Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 19th October 2021
Jim was not expecting to be bowled over in his own kitchen.
"JimboJimboJimbo!" Toby said excitedly.
"Hey, Tobes," Jim said, reflexively touching the back of his own head where he'd cracked it against the tiles. He'd had enough concussions for two lifetimes already.
"Guess what!" Toby said, then didn't wait for Jim to guess. "I cleaved the Birthstone today and I put it in my amulet and you'll never guess what I got!"
"Not the glaives, I'm guessing," Jim said, momentarily missing the weapons. They'd been cool and effective.
"Nope!" Toby sat up, grinning. "I got my warhammer back!"
"What?!" Jim sat up too. "Toby, that's amazing!"
"I know, right!" Toby hugged him in glee. Jim hugged his bestie back, happy for his happiness. "Now I can totally rock two weapons!"
"While I'm stuck at one."
"Well, I mean, it is Excalibur," Toby teased. "But it's no warhammer, you know."
Jim grinned. "So does it still have that gravity spell on it?"
"Oh yeah! No clue how," said Toby, "but it does! And it's so aweeeeesoooooome~!"
"Sweet." Jim glanced at the stove. "I'm in the middle of cooking, but after dinner, you want to go down to the arena and spar?"
Toby grinned. "You're on. See you there at seven?"
"Deal."
NotEnrique kicked back, perusing his newest issue of Shoe Monthly Magazine, a geezer wizard looking at it over his shoulder while the kiddo wizard practiced magic with NotEnrique's sister.
"And people wear these?" Merlin demanded, looking at a pair of candy-apple red boots.
"Oh yeah," said the changeling, fingers caressing the footwear's curve covetously. "They're delicious."
"The species has degraded," the wizard muttered, stabbing furiously at the screen of his newly acquired phone. NotEnrique eyed him amusedly, making mental bets as to how long before the phone got broken one way or another.
"Whatever you say, gramps," he told the wizard.
"'Gramps'?" Merlin demanded irritably.
Across the cavern, Claire was managing to hold her portal open for minutes at a time. She was quite proud that the opening was now the size of a soccer ball.
"Okay, let's practice moving it," said Douxie.
"Moving it?" she asked, arms trembling faintly as she fought to hold the portal open for even a second longer, but failed. It irised closed, and she sagged. "Ugh."
"That was three minutes this time, Claire," Douxie said. "That's great progress."
"I should be able to hold it longer," she told him.
"And someday, you will be able to. Possibly indefinitely," he soothed. "But for now, baby steps."
Reflexively, she checked on her brother. Who was still reading his magazine. She really did not get what his fascination with footwear was, and probably didn't want to. She suspected it would make her feel icky. "All right." She took a breath. "So, moving the portal?"
"I've seen you do it before," Douxie said. "But it was reflexive, not under your control. You want to separate that out, and be able to direct that aspect as well."
"Diameter, duration, momentum," she listed out. "Okay, so how do I do that?"
"May I touch you?"
"Sure," said Claire, not completely getting why he always asked, but kind of glad for it nonetheless.
Douxie stepped close behind her. "Put your arms out," he said softly. She obeyed, and he reached his arms along hers, his palms pressed against the back of her hands, their fingers interlaced. "Close your eyes for a minute, and relax. No magic yet. Let me guide you."
"Okay," she said, trusting her teacher.
He began swaying their interlinked arms together, just a little, back and forth. "Feel that?" Douxie asked her. "Smooth, gentle motion. Nothing staccato." He took a step back and she reflexively followed. "It's like a dance," he explained, guiding her blind in a circle. "Not something fast and modern. Think of it as a slow waltz, or tai chi. You move with the portal, and the portal moves with you. You won't always need the physical motion to do it, but for now, it's best to start with it."
She wet her lips. "What if I want it closer, or farther away?"
She could hear a grin in his voice. "That's easy." He drew her hands closer to herself, then pushed them away. "Just use yourself as a guide for where you want your portal to go."
Claire breathed. "Okay."
"Think you're ready to try?" Douxie asked, bringing them to a standstill.
"Yeah," said Claire, opening her eyes. "I think I am."
His fingers let hers go, and he stepped away, back into her line of sight. "Then go for it."
Squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes, Claire summoned another shadow portal. She held it for a minute, trying to figure out how to meld the determination to hold the portal with the soft, easy movement Douxie had demonstrated to move it.
Finally, she took a step back.
And the portal moved with her.
She breathed easier, knowing it could work. Another step, and a turn.
"Move your arms, Claire," Douxie coached. "Let it be your whole body, not just your legs."
Carefully, she swayed them back and forth. The portal moved with her gesture.
Grinning, she made a circle. Her portal swooped in a loop, brushing the ceiling.
Douxie was grinning too. "Okay, try drawing it in," he suggested.
Claire pulled the portal toward herself, then clenched her fists, imagining invisible strings between her fingers and the glowing black-purple rift, and pulled it closer, until it was just before her face. She almost felt like it should be humming, but it was just dark and silent and slowly spinning.
