Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 29th September 2021

Remembering all that had happened was like a fog he hadn't even noticed lifting from Blinky's mind. "Oh my," he said, his eyes meeting the emerald-green ones of his longtime companion.

From the widening of Aaarrrgghh's eyes, he, too, felt stunned.

The very first thing Aaarrrgghh did when their gazes broke was to turn about, and snatch Toby up into one of his near-crushing hugs that were, nonetheless, one of the safest places to be in the whole universe. Blinky had more than once cherished the feeling of safety to be found in the Krubera's arms. "Wingman safe," Aaarrrgghh said softly.

"Yeah," Toby said, presumably hugging back. "I missed you, too, buddy."

For his part, Blinky just stood and breathed. It felt almost like a miracle, to be here in this time and space, with so many of their allies undamaged, and so many more of them, he thought, his gaze catching on Draal, still living.

"Blinky?" Jim asked softly.

"Thank you," Blinky told his first son softly, "for giving us the choice to remember. And for giving us the choice to wait until we were ready." He gently folded the young man into his arms.

Jim squeezed him tightly, for a human's strength. "Good to have you back, Blink," he said, and if his voice was full of unshed tears, Blinky could not blame him.

"Yes, well," Blinky said, uncomfortable with showing too much emotion even in front of their closest allies. "Shall we get to business, then?"

"Yeah," said Jim, and turned to their wizard. "Doux?"

"As you will," said Hisirdoux, and cast a spell from his vambrace that sent nearly a dozen glowing whiteboards, scribbled over with writing, hovering around the room.

"Right," said Blinky, cracking the knuckles on all four hands, "let us 'get down to this'."

Douxie helped himself and Archie to some cheese and grapes while Blinky stared at the whiteboards and muttered to himself. Real cats couldn't eat grapes... but Archie was hardly a real cat, and had always savagely enjoyed the way the sweet spheres popped between his sharp teeth. Douxie personally suspected his familiar's ancestors had indeed been as savage as the tales of Charlemagne the Devourer Archie had told him for centuries. (Perhaps even more so; Charlie's pie-baking habit, even in Archie's tales, had always been an indicator of at least some civility.)

"All right," Blinky said as Douxie sat back down on the ground. The troll's comment interrupted the low conversations and at least one mobile game of Go Go Sushi that had been going on while their master strategist had reacquainted himself with both all the problems that lay before their team, and their notes on how to address them. "My thoughts are these: we must give Strickler time to get the Janus Order in hand before we deal with Gunmar. For now, therefore, our top priorities should be acquiring the Triumbric Stones and, although it pains me to say this, waking Merlin. We must also be on guard against Queen Usurna's treachery, though, having been banished from Trollmarket, I do not know how we may accomplish that goal."

"I did warn Vendel about her," Jim said.

"Then that shall have to suffice. Vendel is both crafty and wise; knowing of his future demise at her hands will likely be enough to guide his actions."

"Question!" Toby's hand shot up. "How do we get the stones without access to the gyre?"

"A most vexing conundrum indeed." Blinky's hand was pressed against his chin. "Perhaps Claire could-"

"Nuh-uh." She shook her head. "I'm not strong enough yet."

"It's true," Douxie put his two bits in. "Claire's progressing nicely at building up her power, but even with the shadow ring to boost her, these things take time."

"How much time?" asked Draal.

Douxie exchanged a look with Archie. "A couple months, you think?" he asked his familiar.

"A good estimate," the dragon agreed, taking another grape. "You don't go from zero to a marathon in a day."

"Why don't we just sneak in the back door to Trollmarket?" asked Jim. "It's right by the gyre station, isn't it?"

Glances were exchanged. "Oooh, sneaky, Jimbo!" Toby rubbed his hands together. "I like it."

"But what about waking Merlin?" asked Claire. "We only found his gyre because I was able to portal to Aaarrrgghh. It was unconnected to the network, and in a jungle. That could be almost anywhere!"

