Once & Future

by Cori McCarthy

  “Ari told you,” Morgana said, looking a bit betrayed. She swiped at Merlin with her nails, and he leaped back. So it had come to this—a plain old catfight.

  “She always tells the truth,” Merlin said. “Haven’t you noticed?” Morgana lashed out at Merlin again, and he caught her forearms in a weak grip. “You want peace for your brother, but the cycle must be completed first! Nin gave me the steps. Find Arthur, train Arthur, nudge Arthur onto the nearest—”

  “How much is the Lady of the Lake bound up in this?” Morgana interrupted, looking properly afraid. “And why did you never see fit to mention it?”

  “Maybe because you never asked nicely,” Merlin said, pushing Morgana away and running to put some distance between them.

  “I’m not nice,” Morgana hissed from where she fell to the ground, her ancient dress now covered in dirt. “Nice is for women who haven’t had their bodies taken away and replaced by the eternal torture of people-watching. They’re so terrible to each other, Merlin.” She put her head to the ground, heavily, and keened as if she was tortured by the same images she’d given him so many times on waking from the crystal cave.

  “You’re really feeling it, aren’t you?” Merlin asked, his empathy springing up in unsuspected places, like flowers out of season. “You haven’t had a body to feel their pain in so long…”

  “It’s… it’s unbearable,” she gasped.

  Merlin rushed to her side. He kneeled, one hand on her bony back as she tried to pull in air. He couldn’t have her dying now. How would he punish her if she was dead?

  “Think of something good,” he said. “That… might help.”

  “Nothing good has happened to me in so long,” she whispered, the words slick with pain.

  “Think of Ari!” Merlin cried. And, as much as it hurt him to admit it, he added, “I know you two must have developed some feeling for each other on Ketch. She’s your Ketch buddy!”

  Morgana shook her head, her dark hair hanging in tatters around her face. “Ari hates me for deceiving her. For killing her in the eyes of her friends.”

  “You can fix that,” Merlin said, still surprised that he was comforting Morgana. Still worried that she was about to spring up and stab him through the heart. He patted her back gingerly.

  “There is no taking back what is done,” Morgana said, staring up at Merlin with the kind of accusation that never wavered. “You, of all people, should know that.”

  Merlin took a deep breath. If Ari was out in the grove taking on the future, perhaps it was time for him to finally face the horrors of the past. “There are times when I think I should not have taken your brother,” he admitted. “But your stepfather was treating him as a dangerous bastard, and I…”

  Merlin dug up the truth by its roots, one word at a time. “I believed I could create a kind of justice for Uther’s actions. I never should have given that man the magic to appear in your father’s form. Uther was violent, as so many were then, but I never… I never imagined he would do such a vile thing.” His voice broke into a thousand pieces. “I was a fool. I left his service at once and raised your brother to change the ways of men. To prove that might does not equal right. To show the world that alliance is more powerful than violence.”

  Morgana keened, and Merlin could not tell if it was from his words, or from the memories seething through her mind.

  There was one more truth, and the story would never be finished without it. “None of that changes your mother’s hurt. Or your own loss.”

  And in that moment, Merlin understood. He wasn’t going to make Morgana pay. She had been paying, for centuries, the toll the cycle took on her soul as great as the one it took on his. They had both done awful things in their time. They had both suffered. But no single human could hold the pain of all the terrible things in the universe.

  Merlin touched Morgana’s temple, and memories flowed between them, a river running back to its source.

  Arthur, magically changing into a squirrel, scampering through the trees as the green leaves danced.

  Arthur, his scruffy hair and bright-blue eyes, the freckles that hadn’t yet faded peeking above the top of a tome Merlin had given him.

  Arthur, crowned king when he was still a nervous young man, while a young woman watched from the crowd, a pilgrim from Avalon, wearing priestess robes and sharing Arthur’s faded freckles.

  “What are you doing?” Morgana asked, gasping as if she were surfacing from a deep lake.

  “I’m giving you what you missed, Morgana,” he said.

  It was what she had done so many times, when Merlin woke up, except she’d only shown him the worst of humanity.

