Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 9th October 2021

Their party emerged from Swansea Trollmarket and nearly fell into a river. "Whoa!" said Jim, flailing before he caught his balance and stepped back from the water.

"Well, someone might have told us about that!" Blinky said indignantly, glaring at the river.

"Maybe the trolls here are so used to it they don't think about it," said Claire.

"Yeah, or Heartstone Trollmarket's the odd one for emptying onto a dry wash," Douxie pointed out. "Not everywhere's in an eternal drought like California. Come on." He led them up a path worn into the embankment, to an empty lot. An abandoned brick building stood at the far side; next to it waited a white van, with a man leaning against the vehicle.

The man raised a hand as they approached; Douxie raised one back. "Mister Del Toro," he called.

"Hisirdoux," the man called back.

"Good to see you." Douxie clasped forearms with the man. "Book hunting going well?"

"As you would not imagine." The man, heavyset and wearing round glasses like Archie's, smiled. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties. "And good to see you also, Archibald."

"Likewise," said the dragon, accepting a head rub.

"I found those books you asked for," the man continued, nodding toward the van. "It was not easy to find three copies, mind you. But they're a bit below your level?"

"Ah, they're not for me," Douxie said, rubbing at the back of his neck. He nodded toward the human teenagers. "My friends here need some major holes in their magical educations filled in, and I figured that would be a good starting point."

"Ahh." Mister Del Toro nodded sagely.

"Allow me to introduce you. This is Blinkous Galadrigal, lore-keeper of Heartstone Trollmarket; Toby Domzalski, Trollhunter; Jim Lake, also Trollhunter, and Claire Nuñez, shadowmancer and currently my student."

Dark eyebrows that had been arching higher and higher suddenly bounced back down. "Student, not apprentice?"

"That's... a discussion we haven't gotten to yet," Douxie admitted. "Everyone, this is Mister Guillermo Del Toro, libriomancer and the owner of GDT Arcane Books."

"An actual libriomancer?" Blinky stepped forward and started shaking the man's hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, good sir! I have so many questions."

"What's the difference between a student and an apprentice?" Claire asked Douxie.

He grimaced. "That's a long story involving several levels of classism in wizardry, and concerning a social contract that should neither be discussed briefly nor entered into lightly," he told her.

Archie coughed and mumbled something about "Do as I say, not as I did."

"Douxie." Claire's expression was unimpressed.

He sighed. "Look, it's not that I wouldn't be willing to take you as an apprentice, Claire, but given that I don't share your magic, I'm not sure I'd be able to teach you everything you need to know. And you deserve the best teacher possible."

"You're a great teacher!" she rebutted.

"Maybe, but I can't fish you out of the Shadow Realm if you get in over your head." Douxie's expression was pained. "Another shadowmancer would be able to, and would also be able to help you guide your magic in ways I can't. All I can teach you is academic, stuff out of books. But given that the only other shadowmancer you and I know of is, well..." His face said it all. He sighed. "I've been putting out enquiries to see if there's anyone trustworthy who could teach you better than I can. I haven't heard back from all of them yet."

It was clear that neither Claire nor Douxie were happy with this topic. It was also clear that it wasn't a subject that could be resolved right now. So, "Anyhow!" Jim said loudly, interrupting Blinky's discussion of ...book magic?... with Mister Del Toro, "we should probably get on the road, get heading to Merlin's Tomb?"


"Dude," said Toby, listening to the GPS's voice, "is that John Cleese?"

"I think you're right," said Douxie, sitting in the flat back of the van with them while Blinky chatted with Mister Del Toro in the front seat, Archie perched between the two of them and looking out the front window.

"Anyhow," said Jim, "what's this about you getting books for us?"

Douxie smiled. "Can you tell me what I meant by 'libriomancer,' Jim?"

Jim shook his head.

"'Librio'..." said Claire. "Like 'library.' Something to do with books?"

