"Oracle Jack"

The fire had gone out during the night, but I ignored the pre-dawn February chill as I paced about the cabin, not even bothering to right the upturned furniture and clean up the signs of a struggle. They had her, and if I didn’t figure out where they were taking her soon, I’d never get her back.

Wakened by my noise, Mallory wandered down the stairs. She took one look at my haggard pacing around the lamplit desk and went over to the hearth to re-light the fire. “Anything?” She asked, though she had to know the answer would be no. I saw her struggle with the matches and the kindling, failing to get the fire going twice. In the dim light, you could almost not see the bruise on her cheekbone. She was a city girl, tough as nails but no good at roughing it.

I ignored her, and tried again. She didn’t have a clue how it worked, but she’d seen me do it before - get a reading on something I shouldn’t know. Frankly, I never really bothered with “how” or “why” much myself. What she didn’t know was that it worked best when I was relaxed, calm. This time, it was life or death for Helena. I couldn’t be calm, no matter how I tried.

Around the time that the sun was threatening to come up from the south-eastern horizon, William appeared as well, staggering a beeline to the kitchen tucked off to one side and making coffee. By that point, Mallory had managed to get a fire started. The first waves of warmth drifted through the small space, reminding me how cold it was, especially over by the desk and the front door.

William passed around mugs of coffee, and leaned over the desk as I paced. He wasn’t like me, not quite, but he’d been my friend for so many years that I’d long since wondered if he’d picked up some of my tricks through sheer osmosis. He spent a few moments staring at the paper, blank in the center but with a myriad of seemingly arbitrary glyphs, symbols, shapes, and meandering lines filling in the margins. The outermost edges of the paper were almost black with the ink from my pen. Most of the time, it took far less effort to reach my answers, far fewer lines of ink, but I wasn’t calm and it was making the answer I needed somewhat... unclear. It’s hard to explain, as you might imagine.

After staring for some time, William nudged me. “Jack, this line here should go through the center.” He pointed to a horizontal sweep that formed the base of a formation of shapes.

He was right - it protruded farther toward the center than anything else around it. But I’d already seen that. “Yes. But there’s a lot of center, Will.” I replied, sipping the coffee.

“Then maybe it will help if I do this.” William grabbed my pen and, before I could stop him, drew a single stroke on the paper.

“No!” I cried, lunging to stop him and spilling hot coffee all over my hand, but it was too late. One wrong stroke of ink from an incautious hand would destroy everything I’d set up so far, put me back to square one, corrupt the whole process and corrupt the answer.

Surprised, he stepped back and offered me the pen. “Sorry, sorry.”

I snatched the implement from his fingers. Forgetting my coffee-burned hand except to hold it away from the desk, I leaned over the desk to check the damage. I was surprised to see that all he’d done was extend that horizontal line by about an inch, protruding it into the paper’s empty center. It didn’t look corrupted. In fact -

William, probably seeing the look in my eyes, stepped away from me and went over to sit with Mallory near the fire, hoping I wasn’t paying enough attention that their quick kiss might be awkward. They’d been married for two years now, but I think that Mallory still felt like a little bit of an outsider whenever William and I were in the same room.

I was following with my eyes the invisible lines of potentiality that I could see on the page, extending from William’s stroke in all directions. I could see the answer, lurking there in the lines, I just had to follow them with my pen until it was clear. I sat down, placed the pen to paper, and started tracing. A graceful arc here, a line across intervening space, a sharp curve down toward the bottom of the page, and on and on, one step at a time.

“I got it!” I jumped up just as the upper limb of the winter sun appeared over the trees on the horizon. It was clear now, so clear. Where Helena was being taken, and how I’d get her back. The fourteen hours or so of lead they had didn’t matter if I didn’t need to follow their trail - I just needed to go right to its endpoint. There was one detail there I didn’t yet understand, but I suspected it would become clear. Get there and - well, I hadn’t got that far yet. But I couldn’t bear to imagine leaving Helena to them any longer. “I have to go downtown right now.” I ran to the coatrack and grabbed my coat.

William met me there, donning his own. “I’m coming with you.” He said.

“Look, it’s going to be dangerous. You know the sorts of people - ”

“And that’s why I’m not letting you go alone. Mallory, stay here, stay out of sight. We’ll be back.”

“What? Will, you’re out of your mind. I’m coming too.” Mallory stood. “I can help. Besides, they’ve been here once while you two were away. They could come back.”

