon," Sir Galahad reported proudly next. "Took a dozen of our strongest knights to shove him in there, my lord!"
"The same dungeon," Arthur pointed out, "which just had a mass escape of its inmates?"
"It has been magically repaired since," said Galahad. "And I am quite certain that Merlin has repaired whatever loophole allowed the devils to escape."
"Yes, Merlin," Arthur said cynically. "Whom no one has seen since he left the banquet, leaving us quite literally in the dark."
Galahad faltered. "Yes, well...."
Lancelot stepped forward. Knelt. "This time, my liege, guards shall be set to watch the prisoner from within the dungeon itself, at all hours," he promised. "There shall be no unseen moments, no chances for escape. The prisoner is Gunmar's top general, known as 'Argh'." Lancelot's expression held distaste for the name. "He is more dangerous than anyone we have captured before. All your men shall be at our most alert for his treachery."
"And the boy?" asked Arthur.
Lancelot and Galahad exchanged a look. "Taken by Princess Aja's party," reported Galahad. "If you want my opinion, m'liege, he was obviously under some sort of curse, broken now that he has felled a worthy opponent--"
"Or he was the one who let Gunmar's general into Camelot to begin with," Arthur snapped. His brows drew together. "Do not think it has escaped my notice that he reappeared, together with the General, in the company of my sister's handmaiden."
"Your sister, my liege?" questioned Lancelot levelly.
Arthur's brows drew together. "My sister," he said, "whose loyalty has always been suspect."
"Surely not!" protested Galahad.
Arthur glowered. "You all saw the dark magic from which they both appeared." His hand gestured in the air, mimicking the black swirl. "How many times have we seen that same spell from Morgana?"
"But her highness--" Lancelot protested.
Arthur nailed him with a glance. "My sister is a lady, not a princess, as you well know. She shares not my father's royal blood."
"But she is your sister," said Galahad.
"Aye," said Arthur, bowing his head and momentarily closing his eyes. "But more than that, she is a creature of magic." His lips pressed together. "How often has she stood between Camelot and destroying our enemies?"
Lancelot and Galahad exchanged a look, but did not answer the rhetorical question.
"Too often," Arthur said softly. "And now she summons creatures of darkness into my hall. Into the banquet honoring Princess Aja."
"My king..." said Lancelot.
Arthur shook his head. "You were right, Sir Lancelot. What I do, I must do for the good of Camelot. Whether that means taking a new queen... or confronting my traitorous sister."
"--reckless, irresponsible--" Merlin's rant continued as he paced around his study.
"Wow," said Callista, impressed despite herself by the breadth and duration of imprecations the older wizard was raining down on the younger one's head. "He hasn't even repeated himself once."
"Quite remarkable," the small black dragon observing beside her agreed, his eyes wide.
For his part, the younger skinnybeans wizard (not to be confused with the even younger younger skinnybeans wizard, since there were two of them, apparently part of some kind of magic mishap) was taking the verbal beating silently, his lips pressed tight together. It was almost possible to miss how he was flinching at every fresh wave of verbal abuse. His blunt fingernails had dug into the palms of his hands; the sweet iron tang of human blood was unmissable for any troll.
His younger self was stood curled into a corner of the room, desperately trying not to be noticed, while simultaneously looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
"Hey," Callista finally interrupted once Merlin had paused to inhale, "you're a wizard, right? Can't you just use magic to fix it?"
The old man's baleful blue gaze set on her. "A heartstone cannot be fixed once broken," he clipped out. "The magical matrix of the stone is shattered, and that is something no one can repair. Not even Taliesin himself."
The younger wizard twitched.
Then, wordlessly, he drew an ivory box out of nowhere and opened it.
A crimson globe sprang to life above it, as baleful a red as the blood that dotted the wizard's hands. "It's all broken," he murmured hoarsely. "The timeline, the heartstone...." He gave a mirthless smile. "Everything." He shut the box, then turned toward the door.
"Hisirdoux, where are you going?!" Merlin demanded.
A one-shouldered shrug was his answer. "Maybe a jump off the tallest tower," was the careless reply. "Maybe a stroll right into Gunmar's gullet. Haven't decided yet."
The door shut behind him.
"He wouldn't really-- I mean, I wouldn't really... would I?" Hisirdoux's younger self, uncurling, asked the dragon.
