Sword in the Stars

by Cori McCarthy

  They trudged out of the water, waiting for the mist to appear, bearing a boat to Avalon. Somewhere the baby could be hidden and cared for, safe from the Arthurian story and Mercer and Nin.

  Only the mist seemed hesitant tonight, even though Ari had called for it many times, just as Arthur had done. When that didn’t work, she built a fire because Gwen was shaking while she cradled the baby in a way that made Ari more nervous than she’d ever been. She tugged the blanket down from the horse and spread it around Gwen’s shoulders, building the fire higher and higher.

  “Ari, that’s enough. Come here.” Gwen’s face was gray, but not as deathly as it had been when she was shivering. Ari sat beside Gwen and put her arm around her, pulling Gwen’s hair back so that she could kiss her neck. “That was absolutely worse than I ever imagined,” Gwen whispered. “I feel like a shell that’s been cracked open and left behind.”

  Ari swallowed back strong emotion. “Give it a day. Maybe three. I felt that way when my moms found me. Alive, but also somewhat… gone.” It hadn’t been time that brought her back, though. It had been Kay. Somehow his persistence and attention had eclipsed her hurt. Well, Ari would have to do the same for Gwen.

  Gwen snuggled closer to Ari.

  “How are they?” Ari asked after a thick moment of not being able to think about anything else. Gwen shook her head, her hair brushing Ari’s face. “What? Is something wrong? Did the lake water do something to them?”

  “No. I mean, they’re perfect, but I checked. They definitely have a penis.”

  “The baby is assigned male?” Ari understood the problem like a thunderclap, although that didn’t mean she agreed with it. “But that doesn’t actually mean they’re going to be…”

  “I feel like I can’t be surprised, but I am. And I’m scared. I’ve felt this coming all along. That’s why I wished for them to be at least assigned female,” Gwen said, voice desperate. “Maybe it’s wrong to want certain things, but I couldn’t help it.”

  Ari couldn’t help but part the blanket in Gwen’s arms. The sleeping baby was perfect… and so still… as if they might open their tiny pink lips and cry smoke.

  Mordred.

  The name was death. No wonder Merlin was terrified of it.

  “Maybe they’re trans? Or fluid?” Gwen said hopefully.

  “Boys aren’t so bad,” Ari tried, one hand straying toward the baby’s head all on its own. “Val’s a demiboy. And Kay… was Kay.”

  “You’re not helping your case, Ara.”

  Ari drew closer. Closer. “They need a name. That will help.”

  Gwen chewed on a piece of her hair while she stared. “It should begin with K. For Kay. Something gender-neutral so they can make their own choices.”

  Ari smiled softly, remembering an old joke. “Keith?”

  Gwen gasped with disgust. “Oh gods, no. That’s worse than Mordred.”

  Ari wanted to touch the little bundle, the soft skin. “Jordan called Kay ‘Keith’ this one time. Still funny to me, I guess.” She smiled hopefully, looking up at Gwen’s nervous expression. “We’re going to be okay, Gwen. All three of us. I can feel it.”

  “What’s that word Merlin keeps going on about? His magic word? The answer of once and future?”

  “The marriage of once and future,” Ari said. “Kairos.”

  “Since when do you feel so passionate about marriage?” And now Gwen was baiting Ari. Gwen was baiting Ari directly after having a baby. Gods, she loved the grit on this girl.

  “I care a hell of a lot about our marriage, thanks for asking. Which is still real, and you better bet I’m going to be picking up where we left off when we get home.”

  “And what are you going to do until then?”

  “Stare at you. Longingly.”

  Gwen finally looked happy, smiling and also biting her lip. “Oh! Kai for short.”

  “It fits. Kairos is whoever they need to be when the time comes. It’s built into the name.” Ari brushed the baby’s round cheek and their eyes shot open. Big darkly gray eyes as gorgeous as Gwen’s. Ari was holding the baby before she’d even thought to take them up from Gwen, pressing them against her chest. “I love them,” she found herself saying. She closed her eyes, talking with a blush, pushing the truth out. “Gwen, they’re made from us. They are our family.”

