Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 19th May, 2023

Looking at the goshawk boulder, Jim was pretty sure there was an entrance to a Trollmarket on its flat face. Sure, there was no bridge, but he could feel the heartstone singing beneath his feet.

The problem was, he lacked a horngazel. Without one, he could wale on the entrance for a month solid and never break through.

Actually... Jim's eyes narrowed in thought. He hadn't needed a horngazel to get into Dwoza, but that had been a literal cave system, not a magic doorway under a bridge. This was the first Trollmarket entrance he'd seen that didn't have a bridge over it. Arcadia, Hong Kong, and New Jersey had all been under bridges. Why wasn't this one?

But there was definitely a heartstone here. And while not all troll dwellings had them (cases in point: the Quagawumps, and Gatto and his minions), trolls definitely preferred them. Heartstones made life easier, and brighter in so many ways.

Maybe they'd found this one, and had to make do with what they could. If there weren't any natural caves to serve as an entrance point, they'd've had to start with a magic door.

None of which was getting Jim any closer to being able to open that magic door.

Looking at the piles of stone that had, not that long ago, been trolls, he had an idea.

Closing his eyes, he swallowed down the feeling of guilt that welled up in him.

Douxie had taken it upon himself to loot the corpses of the knights who had tried to attack Charlie's home. Now it was Jim's turn. To loot the corpses of trolls who might've been fleeing, or might've just been going surfaceside to scavenge.

He knelt by the closest. "I'm sorry," Jim said, and extended an armored hand over the pile of K-spar, reaching out with his senses, trying to feel for the small, magically attuned, bit of heartstone that was in every horngazel.

Nothing.

He tried another of the bodies, then another. Still nothing.

On the fifth pile of rubble, he finally got lucky. Digging through the heap of rock that had once been a troll, he found what was clearly a pouch. Now, like the troll who had worn it, it was petrified. But inside the stone, a horngazel hummed.

Jim tightened his grasp; the pouch crumpled into dust between his fingers, debris falling aside to reveal the magical key held inside. Bingo.

He stood and cast a look around. Trolls had significantly better night vision than humans, though his own had improved drastically since the first time he'd worn the Trollhunter armor. More of the magic becoming part of him, he supposed. Douxie had told Jim, once, that, even when he was fully human, he had Trollish magic laced through his aura. It felt comforting, that even when he wasn't wearing the form of his adopted culture, it was still part of him.

Drawing an arch on the boulder and watching the stone fracture away into an entrance, Jim thought about being in between two worlds. He was part troll even when he wasn't. Toby fit in better in Trollmarket than he ever had in high school. Douxie identified completely as a wizard, despite being technically human. Claire was so intent on learning everything about magic that she was probably also going to end up identifying as /wizard/, sooner or later.

(A niggling spark of a thought: Claire chafed at how controlling her mother was. But by attempting to learn everything about magic, wasn't she kind of being the same as her mom? Jim could see the thread of connection there, given that especially in magic, knowledge was power. Claire wanted to know everything, so that she could keep her loved ones safe. Maybe Mrs. Nuñez was also just trying to keep everyone safe in her own way. Apples and trees and all that.)

And then there were Aja, Krel, and Varvatos. Sure, they were Akiridions, but given Akiridions were apparently the descendants of Atlanteans, Jim wouldn't swear that the three of them didn't have species-crises events waiting in their futures, once they were given that rather pertinent information.

Of course, Jim thought, tucking the horngazel away in his armor pocket, if Douxie's plan to restore magic to humanity works... there's going to be a whole lot more wizards around.

Which led to the spectacularly weird thought that maybe all of humanity were meant to be wizards. That Douxie and Merlin and the hedgewizards Jim had met around Arcadia were what humans were /supposed/ to be. That the humans without magic were... well, crippled, thanks to Gaylen.

"Ugh," Jim muttered. He tried to picture what himself having grown up with innate magic might have looked like. "I wonder if there are culinary wizards...?" Toby, he was pretty sure, would have been a geomancer.

Jim shook off his thoughts and stepped into the Trollmarket, where plain stone steps, glimmering with veins of pale gray light, waited to take him down below.