"I don't know," the dragon replied. He sounded worried.
Callista snorted. "Come on, you blockheads," she told the two, wrenching the door open.
"Where are we going?" asked the skinny moppet.
"After him," she said. "Obviously."
"Hisirdoux, don't you dare--"
"Sorry, Master Merlin!" the boy yelped, running out the door after her. "I'll be back as soon as I can!"
Callista took pleasure in slamming the door in Merlin's face.
A cracked whimpering sound came out of Jim's mouth as consciousness slowly, begrudgingly, returned to him. The background noise of voices talking faded; whatever Jim was laying on dipped as someone sat down next to him.
"Hey, Jimbo," said Toby quietly. "How you feeling?"
"Like I've been hit by a rock," Jim said.
Toby winced. "Yeah, about that...."
Jim opened his eyes.
There was a canopy over his head. And.... Somewhere in Camelot, he concluded from the gray stone walls. He would need to move to get more context, and that definitely wasn't happening for the next few minutes.
"Well," said Krel's voice from somewhere nearby, "now that you are awake, I do not suppose you have any insight as to why the power seems to have gone out all over Camelot?"
"What?" Jim blinked, momentarily confused. All the stuff powering Camelot was Krel's department; no one else really understood his alien Akiridion tech well enough to help with it.
Wait. Twelfth century. Castle isn't flying yet, Jim realized. "Uh.... No?" he offered, trying to think back. The last thing he remembered was....
"Oh." Shit. Fighting Aaarrrgghh.
Aaarrrgghh damaging the huge heartstone that was buried under Camelot.
Jim winced again, for a different reason this time. "I... might have an idea," he admitted.
"What is it?!" demanded Eli.
Jim sighed, letting his head fall back against the pillow. "I think Aaarrrgghh destroyed the Heart of Avalon."
There was a beat of silence before Zadra's crisp, tart voice asked for at least half their party: "What, precisely, is this 'Heart of Avalon'?"
"Big rock." Jim made a gesture with his wrist, hopefully indicating down. "Heartstone. Buried under Camelot."
"Wait." Krel again. "You mean that green stone?"
"That's the one," Jim confirmed.
"That was a heartstone?!"
"Apparently."
"Motherf--" said Toby, but the rest of his word was lost under the sound of a door opening and closing. "Douxie!"
There were a lot of contenders in Douxie's life for the title of Worst Day Ever.
This one was rapidly rising up the ranks.
He could figure out ways around many problems. He could lie, he could cheat, he could steal, he could manipulate. And he had! He'd done it all in his time, and most of the time it worked.
Callista, for example, was no longer under the influence of gravesand. Go Team Jim!
But this time, Douxie had broken something he couldn't fix.
He didn't know what to do. His feet wandered Camelot aimlessly, until he looked up and found himself outside the royal guest quarters.
He swallowed, not wanting to face the music.
Merlin hating him, he could live with. Merlin already did, in the present. What was a little more of the same?
But....
He breathed, miserable.
I have to tell them we're never going home again.
Krel and the other Akiridions, at least, would still be born. The repercussions of Douxie breaking the timeline shouldn't reach so far into the cosmos as Akiridion-5. The effects should be fairly localized and not extend beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Jim and Claire, however, Toby and Steve... all the others....
I've destroyed the future.
Douxie stood outside the door for a long, long minute, hating himself. My plan; my fault.
Finally he raised his head, and forced himself to open the door.
Most of the others, he saw in a glance, were gathered within. Only Claire, Mary, and Darci were missing. "Where are the girls?" Douxie asked before he could help himself. It was going to be hard enough to tell them all once; twice... well, he might as well go take that walk off the tallest tower afterward. It would kill him just as much.
"Mary and Darce are with Claire in Morgana's rooms," Toby reported. "Doux, you okay? You don't look so good."
"I don't feel so good," Douxie agreed. The words felt distant from him, like they were coming from around a corner or beyond a wall. Not ideal; dissociation was never a good sign.
"Douxie?" Jim, flat on his back on the bed, struggled to sit upright.
Douxie blinked. "Jim, why are you human?"
For his part, Jim looked as devoid of knowledge on the subject as Douxie was. "I... don't know?"
"Jim turned half troll then human again after defeating Aaarrrgghh in the middle of the banquet," Krel reported.
