Sword in the Stars

by Cori McCarthy

  The next day, Ari’s stallion reminded her of Kay, veering off the trail to snack, baring his teeth whenever Ari pointed out that maybe he was being a jackass. “We should keep to the trees,” she called out to Arthur. “This road is a hunting ground for enemies to your kingdom.”

  “My road is that bad?” Arthur said, turning backward in his saddle.

  “For commoners it’s nearly a death sentence. I dodged about thirty arrows on my way through the morning of your wedding, and I was traveling with a host of knights.”

  “Hmm, I should do something about this road.”

  “Instate a guard,” Ari suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you always have to process my ideas as if they might conceal harm?”

  “Do you always have to do things the moment you imagine them?”

  Ari folded her arms. “If you haven’t noticed, my last plan ended up with you showing off your warrior stuff. They’ve started calling you ‘The One True King.’ You’re welcome.”

  “Yes, but that handmaiden’s victory was a disaster. Surely you see that. She made Sir Kay seem less of a man. He will seek revenge.”

  “Jordan is a knight.” Ari’s teeth bit so hard into the word that Arthur went silent. “And she can handle anything he throws at her.” Ari and Arthur navigated a labyrinth of briar bushes, directing their horses with care. “I now understand why it took you forty tries to pick a girl,” she muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “You tell me you know I’m a woman, and then you act as if it doesn’t matter. Explain.”

  “As long as I’m the only one who knows, I don’t see the problem.” Arthur kept going, undeterred. “I told you I’m used to lies. I assure myself that a person like you, or like my queen, needs to have secrets to feel a sense of control. My mage, Merlin, is quite similar. Secrets are his safety. A condition of being so powerful.”

  Ari felt almost as if Arthur had grown to understand Gwen faster than she had, which was annoying. “And as you are the all-powerful king, you keep secrets?”

  “They don’t suit me,” he said, eyeing her as if she should have recognized this about him already. “I sometimes wish they did.”

  Ari felt that one deeply; she ached to tell Arthur about his sister, Morgana, the extremely powerful enchantress who would chase her lost brother’s spirit across human history, determined to help him, even sacrificing herself for the chance.

  Maybe it would make him feel less lonely.

  But she couldn’t tell Arthur the future, so instead they rode out of the woods, dusk filtering over the horizon of a great, gray-misted lake at the foot of rough mountains. A small, empty boat sat rocking slightly on the shore. They left their horses and boarded, observing the quiet as if it were a threat. When she kicked them away from the rocky shore, Ari’s left boot soaked through, sending a rush of shivers up her leg. They sailed into the mist, until they couldn’t see any part of the woods or mountains anymore. All was gray.

  “We’re meant to call for them.” Arthur peered into the mist. “The mists of Avalon cannot be reached by anyone other than the enchantresses. And they don’t allow men inside, so we’ll have to stay here. Well, I will.” He tried to smile at Ari, and she scowled back. “They will come to see us. Or they won’t.”

  “I’m no good at waiting.”

  “And I’m not surprised.”

  This time Ari’s scowl slipped into a smile and Arthur seemed delighted by his success. Before Ari could say anything more, the gray mist crystallized into the shape of a person. Her brother. Ari blinked, blinked again.

  Ghost Kay was watching her. Standing on the water’s surface with his arms folded and his silver hair a mess. All of a sudden she swore she could taste the sterile air of Error, smell her brother’s old rubber knight’s suit…

  “Lancelot?” Arthur asked.

  “Something is messing with my head,” she admitted, squinting. “Can you see him?”

  Arthur shivered. “It is this lake. The mists belong to Avalon, to the enchantresses. The water belongs to another.”

  Ari looked down to face the dark, still surface. “This is the Lady of the Lake’s… lake?”

  “Yes.” His voice was deeper than usual. “There are strange stories of this place. Merlin won’t go near it.”

  Ghost Kay disappeared, and Ari leaned out toward where he’d vanished, rocking the boat. “Stay with me, Lancelot,” Arthur called. Ari looked down at Arthur’s hand on her elbow. “An enchantress approaches.”