Douxie pointed at her. "Five points to Ravenclaw. A libriomancer is a hedge wizard who specializes in books. Finding them, like Mister Del Toro, or restoring them, translating them, creating them, or even simply reading and accumulating them. Blinky would probably be a libriomancer, if he was a mage."

"Okay, so why's that important to us?" asked Toby.

"It hasn't been," Douxie said, "because your educations and interactions with Earth's magical community have been mostly to do with the trolls. There's much that you've never learned because it simply hasn't been relevant to the purpose of protecting Trollmarket and taking down Gunmar. But," he said, "you're needing to work on a larger stage now. In order to take on the Arcane Order better than we did the last time, we're going to need to draw in a lot more support from a lot of species. I have ins with some of them, but I can't do it all on my own. I especially can't do it if you don't even know who, or what, the possibilities are. How can you treat with people if you don't even know they exist?"

"So, textbooks?" asked Toby.

Douxie nodded. "Basically. Jim, shove that box this way?"

Jim pushed a cardboard box over to the wizard, who unfolded its top flaps. "Three copies," he said. "Excellent. One for each of you." He handed them out and it was obvious they weren't all from the same printing: they were each leather-bound, with gold lettering on the cover, but were in varying colors and stages of wear.

"A Brief Recapitulation of Wizard Lore," Claire read the cover.

Douxie grimaced. "Hate me now and get it over with."

"What's to hate?" Toby asked. "I mean, it may be a little dry, but it's still shorter than..." His voice died as he opened the book and flipped to the end.

And the pages didn't stop coming.

"Like I said," Douxie said, "hate me now. Forty-two volumes compressed into one book, courtesy of Showoff Press."

From the front came a barked laugh. "They're not actually called that," said Mister Del Toro.

"They might as well be," replied Douxie.

"I sense you have opinions on this," said Jim, paging through his own copy.

"Let's just say that if these were in stock at GDT, they'd be in that special back room," said Douxie. "Books on magic? Relatively common in certain circles. Books that are magic? Definitely items to keep out of the hands of mundanes. A Brief Recapitulation's good, though, because there's both a table of contents and an appendix," he continued, "which makes assigned reading somewhat easier. You can go through either chronologically or by subject."

Claire was looking through the table of contents, running her finger down the page. "I don't recognize these names," she said. She looked up. "Doux, this doesn't even get to Atlantis until book three. And you said that was lost like seven thousand years before you were born!"

"Yeah." Douxie suddenly looked weary. "The long, storied history of wizardry. A lot of what's in the early pages there is speculations, or what few scraps of information managed to survive. It's pretty infamous for being a high point in the history of magic, but we honestly don't even know that much about Atlantis. Who practiced magic there, how was it received, what were its forms and functions..." He trailed off. "It's usually best to search by subject," he said.

"Hey." Jim put a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

Douxie shook his head. "About this? Not really. Everything I am's tied up in magic, and instead of the world progressing into better and brighter things, my entire life and before it's been one long downhill slog of everything we're losing." He closed his eyes and breathed. "In the afterlife's waiting room," he said, so softly that the three of them had to lean in close to hear him over the road noise, "Morgana said the age of wizardry was dying with her and Merlin. Pretty strongly implying that I was going to be the last master wizard. Ever."

There was silence for a moment. Then, "Douxie," said Toby, "how long have you been carrying that around?"

The wizard shrugged. "A couple years now."

Claire linked her arm in his. "This time we're going to do it better," she promised. "We'll flip the script and show the whole world that magic exists, and how amazing it can be."

He smiled at her, but it was a shadow of the truth. "It would be nice," he said, "but don't promise what you can't deliver, Claire. It'll be enough if we manage to save the world."

"Psh," Toby waved off that idea. "What good's saving the world if it doesn't end up being someplace you want to live?"

Archie chose that moment to jump into the back of the van as it shuddered to a stop. "We're here," he said.


Breaking into Merlin's Tomb apparently involved hiking across grassy fields and shoving through a hedgerow or two, following Douxie and Archie until they stopped in a green spot that looked just like any other to Jim's eyes.

