[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 175/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 7th June, 2024
Angor Rot's head snapped up, as though he was a marionette controlled by invisible strings. He stared into the distance over Waltolomew's shoulder.
Walt refused to turn and look. He refused. Either there was something behind him about to kill him - and given that he hadn't heard anything, that possibility was unlikely though not impossible - or Angor Rot was looking at something that mere distance could not explain, in which case Walt wouldn't be able to see it, and would only appear weak for trying.
He was a master of bluffing. His heart didn't even race, no matter how much it might want to.
It did beat faster, though, when Angor Rot growled, an almost subaudible sound. "She is free," the assassin said through gritted teeth.
It took a moment, but Waltolomew was able to connect the invisible dots and figure out who she must be. He paled. "The Pale Lady?"
Angor looked at him now, yellow eyes baleful, the living stone of his flesh seeming gaunt and skeletal. Like he was a Halloween wraith, held together only by anger and spite.
Walt did not step back. He didn't. This was too important for that.
"She," growled Angor Rot, "who made your people. Who made me what I am." His smirk held no mirth. "The Maker."
"The mother of monsters," he agreed. "Will you go to her?"
Angor looked away into the distance again. "She has not yet called me."
"Bound to obey?" Walt asked. It earned him a glare of confirmation. "I would free you, if I knew how."
Angor's hand flexed, the Inferna Copula glinting on his finger. After a moment, he spoke again. "You are strange, for a Changeling."
"I rather hope so." Walt straightened the millimeters he had allowed himself to relax. "I know where she was imprisoned."
Angor's eyes sharpened with interest.
"A little town called Arcadia Oaks, on another continent," Walt said. "The Janus Order has headquarters there. A thriving Trollmarket dwells, hidden, underground. Morgana was held within that heartstone like a fly in amber. Since we broke from her, none of us have dared venture within her reach. Even imprisoned, she... has certain effects on my kind."
"As she does on me," Angor allowed, his voice like two slabs of granite rubbing together.
Waltolomew desperately needed to get back to Arcadia. "It seems unlikely that the event which freed you, and the one that freed her, are discrete entities," he said carefully.
Angor snorted. Walt took that as agreement. "What would you propose, impure one?"
Walt tensed. "If you don't mind," he said tersely, "I'd rather you didn't use that term."
Angor snorted again. "Sensitive to words."
"Words matter," Walt shot back.
To his surprise, Angor Rot nodded, seemingly unoffended.
"I have allies in Arcadia Oaks," Walt continued, answering Angor's question.
"Other changelings."
"Changelings," Walt agreed with a nod of his head. "And humans. Trolls. Wizards. Aliens. I need to find out what has happened."
Angor was motionless. Save for his mouth and the golden embers of his eyes, he might have been a statue. "You wish to go there."
"No plan can be made without knowledge," Waltolomew pointed out.
"A valid point," Angor allowed. He looked pensive. Walt waited, letting him think.
Finally, a small, cruel smile crossed Angor Rot's face. "She may not kill me," he said. "But for your desertion? I'll be interested to see this."
Long pale fingers curled around Walt's bicep. Angor's staff hummed, a dark swirl of pure magic forming at the upper, forked end.
Between one heartbeat and the next, darkness swallowed them and they were gone, the abandoned temple standing empty once again.
Hisirdoux was bored. He didn't think he'd ever been so bored in his life! He mindlessly fed twigs, smaller and smaller and smaller, into the fire, watching them burn. And still Master Merlin didn't return.
"He's been in there a very long time, hasn't he?" he asked Archie. He didn't know how long it had been, but he was quite certain that it was longer than he'd ever had to wait before. If he'd had his lute, he would have known how long, because there were certain songs he always practiced while waiting, to keep the time. But he didn't have his lute, had loaned it to Prince Krel, and he hadn't been singing the songs as he should have been doing all along if he'd truly wanted to keep the time.
He'd thought this would be a short visit. After all, Lady Nimue had to see how important repairing Excalibur was!