Hand against the wall, because trolls didn't understand the concept of safety railings, Jim descended into the unknown.


It was nearing dawn by the time Douxie had raided all of Myrddin's stash of precious metals and gems and found what he'd need to make the staff. He'd also laid out an array of the greater gems on a worktable, remembering how Merlin had made him choose the stone that resonated with his own magic - though Douxie hadn't known at the time that it was for his own staff.

And hopefully will be again, someday, he thought. Though none of these gems were the one in his staff. Presumably it hadn't come into Merlin's possession yet. Well, there was nearly six hundred years before that would become a concern.

Blinking, and knowing that he needed sleep before he could even begin work on something as intricate as a master's staff, Douxie made his slow way back to the kitchen, where he and Jim had dropped their supplies. He could nap on the hearth, if nothing else. Would that fit his character as Taliesin? Bah. Too tired to think about that. Who cares?

Though Jim wasn't back yet, and maybe he should be more worried about that. But Douxie's crystal necklace hadn't sent up even a hint of distress signal, so he had to hold faith that Jim was all right. Jim was a seasoned warrior, clad in magitech armor, wielding Excalibur, and had been a quick study on all of Douxie's lessons about survival in the dark ages. He should be fine.

Really.

If I get back to the twenty-first century and you're stuck here, or dead, Jim, Douxie thought, forget Claire or Barbara's reactions. I, personally, will storm Camelot and time-warp back to here to bawl you out myself.

Which probably made little sense, but it was very late, and he was very tired.

Or, at least, that was Douxie's excuse for why, rather than noticing it in the blue glow of his witchlight, he stumbled over the outstretched leg before him.

Recovering, he turned.

And discovered Myrddin laying prone on the floor of the kitchen, goblet rolling on the floor by his hand, dark liquid spilled on the tiles. Douxie's nose wrinkled as he suddenly registered the reek of alcohol.

Fuzzbuckets, not again!

Kneeling, he pressed fingers to Myrddin's clammy throat. And exhaled in noisy relief. "Good, you haven't killed yourself," Douxie murmured. "Though not, I'll grant, for lack of trying." And, really, it was just as well that Myrddin hadn't managed to off himself with alcohol poisoning yet. Because fixing the timeline from that would require necromancy, which was an art Douxie had never studied. He might not even be able to do it; the only individual he knew who had brought someone properly back from death was Nari. And he was no Nari.

Sitting back on his heels, Douxie considered the passed out hedgewizard. Different emotions kept popping up, warring with each other, like bubbles in champagne. Grief. Betrayal. Sympathy. Sorrow. Anger.

Mostly anger.

"The first thing you ever said to me," he said, glaring at Myrddin's insensate form, "was that I was wasting my life, going on as I had been. And what are you doing? Trying to throw yours away." He swallowed, trying to beat down the pain and sting of betrayal. It was misplaced, he knew it was misplaced. The man before him had six hundred years of seasoning to go through before he was properly Douxie's master. Still, this alcoholism tasted like hypocrisy. "You have such potential," Douxie said, the words tinged with bitterness. "You'll be the greatest sorcerer since the fall of Atlantis. But first you have to stop this."

Almost unbidden, his hands pulled an item out of his magical pocket. The braided hank of unicorn hair.

Part of Douxie wanted to slap the whole thing on Myrddin's wrist, to magically affix it.

To permanently bar Myrddin from the pleasures of grain and vine.

He drew a breath, and carefully pulled one single hair from the braid, tucking the rest back away.

Kindness, he reminded himself. If you can, choose always to be kind.

Because as much as he loved Merlin, was proud of having been taught by him... there were many things about his master that Douxie had come to realize, over the centuries, that he did not love.

Merlin was not deliberately cruel. But he could be ruthless. And while that clear, brilliant line between point A and point B had served his master well, Douxie had also seen the wreckage left in its wake.

The damage that Arthur had wrought upon the world. The damage that lingered in Jim.

The damage in his own relationship with the man Douxie still counted as a father.

So Douxie chose to be kind.

"I'm sorry," Douxie said to Myrddin, looping the dark hair around the man's slack wrist. "But this is a sickness. And sometimes when you're sick or injured, you need a crutch to help you stand, until you can do it by yourself."

