Once & Future

by Cori McCarthy

  “Where are Lian and Vera Helix?” Merlin asked. He would never find them on his own in this icy labyrinth.

  “Let me look,” the guard said, cagily, as he reached for his watch.

  “Grab that!” Merlin shouted, but before Hex could torch the watch, the guard had pressed a red button on the inside.

  Every guard in Urite had been alerted to their presence.

  Merlin took out the guard with another finger-spark, and ran. But he had no idea where he was going, and this place was impossible to navigate, every hallway the same, each one lined with the dead and dying.

  And now Merlin was starting to feel ill, sweat cropping up in all sorts of places. The bubonic plague had taken a week to incubate, but judging by the way his insides felt like they were swelling and withering at the same time, Mercer had sped that process up a bit.

  “I won’t die, I won’t die,” Merlin chanted on thin breaths as he jogged.

  “Yeah, buddy,” Hex joked. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  He had saved Hex, at least. Ari would be proud of him for bringing her a new rebellious knight. Maybe Val would make Merlin some chicken soup, or whatever fake medieval stew they made on Lionel when people got sick. And they would have Ari’s parents back. All he needed was to find them.

  And get them out.

  And…

  And…

  There were always so many steps. His feet slowed, his wheezing starting to burn his lungs, his throat crowded with pain. He remembered now just how miserable quests had always been.

  “Don’t go down that way,” Hex said, grabbing Merlin by the back of his uniform like taking a puppy by the scruff of his neck. “That’s the guard station and med bay. Tons of Mercer types.”

  Merlin nodded. And then, through the haze of sickness, he thought of another step he had to add to his plan. He couldn’t leave all of these people here to die, at the hands of Mercer. This company did not care what happened to the people of this universe as long as they had their power. And Merlin was finding, with each day, he cared more and more.

  Ari was the hero. But Merlin was here, and he could help.

  He hobbled toward the guard station, the exact direction he wasn’t meant to go.

  “Hey!” Hex cried. “Did you hear me?”

  Guards rushed at them, a whole battalion. At the same moment, Merlin caught sight of what he needed. A room with the words MED BAY written on the door, and behind the ice-walls, case after case with medical warnings stamped all over them. He hummed and pointed and splintered the cases. The guards looked back at the med bay as if a bomb had exploded behind them—and were met with the sight of a thousand plague needles flying straight at their faces.

  Merlin stopped the syringes an inch from sticking anyone.

  “Now,” he said. “I need the location of two prisoners. Lian and Vera Helix.”

  The guards traded looks, but none of them made a move. They didn’t have Mercer telling them what to do, and Merlin could see how dependent they’d grown on their orders.

  “The Administrator would let you die, you know. You’re not worth any more to Mercer than these prisoners are. They’ve trapped you inside of their decisions and their poorly cut suits. You know that if you cross them, you’re already a forfeit in their game. But today, you get to decide. Tell me where Lian and Vera Helix are, and you can pretend I found them on my own. Mercer will be none the wiser.”

  One of the guards stepped forward, her hands up, as if placating a feral child. “They’re in cavern four along the west wall. Now… put the needles down.”

  “Of course,” Merlin said, crashing them to the floor, breaking them open so the plague juice ran in toxic yellow streams, sliding over the ice. The guards yelped and tried to avoid it at all costs as Merlin took off.

  Cavern four along the west wall turned out to be several miles away, and when Merlin and Hex made it there, a rogue guard was waiting.

  Hex hit the highest power setting on the heat gun and blasted his way forward.

  “No!” Merlin cried, but the guard was already firing back. Merlin raised his hands and twisted the heat ray away from Hex, using it to melt the doors along the hallway, one by one. Some prisoners leaped out and ran on limbs half-rotted with sores. Others were too sick to move. While Merlin was distracted, another guard ran up behind them and hit Hex square in the back. He went down, hard, with a smack against the ice and the smell of sizzling flesh.

  Merlin tossed fireballs from both hands—one at each of the guards—too late. Hex stayed motionless, his face frozen in a moment of victory. He’d gone down believing they would escape. Merlin had doled out hope, and then let him die, which somehow felt worse than giving him no hope at all. Hex wasn’t coming back to Error. He would never be a knight of Ari’s round table.

