Once & Future

by Cori McCarthy

  “What?” Ari asked just as Gwen jabbed a needle in Ari’s hip.

  The shadows of Dark Matter rose like a mouth and bit down on her all at once.

  Lights out.

  “She’s waking up.”

  Ari reached a stiff hand over her shoulder for Excalibur, but the sword was absent, left in that escape pod. Her stomach was folded hard over someone’s shoulder. She recognized the scent of their dreads and the bass of their heaving breaths. Lam was carrying her—had been for a while by the way they flagged. “Lam?” she said, her mouth cottony.

  “I’ve got you, girl.” They shifted her weight. “Although you are a lot heavier than you used to be. Been working out?”

  “She looks too different.” Gwen’s voice… or was Ari dreaming?

  “If she looked the same, that’d be more suspicious. People change after a year, Gweneviere.”

  “I know that,” Gwen said, mild panic in her tone. Ari managed to lift her head, her long hair falling over her eyes and framing the view of Gwen trailing behind Lam through the docking bay. Gwen stared at her guiltily for a moment, and then looked away, crossing around Lam so that Ari couldn’t see her.

  “What is… happening?” Ari managed.

  “Mutiny,” Lam said. “At least that’s what it feels like.”

  Ari recognized the sound of Error’s door opening, and Lam walked in and dropped her to the ground. They weren’t trying to be so harsh, but she landed hard all the same. In a flash of tight jeans and sassy hair, Ari was leveled backward by a hug. She gripped her friend, although when she sat up, she was surprised to find Merlin in her arms, not Val.

  “I knew it,” he said, an adorable haircut showing off his cherubic ears. “I knew it, but some days it felt downright cruel to hope.”

  “King Arthur always returns when he’s needed. Doesn’t he, old man?” she said, rubbing the lag out of her eyes. “Although I don’t remember the part when his knights fucking drug him!”

  Merlin snapped a look at Gwen. “You didn’t. You said you wouldn’t!”

  “She made me nervous. And she doesn’t have Excalibur, so how could it be her?”

  “Excalibur is in the escape pod. Too recognizable.” Ari pressed her feet under her, trying to stand. “Why don’t you believe that I’m Ari? Why did you attack me?”

  “Because you are dead,” Val’s voice cut in. Ari raised her head to look at her oldest friend, only to find him standing next to a Mercer casket. He pointed down, and she stumbled toward it, knocking into the plastic container.

  The dead person inside was Ari, vacuum sealed like space food. Ari’s shock of nerves helped clear her head, although not fast enough. “Oh, gods…”

  “Who are you? What happened to Ari? Are you a Mercer clone? A human droid?” Val fired off so fast that Ari’s head spun. Jordan stood behind Val in full armor, looking very much like a palace guard about to cut her in two.

  “I’m Ari. I don’t know who… or what this is.” She pointed at the body in the Mercer-stamped coffin. “Except…” Slowly—too slowly—Morgana’s nagging words from Ketch filtered back through her mind. “Morgana!”

  Merlin jumped as Morgana materialized with a sincerely annoyed look on her face.

  “Explain,” Ari barked.

  “I killed you, or really, I turned one of the corpses on Urite into an exact replica of you. It was an astounding bit of magic, to be honest. Merlin’s blood is delightful and—”

  “What?” Ari and Merlin yelled together.

  “Your friends think you died on the prison planet a year ago.” Morgana spoke quickly, eyeing her fingernails as if she were debating their length. “I needed them to not come looking for you.”

  Ari blinked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought maybe it wouldn’t come up.”

  “How would killing me in the eyes of everyone I know and love not come up?”

  Morgana gave Ari that Yes, fine, I’ve been a bit evil look and disappeared.

  Ari propped herself up on the closest thing she could find, which unfortunately was the casket. She took in each person in the cargo bay. Gwen’s face was flushed, her eyes cast to the floor. Merlin’s expression was all folded up like an angry little kid’s, and Val was staring with big, brown eyes. Jordan stood at the door, arms crossed.

  Only Lam swept over and gave her a hug. “At least I have one friend,” Ari said into their shoulder.

  “Give everyone a minute,” Lam said. “We took your death hard.”