  Arthur pointed to where a woman parted the mist, stepping along the dark water as if it were black glass. Her bare feet were brown, a shade darker than Ari’s own skin, and the tips of her dark hair swirled around her bare legs. She wore the same slip of a dress that Morgana had in her ethereal form, only this one was tangible.

  “I’m… My name is Arthur,” Arthur said. “I’m from—”

  “We know the boy who would be king,” the woman said, stopping on the surface and staring them down with dark, fathomless eyes. “I thought that might have been obvious based on our episodic attacks.”

  “Yes, I just thought it’d be polite to introduce myself.” Arthur had surprised the enchantress. She lifted her chin.

  “We watch your kingdom expand with growing impatience for your games.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Arthur looked to Ari for help, and she leaned back. “To ask for your aid, your blessing to my people. To build a union between us.”

  “Interesting.” The enchantress stared at Ari briefly. “Your name we cannot know, can we? It does not belong here.” The implication was that she knew Ari was not from Camelot, or even this era. She turned back to Arthur. “I am Morgause. I…”

  Ari’s attention rushed toward the sudden reappearance of Ghost Kay. He stepped out from behind Morgause and walked around the outer edge of the boat. He was so close that if Ari stood they’d be eye to eye, and she felt Arthur’s hand on her elbow again. “Don’t forget to invite them to the celebration,” she said distractedly. “And tell them to bring a present.”

  “Lancelot?”

  Ghost Kay smirked and beckoned toward the shining black water.

  And Ari dove in.

  Ari knew this wasn’t her brother; Kay was lost forever. This was one of the Lady of the Lake’s tricks. But Ari also knew that if she found Nin, she’d find Val. The cold teeth of the water bit into her muscles but she swam deeper until a sudden undertow dragged her down, down, down.

  Merciless pressure squeezed her starved lungs. She kept her mouth tight, her eyes peering into the black depth until it began to prick with crystal stars. When she could not stop herself from trying to breathe any longer, she gasped, and metallic-flavored oxygen filled her lungs—the same scent that permeated Error, from the copper lines that filtered bacteria from the recycled air. Her head jerked as she glanced across Error’s control board.

  “Good. You’re up. I’ve got to take a whiz.”

  Ari looked over in slow motion at Kay. Not a ghost but her actual brother. He unstrapped from the captain’s chair and ambled toward the door, tweaking her ear on his way by as if to prove that he had a body—and toilet urges to boot. How realistically charming. “I’m dreaming,” she said, half expecting her mouth to fill with icy, black water.

  It didn’t.

  She touched her chest, held tight in the cross of her seat’s harness. She picked up one of Kay’s tortilla chip wrappers lying on the finger-smudged console and devoured the foil’s crinkling sound. Her hair was long again. She could feel the braid resting on her neck.

  “This is a cruel game,” Ari managed. “Lady of the Lake?” she called out.

  Ari heard nothing but her own breath. She pinched herself so hard she yelled.

  Ari unstrapped her chest belt and unlocked her magboots, savoring the heavy knock of her soles releasing from the grated floor, the gravity light and easy. Ari was home, on Error, with Kay. How could this be real?

  She stepped thr
ough the cockpit to the main cabin, running smack into Kay’s chest. She latched on, hugging him so hard that he squirmed.

  “Dude, Ari. What are you doing?”

  “How am I here? When is this? What is this?”

  “I think you had a bad dream.” Kay wasn’t starved like he’d been during their last days. He was rounded and relaxed and smelled like a too-concentrated version of himself. “The fuck,” he said. “Did you just sniff me?”

  “You even smell like Kay. This is so wrong.”

  “You don’t smell great yourself, you know that?” Kay leaned against the jutting corner of two walls, scratching between his shoulder blades, making an unsatisfied face. He exhaled as if he’d made an incredibly hard decision. “Okay, fine. You can come on board Heritage with me.”

  “Kay…”

  “You’ve never seen it before, and you’ve been on Error for almost six months. We’ll be careful and you won’t press any Mercer panic buttons for shits and giggles. Promise you won’t.”