I looked over to my friend. It was his wife, so I wasn’t going to speak on the matter.

“Fine.” He agreed, conceding her point. “Let’s go.”

Mallory nodded quickly and hurried upstairs to change. She was back in moments, bathrobe gone, in jeans and a sweater.

I grabbed my keys out of the mouth of the pewter toad on the mantle, but William stopped me. “My car is faster, Jack. I’ll drive.” I was about to argue, but I realized he was right - my beat up old truck would be better on the downslope out of the mountains, but his smaller, newer car would be more likely to make the whole trip without overheating and delaying us. It would also be easier to drive in the city.

We piled into the car just as the sun’s bottom edge came up, and William headed down the winding road out of the mountains, avoiding the hazardous dirt-road shortcuts. There weren’t many other cars on the road, so he didn’t use the brake much, speeding and gambling that the cops weren’t patrolling that far out. We knew from experience that they rarely did. Within twenty minutes we hit the highway, and turned towards the city.

That part of the trip, those ninety minutes of featureless road, were nerve-wracking. Mallory and Will were grimly silent, so I was too, though I fidgeted uneasily with the radio several times. I realized I’d left my piece of paper in the cabin, but I remembered it clearly - I didn’t really need it. We were still going over the speed limit, but William kept his speed low enough to avoid the attention of the cops. We didn’t need that kind of delay.

When the first signs for the city came into view, William broke the silence. “Where to?” He asked.

I sighed. “All the way downtown. The bank.” He’d know I meant the headquarters of my former employer, back when I could hold a job. If there was a dead center to the city, that building was sitting right on top of it.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Jack.” William knew as well as I did what a risk that was. But I was certain. Why it was there, I didn’t know. I just knew that it was.

We picked up a tail as soon as we got off the highway and onto the city streets. It was a black car with tinted windows. Pretty obviously one family or other flagging Jack’s car as being associated with me. They were pretty content to stay a few cars back for a while, but as soon as the second car appeared they both got really close. I didn’t know if they were rivals or allies of each other, but it didn’t matter. They were all my enemies. I watched the cars inch up closer behind us. The one in front was going to make a move. “Here they come.” I warned William.

“Dammit.” He made a sudden move, cutting off a driver to his right, and then turning immediately. The cacophony of squealing brakes and blaring horns followed us down a narrow side street, but one of the black cars extricated itself from the sudden traffic jam and moved to close the gap. We turned back onto a main road, and two more black cars pulled out in front of us. Someone rolled down a window in one of them and leaned out.

“Get down!” William urged, then threw the wheel to one side. There was a burst of crackling gunfire, but I don’t think any of it hit the car. Maybe they were firing at each other. I could never tell what set the two families’ cars apart, if anything did. Gunning the engine, William doubled back and tried to circle around the cars. At every turn, it seemed there was another black car screeching to a halt and turning to follow us. It was hopeless, I could see. They were out in force. Probably to counter each other more than us, but that detail didn’t help the situation.

Eventually we got a cop on our tail as well. Maybe he was on the payroll, maybe he was trying to pull us over for the legitimately dangerous stunts William was pulling. Either way, it was death to stop. William gunned the engine, and took off, and those flashing red and blue lights followed. One cop became two, became four. Some of the black cars stayed with us too, but they shadowed off to the side and tried their best not to look involved.

Then something in front of the car clicked with what I’d seen in the diagram. It wasn’t the main answer, but a detail I remembered, the one that hadn’t fit. “There.” I pointed to a street that was blocked off with construction barricades. William didn’t need to be told twice - he took the turn hard, wheels skidding, and smashed through the barricades.

The splinters cleared from the windshield just in time for William and I to see the demolished state of the bridge across the canal. There was no way to stop in time, no way to turn off. William slammed on the brakes anyway, but we went over the edge with a lot of speed left.

I felt not fear, but rage, frustration. No, I thought, it couldn’t end like that. Helena -

I gasped and sat up with a start. I was lying on the floor of the empty cabin. The morning sunlight was scattering through the crystal vase on the windowsill, painting a tiny square rainbow on the wood paneling in front of my face. I jumped to my feet and ran to the window, hearing the sound of an engine turn over. I was just in time to see the rear of William’s car disappear down the drive. Beyond it, the sun had just cleared the pines on the horizon.

It took a moment to register where I was. When I was. I didn’t know how or why, but I could see the pieces coming together. It was impossible to get to Helena the way we’d tried. Impossible. The families were too powerful.