Never closing his eyes, he dredged his power forth. "Figo."

The unicorn hair glowed briefly blue and sank beneath Myrddin's skin. For a moment, it looked like a dark line, like a tattoo. Then its magic flared, pulsing white throughout Myrddin's body, flushing the poison from his pores. When the light dimmed, the only mark of the unicorn hair was a thin pale line around the wrist, not so much a scar as a lack of melanin. Over time, Douxie knew, even that would fade, until in some months or years there was absolutely no physical sign of the healing. By then, hopefully, Myrddin would no longer seek his death in the bottom of a bottle.

For now, he no longer could. Alcohol would have no more effect on him than water.

"I'm sorry," Douxie said again, slumping. "But the world needs you. The timeline needs you." He leaned back against the stones by the hearth. Tears pricked at the back of his eyes. Because he'd just done something horrible, no matter how necessary it was. He sniffed, taking in the miasma of sweat, sickness, and poison that stained the floor around and beneath Myrddin. It was the least punishment he deserved for this, he thought.

"My burden to bear," Douxie whispered hoarsely to himself, and wished fervently for his own oblivion.


Okay. Toby admitted it: kicking the hornet's nest known as General Morando over the weekend had been bad planning. Because now it was Monday, and they were all stuck in school, waiting on tenterhooks for Izita's signal to let them know that Morando was on his way.

Worse yet, he thought, heading into Spanish class, more people would be /working/ on Monday, so even when Krel dropped Dog Fight on the internet and Mary blazed it, not as many people would be playing the game.

"It is not ideal," Krel agreed, sitting down diagonal from Toby. He sighed, digging his notebook and pencil out of his backpack. "But we will do the best we can."

"Gotcha, dude," Toby agreed, even as Krel pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and set it on the desk next to his notebook.

"Mister Tarron," Señor Uhl said. "You know cellphones are not allowed in my class."

"Yes, but this is a special occasion," Krel argued.

"I think you mean 'emergency,' dude," Toby told him.

Krel's gaze shifted to rest on Toby. "I know what I said, and what I meant," he said. "It is not my fault if your language has insufficient vocabulary to describe the exact nuance I wish to convey."

"Ooh, burn!" chuckled Eli from Toby's other side.

"Regardless." Uhl's gaze cast over Toby and Eli and dismissed them both as he turned his attention back to Krel. "What kind of 'special occasion,' Mister Tarron?"

Krel stared levelly at the teacher for a moment. "The tyrant General Morando, who has taken over Akiridion-5 in a coup, is about to launch his fleet. To come to Earth. I," he said, fingers tapping on the screen of his phone, "am awaiting a signal from the Resistance to launch our counter offensive and, with any luck, cripple their ships."

"Really." Señor Uhl did not seem entirely impressed. His gaze moved next to Aja. "Is this true, Miss Tarron?"

Aja stood. Her eyes flashed black-and-glowing-blue for a second. "It is. You have my word," she swore, "as a member of House Tarron."

"Hmm." The teacher mulled it over for an instant. "You may keep your phone, Mister Tarron," he ruled. "But in the meantime, until you receive this signal, we will continue our lesson. Is everyone ready for a pop quiz?"

A chorus of groans met his question.


Jim knew creepy. He knew eerie. He knew what a Trollmarket looked like, burned out, a husk of itself, wrecked in the wake of a war.

This was not that.

But it was very close.

He crept lightly through the empty underground city, ghosting around the statues and mounds of rubble that had, not that long ago, been living, breathing trolls.

He was obscurely glad for the past week and a half of walking after Douxie as they sought their way though the sixth-century woods. That practice had made him really good at moving silently in his new armor.

The heartstone, glowing a rosy pink, wasn't dead. And Jim knew there were survivors; he could hear them, whispers and quiet sobs, tucked away in their dwellings. But if they knew he was here, none of them were coming out to greet him. And Jim couldn't say he was surprised. Something bad had obviously happened. Very bad.

He made his way toward the heartstone. Any injured trolls would be laid out next to it, soaking up its healing radiance. Maybe he could ask questions, and get some answers.