  Ari couldn’t find any words. It wasn’t her brother or the ship now that was throwing her. It was the time stamp. Holy shit, she was back at the beginning. The day she found Excalibur.

  “I suppose you want me to wear your old rubber knight’s costume?”

  “I thought you could wear Mom’s Mercer forces uniform, but wait, the knight’s costume is a way better idea.” Kay popped open one of the lesser used storage panels, and the knight suit tumbled out. “You can hang out in this dusty old museum wing. No one is ever there except for Lionel nerds.” While Ari stared at the suit, Kay tried to scratch his back with the edge of the storage compartment’s metal door, whining dismally as he couldn’t get the exact spot.

  “Oh, good grief, come here,” Ari said, beckoning.

  Her brother leaped over the space between them in a single bound, too much satisfaction in his grin while he hunched before her and she scratched that one shoulder blade spot Kay always needed scratching. Her hand slowed after a minute, and she pressed her palm on his back, relieved by the ever-familiar—and yet so lost—sensation of his worn T-shirt, his soft skin.

  “Moms would want you to get off ship sometimes.” His voice was gruff with rocky feelings. “Even with how dangerous it is. No one can stay lost out here between the stars. That’s what they’d say.”

  He spoke of their parents as if he’d already buried them. Ari had forgotten about that heartbroken tone. This was the Kay who’d spent years not knowing if his parents were alive. He didn’t know that they had found a way to stay together. He didn’t know that, soon, they would all risk everything to save them. His silver hair reminded her of Captain Mom. Ari wound a quick finger around a lock in the back until he barked an objection and slapped her hand away. This was her brother. Alive. Which meant she wasn’t in the same time period anymore.

  Oh my gods, she’d left Gwen behind in the Middle Ages.

  Error’s proximity alarm dinged. Kay put her in a tight headlock, squeezing and letting go so fast Ari barely felt him before he was gone again. Back in the cockpit, Ari picked up the suit. It was heavy from the extra padding Mom had ordered, for when Kay took more than his share of blows at knight camp.

  “Hurry up and get dressed!” Kay called. “We’ll be in the docking garage in five.”

  Heritage grew into focus in the front viewscreen, dwarfing her brother’s messy profile—and Ari knew why the Lady of the Lake had dropped her here. This was where it all started.

  And she could stop it.

  Ari ran to the airlock. She threw the stupid knight costume in and hit the button to seal the inner door. Her hand paused over the second button, the one that would open the outer door and eject the costume into space and make everything un-happen. No hacking into Mercer’s files, crashing on Earth, finding Excalibur. No empty Ketch, or Kay’s death, or Gwen torn from her arms in that merciless portal…

  Maybe this was supposed to un-happen. It’d be a new start. She’d go to Lionel, not chased by Mercer, but returning to pick up with Gwen where they’d left off with that first kiss. They could all live there, be happy.

  But then, she remembered Gwen’s brand-new smile. The one she wore when she touched her belly, the baby moving beneath her fingers. If Ari changed the story, there would be no series of catastrophes to lead to that small, miraculous person. Ari wished she had some way to prove that this baby wasn’t destined to become some legendary patricidal maniac. She didn’t have proof, but then, she didn’t need it. This baby was theirs.

  Ari’s hand moved to the first button, re-opening the inner door. She lifted the rubber knight suit and put one leg in. There was a reason for this pain just as there was a reason for King Arthur’s tragic story. Through the darkness, the new life.

  “I’ll do everything exactly the same,” she told herself—and the Lady of the Lake if she were listening. “Every single thing.”

  Ari coughed and black, half-frozen water shot out of her lungs. It hit the floor of Error, which flooded in an instant, twisting her around until she was back beneath the crushing pressure of the lake, screaming a good-bye to Kay that he would never hear.

  Ari lay on her back in a few inches of cold water. Beside her, a black lake sat silently within a great, glimmering cave. A few small, silver torches burned. She breathed hard, rubbing her face with numb hands, trying not to feel like Kay had died all over again. Her tears came fast and desperate… until the sound of giggling broke through her grief.