  Jordan cleared her throat. “My queen, this could still be a Mercer trick. She could have been brainwashed. Or worse, perhaps she is merely a manifestation from that vile enchantress.”

  “Not happy to see me, Jordan?” Ari snapped. “Or should I call you Lancelot?”

  “Umm,” Merlin grabbed her arm. “That’s not a name I’ve ever spoken in your presence. How do you know about—?”

  “Morgana’s told me everything, Merlin.” Ari couldn’t keep her gaze from darting toward Gwen. “Everything.”

  “We should vote again. I remain on the team of those who don’t believe she is real,” Jordan butted in, one hand on the sword at her belt, ready to draw.

  “Vote? Wait, there are divided teams? Over whether I’m actually dead?” Ari shook her head with disbelief. “Truly well done, Morgana!” she shouted into the air. All of them looked around the cargo bay. Particularly Merlin, whose attention shot up like one of the taneen hatchlings when Big Mama was incoming. Nothing happened. “We don’t have time for her games.” Ari swiveled, taking in the crew once again. “Where’s my brother?” The question came out louder, sharper than she meant it to; she’d been holding it back too long.

  “Kay is the captain of Team Dead Ari,” Val said with an impressive amount of attitude.

  “He’s in a lot of pain,” Lam said, placing their hand on Ari’s shoulder. “He’s confused…”

  “And you still haven’t proved that you are Ari.”

  Ari faced Gwen, amazed that those words had come from her. “What else do I have to do to prove it to you?” Ari asked, her question as heated as their bodies had been when they were dancing. She stepped close and managed an impish smile that had the gratifying effect of making Gwen blush from her cleavage to the tips of her perfect ears. Ari lowered her voice, but everyone could hear—and she wanted them to. “I know how to make your breath hitch. I know that right now you’re torn between holding on to me and pushing me away—like always. And I know that while I’ve been alone this whole year, with no one but Morgana and my murdered people, you haven’t been on your own. Have you?”

  Gwen’s face pitched down, although she was not ashamed. She was admitting it, a graceful confirmation fit for a queen. This was part of Ari’s plan; get Gwen to admit it fast. Then it wouldn’t be a weird secret thing between them. Ari wouldn’t let it tear them apart like it did with the other Arthurs and their Gwenevieres. They could move on, together.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was gone. Dead, apparently. We weren’t… Maybe we aren’t even…” Ari surprised herself by getting flustered, tied up in her own need to erase the weirdness between them. There’s no time for a love triangle. No time.

  Ari’s gaze traveled over her shoulder to Jordan and her voice iced. “Put your blade away, knight.” Everyone turned toward Jordan. She’d drawn her sword a few inches out of its sheath. “You don’t want to see how much I have trained over the last year.”

  Jordan looked to Gwen and with one nod, Jordan relented, tucking the sword away.

  Ari cleared her throat. The look on her friends’ faces was just another confirmation she didn’t need. And where was her brother in all of this? She didn’t realize how much she needed the balance of his idiocy in this band until it was missing. “Besides, Gwen, if I’m not Ari, who took care of all those Lionelians on Ketch?”

  Gwen gripped Ari’s wrist, more desperate than tender. “They’re okay?”

  “Frightened and hungry, but I made sure they wer
e safe and hidden.”

  “Thank you. I…” Gwen’s hand dropped along with her voice.

  “You do look mightily different,” Val interrupted. “You’ve been through a lot. We put the pieces together from that footage you sent over. Although we don’t know how you got from Urite to Ketch. And all the Ketchans are… dead?”

  “I’m the last.”

  That, at least, Ari’d had plenty of time to come to grips with, even if it was a wound she’d carry for the rest of her life. “Morgana abducted me on Urite. Arthur wanted me to see Ketch.” Ari shook her head. “I needed to see what had become of my planet. But once I was there, leaving wasn’t possible. I’m sorry about Morgana’s treachery. I didn’t know. And I didn’t know Lionel was under attack. I called you thousands of times.” Her gaze returned to Gwen’s for the last of that speech. “Thousands.”