It took a while to wend his way there; the layout of the city was different from what he expected, and more than once Jim found himself in a dead end. But eventually, he reached the base of the heartstone.

He reached it too late for someone; a high, mourning keen broke upon his ears as he came around a corner to find a pale troll with a shaggy dark mane clutching desperately at the hand of a petrified companion.

"No," the troll begged. "No, master, I'm not ready, please don't go-"

Jim's breath caught at the amount of sheer grief in that voice. But judging by the amount of damage on the stomach of the dead troll, this death hadn't been caused by Creeper's Sun poisoning, and other than the cure for that, he knew of no way that a petrified troll could be returned to life.

Well, that and a sorceress' true love's tear, but Douxie had repeatedly made it known that in his opinion, Jim had been a special case, and that particular cure was unlikely to work in any other circumstance, no matter how magical the crier might be.

Given the tears pattering dark on gray stone, Jim thought that Douxie had probably been correct. Because if this wasn't a pure love, he didn't know what was.

"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.

He wasn't expecting the snarl of rage he got or the strike he danced back away from.

"Do not mock me in my grief, stranger!" the troll growled, his eyes hazy with tears.

Jim could only stare, open-mouthed, his heart thundering in his chest.

"Vendel?"


Douxie had somehow managed to sleep. This was something of a surprise, but a foregone conclusion when he was, in fact, awoken by a cup shattering against the wall next to his head.

He jolted awake, heart hammering.

Myrddin stood over him, face like a storm cloud.

Some part of Douxie that would always be a child cowered, terrified at the look on his master's face, what had he done-

"What have you done?!" Myrddin shouted.

Douxie's gaze caught, unexpectedly, on the white line that showed at Merlin's wrist.

The previous night came back in a flash.

He wasn't Douxie right now. He couldn't be. He was Taliesin.

Douxie, with all his guilt and terror, was swallowed down.

Taliesin rose in his place. "What have I done?" he asked rhetorically, standing. "What have you done, Myrddin?" Somehow he managed to loom over the man who was taller than himself. "Drowning yourself in drink again. Hoping to die." He scoffed. "If you truly wished for death, you'd take care of it directly. Drinking to oblivion?" He snorted. "You don't want to die. You just refuse to live."

"What do you know about it?" Myrddin demanded, arms outflung. "My life is in those graves!"

Taliesin paused. Looked at the distraught man. Understood, for the first time, something about Merlin Ambrosius. "No, it's not," he said softly, stepping forward. He touched two fingers against Myrddin Wylt's breastbone. "Your life is in here," he said, pressing lightly. "In this heart that yet beats. In these lungs that draw breath. In these limbs that move and this mind that thinks. What is in those graves," said Taliesin to the much younger wizard, "is your love."

Pain was etched across Myrddin's face. Pain and a desperate need for guidance. "What shall I do without love?"

Taliesin - Douxie - breathed through his own pain. "What we all do," he replied. "Keep setting one foot in front of another. Your pain will fade someday. You will outlive it."

"I don't want to forget," Myrddin whispered, tears in his eyes.

"You won't." Douxie's other hand came to the side of Myrddin's face. Cupped it, gently. "You will never forget them. They will live on in you. And when the day comes that you step through that doorway to the light that lays beyond... they will be waiting for you. I swear it."

Myrddin's voice was a croak. "You've seen it."

"I have," Douxie said quietly, thinking of the space beyond life, the tiny sliver of it he had seen. What's loved, lives.

"How am I to go on?" whispered Myrddin. He looked down.

Douxie closed his eyes. He could see, now, the trajectory of Merlin's life. It wasn't that his master had never cared, but rather that he had cared, and loved, too much. And when he lost all that he loved, he'd locked himself away.

What, Douxie suddenly thought, about Arthur? Because now he could see that too. A bright young boy, caring and loving, who had grown to a man and had the object of his love taken away, not by sickness, but by a stalkling...

Oh, it suddenly made so much more sense. Too much sense, perhaps. If Merlin had seen himself in Arthur, no wonder he hadn't spoken or moved against his king. Because he'd thought, in some way, that if he could just save Arthur he'd be able to save himself too. That by saving one surrogate son, he could redeem himself for the son of his own blood that he'd failed to save.