Hisirdoux blinked. "Why would we be looking for Master Merlin in a jungle?"

"How else do we find him?" asked Aaarrrgghh.

"Well, we know where his tomb is," Douxie pointed out. "And it's not in a jungle."

Confusion crossed a few faces. "Where is it, then?" asked Jim.

"Bryn Myrddin, in Wales, of course," said Archie. "Merlin's Hill."

"Haven't been there in a few centuries," Douxie said, "but the door was still intact the last time we checked."

"Maps!" Blinky declared. "We need maps!" And so saying, he scurried out the basement exit and through the tunnel, presumably, Douxie thought, to get maps from his library trunk.

"Oh, hey, while we wait for Blinky, random thought I had for wizard-type people," Toby said. "So allegedly the Eclipse Blade is the only thing that can damage Gunmar, right? But Excalibur's, well, Excalibur. Shouldn't it be able to ding him too?"

Douxie blinked. And set down his plate. "Jim, summon Excalibur for a minute?"

"Sure." And Jim did so. He offered it hilt-first to Douxie, who took the sacred blade, laying it across his lap.

"Now, as I understand it, the Triumbric Stones are more or less Horcruxes," Douxie said, "which is why the Eclipse sword can hurt Gunmar. But given that Excalibur was made by Nimue, a goddess in her own right... maybe?" He held his hand over the blade, over the highest of the welds. "Verum Oculis Meis."

The blade flared in his lap, glowing gold and white, but gave up no secrets. Douxie frowned, then thought a moment more. He suspected the Lady would have approved of manners. And gods knew Merlin had seldom been good at saying "please." So... "Commodo," he added.

Now green runes, flashed with silver, appeared, scrawling across the surface of the blade like they were the coding from The Matrix.

"Whoa." Toby leaned closer for a look.

"What is that?" asked Draal.

"Call it a description of the blade's virtues," Douxie replied, running his fingers down each line of characters, reading carefully.

"Douxie, here." Archie pointed at a set near the lower weld.

"What's it say?" asked Jim.

"More or less, 'a blade which will cut through the defenses of the wicked and restore justice to the world'," Douxie translated. He shifted to the set below that. "And that 'no darkness of spirit shall stand before the might of Excalibur'."

"That sounds promising," said Claire.

Douxie looked at the runes for a moment longer, and pointed out a set of his own to Archie. Archie raised his brows upon reading them, but nodded.

"Dimitte," said Douxie, and both the characters and the humming magic faded away. He raised up the blade carefully, across both palms, and offered it back to Jim.

Who was not buying whatever Hisirdoux was selling. "Douxie."

"What?" And Douxie admitted that his innocent act was not the best.

Jim sighed and took the sword back. "What did that last bit say?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Jim sighed. "Probably not. Tell me anyway."

"'Into the hand of the king'," Douxie said, smiling.

Jim groaned.

Then Blinky returned, arms laden with scrolls. "Have I missed something?"

"A thought," Draal said, as one suddenly occurred to him. He addressed Douxie. "You had suggested using Excalibur to see whether or not Arthur has already been taken by the Arcane Order."

"Yes?" the wizard asked.

"Would he, or they, be able to look back at us?"

The wizard turned pale. "Fuzzbuckets," he whispered. "Yes, they would," he said. "They very, very much would be able to do that." His head was now in his hands. "I can't believe I missed that," he said. "I almost screwed up our one shot-"

"But you didn't." Claire sat by him, a hand on his shoulder. "This is why we have a team, Douxie. To keep all of us from screwing up."

"Right." The wizard nodded, but his breath was still ragged with panic. "Team. Must remember team." His familiar pressed up against him. Douxie's hand made his way into the dragon's fur seemingly without his notice.

"Is there any way we could use that, though?" Toby wondered aloud. "I mean, I guess it depends on how good a look they'd get. Would they just see Douxie, or Jim, or all of us? Would they know where we were, or...?