  “Stop it. That’s too much,” Gwen said, scrubbing away tears with the heel of her palm. She held her arms out, and Ari handed over the baby. Gwen held them differently. Where Ari had slung them along her chest, Gwen held the tight bundle upright, looking them in the eye as though they were a trader who’d skimped on a shipment to Lionel.

  “Listen, little protégé, we’re in something terrible here. And back where we came from is also… terrible. You’re going to help. You understand? And if you turn evil and try to kill any parental figures, I’ll be really, really pissed at you.”

  The baby yawned.

  “Excellent. We understand each other,” Gwen said, snuggling Kai to her chest as if the effort of holding them away had been a hero’s trial.

  “Gwen,” Ari said quietly. “Do you want to give Kai to the Avalon enchantresses because, in a way, that means you’ve fulfilled the chalice vision of someone taking the baby from you, but not in some horrible way? Is this like you kidnapping yourself?”

  Gwen smoothed the blanket around the baby’s small face. “Maybe.”

  “I think it’s brilliant.” Ari kissed her. “And I think Kai shouldn’t go alone. You could go—”

  “I’m not leaving your side.” Gwen’s words were so unyielding, Ari would not fight them.

  “But they can’t go alone.”

  The girls stared at each other for a minute, speaking without words. “Merlin,” they both said together. Ari added, “This will take him out of the fight before it’s too late.”

  Gwen sighed, and Ari pulled her tighter. This plan, at least, made sense; they would send Kai and Merlin to Avalon for safekeeping, and then come back for both of them. Somehow.

  They were so enamored with their little one, speaking nonsense love in tangled whispers, that they were unprepared for the moment the sleeping baby started to… glow.

  “What the…?”

  “It’s the moonlight,” Gwen said, as the baby hummed with light that seemed to come from within.

  “I don’t think so.” Ari remembered the strange swirl of black that had transformed the lake water the moment the baby was born.

  A falcon circled overhead, screeching in a way that made Ari look up.

  “Ari!” Gwen cried at the same moment the hideous bird dropped at their feet, wings beating against the dead leaves as it transformed. Ari’s sword was with her armor and the horse. She tried to kick the bird toward the fire, but she was too late.

  Old Merlin unfurled his gnarled self before them, froze Ari and Gwen, and stole the baby from their mother’s arms.

  The woods were vile, dark, and deep. Merlin ran through them at top speed, following the lonely hooting of an owl. Without turning around, he knew Val and Lam were lagging behind. It seemed that being an eleven-year-old gave him boundless energy for things like leaping through underbrush and chasing down his older, morally bankrupt self.

  He would never forget the look on Old Merlin’s face in the tower, as the vile mage broke out of the deep freeze first. He hadn’t looked villainous and callous and craven.

  No—he’d looked terrified.

  Coming close enough that their noses almost touched, Old Merlin whispered, hot and musty, “I never should have let you in my tower. It was wrong to trust you. Everyone in Camelot is conspiring against Arthur.”

  Merlin wanted to shout that Nin was the one conspiring against all of them, and anything else was really small potatoes. But Old Merlin had already poofed into the form of a sleek, dark-feathered falcon and jetted out the tower window.

  The next few minutes of frozen waiting amounted to torture: a mashup of his greatest fears on repeat. Fear for Ari, Gwen, the baby. F
ear for himself. Fear of himself. But none of that was going to get Merlin out of this mess. Terror might be a natural reaction to a dark and unexpected universe, but at a certain point, giving in to it became a selfish way to live. His old self was proof of that.

  Merlin’s pinky finally twitched, followed by his left eye.

  “Progress,” he mumbled mushily. His lips still wouldn’t close all the way.

  As soon as he could walk, he crashed across the tower. A plan had just leaped into his mind, and it started with Archimedes. He ripped the cloth off the owl’s covered perch. “Old Merlin just went out that window, and you’re going to help me track him.”

  Archimedes blinked and looked away, beaky and superior.

  “I know you understand me!” Merlin shouted.

  The owl screeched so hard that he had to clap his hands over his ears.

  “I’ll tell Old Merlin that you’ve been eating the mice he keeps for auguries.”