His cheek was bleeding, Douxie realized, cut by a shard of the mug that had awoken him. It stung. As did certain realizations about his master, his father.

About himself and certain tendencies he shared...

He opened his eyes again. "You go on one step at a time," he said. "One foot in front of another. I've seen your library, young Myrddin. And I've seen your future. There is so much for you to do, to restore magic to this world."

"But you-" Myrddin protested.

Douxie shook his head. "My time here is short," he said. He knew it. Could feel in his bones that time was running out. He and Jim would soon return to their own time and place. "You must carry on my work."

Myrddin looked in his eyes for a long moment, then acquiesced, nodding. "As you wish, Master Taliesin."


Krel's phone rang, shattering the class's collective dull listening to Señor Uhl's voice. His fingers scrabbled, picking up the device and hitting the button to accept the call. "Hello?" Krel asked, human heart beating fast.

"Prince Krel!" As he had both hoped and feared, it was Zadra. "We have received the signal from Izita. Morando is launching his fleet."

"Kleb. All right. Get Izita to access the drone depot and input the transmit code. I will be dropping Dog Fight on the internet now. Krel out." He hung up, and promptly began doing several things with his phone which were, as Zoe had told him, extremely off-warranty.

Luckily, his phone was not actually of Earth manufacture and thus was not constrained by the limits of this planet's primitive technology.

"Mary," said Toby, twisting in his seat, "make it go viral."

The dark-haired girl beamed, whipping out her own phone. "On it."

"What is the meaning of this?" Señor Uhl demanded.

"Well," said Krel, "I have designed an interface, which looks like one of your Earth 'casual games,' which is in actuality a control mechanism for the parking drones on Akiridion-5 to attack General Morando's fleet."

"And it is awesomesauce," Toby trilled.

"And I," put in Mary, "am in charge of marketing this thing to the internet, so I need just a minute of quiet here, okay?" She paused, then continued, speaking into her phone. "Hey there~! This is your girl Mary, bringing you the newest and hottest vibes. It's time for you to download the super cool new game Dog Fight. It's a blast! Hashtag SaveThePlanet!"

All around the classroom, phones in bags and backpacks chimed with the alert.

Even Señor Uhl's. He looked startled. "How in the world...?"

Mary smiled smugly. "Technomancy," she said. "Now let's get ready to kick some Akiridion butt!"

"But we are in the middle of vocabulary review!" Uhl protested.

"Señor Uhl." Aja stood. "What is more important: twenty-five mekrons of vocabulary review, or preventing the tyrant who has already taken over our much more technologically advanced homeworld from coming here, to yours?"

Silence reigned for a minute as the blond teacher considered the words of the blonde student.

Uhl straightened and adjusted his tie. "All right, class: new assignment. Twenty-five minutes of playing this Dog Fight game. In exchange for which," he warned over breaking cheers, "I will expect a one-page essay, using twenty-five new vocabulary words, on my desk by Wednesday."

The interrupted cheers turned to groans and eye rolls, but phones were fished out of pockets and backpacks even as Uhl stalked back to his own desk. Where he pulled out his own phone.


Toby looked around the classroom, his gaze catching briefly on Jim's usual seat, empty by the window. He counted heads. "Uh. We're going to need a lot more than a dozen people playing this to make a difference," he pointed out.

Krel sighed gustily, fingers tapping away at his game. "I know," he complained. "But beyond Mary making it go viral, I do not see what we can do to get more people playing it."

Suddenly, Toby did. "Señor Uhl!" he said, standing, hand in the air. "Can I have the hall pass?"

The teacher raised his eyebrows. But, "Go," was all he said, with a gesture at the wooden stick with the classroom number painted on it in chipped black.

Toby was out the door before Uhl could change his mind.

Trollhunting, and the associated running all over Arcadia cardio, served Toby well as he ran for the principal's office, sparing no speed. He caught his hand on wall corners and used them to change direction. He bolted past classrooms so fast the teachers didn't even have time to see him. He got to the front office and wasn't even out of breath.

Toby was so proud of himself.