  Gwen looked torn in half, and Ari couldn’t tell if she hated that look or if she wanted to bandage Gwen together with an embrace. Val spoke up again as if determined to iron out the tension between them with facts. “Merlin created a barrier to keep us all safe from Mercer. It worked, until it didn’t,” Val said, mildly guiltily. “That’s why your calls wouldn’t go through.”

  “That’s in the past.” Ari cracked her knuckles. “My broadcast has done what I wanted it to, stirred up doubt in Mercer. It’s given those with a drive to fight something to fight about. I heard that several planets have even kicked Mercer out for the time being. Now we have to swing that momentum into the next step. We have to go to Old Earth, show the universe what Mercer has done to the cradle of civilization. And I will call the Administrator out to face me.”

  Merlin cleared his throat, a parched sound. Ari realized just how much younger he looked since the last time she’d seen him. Somehow rounder in the cheeks and skinnier in the shoulders. “What’s the end goal of this plan, Ari?”

  “Unseat the Administrator. Defeat Mercer. Unite humankind. You up for it, old man?”

  “Well, but I hadn’t thought that now…” he blustered. “Yes, certainly!”

  “Good. We do this.” Ari couldn’t stand the stiff face-off in the cargo bay—or the absence of her brother—a second more. She pushed into the main cabin, shouldering past Jordan, and looked around. The ship was as weathered and junked as ever, and yet still beautiful in its lived-in, homey appearance. “Kay!” she called out. “Kay!”

  Her brother appeared in the doorway of the cockpit. “Hello, impostor.”

  Ari bit back relief and severe pain as she looked at his silvery-gray hair and broad shoulders. He was thinner than she’d ever seen him, gaunt almost. “Answer me this, Kay. Can dead people punch?”

  She charged, and he was more than ready. They went down in a heap, wrestling, tearing at each other. Ari slammed him in the ribs a few times, terrified by the new imbalance between them, how weak he was in comparison to how strong she’d become.

  “You’re dead!” he yelled. “You’re not real! You’re here to torment me!”

  “Does this feel real?” Ari bit his arm and kneed him in the side. He kept struggling, rejecting her with weedy protests that ate at her confidence. “You’re hurting me,” she yelled in his ear, even though she had his arm pinned behind his back.

  How could he act like this? Why hadn’t he been the one to meet her at Dark Matter with Gwen? She hit him again, again, making him feel the pain that was rolling over her, proving with every breath that they weren’t fighting like they used to. Like siblings. This was different.

  They were all different—driven apart.

  Ari pushed him onto his back and was about to pop him in the nose when her fist froze.

  Kay’s face was a miserable purple-red. He was crying. “We thought you were dead!” he hollered. “We had your body! I couldn’t… You don’t know what that was like!”

  “I can imagine. I was on a planet full of bodies.” Ari lowered her fist, although she was still pinning his chest with her knees. “But I’m here. I’m right here! Why is that such bad news?”

  Kay’s head turned away from her, searching the crowd of their friends in the doorway. “How do we explain, Gwen? She’ll never forgive either of us.”

  Ari looked to Gwen. Her face was in her hands as if the sight of them fighting had broken something open. She was… weeping. Ari had never seen that before. Never.

  No.

  Ari jumped up, back, slammed against the wall by her own surprise.

  “I know it’s a shock,” Merlin said, picking careful steps over Kay, hands outstretched as if approaching a starving dragon. “I made the same mistake. Lancelot is always the best knight. That’s true enough, but maybe more important, he’s the knight Arthur trusts… most of all.”

  Ari’s eyes moved past Merlin to Gwen, who was now on her knees beside Kay. She pulled his miserable crying face into the softest spot on her chest, whispered in his ear, combed back his hair with those fingers that belonged to Ari.

  And Ari’s heart cracked.

  Morgana was going to pay for this.

  It was her doing that Merlin had believed Ari was dead for a year. Her fault that Ari was brokenhearted and her knights torn asunder just as they were about to head into a great battle. After the Gwen-and-Kay revelation they had flown in brittle silence all the way to Old Earth. Now Merlin stumbled away from the grove where Ari was broadcasting a signal, showing the universe how devastated the cradle of humanity had become at Mercer’s hands.

  And calling the Administrator out to face her.