  Archimedes scowled; an impressive feat considering he didn’t have lips. There was no time for proper falconry. Merlin lifted his wrist, and Archimedes condescended to hop on, his claws digging into the meat of Merlin’s arms a little harder than was necessary. He ran down the tower stairs as Archimedes kept screeching and clawing. Merlin wasn’t going to leave the castle without Lam and Val. He didn’t know what kind of ambush he was walking into with Gwen’s kidnapping, and he very well might need backup if he was to focus on Old Merlin.

  He panted as he came to a stop in front of the siblings, who were seated at an otherwise ill-attended round table.

  “Did Ari find Gwen?” Val asked, toppling his chair back as he pushed to his feet.

  “No idea,” Merlin said. “But I have a bird that’s going to find Old Merlin.”

  “What does he have to do with this?” Lam asked. “He didn’t take her, did he?”

  “It might be the only terrible thing he didn’t do,” Merlin said. “We have to stop him. He knows about the baby.”

  Lam and Val had never sworn so loud nor moved so quickly.

  And now here they were, all three of them pitching headlong through the woods as Archimedes tracked Old Merlin in falcon form, farther and farther from Camelot, into the lawless woods where the fear of rogue knights and cutpurses gave way to a much deeper worry as they neared Nin’s lake. Val’s voice came from behind Merlin, ragged but ferocious. “If Nin had anything to do with Gwen disappearing, I will drag her out of that lake by whatever wig she’s wearing, and—”

  “Her hair is incorporeal,” Merlin puffed, turning slightly without breaking stride.

  “I know,” Val said. “Just let me have one moment of righteous anger against that beautiful horrorshow.”

  Merlin thought of Nin taking pleasure in this latest painful twist. Coming to Camelot had only been acceptable because he believed it would shield Gwen’s baby from harm, and now he was the very person who posed the biggest threat to the child—an irony that Nin would no doubt find delicious.

  When Merlin broke onto the banks of the lake, he found neither Old Merlin nor Nin. Two figures were by the water, hands reaching out as if to stop someone, bodies locked in place. In the dusky light, their features stayed dark until Merlin grew close, but he already knew what he would find.

  Gwen and Ari, frozen.

  As Lam and Val came to a rough stop on the gravel bank, Merlin popped Gwen and Ari with a tiny bit of magic. They came back to life in stiff, shocked bursts.

  “Gwen, are you all right?” Lam asked. “Who stole you from the castle?”

  “No one,” Ari said quickly, trying to get Gwen to sit down. “She’s all right. Just, you know, she freakin’ gave birth.”

  “Old Merlin…” Gwen breathed raggedly. “He took my baby!” Her rage could have lit the whole dark, pre-electric world. She staggered toward the woods. Ari met her stride and bolstered Gwen as they both stormed into a fight they were never going to win.

  “You can’t stop him without me.” Merlin grabbed their arms, amazed at the baby fat that lined his own. “I’m finally standing up to my old self. Got off to a bit of a rocky start, but…” Gwen spun, and he half expected her to slap him or shout him down for what Old Merlin was doing—what he’d done, even if he didn’t remember it.

  “Thank gods he didn’t hurt you,” Gwen said, pulling him into a fierce mama dragon embrace.

  Merlin feigned confidence. “I might look like a whelp, but which Merlin has actually been around longer?” He pushed his sleeves up only for them to fall back down, one torn to strips where Archimedes had clawed it.

  Merlin searched the skies, but the owl must have headed back to Camelot. “Damn disloyal bird! Find someone else to clean up your droppings!”

  Merlin would have to track the old mage without help from Archimedes. “We’ll split up and head into the woods,” he said. “Holding on to that baby requires hands, which means Old Merlin is in human form. If we take different paths, we stand a chance of catching up to him.”

  “Gwen is with me,” Ari said, their arms wrapping around each other. “And the rest of you should know that the baby is a little… different.” Ari looked at Gwen, and Gwen shook her head. “We’ll explain when we get them back.”

  “Lam and Val, look for signs of Old Merlin, but keep a safe distance,” Merlin said, desperately trying not to look at Val and leak feelings. “I’ll work alone, since I’m the only one with magic.”

  Val stepped in front of him, stooping into Merlin’s direct line of sight. “Please don’t use too much.”

  Merlin couldn’t make that promise—not even for Val—so it was a good thing Ari spoke up again. “What does he even want with the baby?”