"Perhaps magical repairs to a weapon of Excalibur's caliber take a while," Archie offered from the other side of the fire. He was laying on the sandy beach, paws crossed before himself, wings folded against his back. "Have patience."
Hisirdoux glared. "Patience is easy for you, Arch! You're a cat half the time. You spend your days napping."
"And all your fretting about it is making the old man reappear so much faster, hmm?" Archie laid his head down on his paws. "If there's nothing else you can do about it, you simply must cultivate the ability to wait, Douxie."
Douxie glared at his familiar for a minute, then flopped back against the log behind himself. "I hate waiting," he groaned. "If all I'm going to do here is sit and wait, I wish I'd stayed back in Camelot with everyone else. I'm sure they're up to something interesting."
"Probably," Archie said moodily. Suddenly his head shot up and he looked intently at the stone guardians, who had finally tired of taunting Hisirdoux and gone back to sleep.
No, Hisirdoux realized. Archie wasn't looking at the guardians, he was looking beyond them. At the cave of the Lady of the Lake.
"Arch...?"
Archie's ears were laying flat against his skull. Never a good sign. "Oh," he said, so quietly that Hisirdoux almost couldn't hear him, "I do hope this will go better than I think it will...."
They emerged from a shadow portal, Claire, Douxie, and Steve.
"Ugh!" said Steve, gagging. "This lake smells like butt thunder!" He clutched his nose and waved his hand in front of himself. "It reeks in here. It smells like something died."
"Something probably did." Douxie fiddled with his vambrace until a spotlight emerged. He swept it across the sandy shore, searching. The beam stopped on something that gleamed red and gold, bobbling up and down. A sword hilt, stuck shattered blade down in a rickety raft that floated toward them.
Claire stepped forward and knelt down as the vessel bumped the shore. She touched fingers to Excalibur. "Well, we know Merlin was here."
"And we know where he went," Douxie agreed, stepping up beside her. They shared a look, then as one gazed out across the black waters. Douxie's light shone across it, revealing... nothing. No island where Merlin might have taken refuge. Nothing.
"Wait, he went... out there?" Steve demanded.
"She is called the Lady of the Lake, Steve," Claire said pointedly, following Douxie onto the raft.
"Wait, we're not going out there, are we?" Steve followed them, since Douxie was the only source of light in this place. But he was not going on that raft, nosiree!
"She's not the lady of the shoreline," Douxie replied.
Steve looked out at the foul-smelling water. "Why do I gotta be here?" he whined. "This is all wizardy stuff and things. Can't I go back to Camelot and help guard Aja?"
"Steve." Douxie's hand landed on his shoulder. "You're here," the wizard said softly, leaning in close, "because you are needed to be here."
"Yeah, Steve," said Claire, her hand on her hip as she looked at him. "You're necessary. Trust us."
"I'm... necessary?" He didn't like how pathetic that sounded as it came out, but... no one had ever said that about the Steve-meister before.
Douxie's smile was kind and calm and Steve hated how much he needed that. "Steve. I swear to Mordrax, and on Merlin's Tomb, that you are not an extra. Not some superfluous member of the party. You are here because Claire and I very much need you to be here. You may not have magic yet, but you are very much an important member of this team."
Steve was not gonna cry. He wasn't!
But he did sniffle.
And then he strode right onto the pathetic raft, because he was Sir Steve of Arcadia, and he was going to rock this quest. "All right, let's go!"
Douxie exchanged an amused smile with Claire behind Steve's back, and cast off. Around them the mist was starting to rise. Lady Nimue did like her drama, he supposed.
Steve gave a little shriek as the raft's lanterns flickered to life, then tried to pretend like he'd been cool and nonchalant all the while. Douxie bit back a smile; he knew that feeling well. "Pick up the sword, Steve," he directed softly.
"What? Me? But I'm not a king. That's Lake's job!"
Douxie shrugged. "I'm not a king either and I've handled that blade."
"Besides," put in Claire, "what about being Spring Fling King?"
Steve brightened. "Yeah! I am that!" He put too much muscle into yanking Excalibur out of the raft and almost tumbled overboard in success.