"I need to see Principal Strickler," he told Miss Grace, the school secretary.

She pursed her lips. "I'm sorry, he's out. Can I help you?"

"Out?!" Toby demanded. Of all the lousy timing. "When's he back?"

"I don't know," said Miss Grace, making a note on a pad on her desk. "He's out on personal business."

"Personal business?" Toby asked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I suppose it means it's none of your business, young man."

Toby gaped for a second. Then he marshaled himself up and forward. "Fine," he said, hand dipping into his pocket. "I need to use the P.A. system."

Miss Grace pursed her lips again, cocking her head to the side. "I don't think so."

Toby pulled out his ultimate argument. "For the doom of Gunmar, Eclipse is mine to command!"

Five seconds later, he was armor-clad and holding a glowing sword almost as big as himself. Miss Grace was gaping, wide-eyed.

"It's kind of important," Toby told her. "So, can I?"

Speechless, Miss Grace nodded, and weakly gestured him to the mic stationed at the desk behind hers.


The overhead speakers crackled to life. Across the Arcadia Oaks High, students paused, hoping as always for some kind of get-out-of-school-free pass. It never happened, but hope reigned eternal even in an educational penitentiary.

"Ahem." Someone clearly coughed into their fist. "Attention, fellow students! This is your temporary temporary principal, Toby Domzalski. Also known as Trollhunter Toby!" He sounded proud of that fact. "We've got a situation here. An alien fleet, headed by General Morando, who is bee-tee-double-you a royal bitch, no offense Aja and Krel, is headed for Earth. This is not a drill! We need all hands on deck, playing Dog Fight. I know your phones just all pinged with a notification for the game, so get to it! Toby out."

Students looked at one another, then at their teachers. Most of whom had narrowed eyes and disapproving expressions, like someone had stuck slices of lemon in their mouths. "Pranks," more than one mouth said.

But some...

"Okay, class, to your lockers and grab your phones!" Coach Tom Lawrence barked, pulling his own cell phone out of his back pocket. "Today we're running drills on manual dexterity and improving your hand-eye coordination. Hustle, people, hustle!"

"All right," said Lenora Janeth to her pre-calculus class, "I want to see all of you working hard on calculating the possibility of success as well as determining the best attack patterns and angles." She was furiously tapping at her own phone, as was Claire Nuñez, who sat in the front row of the class. "Do not be afraid to share your successes with your classmates. Together, we will crack this problem!"

It wasn't as many as it could have been. But maybe it would be enough.


The troll looked up, teary blue eyes widening. "Have we... met?"

"Not yet," Jim told him. He couldn't, /wouldn't/, go into details of time travel. But at least he'd found someone he could trust. "Vendel, what happened here?" He looked around, at the stone bodies, some living, some petrified, clustered against the side of the heartstone.

A dark look overtook the young troll's face. "An army attacked us."

"An army?"

"They called themselves Gumm-Gumms," Vendel spat, levering himself up. "They took our young, slaughtered the rest of us. We few survivors," he said, gesturing at the injured trolls tending one another, "lived only because we hid, or were not yet mortally wounded when they moved on. My own father, and my master-" His voice broke down again.

Jim felt cold. "They took your children," he repeated numbly.

A wail, from one of the female trolls, broke the silence.

Anger licked up in Jim's heart, firming his resolve. "I will get them back for you," he swore.

Vendel snorted. "Who are you, stranger, to make such a vow?" He sounded like he didn't believe that Jim would, let alone could.

"I'm the Trollhunter," Jim said. And he said it in Trollish, with the full intonation that Blinky had taught him, meaning: the one who hunts those who bring horrible, slow, painful, and thoroughly calculated death.

Vendel stared. Then... "Balderdash," he said, and walked away.

Jim narrowed his eyes. "I will get your children back," he vowed, "whether you believe me or not." And turned to go.


Author's Note: Douxie's line about "What's loved, lives" in reference to the afterlife is in homage to the concept of Timeheart in Diane Duane's Young Wizard books. Miss Grace the School Secretary is, once again, a borrowing of Edie McClurg's character from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Where Strickler is, and what personal business he is attending to? You will find out next chapter.