  He put his arm around her, helping her up. She felt solid in his grip. Terrifying and true. “There are more memories, and you can have them,” he promised, “but first I need your help.”

  Merlin brought Morgana back to the grove where Ari had just finished her message to the universe. She stood in the center of a ring of sickly trees, hacking at the ruins of a stump with Excalibur.

  “This place is desecrated,” Morgana said, as she struggled to breathe Earth’s chemical-strewn air. “What has become of our home?”

  “Humans did not take care of it, but Mercer delivered the killing blow,” Merlin said. “That’s one of the reasons Ari… and your brother… have chosen to stand against them.”

  “My brother needs peace,” Morgana sniffed.

  “Then why did he choose Ari?” Merlin asked. “Why did he save her from the attack on her parents’ ship? Why did he wish for her to see Ketch? Could it be that he needs both?”

  Morgana glared at him, but at least this time she didn’t try to take out his eyes with her long, eternally untrimmed nails.

  Ari’s knights were watching the skies, nervous, and distant from one another. Merlin longed for the banter they’d once filled Error with and the playful way they’d tackled each other on Lionel.

  “Did Mercer respond?” Lam called out.

  “They picked it up, but no response,” Kay shouted from Error, where he was transmitting Ari’s message in the hopes that their allies would pick up. “Now we’ll see if that bastard shows his face.”

  “He’ll come,” Ari and Gwen said together, before exchanging glances and looking away.

  “Can you make another one of those nets to be certain only the Administrator’s ship comes through? The last thing we need is to be bombarded by a fleet.”

  “Certainly,” Merlin said. He hummed an old tune he’d learned from a Roman centurion. It had a stiff yet drumming beat. Perfect for oncoming battle. When he was done, and the skies were neatly webbed in gold, he grinned at his band. Not a single one of them were looking at him. Not a single one impressed. Not even Val. They eyed the ruined planet, wincing with each chemical-laden breath.

  “They’re a mess,” Merlin muttered. “We can’t win anything in this state.”

  “That one is rather pretty,” Morgana pointed at Val, whose hard-set face was, indeed, lovely even when most worried. “Is he the reason you so desperately wish to stop aging backward?”

  “Ari told you that, too?” Merlin croaked.

  “She’s honest, as you’ve observed,” Morgana said.

  Merlin fiddled with the hem of his T-shirt. “Well, there are lots of reasons to wish for the cycle’s end. That’s only one small—”

  “Have you kissed him yet?” Morgana stroked her own lips with a gentle finger. “I remember kissing…”

  Merlin’s stomach tugged. It was one thing to lose his Arthur to Morgana, but Val was entirely off-limits. “Stay away from him,” Merlin barked. “And before you go on a kissing spree, we need to pull Ari’s knights back together. No one needs a martyr right now. Your field trip to Ketch turned Ari into something of a heroic loner.”

  But Merlin knew it was more than that. When they first met, Ari had believed, on some deep level, that she was alone in the universe. That was why she’d tried to solve all her problems by herself. It had been getti
ng better, but her time on Ketch with Morgana had made her backslide. He watched Ari from a distance, noting how alone she looked even surrounded by those who loved her most. She’d shut herself off again. Withdrawn.

  “You’re writhing with jealousy,” Morgana said. “I’ve trained Ari better than you ever would have.”

  Ari did look quite impressive after her stay on Ketch, her muscles long and curved, her deepened brown skin shining. Ever her hair had a new sheen to it. Merlin suspected that she’d discovered the secrets of Ketchan hair care. But there was also a hardness to her features, an impassable distance in her eyes. She’d returned to a home that had been violated, long-lost family and friends murdered. She’d gone home to find connection and found herself more alone than ever. And she’d been made to bear the weight of a planet-wide massacre by herself. No one should have to face that—no matter how strong.

  “She needs her friends,” Merlin said. “And her friends need to work their problems out before those problems trip them up and get them murdered. You must admit that Arthurs do tend to have trouble with their nearest and dearest, and it never ends well.”