Claire gave Douxie a side glance. "Last time you held it," she observed so Steve wouldn't hear.
"I want my hands free," he told her.
Claire nodded in understanding.
Before them, in the dead center of the lake, the water brightened, glowing a familiar turquoise blue. Like Lake Baikal ice, Douxie thought, as Nimue's glowing projection arose from the surface, looking like nothing so much as a veiled human figure, willowy, its head crowned in braids. Something beautiful. Exotic. Attractive.
After his first encounter with the Lady, Douxie had read far too many articles about deep sea anglerfish and their illicium and glowing esca. About how they used that appendage to attract prey. Or mates. Douxie's newly acquired information and the speculative paths it had led his brain down had been the source of more than a few nightmares.
He was certainly not going to share any of that information with Steve, because he was fairly sure it would lead to a freak out that they absolutely did not need now.
"I am the Lady Nimue, Eldest of Oracles," the goddess introduced herself, her voice soothing.
Lulling, Douxie couldn't help but think.
He trusted the Nimue of the future about as much as he trusted any deity, but this one was still trapped, and very, very homicidal toward wizards.
Merlin's doing.
"Why do you seek me?"
So many answers were true. Which should he give? What would not set her off?
"Uh, we kind of need this sword fixed?" Steve asked, raising Excalibur high. "And we're missing a wizard. Don't suppose you've seen one around here, have you?" he asked, glancing from side to side as though Merlin might suddenly emerge from the mist.
Claire winced. Douxie bit down the urge to facepalm.
"I can give you what you seek," Nimue all but purred.
Come closer, little prey, Douxie mentally translated.
But it was her projection that came closer, swooping around the boat. She's got to be right underneath us.
"That is not which you truly desire," Nimue told him.
Douxie breathed a nervous laugh. Other than the blade needing to be mended so that Jim could wield it in the future, it was true that he didn't give a fig about Excalibur. But the first time around, Nimue had told all of them some uncomfortable truths (except for Archie, who truly did love a good roasted salmon), meaning she had some form of telepathy or empathy, and was about to wield it against them.
Paralyzing her prey.
He braced himself.
"You seek an end to exhaustion," she told Douxie, and regardless of bracing himself, he had to force himself not to curl around where that hit, because it was true--
Claire looked at him curiously, but then sucked in a breath as Nimue addressed her. "Safety of loved ones," the goddess pronounced. From Claire's wide eyes, it was true.
"What's so bad about that?" Steve asked before Nimue circled around to him. "Assurance of worthiness," said the Lady of the Lake, and Douxie knew about Steve's self-esteem issues, really he did, but there was never enough time to properly reassure him....
"You are not the first to try to deceive me," the Lady proclaimed, drawing herself up into her projection's full height. "You are not worthy!" she declared, her true voice bleeding into the false one.
"I really have to question your idea of 'worthiness'!" Claire snapped, even as the waters around them grew rough.
"What's wrong with wanting to be worthy?" Steve whimpered.
Below them, Nimue's giant eye snapped open, baleful red ringing the iris that was the same glowing yellow-green as uranium glass. Their raft rocked as giant tentacles erupted from the water. "You seek," Nimue spat, "you take. And all receive their final reward!"
"Hey, back off!" snapped Steve, brandishing the remnants of Excalibur. "These are my friends, and the only way anyone gets to hurt them is by going through me first!"
"Wow," murmured Claire, staring. Douxie had to agree.
Steve's big moment, though, was cut short by a tentacle wrapping around his ankle and yanking him off the raft. Excalibur went flying, and Steve disappeared down the monster's gullet.
"Steve!" cried Claire.
Douxie caught Excalibur with his magic before it could pierce the lake's surface. It whirled back to his hand. "Brace yourself," he told Claire, his weight low and balanced. She obeyed, following his lead, her movements as graceful as a dancer's.
"Now," growled Nimue, "on to your rewards."
I remember this, thought Claire.
"Such puny creatures make tasty meals," Nimue growled, seizing, as before, Douxie. But he had Excalibur in his hand, and used it to slice at her grasping tentacle, which recoiled and vanished beneath the lake's foul-smelling surface.