"It was a most glorious victory!" Varvatos clenched his fist in triumph.
Wonderful. Arthur knows about Jim now. Part of Douxie started to calculate. But that was followed by a new wave of realization about how much that no longer mattered.
Douxie felt sick.
"You okay?" Steve asked. He sounded worried.
Douxie shook his head. "Very much not so," he reported. His voice was calm. Why was his voice calm?
"Um. Can you tell us what's the matter?" asked Eli.
Douxie tried to wet his lips but his mouth was too dry. He looked at his friends. At the people he'd been entrusted with, to guide back to their own time safely.
At the people he'd failed in every possible way.
"Camelot's heartstone is broken," he reported.
"Uh." Steve exchanged a glance with Eli. "We knew that. So what?"
Douxie just stared at him. How did he not get it? "Jim," he asked instead, "how did we get back to our own time, the last time we were here?"
"Uh. Killahead released a wave of magic and you used... the... heartstone." Jim stopped short, as if seeming to realize the gravity of the situation. He looked pale. "Douxie, are you saying...?"
"I'm saying, we have no way home," Douxie agreed. "And," because he'd promised himself he wouldn't lie, wouldn't omit things to this specific group of people, "breaking the heartstone broke history. There's no longer a home for us to return to."
Claire woke to darkness and whimpered. It felt like every single part of her hurt.
"There, handmaiden." A gentle hand touched her shoulder. "You've done quite a lot today."
"Morgana...?" Claire managed through a hoarse throat.
"Myself and your friends," the voice concurred. "Keep your eyes closed." A flare of light suddenly burst through Claire's shut eyelids; even closed with them closed, she could feel her pupils contracting. It didn't help her headache.
"Jeez, Claire," complained Mary. "I know my hair's already getting gross without shampoo and conditioner. But did you really have to go and strip your dye while we were here?"
"Wha...?"
Someone tugged at a her bangs. "Your blue streak's gone white," Darci reported.
Claire processed that for a moment. Then--
"What?!" she demanded, sitting up and opening her eyes. She grabbed the lock of hair and examined it in the glow of Morgana's magic.
Her hair was, in fact, white again.
"Great enough sorcery, that taps a mage beyond their limits, may also change their appearance," said Morgana gently.
Claire already knew that.
She just hadn't expected to go prematurely white in this timeline too.
"Great," she growled, slumping. Her head pounded in time with her pulse.
"Claire, what happened?" Mary demanded. "You and Jim and Aaarrrgghh appeared in the middle of the big party!"
"Interrupting Steve and Eli's rap," agreed Darci. "Which was... maybe for the better."
"Their rhymes did amuse my brother," pointed out Morgana, a small smile tugging at her lips.
Claire sighed, and took a moment to organize her thoughts. It felt like sifting through mud. "The trolls got broken out of the hold of the gravesand, and we took them away from Gunmar, so they should be okay," she reported. That should have fixed the timeline. "But then Aaarrrgghh broke the heartstone." Which seemed like it must have re-broken the timeline, ugh.
Morgana's smile twisted to a snide smirk. "Well, that would explain why all of Camelot's magic has stopped working. I told Merlin he was a fool to let everyone grow to rely upon it."
"Is that why it's dark in here?" wondered Claire.
"Indeed."
"But what about--" Claire was cut off by a banging at the door to Morgana's chambers.
Levity fled Morgana's face. "Stay here," she said, standing. She pulled the curtain to the handmaids' room closed behind her, leaving them in darkness. Claire could just make out the glow of Morgana's illuminating magic through the thick fabric.
"What is she--"
"Shh!" Darci cut Mary off, placing her hand over Mary's mouth. Mary rolled her eyes even as Morgana opened her door, the hinges creaking. Claire remembered something from history class, some tidbit Strickler had glossed over about nightingale floors in Japan giving warning by their sound.
"Sir Lancelot." Morgana's voice was level.
"Lady Morgana." Claire listened intently. She could just hear his armor shifting. Was he bowing? "King Arthur has requested your presence."
"Has he." You could have started a fire with Morgana's words, they were so dry. "With a full armed squadron as escort, I see."
"We are to assure the safe arrival of yourself and your apprentices."
A moment of silence; Claire really wished she could see Morgana's face. "I have no apprentices."