I stood over the desk, staring at the piece of paper and its otherworldly abstract patterns. Potentiality had not shifted. I was seeing it clearer. I took up the pen and made a single stroke alteration, connecting William’s pen stroke to one of mine. The picture shifted. The detail that had been bothering me was gone. The answer was the same. The path to the goal was different. More circuitous.

I grabbed the page and the keys to my truck and left. We hadn’t locked up the first time, and I didn’t bother now. I had to estimate how far we were ahead of me, so that I wouldn’t show myself to them on the downslope. When I came to the steep dirt-road track that cut the neck of a long switchback, I took it without hesitation, driving dangerously fast on that narrow road to get to the other end before William’s car. I was reckless, and I should have crashed, but I didn’t. I made it there. It was impossible to know, when I pulled back onto the road, whether or not I was in front of us, but I assumed I was.

The highway passed in a blur. I took it far too fast, but the cops didn’t appear behind me. I estimated that I had about an hour’s lead on William’s car when I pulled my truck off the road just inside the city and got in a cab that was waiting at the curb. “Head into downtown. I don’t know the address but I’ll show you the way.” I told him, handing him a twenty.

The cabbie got the car moving, and I directed him toward that construction site. I got out a block from it, told him to keep the change, and loped around the corner. The barricades we would smash later were intact, and the bridge was obviously missing. Stacks of metal I-beams stood on the other side next to a crane, but no-one was around.

I stepped up to the edge and looked down. The water, about twenty feet below me, was mostly frozen and likely deadly should someone drive a car into it. I didn’t have much time.

That was when I saw the barge, not far upstream. It was moored next to another construction site, an apartment building going up. It was laden with huge bales of something wrapped in shrink-wrap. I ran down the canal and picked my way down to get a better look. Yes, perfect. Insulation. That puffy pink fiberglass stuff that might, just might, stop a car. It was all I had, and time was running out. I pulled the mooring lines out, expecting at any moment someone would yell for me to stop, but no-one did. I walked along the canal, letting the current out toward the bay push the barge closer to the partially completed bridge. Just before it was in position, I tied the mooring lines around the concrete pilings that had already been laid. The barge stopped, right in the middle of the gap. It would have to do.
 

Just then, I heard sirens in the distance. Lots of sirens. I ran down the length of the canal, and back up to street level, putting the commotion behind me. Likely most of the families’ goons were clustered around the police chase and its inevitable conclusion, but that window of opportunity was closing. Luckily, it wasn’t far. Ten blocks or so. I could see the all-too-familiar skyscraper ahead, towering into the chilly February sky, glass faces reflecting the late morning sun. Once, I’d worked in there, and I had never thought I would return - but that was exactly what I was doing. Saving Helena, or dying in the attempt. A second time.

This story written based on a prompt from the Short Story Competition on rpgcrossing.com.

"The Once and the Future"

It was midnight on the summer solstice, and though there was much revelry going on, none of it was nearby. The rotunda in front of the gates to the fortress of Camelot was empty, though the sounds from the main square down the road suggested it was a good party.

The old man appeared in a flash of faint purplish light, transit leaving the faint smell of ozone in the air. He knew his opponent would try to sabotage the symbolic sword-drawing. He’d watched that take place months ago and tomorrow, but Morgana could well warp the timeline at this critical point. At noon, Lord Artur, a minor noble, would pull the sword from the anvil in front of Camelot’s gates, and become the first king of this land in a generation.

A quick inspection told Myrlin Ambrosius that the sword and anvil were bonded together by some sort of clear glue. The stuff was old, weathered smooth - he wondered how far back Morgana had gone to pull this off. Probably all the way.

A quick trip back to base got Myrlin a solvent, but he didn’t apply it at midnight. Rather, he skipped forward until the sky was graying and the town was beginning to stir before splashing the clear solvent all over the epoxied sword. A few seconds, he knew, and it would no longer be glued.

The old man waited those seconds then experimentally tugged the sword’s hilt slightly. It slid out a fraction of an inch quite smoothly before he let go. A child could pull the sword out now. Could he be sure Artur would get here first?

Wrinkling his brow as if getting a headache, Myrlin Ambrosius let the monument be and set the device on his left hand. One more button and he disappeared in another brief purplish flash, expression broadcasting the hope that he hadn’t made things worse rather than better.