  “Agreed,” Morgana said, grudgingly.

  “What if we lock them all together on Error and let them fight it out?” Merlin asked. Morgana looked at him like he had been huffing paint, or perhaps drinking it straight from the can. “Well, what’s your brilliant idea, then?” he asked, more than a touch defensive.

  “People aren’t brought together by fear, Merlin,” Morgana said quietly. “They’re torn asunder by it. If you want to unite this small and scraggly band, you must give them something to love together. A moment of shared hope and beauty.”

  Merlin clapped. “Yes! Perfect! How do we do that?”

  Kay reappeared in the doorway of the ship, looking gray and weathered. “Mercer definitely picked up our signal.”

  “How do we do that quickly?” Merlin corrected.

  Morgana’s smile spread like a dark stain, and Merlin’s heart chilled. The fear that he’d so often felt in her presence was back. Apparently, it would never leave him alone for too long. “I’ll need your blood,” she said.

  Merlin touched his nose and found that, while it was still tender, the nosebleed Jordan had so generously given him had dried up. He tried to dab a bit of dried blood and hold it out for Morgana, but she was already rummaging in the folds of her dress. She brought out a shining silver dagger, twisted and glittering.

  “Have you had that on you this whole time?” Merlin cried.

  “A priestess of Avalon is always prepared.”

  She stabbed Merlin in the thigh with a little too much glee. The pain was sudden, and it doubled when she pulled the blade out, his blood flowing in a gushing river. He yelped and hopped away on the other foot.

  “What’s going on over there?” Ari called warily, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Morgana, is that you?”

  “It’s all right!” Merlin said. “We’re, umm, collaborating.”

  The wound in his thigh screamed that maybe he’d made a mistake.

  Morgana reached down and touched her hand to the blood, kneeling to bring her red palm down to the ground, and then holding it up to the sky. She walked, painting the trees in the grove with bloody handprints as she went.

  Val ran to Merlin’s side and held him up as Merlin hopped. “She stabbed you?!”

  “It’s for a good cause,” Merlin said in a strained whisper. “I think.”

  “I’m so glad she’s on our side now,” Val deadpanned.

  “How real is she?” Lam asked, eyeing her with a sly, interested smile, which Morgana returned over her shoulder.

  “Real,” Merlin confirmed while Val huffed.

  “Seriously, Lam? Sinister enchantress cannot be your type.”

  “Sexy in a slip dress certainly is,” Lam said.

  Merlin watched Morgana’s strange magic bloom around them. Everywhere she brushed his blood, the ripped ground healed itself, the bark of the trees knitted and the branches grew, springing open buds and then uncurling healthy green leaves. Flowers sprang up in the wake of her bare feet. Merlin’s blood was watering a garden of new growth. Morgana had used the magic that had given her a body to give Earth back its life.

  And the knights were watching, gasping.

  Kay climbed down from Error. Gwen emerged from her hiding spot. Val looked up, taking in a deep breath of air that no longer tasted so tangy or metallic.

  “This is what it could have been…” Ari said, looking around her.

  “This is what it can be again,” Merlin said, hopping toward her with Val’s help. “If we stop Mercer. Together.”

  Morgana looked back from the distance she’d just traveled, filled with grass that rose and fell like gentle breath. A lake glittered and beckoned them. After a year of drought on Lionel, it was the most beautiful thing Merlin could imagine. He looked around at the freshly changed landscape and was surprised to find it familiar. This was a park that, in its day on Earth, had been rather famous.

  Lamarack ran through it with joyful abandon, a sort of wild hope to replace the grim waiting. Ari let herself turn in circles, taking it in. Merlin could see, in her rediscovered smile, the girl he’d met on the moon. The one who had come back from Ketch, hopeful for Gwen’s love. The orphan who had lost as many homes as Merlin had—and kept fighting.

  She nodded appreciation. “Nicely done, old man.”

  Val tugged him deeper into the magical landscape—not too quickly, because his leg hurt like the dickens. Still, the moment was almost perfect.