  “I’m sorry,” Merlin said, one last apology.

  And then Merlin saw two women emerging from their cell, slowly, to see what the commotion was. Their arms were locked tight around each other. If they were going down, they were doing it together.

  One of them faced Merlin with an unusual sharpness in her eyes. He recognized the shine of filigreed silver hair that didn’t seem to have anything to do with age—and this woman’s hard blue eyes.

  Kay. She looked like Kay.

  “You must be Mom,” he said to the quiet woman in her arms, Lian. She looked glassy, her skin taut and shiny. They’d stuck her with plague. “And you’re Captain Mom,” he finished, looking straight into Vera’s hard eyes.

  He knew these women. He had seen them float into the water heater and save young Ari.

  Vera’s already pale face took on the sheen of ice. “What did you call me?”

  “My Arthur is your daughter,” he said, aware of how sick he looked, how strange he sounded. “Your Ari is my Arthur.”

  “You know Ari?” Lian exclaimed, tears flooding her eyes.

  Vera shifted her hold on her wife, so she could raise a finger to Merlin. “If you are messing with us, I will end you.”

  Merlin surprised himself with such a deep sigh. “As if endings were that easy…”

  The dehydration that he’d been fighting sent him to his knees, dizzy and weak.

  “I think this boy is sick, Vera,” Lian whispered.

  “I’m much, much better,” he said with the small burst of an unexpected laugh. “I’m here to save you from Mercer, like you saved Ari so many years ago. My name is Merlin.”

  “Merlin… like the bird on Old Earth,” Lian offered, and Merlin would have been overcome with tears if there had been a bit of water to spare in his body. As it was, his eyes just felt gritty and pained as he thought of that tiny wooden falcon—the only possible sign he’d ever had parents of his own.

  “How exactly are you going to save us?” Vera asked.

  Merlin had no idea. He was too sick to have ideas. He coughed out half of his confidence, and Vera stepped back reflexively, but Lian rushed to his side, dabbing sweat from his forehead with her sleeve. She smiled down at him. Ari had told him she was the sweet one, the one who kept them all from losing hope.

  Even with her death coming on fast, she was still trying to comfort a stranger.

  Mom was dying.

  Merlin coughed harder, and a plan came out. “We’re going to leave the only way that Mercer will let us. As dead bodies.”

  Lian pulled her fingers back, cringing.

  “Not actual dead bodies.” Merlin shook his head. “I have… magic.” For the first time in history he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to explain things. He needed a small demonstration. Something that wouldn’t take up too much magic. Merlin hummed a few notes of a lullaby. “This is the color of your son’s hair,” he said, twisting one of his own reddish locks into a silver-gray. He opened his palm. A red circle etched itself across his skin. “And this is the shape of your daughter’s scars.”

  “Vera…”

  “I see it, Lian. I should have known this little ginger was trouble from the second he said Ar
i’s name.” She paused. “Maybe a few seconds before that.”

  “We told them not to come back for us,” Lian said.

  Merlin thought of Ari and Kay, their strange bond that defied the cycle. “Kay’s heart is as hard as porridge, and Ari is loyal to a fault. You taught them to save people. This is a cycle of your own making, and simply getting arrested won’t break it.”

  “He’s right,” Lian said, releasing a dry cough.

  Merlin made a silent promise—even if Lian was dying, she would see her children first. This vow wasn’t on his list of steps. It wouldn’t change the story. And yet it mattered so much that he could hardly breathe right.

  “All right,” he said. “Ready to take a little nap?”

  Vera nodded staunchly. Lian grabbed her hand and kissed it once, twice, as Vera watched her with so much love. Merlin hummed the calming tones of a meditation and touched Lian on the forehead with one thumb, and Vera with the other. They stiffened and turned a distinctly gray-ish color.

  Then Merlin touched his own forehead with his thumb. He froze, his mind the only moving thing inside of his sinking stone of a body. He told himself one thing over and over again.

  Stay awake.

  Ari couldn’t sleep as Error crashed and shuddered through the unstable nebula surrounding Urite’s solar system. Everyone was laying low, preparing for what was sure to be a costly prison break.