  Ari opened her eyes and found a favorite memory playing out in the surface of the dark lake: back on Error, she was sitting in the captain’s chair with her knees spread wide. Gwen, who wore nothing but her unders and that goldenrod tank top, was sitting between Ari’s legs, staring avidly at the control board. This was the day before they landed on Troy. Before they met the Administrator and so much changed so swiftly.

  “How do I make us go faster?” Gwen asked.

  Ari took this as a cue to slide her arms around Gwen. “That orange button guy.”

  “There are three buttons in the orange family.”

  “So try all three.”

  “Ari, what if I crash us?”

  “That’s the fun thing about space. Not much to crash into.”

  In the dark cave, Ari could almost feel Gwen’s weight through the image. New aches replaced her grief, the idea of holding Gwen like that, of being relaxed together in a tangle. The Ari in the memory guided Gwen’s hand to the throttle. She helped Gwen press it forward and held on to her as the ship’s speed rankled and jerked, making them burst with laughter. Ari throttled back after a few seconds, shutting off a few no biggie alarms, while Gwen started kissing her, and kissing her…

  “On the control board, Ari?” Kay roared, appearing in the cockpit.

  Ari—the real Ari who was freezing in the Lady of the Lake’s cave—laughed too hard. She covered her cold lips with her hand, watching her brother chase the two girls back to the room they’d stolen from him. All the while shouting, “Next time I have a date on board, we’re going straight to your bunk, Turtle! What do you think of that?! Karma is coming for you!”

  Ari’s laughter faded as the image fuzzed. She stood up, taking in the strange scenery. The wet rock walls, the black lake, and at its center, a small, rectangular island. She squinted; it was a funeral pyre, complete with a body laid out upon it. “Val?” she called out, voice echoing.

  “Ari!” Val’s voice called back from far away.

  “Val! Where are you?” Ari swung around, looking for a door. Instead she found a gloriously perfect person, watching her.

  The Lady of the Lake.

  “Would you mind not screaming? Human voices are tedious at best.” She circled Ari, showing off long limbs beneath a tightly tailored green velvet suit. Her skin was the sort of nearly-translucent white that seemed to be on the verge of glowing, and her hair was a screaming shade of red, combed against her scalp. Ari’s eyes peeled a little too wide. She hadn’t expected this; Merlin hadn’t said anythi
ng about Nin being… smoking hot.

  “Hey,” Ari said, throat dry. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

  The Lady of the Lake came so close that Ari felt self-conscious about each plate of unpolished, dented armor. The strong-lined and lean figure breathed on Ari’s breastplate, fogging up the dragon Ouroboros.

  “Ah, wow, you don’t do small talk, heh?”

  Nin peered at Ari, flint-eyed. “I don’t like tears in my cave. Saltwater is useless.” She motioned to Ari’s tear tracks.

  Ari smudged away the remaining offenders. “That’s why you showed me that memory from before Troy. To stop me from crying.”

  “Not a memory. A piece of time. Humans require time to march in a single direction, past to present to future. But time is a river that can flow many interesting ways, including circles. If you want to step into a different age, you need only know where to stick in your toe.”

  “So you really are timeless,” Ari said, although her mind spun with a sudden, burning question. That’s not all you are, is it? Ari’s understanding of this being had been filtered through Merlin. And Merlin’s unorthodox existence. Perhaps he had reasons to trust Nin, but Ari was drawing a blank as to what those reasons might be. Her gaze went back to the center of the lake where the funeral pyre she’d witnessed minutes ago had already vanished.

  “Where’s Val?” she said, fear showing in her voice.

  “Unharmed, as promised. I’ll be returning him shortly. Merlin is almost ready to have him back.” The Lady continued her inspection of Ari. “I’ve never met one in the flesh.”

  Ari took a small step back. “Met one of what?”

  “One of Arthur’s human vessels,” she said. “I do believe he is right. You are the last. He is finished with his grand schemes to unite humanity. Finally beaten. Poor fool.” The Lady’s finger traced the circular dragon on Ari’s breastplate. “Do you like your armor? I had to search a few thousand years of Earth history to find it for you.”