"Your pardon, my lady," said Lancelot. "But it is widely known that your handmaidens are also witches."
"Is it." Morgana's tone turned from dry to icy. "Well, you are welcome to search for them, Sir Lancelot. As it so happens, I have released them from my service and returned them to their proper mistress. You do remember Princess Aja, do you not?"
Mary squeaked under Darci's hand even as Claire swung her legs over the side of the bed. That was very clearly Morgana telling her to get all three of them out of here, but did she have enough juice? Her head still throbbed.
"I remember her all too well." Lancelot's voice sounded strangled even as Claire raised her hands and tried to concentrate on making a portal between here and Aja. Mary and Darci stared at her, wide-eyed in the darkness.
"Why, Sir Lancelot...." Morgana sounded amused. "Do you mean to tell me you have a little crush on another of my brother's intendeds?"
"Absolutely not!" the man snapped. "Men, search for the missing handmaidens."
The sound of multiple pairs of armored feet came into Morgana's room. They're heading right for us! Claire squeezed her eyes shut and thrust her hands forward, scraping the bottom of her barrel--
The castle guard threw open the curtain that led to her handmaids' alcove. Morgana watched, her heart in her throat, as he leaned in, torch in hand, searching.
"They're not here," he reported.
Relief swamped her like a spring flood.
"As I told you," she snipped at the most loyal of her brother's knights.
"I apologize," said Sir Lancelot, "for doubting your word, Lady Morgana. Now, shall we?" He offered her his arm.
Surrounded by armed escort, she had little choice but to comply.
For now, Morgana vowed.
"Of course," she said, thinking poisonous thoughts, and accepted.
"Can't you just, you know, fix it?" asked Steve.
Tired beyond measure and depressed to about the same depth, Douxie shook his head and leaned backward. Oh, a wall. How nice. Without the support, he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold himself up. As it was, the temptation to slide down against it and end up seated in a puddle was rising by the moment. "You can't fix broken crystals, Steve." He nodded at the necklace that was presumably hidden under the blond's armor. "It's why I had to make you a new necklace."
"Oh."
"But aren't heartstones living entities?" asked Aja, her brows furrowed. "You kept talking about the one in Arcadia being dead, which means it was alive before, right?"
Douxie waggled his hand. "To a certain extent, yes. They grow and they emanate energy."
"So do nuclear explosions," pointed out Eli. A startled look crossed his face. "Wait--heartstones aren't radioactive, are they?!"
"They're not," Douxie assured him. "Or at least no more so than anything else on this planet," honesty compelled him to add. Because there was background radiation all over the place. Probably significantly more in the last century, he thought, since humanity had begun tinkering with truly impressive ways to off itself.
"You are saying that living crystal cannot heal?" asked Aja, pursuing her point. "But... we can heal." She gestured to herself and her fellow Akiridions.
Douxie blinked.
Were heartstones made of the same thing as Akiridions?
When Gaylen had taken Atlantis and transformed its denizens into living crystalline entities... had he used Atlantis' heartstone as his blueprint?
If I had Gaylen's amount of hubris... thought Douxie. I would. I absolutely would.
He swallowed.
A thin thread of hope sawed through his chest.
I can use magic to heal. If Krel and Aja can show me how Akiridions heal... could I heal the Heart of Avalon? The thought rose like bile in his throat, acrid.
If he couldn't. If he got it wrong.
If he had too much hubris.
Without my staff, I don't have enough power. Douxie knew that for a solid fact. Healing Barbara's arm had knocked him out. And the Heart was much, much bigger than that. He would need to get a more powerful mage to work with him.
The thought of Merlin agreeing to the task, after the Heart had been damaged on Douxie's watch... ha. That was laughable.
Maybe Morgana....
Which was when Mary and Darci tumbled out of a shadow portal, supporting Claire, pale and drawn, between them.
"Claire!" Jim was off the bed in a flash, taking her into his arms. She looked on the verge of passing out. "What happened?" he asked Mary and Darci.
The two exchanged a look. "Sir Lancelot showed up at Morgana's door," said Mary.
"He arrested her," said Darci. "She managed to tell Claire to get us out of there, or he would have arrested us too."
"What?" Douxie asked, surprised. This hadn't happened before. What was going on?
Mary met his eyes. "They're taking Morgana to King Arthur."