"It... I was going to use a locator spell," Douxie said slowly, blinking as the panic wore away and planning took its place. "So they'd be able to see me, and Excalibur. And know that it was bonded to someone, though if Jim's hand wasn't on it at the time, probably not who," he said, looking at the blade. "They would definitely know where we were, though."

"Probably best not to perform the spell in Arcadia Oaks, then," said Draal. "If we did that in a far-off place that we were about to leave, however..."

"Throw them off scent," Aaarrrgghh agreed.

"They shouldn't be able to track me by my magic," Douxie said. "If they could, they'd've found me, Arch, and Nari well before we were ready." His eyes narrowed. "I'll need to put a blocker on Excalibur immediately after, though. It may spend most of its time in the ether," he told Jim, "but any time you used it, they'd be able to use Arthur's version and track it back."

Jim nodded as the sword vanished from his hand. "So when and where do we do that, then?" he asked. "We've got three targets to hit: Argentina, Florida, and Wales."

"Well," said Claire, "where do we want to send the Order looking?"

Glances were exchanged, then almost as one, she, Jim, Toby, Blinky, and Aaarrrgghh chorused, "Gatto."

Douxie laughed, Archie chuckled, and even Draal had to smile. "He that bad, then?" the wizard asked, levering himself up from the ground as Blinky shoved the snacks to the side and started spreading out maps on the ping-pong table.

"Well, he ate me and Blinky, so I've got no love for the dude," said Toby.

"Just be sure to bring many tacos, Master Toby," Blinky said nonsensically.

"I've heard Gatto holds many treasures." Archie's voice was thoughtful.

Douxie sighed and ruffled his familiar's fur. "Yes, Archie, we can raid the nasty troll king's treasury and get you something nice and shiny."

Draal had to laugh at the dragon's pleased expression. "I don't actually have a hoard, you know," Archie said. "Or, rather, I do, but it's a very small, particular hoard."

"Fibber," Douxie accused. "I've seen you nick too many necklaces to believe that."

"Yes, well, that's not the important hoard." The dragon disguised as a cat leapt onto the wizard's shoulder, rubbing his head against Douxie's. "I hoard wizards. Much more mobile, and easier to see the world that way."

"Right," said Jim. "So we go to Gatto's and make sure to get the Birthstone, the kairosect, and whatever Archie wants. We do a fighting retreat, use Excalibur to check on Arthur, and lead the Arcane Order to Gatto, then get the heck out of there. Then we hit up the Quagawumps and get the Killstone. After we've got those two, we see about getting the Eye of Gunmar from Strickler. And then we go to Wales."

"Bryn Myrddin is here," Blinky said, tapping on one of his maps. "Sadly, the closest gyre station is..." His finger drifted over the parchment. "Here. About twenty miles away."

"Ugh," complained Toby. "That's a lot of ground to cross."

"Twice. At night," Claire agreed.

Archie looked at his wizard. "Douxie. What was Mister Del Toro's travel schedule?"

"Ahh..." The wizard fished his phone out of his pocket. "Oh. You thinking...?"

"Indeed."

The wizard flicked through the tiny device. "Right. Okay," he said, "Mister Del Toro - the owner of the bookshop - is going to be hitting up Hay-on-Wye for a trawl through their bookshops at the end of the month. It's even farther away than the gyre, but I'll see if I can get him to rent a white van and give us a lift to and from the hill."

"For a chance to meet Merlin?" Archie asked. "He'll probably bend over backwards."

Author's Note: I got the Trollhunters art book for my birthday, and according to it, Merlin's Tomb is in the Ardennes Mountains. I'm handwaving that, because, really, why wouldn't it be under Merlin's Hill? Also, do not feed your cats (or dogs) grapes. Dragons, however, can eat whatever they like. And Douxie referring to the Triumbric Stones as Horcruxes is, of course, derived from Harry Potter.