"Oh, I hate this part," Douxie groused, shoving with his magic. The raft sailed backwards, toward the shore.
What's he-- oh, Claire thought. Douxie was getting them out of the way so that Nimue could surface.
And she did, right on schedule, tentacle grasping at one of the cave's stalactites and breaking it free, hurling it at their relatively fragile vessel.
"Not on my watch," Claire snapped, catching the pillar with her magic before Douxie could. She grunted. It was bigger than anything she'd ever levitated before, and coupled with its momentum was almost too much for her.
Almost.
As Douxie had done last time, she shot it back at Nimue, like a projectile launched off a rubber band slingshot. Claire hit her target square - and Steve and Merlin came flying out of Nimue's mouth, landing on the shore.
Douxie was watching her, awe on his face. "Nice work, Claire," he said.
She was panting from the telekinetic strain, but managed a grin for him. "I had a good teacher."
Nimue was before them, still huge and scary, but... but not as angry. Like a good pillar to the face had knocked the anger out of her. "My revenge tasted so sweet," she mourned.
"I know," said Douxie, glancing over his shoulder to where Merlin was still passed out on the shore. "He's done terrible things, not least of which is locking you up in here, but... but you can't eat him," he said, turning back to the goddess. "We still need him. The future needs him."
You need him, Douxie, Claire thought but didn't say, because she wasn't that cruel.
Nimue had stilled. "You... know about that?" She leaned in closer, her giant single eye close enough that Douxie could have reached out to touch it. "What are you?" she asked, examining him.
"Merlin's successor," Douxie said.
Nimue's eye opened wider. "The heir to the magic of Camelot," she said, sounding surprised. Like she knew something about Douxie, but hadn't known it was about the human figure standing before her now.
Eldest of Oracles, Claire thought. Nimue had called herself that. Maybe the title wasn't just for show.
Douxie's hand found the back on his neck, rubbing. "Well, I don't know if I'd call myself that," he mumbled.
"The scary lake goddess gives you a title. Own it, Teach," Claire advised.
"I'm hardly that pretentious," Douxie protested.
Nimue humphed. On the shore, Steve pushed himself up, a hand to his head. "Whoa," he murmured, looking up at the giant glowing-eyed tentacle monster.
"Why are you here?" Nimue demanded.
"Well, our purpose is twofold," said Douxie. "We're here to free you, and to get Excalibur repaired."
"Not what I meant." A tentacle poked Douxie in the chest, making the raft rock. "Why are you here, boy? Do you know?"
From Douxie's expression, the implication of a higher purpose was a surprise. "No...?"
"Hmph. There is more to you than you know."
"Yes, yes." Douxie waved her words off. "Heir to Atlantis, or at least one of them, first bardic mage in literal millennia--"
"No." Nimue stopped him. "That is what you are. What you do not know is who you are."
"I--" Douxie seemed at a loss for words.
Steve stumbled onto the raft. "What's she talking about, man?" he asked in a loud whisper.
"I have no idea," Douxie replied.
"You will find out," Nimue told him. "That is not a kindness."
On the shore, Merlin groaned.
Nimue's gaze narrowed to a glare, darting to the senior wizard. "Free me, little wizard," she told Douxie, her attention returning to him, "and I will repair the blade."
"My lady," said Douxie with a smile and a half bow, "I would free you even if you didn't fix the blade." He reversed his grip on Excalibur's hilt. Glowing blue plasma writhed around the broken blade like lightning. "Tenebris Exilium!"
Upon impact, the far wall of the cave crumbled, exposing open skies. A gust of fresh air wafted into the cave. Claire couldn't help inhaling.
"Wait, dude, you--" Steve gaped.
Douxie gave him a smile and shrugged. "I'm fated to free monsters, aren't I?" His gaze lingered past Steve's shoulder, on Merlin who was pushing groggily to his feet. "Best to get started with it now."
"You keep your word."
Douxie turned to look at Nimue, who rather than leaving her prison, was regarding him.
