Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 7th September 2021
Waltolomew walked calmly through the dark museum toward the restricted section. His steps were calm, sure; he'd trod this very path many times before, with just as little light.
Not that he needed light, he mused. A benefit of changeling physiology: he and his brethren were equally comfortable in bright noon or darkest midnight, with visual acuity that far exceeded that of either of their parent species.
At the bridge, Bular waited, along with Nomura, Otto, and one of the remaining goblins. At the time, Waltolomew had thought Bular's use of the goblins to draw out the Trollhunter a waste of resources, but it had indeed proved productive.
A pity that someone, some unknown player, had apparently seen fit to ward the boy's home, protecting young Mister Domzalski from attack while he slept. Really, it would all have been so much easier if Bular could have simply murdered the boy at night and claimed the amulet. A simple structural collapse, tragic, but what else was to be expected of a house nearly a hundred years old? It would have been clean, with no traces left to hide.
As it was, their current best option was looking like having Gladysgro poison the boy during his next orthodontic appointment and claim his amulet. An unfortunate allergic reaction to a new anesthetic during a procedure, so sad. Simple murder, and no one the wiser.
"We've been waiting," Bular said, an iron threat in a velvet voice. For now, the Butcher still needed Waltolomew. He couldn't count on that lasting. He had collateral, but that did not guarantee complete safety. He needed to be invaluable. Invulnerable.
Otto, on the other hand, was almost giggling with triumph as he opened his briefcase to reveal the Eyestone, to complete the bridge. It glowed in his hands, then rose in the air and drifted gently to the bridge, where it sealed itself into position with the softest of thumps. An anti-climactic sound, for such a pivotal piece of their plan to bring Gunmar back to Earth.
Bular laughed. Then, as nothing happened, he said "It doesn't work."
"Bular, patience," Otto soothed.
But as the moments ticked on, Bular's patience wore thin, and snapped.
"There must be a reason why-" Otto stammered, backing up from the looming threat of the snarling Gumm-Gumm prince.
"How?" Nomura wondered aloud. "Why? The bridge is complete!"
A pair of blue eyes flashed through Waltolomew's mind, a young man leaving this very room. A young man who was the closest friend of the Trollhunter-
"Is the bridge complete?" he asked. "Examine it!"
Otto practically leapt out of Bular's reach, scurrying over to the bridge with the other two changelings. The few surviving goblins also carefully checked over the structure, inch by inch.
Finally, one of the goblins let out a screech. The rest of them clustered on the underside of the arch, where it was jabbering and pointing at a dark shadow.
His eyes used to the night, Waltolomew could see clearly where someone had taken a piece out of the bridge.
"There's a stone missing!" Nomura snarled. "It was here. Who took it?!"
Oh, clever boy, Waltolomew thought, and wasn't sure if he meant the Trollhunter, for sending his friend to perform this task, or Jim Lake himself, for fooling him so successfully and using his affection for Jim's mother to cloud his judgment. "I might know who has taken it," he said calmly.
Nomura rounded on him. "It was one of your little brats on that field trip, wasn't it?" she demanded. "Which one? Tell me, or I'll shred them all to pieces!"
"Indeed, and I will help her," said Otto.
Waltolomew held up a hand. "Patience," he told them and the looming Bular. "I believe I can retrieve the piece easily enough. Let's not make a display about it. We've waited this long to contact Gunmar. What are a few days more?" Most of his attention was addressed to Bular. His fellow changelings, Waltolomew could handle. The Butcher was less predictable.
"Two days," Bular growled. "Or I will make your precious school a bloodbath the likes of which you cannot imagine."
"Theft of museum property," Strickler had the audacity to pronounce to Jim's face during his office hours. "Not a charge which is likely to look well on your record, Young Atlas."
Jim didn't try very hard to bite back his smile. "Did something get stolen from the museum?" he asked, as innocently as he could. Which wasn't very. The Janus Order must have tried to use the bridge for something and discovered the missing piece.
"The coy act does not become you," Strickler informed him. "Return the stolen item to me, or face the consequences."
Jim just looked at his teacher and hopefully future stepfather. "With all due respect, Mister Strickler, I don't think so. If I took anything out of the museum, it was something which didn't belong there in the first place."
Strickler's eyes flashed with anger, but he wasn't mad enough yet to let loose of his human guise. Or did he not know that Jim knew? "Your friend Mister Domzalski is a great geology aficionado. He should not have talked you into procuring a new piece for his rock collection. Surely you can see how theft is wrong?"