  Gwen lay beside Ari, on her stomach, her curls cascading over her back, revealing a shoulder that Ari was too fond of. She wanted to draw it. Or bite it. But Merlin’s warning returned sharply. Gwen would hurt her; it was canon.

  “I won’t believe it,” Ari murmured, running a hand over Gwen’s skin, smiling at the way it made Gwen’s nose wrinkle in her sleep. Before she could enjoy the still, warm moment, her thoughts returned to Merlin. She couldn’t shake the idea that he was in trouble. A lot of trouble.

  “Ari,” Gwen said sleepily. “Merlin is going to be okay.”

  Ari’s fingers froze on Gwen’s elbow. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”

  Gwen sat up, tucking the blanket over her breasts. “Because you’re translucent. You always have been. It’s not just your words that beam honesty. It’s everything about you. It’s why people in a universe controlled by Mercer’s lies look at you and see King Arthur. A true hero.”

  Ari squinted playfully. “I could have secrets, if I wanted to.”

  “But you don’t want to,” Gwen said, riffling in a drawer beside the bed. “You’re nakedly brave. Courageously stalwart.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I told you. Translucent. My own personal stained-glass window.” Gwen sighed with a small smile. “You’re going to make the worst politician in Lionel’s history. Or perhaps the best. We’ll have to wait and see.” She held out a small velvet bag, pouring two silver rings in her palm. “I have a present for you.”

  Ari inspected one, finding it heavy. “Jewelry? Are we that far into our marriage already?” she teased. Teasing made sense; being married did not.

  Gwen placed one on her delicate fourth finger and one on Ari’s. “People wore these to denote married status on Old Earth. Antique thinking, but one of the more romantic gestures in the heap of barbarity my planet is trying to resurrect. You should read some of the ancient texts we’ve uncovered. It’s all, Bow to the men, you wicked females!”

  Ari took a moment to soften her honesty. “If it’s that bad, why do you want to be their queen?”

  “Because the queen controls the barbarity,” she said, not dismissive, but on the border of it. “On Lionel, we have the chance to revise the more backward aspects of the culture. And we have each other now.” Gwen’s always confident voice frayed a little. “I mean, I’m not letting you take on this anti-Mercer mantle all alone. Lionel is behind you, one hundred percent.”

  Ari stared at Gwen. Her brown eyes were entrancing. Velvet, almost. If Ari had been any other girl, she might have stayed in this moment of hope with her new wife.

  “We’re going to fail,” Ari said, the truth slipping out like a dagger laid upon a table. “Mercer is a hundred times stronger than Lionel. Maybe if we went to Ketch, and got some real backup…”

  Gwen looked stunned. “You want to go to Ketch?”

  “If I could find a way through the barrier, we would have strength in numbers. There were billions of Ketchans before the barrier closed. The planet is huge.” Ari didn’t have to add that going to Ketch would mean leaving Gwen’s Lionelian responsibilities… and therefore Gwen. This was not something they could do together. This was an Ari and Merlin mission for sure.

  Merlin. Oh, gods, he better be all right.

  Gwen slipped on her robe, sliding past the subject of going to Ketch. “I’ll check with Jordan and see how close we are.”

  Ari watched her leave, the queen’s shoulders squared, her hair somehow more glorious when it was a free tangle of curls than perfectly pinned up. They weren’t fighting all out; they just weren’t lining up at the moment, either. Ari twirled her new ring on her finger, catching herself smiling at it. For all their weirdly tense history, the idea of Gwen in her life, for the rest of her life, did make her damn happy.

  Val cleared his throat from the doorway.

  “Are Lam and Kay getting ready for the plan?” she asked.

  “Plan?” Val said with firmly crossed arms. “There’s no plan. There’s just ‘Merlin will give us a sign.’ We are literally flying into a maximum-security planet looking for anything.”

  “Watch it, Val,” Kay said, passing by in the hall. “Your boyfriend is helping my parents.”

  “Excuse me, he’s not my boyfriend,” Val said, whirling around. “But he would be by now if all of you hadn’t let him get himself arrested.”