"That is rare," Nimue said thoughtfully. "Not only in wizards, but in men."
"The world is broken," Douxie told her. "We're in the business of trying to repair it."
"So I see." A glowing blade rose from the stagnant waters. "This gift must be repaid," said Nimue, and Excalibur's central gem flashed, changing from ruby red to emerald green. The same green as the Heart of Avalon, Claire realized. "The sword was meant for those worthy," Nimue said. "Do good with it."
Douxie accepted the sword. "I shall return it to its rightful place," he said, and this time Claire realized that was an abstraction; he wasn't exactly agreeing to do as Nimue had said. But if the sword didn't go to Arthur, then it would never go to Jim....
Maybe Douxie was playing a longer game than she realized.
Maybe Nimue knew that too.
"Thank you, my lady," said Douxie, bowing.
Nimue turned away, and left.
"Goodbye!" called Steve after her retreating form. "Sorry I almost slayed you, monster lady!"
"Hisirdoux!" Merlin snapped, coming up behind them right on cue. "What have you done?!"
Douxie turned to face him, revealing challenge on his face and the enchanted blade in his hands.
"Oh, uh. Is that Excalibur?" asked Merlin in an entirely different tone. Claire probably shouldn't have enjoyed seeing him caught on the back foot quite as much as she was, but she figured she'd earned it.
Douxie opened his mouth to say something, then visibly bit back his own words. "Indeed. I've resecured Camelot's stability, just as you planned," he said instead, echoing his own words from the first time they'd done this. Claire wondered what he'd really wanted to say.
"And you should see what he did to fix the heartstone," she butted in, because heck if she was not going to brag on her teacher and rub into Merlin's face just how awesome he was.
Merlin's eyes were wide as he accepted Excalibur. "Fixed the heartstone?" he demanded incredulously. "Heartstones cannot simply be mended as if they were worn out shoes! They are sacred objects and take hundreds of thousands of years to grow and mature into their full power--"
"And yet he did it," Claire cut Merlin off.
"Yeah!" Steve fist-pumped the air, Nimue's tooth cradled in his other elbow. "Power's back on across the whole castle. It's awesome, dude."
She didn't think she'd ever seen Merlin's eyes so wide as they were now. "Impossible," he said.
"And yet not," Douxie returned. "Someone once told me something about wizards and unexpected possibilities." He held Merlin's gaze for a long moment, before Douxie finally sighed and looked away. "If you'll excuse us, we need to return to Camelot. I'm sure there are more fires there that need to be put out."
Claire knew a cue when she heard one. "See you back at Camelot!" she said, and summoned a shadow portal for herself, Douxie, and Steve.
Leaving Merlin behind.
Hisirdoux bolted upright as the stone guardians slid apart. "Master!"
"Took you long enough," said the guardian on the right.
"Yeah, what kept you? I thought you were going to be in there forever," said the guardian on the left.
"Silence, fools!" A wave of Merlin's hand cast a wave of magic on the guardians, returning them to their lifeless state. Both made huge yawns as they fell asleep.
"Master, you got it!" Hisirdoux said, eyes on the restored blade in Merlin's hand.
"Yes. Yes, I did," Merlin said thoughtfully as he gazed at the blade. His thumb ran over one of the repairs. "Though I wonder...."
"Yes?" asked Hisirdoux eagerly, Archie backbeating by his shoulder to stay in the air.
Merlin's gaze fixed on Hisirdoux. He seemed... almost assessing, for a moment. But that was surely nonsense; there was nothing the Lady of the Lake could have said or done, surely, to make him look at his own apprentice differently.
"Nothing," Merlin snapped. "Come. We must return to Camelot and restore the blade to the king." He strode off toward the airship, not waiting for Hisirdoux or Archie.
"I wonder what that's about," Archie murmured.
"Who cares," said Hisirdoux, and fiddled with his bracelet even as he scrambled after Merlin. A jet of water arched up from the canal, neatly dousing their fire as the apprentice and the dragon followed the master wizard onto the boat and set sail.
None of the three noticed the goddess in the darkness, watching thoughtfully after their departure.