Jim grinned. "Toby doesn't even know about the bridge," he informed the changeling. "You're not dealing with him. You're dealing with me. And if you think I hid it anywhere you have access to, think again. You're not letting Gunmar out." He could see realization dawn across Strickler's face that there was a new, third player in this cat-and-mouse maneuvering of Bular and the Janus Order versus the Trollhunter. He could also see that Strickler didn't much like this realization, or, at the moment, Jim.
Jim was dangerous to Strickler.
Jim was upsetting plans that had no doubt been decades in the making.
Jim was maybe enjoying this way too much.
The class bell rang.
"I have to get to algebra," Jim said, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag. "I'll see you at dinner tonight, Mister Strickler!"
And as he left the changeling behind him, stewing on the implications of a third party on the playing field, he was already texting Douxie. S. knows I took the bridge piece. Told him T. doesn't even know it exists. Dinner tonight going to be so much fun.
Only a few seconds later, just before Jim entered Miss Janeth's classroom, Douxie's reply came. You have the strangest idea of fun. Glad I'm going to get to meet S. properly.
"You're out of your mind," Douxie said as he chopped bell peppers, sous chef to Jim's chef de cuisine. But there was laughter in his voice, so Jim didn't think the wizard meant it as criticism.
"What is your optimal outcome for tonight?" asked Archie.
"I... don't actually know," Jim confessed. "I just couldn't let him go after Toby."
"Well, if you're right and they've failed to use the bridge for something," Douxie said, "I can't imagine Bular is very happy about it. Question is, is Strickler's neck on the line if he fails to deliver?"
"Probably," said Archie. "Bular never did have much patience or respect for underlings."
"So there's a crack there," Douxie pointed out. "He's at least a bit afraid for his own life. Can we jam a pry bar in that and break Strickler away from the Janus Order?"
"The other question is, how much do you want Barbara to learn tonight?" the cat-dragon asked Jim.
He set down his knife and sighed. "That's what I don't know," Jim said. "I mean, between the three of us, we can definitely take Strickler. But at the same time, I don't want to force him to get so violent in front of Mom that there's no chance between them."
"She needs to know what he is," Archie concurred. "But does she need to know it tonight?"
"Play it by ear?" Douxie suggested.
"I think we'll have to," said Jim.
Walter showed up at precisely 6:30, bearing a bottle of what Barbara felt was likely a very good pinot noir. Judging by his previous beverage offerings, the man had excellent taste. She brushed her hair behind her ear, wondering. Douxie had as good as confirmed that she could be very happy with this man. But there was something bigger about the hole in the boys' recounting of the future. What was it they weren't telling her?
Whatever. She was resolved to have a pleasant meal.
"...You sure about that?" Douxie was asking Jim as she led Walt into the dining room.
"Yes, I'm sure. I've made this before." Jim was at the stove, adding sauce to the pan.
The wizard gave a minimal shrug, to avoid dislodging the cat perched on his shoulder. "You're the expert."
"I hope you like Chinese," Barbara told Walter.
"I love it," he replied, eyes on Douxie. "And you are...?"
"Hisirdoux Casperan," the wizard replied, reaching across the counter to shake Strickler's hand. "Barbara and Jim are being kind enough to let me stay in their spare room for a bit. You must be Mister Strickler. Jim has good things to say about your history class."
"Jim is a pleasure to teach," Walter replied. Barbara's gaze suddenly caught on Douxie's vambrace. He hadn't disguised it as a watch.
...Why did she have a bad feeling that it wasn't an oversight?
She looked up and caught Douxie's gaze. He nodded slightly, an acknowledgment.
Not an oversight at all, then. They were up to something.
So much, Barbara lamented, for her hopes for a pleasant evening. She internally steeled herself to get through it. Whatever "it" was.
Waltolomew didn't have time to be sitting through dinner, not if he wanted to keep in Bular's graces. He could almost feel a clock counting down. He had tonight, and tomorrow night, and then on the third night Bular would expect him to produce the missing stone. Jim had said it wasn't anywhere he had access to, and he didn't think the boy was lying. Jim had also said that the Trollhunter didn't know it existed. So. The stone was not being kept at school, nor in either boy's house.
There was near-endless woodland and scrub brush surrounding Arcadia Oaks, but Waltolomew had access to those. The only place from which he was truly barred entry was...
...was Trollmarket.
Blast the boy!
Time to apply a little pressure.
"Did you know," Waltolomew asked Barbara while the two boys cleared away the dishes from the first course, "that Miss Nomura of the city museum has been preparing an exhibit on twelfth-century stonework and structures?"
Out of the corner of his eye he saw both boys stiffening. Interesting.