---

It was a pleasant, clear early fall evening, and the town was just beginning to grow quiet for the night. With her binoculars, Morgan watched the keep intently, focusing on the lights in the king’s bedroom. It was the spring equinox, and Morgan knew that the man wearing the crown would be returning to his bed, inebriated and exhausted. Ambrose was growing frustratingly good at catching up, and it was time to try a more indirect approach, one he’d never think of. Slip a knife in his ribs and Ambrose would come back and stop it, meaning she’d never get to actually sink the knife. No, it was time to be more... subtle. Do something Ambrose wouldn’t notice.

The light in the bedroom went out. Morgan shrugged off the thick cloak she was wearing, leaving her completely naked except for the timeslip handpiece and a thin, revealing thigh-length nightgown. She altered the device, and shifted herself in time and space again.

“Who’s there?” Whispered a worried Artur from behind her. It was dark, the faintest light leaking in through the curtains. Likely, he couldn’t see her, but had heard the timeslip.

“Only a dream.” Morgan whispered, stepping silently to the bedside, internally wondering if she was making the right move. But if not me, she thought, then who? No-one could be trusted. She knew it had to be her.

Artur either believed her, or didn’t care. When she slipped into the bed next to him, he gladly took her into his arms.

To his credit, the freshly-crowned king surprised Morgan with his skill and stamina. What do you know, the big oaf does something well, she thought, fighting against a lethargic desire to fall asleep right there.

As soon as she could tell he was asleep, Morgan, hoping she had what she needed, but not entirely fearing a second attempt, poked at the handpiece, and was gone.

---

 
“Master Ambrosius, you said your name was?” The newly crowned king asked after dinner, when he and Ambrose had retired to a sitting room in the keep.

“Yes. I’m a diviner of sorts.” Ambrose sipped the local liqueur carefully. ”A magician.” He wasn’t, but that explanation would satisfy the locals. ”I have received dire portents about attempts against your rule by another magician, a woman. Morgan is her name.” Ambrose had just come upstream from a falling-out with her, but this man didn’t need to know that.

“A magician. Black magic or white?” The king asked cautiously.

“White, liege.” Ambrose assured him. “Divining the future. Healing. Some personal travel magic. But it has its price even so. But as Morgan aims to misuse our shared craft, and so I will be here to counter her.”

The king nodded. “What proof do you have of these claims?”

Ambrose looked past the man. “I was there when you pulled the sword from the anvil, liege. So was she. There were only a few people there. Perhaps you remember us? We foretold a great event, and had come to observe.”

“Yes. I remember now. The woman next to you was stunning. I thought it was a pity that she was your wife.”

“I trained Morgan, but she is not my wife.” Ambrose corrected. ”And she is dangerous. As much ability as I, but no restraint.”

The king nodded sagely. “I will accept your service, magician Ambrosius. But I cannot make you one of my knight. You are not of any noble family of this land, even if your homeland pedigree is good.” He frowned. “My father once kept the counsel of a woad magician, Myrlin Wyllt, his closest advisor and physician. You, master Ambrosius, will be my Myrlin. Myrlin Ambrosius.”

“As you like, your majesty.” Ambrose nodded. A title wasn’t what he was here for, but if it made King Artur feel better, he would take it.

---

 
Morgan materialized a few hours upstream and a hundred miles from Ambrose, and sat down in the middle of the cold woods to think. She could outsmart the old man, she knew - he never saw the potential of the timeslip. Artur was a menace - he was slowly killing off all the skilled warriors his land possessed on fools’ errands. He was well into middle age, and had no children - whoever survived all the “chivalrous” quests would be left to fight over the scraps when Artur died. It was a mess.

To save the people of Camelot, Morgan knew she had much work to do, but at least all of time was her playground to do it.

Well, not all of time, she realized as she started punching coordinates into her timeslip. The words “UNIT ROGUE: RTB” appeared on the handpiece in red. Ambrose apparently could do that. Dammit. Obviously, a return to the base as requested would result in nothing beneficial, so she ignored the words. It did mean she would have to avoid any time close to modern, the timeslip nets extended well back into the seventeenth century, and they’d pull her back to base for sure.

First things first, she resolved, setting the device. Let’s try this the easy way.

---

  “Morgan, we can’t police Dark Ages warlords. Actually, as warlords goes, this guy’s not so bad.” Ambrose pointed out to his partner.