  Lam popped their head in around Val. “Mercer put atmosphere alarms around Urite, the bastards. Jordan just picked up the signal. We’ll only have a few minutes once we land before Mercer is headed straight for us.”

  Lam disappeared into the main cabin. Ari turned back to Val’s hard frown. “I’m sorry, and I feel pretty terrible about Merlin being arrested. I’m scared sick for him.”

  “I don’t want apologies, Ari. I want him back.” He rubbed his neck. “Merlin is the only person I’ve connected with in years. Do you know how hard it is to find someone weird enough for me, even on Lionel?”

  “That’s why I’m going planet-side. To do what I can for all of them,” Ari said, squeezing Val’s shoulder. “Don’t forget, I’m the only one on board who can wield a mythological sword. Excalibur and Merlin’s magic are the keys to beating Mercer. I have no doubt about that.”

  And Ketch, she thought wildly. For some reason, ever since her memory pairing with Merlin, Ari could feel King Arthur inside of her, tugging her like he had on that day when he’d led her to Excalibur in the oak… and he really wanted her to go to Ketch.

  “What about the one who attacked us on Troy?” Val’s expression narrowed to a point. His experience with Morgana had left a mark. “Whose side is she on?”

  “Not Mercer’s,” Ari said. “At least I don’t think so.”

  Val left, and Ari started putting on her pants. Her boots. Her belt.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Gwen said, returning with a hard scowl. “It’s far too costly for you to go down there. If you get caught you could die. Or worse, Mercer could use your felony as grounds to take over Lionel and dethrone me.”

  Ari squinted, still clicking her belt in place. “How is the second one worse than the first?”

  “In the first reality, I lose you. In the second? All Lionelians lose their home. Thousands of my people will die because they can’t relocate to Mercer-controlled planets. They’ll be refugees.”

  “Gwen, as the supposed savior of humankind, I’m pretty sure I have to get my hands dirty.”

  Gwen slid her palms against Ari’s, entwining their fingers. “I have other ideas for those hands.”

  Ari growled in a plea
sed way. She couldn’t help it. Gwen pressed closer without reservation. Body to body, lips to lips. Ari’s thoughts swung in tighter and tighter circles until they vanished and she was lifting Gwen into their kiss.

  Ari’s knotted muscles released, her insides melting. She fell into the bed, pulling Gwen on top of her. Their hips connected in a way that made Ari tear at Gwen’s clothes, and it wasn’t until Ari had pulled Gwen’s delicate shoulders out of her robe and left a trail of kisses from her neck to her lovely nipples that she came back up for air.

  Ari dropped her head on the bed, dizzy, gasping. Red hot. She sat up on her elbows. Gwen’s beautiful, rich skin was all she could see. Ari made herself look into Gwen’s eyes. “I have to go down there with them.”

  “Trust your knights.” She squeezed Ari’s hips with her thighs. “Stay with me.”

  Perhaps it was Lionel that made Gwen refer to Ari’s friends as her knights, but it only reminded her of Merlin. Of King Arthur. “Do you believe what everyone else believes, Gwen? That I’m some magical, long-dead king?”

  Gwen sat up, straddling Ari like a winged mythical creature. She shrugged her robe back onto her shoulders. “I think people need heroes. I think you’re a hero. It’s that simple to me. And that important. And I’m not going to lose you on stupid Urite.”

  “They’re my parents, Gwen.”

  “Your parents are… important. They’re just not more important than beating Mercer.”

  Ari sat up, pushing Gwen away. “Are you serious right now?”

  Gwen was steaming. “I have parents, too, Ari, but you don’t see me dropping everything I care about to save them.”

  Ari felt Gwen’s words in strange places. “You told me your parents were dead.” Gwen slid farther away, now more of a delicate bird perched on the edge of the bed. “And you were born on Troy and never told me. Why do you keep lying? What else are you lying about?”

  “Stop.”

  “How am I supposed to trust you if you’re still keeping secrets?”

  She will hurt you in the end, so very badly, Merlin had said.

  Gwen turned, surprising Ari with bright tearful spots in her eyes. “Still keeping secrets? Are we fourteen again, making out behind the stables while you demand to know everything about me, and when I don’t tell you instantly, you run away?”