It was a sign of her power. Shouldn't she feel more connection to it, like Douxie seemed to feel to his?
Eyes narrowed, she snorted and shoved it away, irritated.
The portal went drifting across the room, seemingly in slow motion, and swallowed her brother.
The world went silent for a heartbeat before Claire screamed "NotEnrique!"
Douxie stared for a moment as Claire screamed. Her brother was gone, swallowed inadvertently by her shadow portal.
This was his fault, he'd suggested this exercise-
He forced himself out of the guilt and into crisis management mode. "Claire," he said, grabbing her by her arms. Her eyes were still wide and shocked; she, he could see plainly, was still very much in self-blame mentality. "It was an accident," he said first. "Do not blame yourself. Just learn from this, to be more mindful in the future." She wasn't processing, he could see that. "Claire," Douxie said, more softly, getting her attention, "you have to go in after him."
"But-" she protested.
He shook his head. "Neither Merlin nor I can wield this magic. Only you can. So if you want NotEnrique back, you have to be the one to go in after him."
"Douxie, I can't!" she protested. "I'm not strong enough-"
"Claire." He put a hand on her shoulder. "You are. You know you are, and I know you are. It may hurt, a lot," he told her honestly, "but you can open a portal large enough for yourself. You can go into the shadow realm, find your brother, and get the both of you back here. No one else can."
It took a moment, but then he could see determination crystallizing in her eyes. "Okay," she said, eyes wet. "Okay. I can do this."
Douxie stepped back, giving her room. Claire thrust her arms out before herself, forcing her magic with a guttural cry. Her sclera darkened, black echoing the swirling portal before her that swiftly grew to her own size. She clenched her fists and yanked them toward herself.
The portal swallowed Claire; both she and it vanished, and Douxie was left staring at empty space, praying that he hadn't underestimated her.
Merlin approached. "You did that fairly well, Hisirdoux."
He shook his head. "I lost control of the lesson-"
"Accidents," his master said pointedly, "happen. As I'm sure you recall."
Douxie flushed.
"The girl will be all right," Merlin said, looking at where Claire had been standing before she'd vanished into the shadow realm.
"But what if she's not? What if she..." Douxie swallowed. "What if she doesn't come back?" he whispered.
"Do you have faith in her?" asked Merlin.
"Absolutely."
"Then," said Merlin, "have faith."
"Bro!" called Claire, looking around the shadow realm. She didn't get why it was like outer space filled with asteroids, but whatever. More important right now was finding her adopted brother and getting both their butts back to Arcadia Oaks.
"NotEnrique!" She pushed off from nothingness and flew around the shadow realm, glad that that trick still worked, even if she could feel an ache, somehow throughout her whole body except also not. She assumed that was from forcing a portal big enough for herself.
"Sis!" she heard a distant cry. Spinning around, Claire flew in the direction of her brother's voice.
She found him on the backside of an asteroid, clinging to the rock with all that he was worth. "There you are," she said, reaching out to him. NotEnrique latched on, clinging to her like a scared little gremlin. One arm around him, she resisted the urge to pet his head. Also the urge to tell him that he was a koala. "You didn't think I'd just abandon you, did you?"
His lack of answer was an answer unto itself. Claire stifled a sigh as she pushed off from the rock, flying to who knew where. The shadow realm didn't scare her anymore, but she wanted a minute or two more before she tried to force another large portal.
Douxie had said she could do it, and she would. But it galled, bubbling like black bile, that she was reduced to so little when once she'd been able to open portals big enough for all of Trollmarket. When she hadn't even needed the Shadow Staff to portal Nari's Titan across hundreds of miles.
Yeah, she understood Douxie's frustration with both their new-old limits way too well.
"So this's the shadow realm?" NotEnrique finally asked, unclenching just enough to look around. His hands and toes remained fisted in her t-shirt and jacket.
"Yeah," she told him, swooping around a tumbling boulder. "Shadowmancer's playground."
"Creepy as #&%*," he said, using a troll word that she knew (he'd taught it to her!), but that she was pretty sure would earn her a lecture and a look of severe disappointment from Blinky.
"You get used to it," she said, rounding another rock.
She nearly flipped over in her haste to brake.
"Oh !#&*," she said, earning herself a glare and a smack.
"Hey, don't talk like that, nice girl like you," her brother chided.
"It's her," Claire said, one hand flying to her mouth, the other wrapped firmly around NotEnrique, trying to shield him.
"Who?" he asked, twisting.
"Morgana," Claire said, as he saw the still figure lying horizontal in space.
"Who?"
"The Pale Lady," she said.
NotEnrique stilled, then scrabbled around her in a panic, ending up perched on her back, warily peering over one shoulder. "You sure, Sis?" he asked, voice hushed.
Claire swallowed. "Very sure," she told him.
Morgana's eyes slowly opened, black and shiny as an insect's carapace, and she turned her head to look at Claire. "Handmaiden," she whispered, ghostly and gone.