  “Oh, dear,” Merlin said, trailing blood.

  He’d asked Jordan to punch him in the face, hard enough to spout a nosebleed, and she’d been all too happy to oblige.

  “This is for dropping your magic at the cost of my planet, Mage of Lionel,” she’d said, before unleashing her fury on his face.

  “Ow,” he muttered, truly in pain, before returning to the rather broad playacting that was meant to lure the enchantress into his trap. Morgana was many things, but subtle had never been one of them.

  “So much blood…” he said, honestly a little concerned as another gush poured through his fingers. Ari had told him that Morgana had used his blood to create the dead body on Urite. Merlin knew Morgana far too well for his own comfort. After a sampling of his power, she’d be eager for more. “I’m just bleeding magical blood everywhere!”

  “Merlin, Merlin,” she said, appearing in a haze, looking even more ominous than usual on the ruined forest of Old Earth. “Can’t seem to keep your happy little band in line, can you?”

  Merlin ran at her, growling—and passed through her in a cold, staticky rush.

  Which was exactly the point.

  “What are you doing, old man?” she asked. It was a name she must have picked up from Ari, and hearing it come from her lips made Merlin dizzy with the strange familiarity. He turned to find the lines of her body turning solid in the half-light. Her pale skin became opaque, and her cheeks filled in with a faint blush.

  “Aha!” Merlin cried. “You used my magic to create a body. Now I’ve done the same to you!”

  Morgana looked down at herself. She touched her arms, her chest, gave her breasts a quick but thorough groping.

  “I’m not letting you keep lurking from cycle to cycle, snatching my Arthurs,” Merlin said. “Now you’re on equal footing with the rest of us.” He pointed at her bony, bare feet. “Quite literally, in fact.”

  She looked at him slowly, her eyes on fire, but not with hatred for once. She looked confused, nearly grateful.

  “Why would you gift me such a thing?” Morgana asked faintly. “How long will this last?”

  “Considering that body you created is still in Error’s hold, I’d say it’s going to stick. Surprisingly enough, we make a good team. Or at least our magic does.” Merlin’s heated words were cooling. Morgana looked younger than Merlin had remembered. And smaller, even though she was technically the same size she’d always been.

  For a moment, she was no longer
the hag who had been visiting revenge on him for centuries—she was a young woman with a very famous kingly brother and the magic of Avalon running through her veins.

  “I’ve longed for this day.” Her spite flooded back as she looked Merlin over. “You’ve been whining about your body for so long you’ve forgotten how glorious they are.”

  Merlin shook his head, incredulous. “Bodies come with wants and pains and warts and toilet breaks. Don’t even ask me about erections.”

  “I will consider it a most solemn vow,” Morgana said.

  Merlin nearly laughed. It sounded like a joke. Morgana didn’t make jokes. She only twisted her cruelty into knots of sarcasm. Had Ari changed her during their time together on Ketch? She had certainly changed Ari, Merlin thought, as he regained the solid footing of his anger. “I gave you a body so you can’t poof away from the situation you’ve caused. No more poofing!”

  “What exactly have I done, Merlin?” Morgana asked, advancing on him slowly. She seemed to savor the way the earth felt under her bare feet. “Have I stolen your Arthur?” The shadow of old pain passed through her eyes, but she chased it away with a smirk of righteousness. “Now you know what I have felt, these many ages. What have I done but shown her the truths you fear?”

  “Hmm, let me write you a list. You’ve torn Ari away from the girl she loves. You’ve induced the worst heartbreak in the cycle by convincing everyone she was dead. AND you’ve broken up Ari’s band.”

  Morgana was getting uncomfortably close.

  Merlin started backing up. “Don’t you remember how Arthur’s knights kept him alive? The round table wasn’t just a decorating choice, Morgana. We’ll never finish the cycle if she falls today.” He nodded to the grove. Ari’s voice rang out, carrying at a heroic pitch. At this very second, she was calling on her allies to unite against Mercer.

  “I don’t care about your little hero games,” Morgana said.

  “You want to put your brother to rest,” Merlin said, and Morgana’s eyes went wide. Merlin could see the whites. She was really getting in his personal space.