"Do you still have the key?" Archie asked Douxie as the wizard spun glowing runes around his bracer. Luckily, Douxie seemed to be less depressed now that he had something to do.

"Right here, Arch," Douxie replied, touching a combination of the spells and then casting the magic from his hand like he was throwing a frisbee.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the ground just rolled up to either side, exposing the entrance to a long, black tunnel.

"Whoa," said Claire. "Nice."

"In we go," said Douxie, conjuring light spheres that slowly drifted around their group as they entered into the darkness. Douxie led, followed by Jim and Toby, then Claire and Blinky. Archie was last; Mister Del Toro had chosen to stay with the van, in case anyone driving by might become too curious as to why there was an abandoned rental vehicle sitting at the side of the narrow road.

Man, it's dark in here, Jim thought. "So, um, like, what's the difference between hedgewizards and master wizards, anyway?" he asked, trying to distract himself from the feeling that the walls were closing in around him.

"It's largely a matter of specialization versus generalization," Archie replied, ink against black and almost invisible except for his eyes reflecting the magic light.

"So, like, Claire's a hedgewizard?" asked Toby.

"She could be," Blinky said. "She is thus far a specialist in one particular kind of magic."

"Or she could choose not to be," Douxie replied. "Morgana was also a shadowmancer as her primary talent, but she understood the theoretical underpinnings of many kinds of magic and learned how to do the things which didn't come as easily to her hand. It's all in how far you choose to go with it."

"Huh," said Claire. "So Mister Del Toro only does book magic?" she asked.

"Mmm." Douxie made a sound of agreement. "And Zoe's magic's largely settled into technomancy these days. Thing is, going beyond what comes naturally is hard, and a lot of mages don't have a reason, the inclination, or the sheer resources needed to push themselves past their inborn talents."

"So a master wizard's a generalist," Jim summed up.

"A Jack of all trades," Archie agreed.

"Mister Del Toro can best me on anything doing with books," Douxie agreed. "Zoe can absolutely kick my butt on anything electronic. But," he said, raising his hand higher and conjuring a greater light as the tunnel ended and they came into a wider space, "neither of them could build this place, and I could."

And there, laying before them on his bier, was Merlin.

"Ooh, the cobwebs over a corpse vibe is still creepy," said Toby, shivering.

"So what's your main wizardry talent?" Jim asked Douxie.

The wizard flashed him a grin as he shouldered off his backpack. "Haven't one. Archie was cross-training me pretty early, and Master Merlin was also a generalist, so I got my wrist slapped lots whenever it looked like I was leaning too far in any direction."

"I rather think you'd have managed to somehow merge your magic with your music if Merlin had allowed it," mused Archie.

Douxie snorted. "Bardic magic may be a thing in novels, films, and video games, but given we've yet to encounter it in real life, I don't think it actually exists."

"Says the guy whose staff turns into a guitar," Toby pointed out.

"That's just 'coz it's what I'm comfortable with."

(Archie, Jim noticed, pointedly made no comment.)

"Right," said Douxie. "Time to wake a wizard."


Author's Note: Yes, Guillermo Del Toro cameo! I've always been massively amused by his portrait hanging over the fireplace in GDT Arcane Books. And even more amused that it turned into a portrait of a tentacle monster when the lighting went wonky ala The Haunted Mansion. The John Cleese SatNav/GPS is a reference to my English father-in-law's. ^_^ Douxie refers to Claire as being a Ravenclaw, which is from Harry Potter; J.K. Rowling is a horrible person, but her works, fortunately or not, remain a cultural touchstone. I'm pretty sure I picked up the concept of books with lots more pages than they seem to have from The Manual in Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. The entire idea of there being an A Brief Recapitulation of Wizard Lore to match the Troll and Akiridion ones came from the-fanaddict on Tumblr. And Douxie's "I don't think it actually exists" was from the line in The Princess Bride about ROUSes.