  “He won’t hurt them, will he?” Gwen asked.

  Merlin had always been a terrific liar, but apparently that had been a gift of maturity. “He… It’s hard to say what he will or won’t…”

  “Everyone move!” the queen commanded, and his friends shot in three directions, Gwen and Ari keeping to the path, Lam and Val setting off into the trees. Merlin waited until they were lost among the gloom and branches before he set his lips together lightly and hummed.

  His magical sonar pinged off something in the woods. A bright and untarnished magic. Could that really be Old Merlin? Merlin pushed toward it, trees rudely sprouting up everywhere he tried to step. He dodged as quickly as he could, branches giving him a sound lashing. He walked for what could have been five minutes, though it was impossible to tell time in the woods.

  And then he slowed, because he heard a scraping barnacle of a voice.

  “You can’t keep wetting yourself, silly thing,” Old Merlin said.

  Merlin peeked out from behind a great oak tree. The baby was abandoned on the ground in the hasty folds of a blanket. Their little fists crabbed, their eyes screwed up as if they were working up to a truly impressive wail.

  Old Merlin whirled around before Merlin could even think to freeze him. The old man’s fingers shot up, a reflex that could lead at any moment to a magical first strike. “You shouldn’t have been able to find me, carbuncle. I used cloaking magic that could never be detected by a mere apprentice.”

  “I’m not a mere apprentice,” Merlin cried. “I’m you!”

  The old mage wouldn’t kill another version of himself, would he? Merlin had to believe that this last-ditch truth would save him… and not implode the entire space–time continuum.

  Old Merlin looked more vexed than surprised. “At first I believed we had qualities in common, but—”

  “No!” Merlin said, leaping involuntarily. “I’m not saying I’m like you. I’m saying that I’m actually you. We’re the same person! How can you not understand that after being around me for so long? After seeing our magic is the same? Have we always been this thick?”

  Old Merlin puffed a breath that made his beard leap. “You’re being wildly accusative and going against my every wish. What has gotten into you?”

  “I don’t know, perhaps you took my friends’ baby.�
��

  As if on cue, the little one screamed, and sparks exploded through the clearing.

  Old Merlin leaped back. Merlin fought his own surprise and swooped to grab the entire bundle, blanket trailing. The little one’s weight was warm and solid, even if they did wriggle a great deal.

  The whoosh of Old Merlin’s freezing spell filled the air behind them as Merlin dodged, running helter-skelter into the trees. Old Merlin shouted, lighting up the woods behind him with magic and anger. The good news was that he ran much faster than his old self.

  The bad news was that the infant in his arms really was soaked through with pee.

  Apparently that made babies upset. This one’s cries could have been heard over the English Channel, let alone a quarter mile away in the same woods. “How can you even make that much sound? You’re tiny!”

  Merlin found a dead-ish tree that had been hollowed out by animals and tucked in there to catch his breath. The baby was still shredding the night with wailing, though, which meant no hiding place would be safe.

  A few gentle sparkles would have been a nice distraction to offer, but Merlin couldn’t afford to use magic if he wanted to stay old enough to take care of a baby instead of being a baby. What were his skills, outside of magic? “Music!” Merlin said. “Would you like a lullaby?” He tried “London Bridge.” He frantically whispered “Three Blind Mice,” then cut off when he realized it was only making things worse. “Really? They couldn’t do better than plagues and carving knives?”

  But the truth of the past was so very ugly.

  Merlin was officially out of ideas. What else did babies like? Breasts? Shiny things? He wished he still had a beard for the little one to tug on. Toys were in short supply in the middle of the night in a murder-forest.

  “Wait!” Merlin fished in his pockets for the only object he’d brought from the future. He’d found it on Lionel as he and Val traipsed through the market together, eyeing all the things they’d buy for their own castle someday. A hopeful, foolish game. It made them feel like their days belonged to them, not to Mercer. Not the cycle. Not Nin, who had been watching even then, as he and Val stupidly simmered in happiness and Lionelian sunshine, taking stock of the copper pots and leather goods and anachronistic but charming T-shirts. When Merlin found a tiny wooden falcon that reminded him of the past in the warmest possible way, Val convinced him to buy it. Val had believed that Merlin deserved to be stupidly happy.