"Really? Zelda hasn't told me about it."
"Zelda?" He raised an eyebrow.
Barbara laughed. "Assuming we're talking about the same Miss Nomura who works at the museum, she's in my Krav Maga class."
"What a small world," Waltolomew said. "She shares things with me so that I can arrange field trips for my classes. She was most distressed, after Jim's class visited, to find a piece of one of the historical structures had been stolen."
"Stolen?" Barbara swirled the wine in her glass, then looked at Waltolomew. "That sounds like you think one of the students took it."
"As a prank or a dare, perhaps," he said, smiling benignly. "If it were to be returned quietly, however, I'm sure no charges would be pressed against... whoever took the artifact."
Barbara set down her cup. "Walter," she said quietly, "are you accusing my son of theft?"
"It's fine, Mom," Jim said, coming back into the dining room. His tone was light but his eyes were pure steel. The boy somehow thought he could go toe-to-toe with Waltolomew Stricklander and win. He would shortly learn that he was wrong. "I'd rather be a thief than party to genocide."
Barbara's mouth opened slightly but she didn't seem to doubt her son's words.
"Return the stone," Waltolomew told Jim, "or the consequences will be on your head." Surreptitiously he palmed a knife. He didn't want to harm Barbara, but if he needed to take her as a hostage to guarantee his own continued survival-
"Right, then," said the other young man, spinning light around one of his bracelets. Magic! Waltolomew barely had time to react, lunging toward the magic-user before the spell activated and he was frozen in place.
"Douxie," said the cat calmly, "he has a knife."
"I saw," said Douxie, rounding the table and prising the weapon out of twitching fingers, setting it on the middle of the dining table. "It's fair. I'm sure he thinks he's backed into a corner."
"A knife," Barbara said faintly, looking at it. The blade's sharp edges gleamed wickedly. She buried her head in her hands. "This is why I don't date."
"Don't let one lapse in judgment put you off him," Archie said. "Jim and Douxie have assured me he's a good man. Salvageable," he added, looking at the frozen-in-place changeling.
"Women shouldn't have to salvage men," she snapped at the dragon.
"What are you?" the changeling in question growled. His eyes were flickering as he fought to control himself.
Douxie exchanged a questioning glance with Jim. "I'd've thought it was obvious?" Douxie replied. "I'm a wizard. Much like your Pale Lady."
Strickler snarled. "You will not speak of her-"
"I will speak of Morgana Le Fay all I like," Douxie overrode him. "I actually know the princess. I studied beside her. You've probably never even seen her face."
Strickler went pale. "Merlin's lost apprentice."
Douxie half-bowed. "The same."
"The Janus Order will destroy you and all you love for your betrayal of our Lady."
"Doubtful." Hisirdoux smiled grimly. "You see, everyone has hostages to fortune." As if reading his mind, Archie leapt up on Douxie's shoulder. "Mine just happens to be a dragon." Archie shifted shape, and gods he was so much heavier that way. Douxie kept smiling, trying not to show the discomfort. "He's a bit harder to destroy than most. And I can guarantee you that even if you should manage to take out both of us, Charlemagne the Devourer would not take kindly to you killing his only son. Your order," he said calmly, "will be toast. Every last man Jack of you."
Archie spat a small flame out before Strickler. "Meow," he said primly, and jumped down.
"Now," said Jim, standing beside Douxie, "this can go two ways. Either Douxie can release you and we can all try talking this out over dinner like reasonable sapient beings."
"Or?" Strickler asked.
"Or we can kick you to the curb, and you can try making your excuses to Bular without us on your side," Jim said. "Because you're never getting that stone back."
"I'd take your chances with us," Douxie recommended. "We're less likely to kill and eat you."
To his credit, Strickler strained uselessly against the magic holding him, fought his hardest. He wasn't one to give up easily. But Douxie could see the moment he realized that he couldn't win, and that they had indeed backed him into a corner. He had to ally himself with them, if he wanted to live beyond Bular's wrath.
Strickler closed his eyes, hung his head. His very breathing acknowledged defeat. "I give you my parole," he said quietly.
"Parole accepted," Douxie said, and broke his spell.
Strickler fell to the floor, and when he looked up, his eyes were those of a man lost.
Jim extended a hand, and helped him to rise.
Author's Note: "She was resolved to have a pleasant meal." Me, immediately upon writing that line: "Yeah, sorry, no. Not gonna happen." This is part one of my take on the episode "Recipe For Disaster." Turns out having a wizard around makes the physical battle parts of that episode kind of a non-starter.