  But at the very edges, Merlin could still sense the ruin. And in the skies, Heritage loomed as a reminder. Mercer had been kicked, but they were not down.

  At last, Ari had a real battlefield.

  Merlin had called it a park, but the rolling acres of green, dotted by the strong profiles of old trees, looked perfect for a last stand. Even the sky was the kind of blue that jeweled the heavens. Ari reassured herself that she had the upper hand—and that Excalibur was sealed in it.

  The second step in her plan, to show the universe what had befallen Old Earth, had gone perfectly. The universe had received her messages. Several planets had even kicked Mercer out like Dodge colony had, a fact she’d rubbed in during her open message to the Administrator. And yet, she was also absolutely positive that something costly would happen when he showed his face. She glanced at the sky. He hadn’t sent a snarky return message, which Ari took as a sign that he was scrambling to meet her demands.

  Any moment, the tide of right would beat down the mountain of wrong. She only wished Kay was with her. Dragon Kay, that is. Her brother could fuck right off this planet, for all she cared.

  “Liar,” Ari muttered. She was failing to assemble a kingly outfit from the pile of cast-off armor Jordan had dumped in the green grass. A rubbery piece caught Ari’s eye, and she lifted Kay’s old knight training suit from the mound, the one he’d threatened her into so they could pick up supplies on Heritage a lifetime ago. She sniffed it, wincing, and yet overwhelmed by how her brother’s fear had always proved he loved her. Ari was going to be okay about Gwen and Kay. She was going to stitch her heart back together until she could manage okay.

  “Tomorrow,” she grumbled. “Today is for Mercer.”

  Ari sat back on the grass beside her ragtag collection of knights. In the near distance, Merlin was getting fussed over by Val. The newly embodied Morgana was smelling a disturbing number of things, including Lam. And Kay and Gwen were fighting, which would have felt great, maybe, if their arguing didn’t reek of long-standing intimacy.

  Ari’s eyes found Jordan, sitting on the other side of the pile of plates and chain mail. The black knight admittedly had the best armor and kept it in the best shape. For once, her blond hair was down, crimped from being unbraided and spread around her wide shoulders. She wore a plain tunic, polishing her shoulder guards with a rag that looked older than Error.

  Ari picked up a dented breastplate and held it
to herself, but there was no way to hook it on. Knights didn’t dress themselves; they had squires, or they helped one another. She dropped it.

  “You’ll need someone to assist you,” Jordan said. “It’s not going to be me.”

  “I could have guessed that much.”

  Jordan glanced up and caught Ari’s eye. “If you had lowered yourself to ask me one question about my personal life—one—you wouldn’t have suspected me of stealing your love. None of you would.”

  Ari stood. If she was going to be lectured by Jordan, she was doing it on her feet. She walked closer, casting a shadow across Jordan’s polishing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t take,” her eyes traveled to where Gwen and Kay argued, “lovers.”

  “You’re ace?”

  Jordan looked up at Ari with a how could you be so slow expression. “Of course.” She held up her armor. “This is my passion. This is my love.”

  Ari tossed herself down in the grass, lounging back. “I’m sorry, Jordan, but—it’s better if I don’t try to lie. You see, I’ve never wanted to like you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  Ari surprised herself with a smile. “I’m glad I have you on my side, though. You are a great warrior.”

  “And you,” Jordan said, returning to her polishing, “have no way of winning this duel you’ve challenged the Administrator to.” Ari sat back up. “Mercer will not have honor. Not swords or shields. They will most likely drop a flash bomb. Something quick, efficient, and deadly.”

  “And the universe will be watching. If we have to be martyrs, so be it.”

  “Like Ketch?”

  “What?”

  “You shared Ketch’s death with the cosmos as if their loss was a kind of sacrifice, but that was ten years ago. Mercer covered up their crimes, their honor, their loss. And it changed nothing.”

  “That won’t happen here today. I’ve made sure that the universe will care. That others will come and help,” Ari said, although she wasn’t certain. How could she be? She glanced at the golden-webbed sky and then reached for her security blanket, pulling Excalibur out of the leather sheath. The blade was tarnished, filthy.