Claire shook her head. "No way. We're out of here," she said, turning and booking it out of the shadow realm.
It was a matter of minutes until another portal opened and Claire and NotEnrique crashed gracelessly to the ground.
"Claire!" Hisirdoux rushed over to her. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," she said, pushing herself up.
"NotEnrique?" he asked.
He got a shiver and a glare. "Ain't never going back there. Ya can't make me," the changeling said as he scurried off his sister's back, allowing her to sit up.
"She was there," Claire told Douxie. "She opened her eyes and saw me."
"Who?" asked Merlin, approaching.
Claire looked up at the master wizard. "Morgana," she said.
"Fuzzbuckets," escaped Douxie's mouth.
"Morgana?" demanded Merlin.
"She called me her handmaiden," Claire said. She tried to push to her feet, but failed and fell back to the floor.
"Easy," said Douxie, grasping her arm and helping her up. "Magic over-exertion's not fun."
"It hurts all over," she said. "But it doesn't feel like it's my body that's hurting. It's so weird."
Douxie nodded. "Yeah, you get used to it. Or not!" he backtracked at two matching glares. "I mean, I got used to it, you don't have to-"
Merlin sniffed. "So she knows her time of freedom is near," he said of Morgana.
"So what's going to happen now?" asked Claire as she managed to stand under her own power.
"How should I know?" asked Merlin. "I've been asleep for nine hundred years."
"Yeah, and you spent most of it sneaking glimpses of the future," Claire retorted, her arms crossed.
"Which you lot have all gone and changed," the master wizard snapped.
"Now, now," Douxie placated, hands up, trying to be a peacemaker. "We have time. We can talk this out and figure it out."
"We need to find where Morgana is sealed!" said Merlin.
"No," said Jim, coming into the arena. He suddenly felt like a weight on the universe; all eyes turned automatically to him. It was hard to breathe somehow. Harder to move. Jim looked over all of them; his gaze felt cool, even, commanding. "We need to have dinner," he said. His sudden sheer presence somehow overrode even Merlin's inevitable objections.
As Jim turned on his heel, NotEnrique followed him; Claire stooped to pick up her things and did the same.
Douxie's breath whooshed out of his lungs. "What was that?" he asked in a whisper.
"That," said Merlin, "was the effect of Excalibur." His gaze slid sideways to Hisirdoux. "Now do you understand why I followed Arthur, even when he was against our kind?"
"It commands loyalty," said Douxie, numbly. He somehow hadn't thought that the artifact would work on him. On them.
Could the Ninth Configuration truly steer Jim right, if he ever chose to use that power against them?
A power that, Douxie was willing to bet his bracer on, Jim didn't even know he had?
"If you have chosen your king," Merlin said, expectant eyebrow raised, "you would be wise to advise him, Hisirdoux. On all things." And so saying, he left the arena, following the others.
Closing and locking the museum's side door behind herself, Zelda Nomura made her way to her car. The employee parking lot was out of sight of the main entrance, but it was well-lit and had security cameras covering almost every angle. Those few that it did not, she made sure her fellow female coworkers were aware of. If they chose to take risks regardless, well, she had done her part.
She did not fear any mugger or would-be rapist. Indeed, she thought, her lips curving in a smile, they would do well to fear her.
More than once she'd dispatched some lowlife opportunist who thought that women were easy prey.
Then, like now, the hairs had raised on the back of her neck, a surefire sign that she was being watched.
She deliberately fumbled her keys and bent over to retrieve them, waiting.
The footsteps that approached did not surprise her.
The large blue hand that reached out to assist, however, did.
"Unusually clumsy, Nomura," Draal told her.
She stood and turned to face him. "There are cameras recording this lot," she told him flatly.
"And you led us to believe you could simply 'lose' the footage," he countered.
She sighed, shifting her weight. "What do you want, Draal?"
He took a deep, measured breath. "To apologize," he said finally.
Aliens landing could not have surprised her more.
"I have wronged you, both with word and deed," he said softly, taking her shocked silence as leave to continue. "I could claim ignorance, but we both know it was pride and cruelty that drove me." He knelt, and looked at the ground. Placing himself at her mercy. "I would make restitution to you, Nomura. In whatever form you choose."
"I could take your head," she told him.
"You could," he acknowledged.
The moment stretched long and silent between them.
Finally-
"Pfaugh," she snarled. "Get up. Your kneeling is pathetic."
As he obeyed, she studied his stupidly honest face. "So what do you want?" Nomura demanded.
"I had thought," he said, "if you agreed... perhaps I might show you Trollmarket?"
She stilled. "You said no impure would ever set foot there while you lived."
"I see no impures," he said. "Only a worthy opponent."
Unbidden, her mouth curved up in a smile. She hastily stifled it. "You're a sap," she accused him.
He accepted that with a nod. And waited.
"...Fine," she said finally. "You can show it to me."
Now he smiled. "It would be my honor."
Author's Note: Why, yes, those are Zadra's boots that NotEnrique is lavisciously coveting...