“Not so bad? You’re kidding, Ambrose.” Morgan spun on a heel and pointed to Ambrose. “We can’t sit idly by and let him destroy these people just because he had the muscles to pull apart that sculpture in the courtyard. You’ve talked to him. He’s a fool!” Morgan was pacing energetically across the stone-floored room, battling against agitation and pent-up energy. Her looks seemed to be unharmed by or even to benefit from the lack of electric lights and modern makeup.

Ambrose scratched at the two weeks of growth on his cheeks, surprised how fast his whiskers had taken advantage of their newfound freedom from razors. He knew his less impressive looks had fared worse than his junior partner’s. “He’s a hopeless romantic, and maybe a hair too trusting of old stories, but I rather like him. Had he been born 900 years from now he’d have become a famous writer or philosopher.” 400 years later still and he’d be doing what Ambrose and Morgan were doing now, for the same reasons Ambrose himself did them, but he didn’t want to say that. “Besides, it’s still not our place to police who they make their leader. Where’s that in the charter?”

“Ambrose, screw the charter. These people have bad enough lives as it is. How many of them will die in pursuit of a magic cup that doesn’t exist?” She flicked a derisive finger toward the crumpled parchment of the notice she had pulled from the town bulletin board. It called for brave men-at-arms to quest alongside the Circle of Knights in Gaul to search for the Holy Grail.

“Would you prefer he be like his predecessor, who tried to invade the next kingdom over?” Ambrose pointed out. “Look, Morgan, even if you don’t like it, we aren’t here to fix it. We’re here to look, not to touch.”

Rather than turning back toward him at the end of her pacing, Morgan hesitated, then dashed for the door.

“Dammit, Morgan.” Ambrose got up and ran out after her, but it was too late. The late fall air outside carried a whiff of ozone, and he knew she had gone. “You would be that foolish.” The new generation of ‘walkers didn’t ever seem to have any sense. History was their playground, they thought.

Ambrose, despite knowing the time was no issue, thought fast, and marked her in the timeslip grid as a rogue actor. That way she couldn’t go home without being held, and any other agents would refuse to help her. Rogues were rare, but they did happen occasionally. He just hadn’t expected it of Morgan.

“Dammit, dammit.” He continued under his breath, setting his timeslip handpiece to a date in the past. It was time to stop observing, and start damage control. 

---

  The new knight was young - maybe seventeen or eighteen, but his equipment spoke of a rich parentage. Ambrose stood behind Artur’s chair, leaning on the gnarled druidic staff Artur had given him, just watching the kid present himself. The other knights seemed to be impressed, for sure. But there was something off about him.

It had been three months for Ambrose since Morgan had lit off, and he’d been in Artur’s service about a “year”. He spent those months jumping around to try to find her. He’d foiled some minor sabotage, but mostly he cleaned up after her. She always ‘slipped away as soon as she saw he was around.

“What’s your name, sir knight?” Artur asked imperiously.

“Mordred, my liege.” The young man replied.

“From where do you hail?” Artur asked again.

“Nowhere, liege. My family’s lands in Brittany were lost three years ago.” The youth replied evenly. Ambrose noted that - not even a hint of frustration, anger, or regret over that loss. Strange. “I had hoped that through service in your court I might earn my family lands in your kingdom.”

“Who has tested this knight’s skill?” Artur asked.

“I, liege.” Gawain stood. The burly Welshman was almost seven feet tall, and towered over the newcomer. “He has much skill, but little strength of the arm. Even so, I vouch for his prowess.”

“Next to you, everyone is weak.” Artur pointed out, and the knights chuckled. Gawain smiled at the compliment. ”Sir Mordred, sit there.” Artur pointed to a seat only three away from his own. “I will have them etch your heraldry into a new chair this very night. Welcome to the Circle of Knights.”

“If I may, sir, Circles are for druids and witches.” Mordred said. Ambrose cringed - Artur was fond of his Circle.

”If that is so, young knight, what would you suggest?” Artur replied. Ambrose could tell from the tone of voice that the boy was on thin ice.

“Nothing drastic, liege, a simple change of name.” Mordred took his seat, seeming not to notice the peril of his words. “I would call this honored group the Knights of the Artur’s Table Round.”

Artur seemed to settle down. “A name change. I will consider this, sir Mordred. But now we have more pressing matters. This peasant revolt in the southern towns must be quelled, and swiftly. I suspect that the witch Morgana will be found at its root.”

Ambrose winced, but didn’t speak. Ever since he’d told Artur about Morgan, the king was seeing her influence in every nuisance and crisis. She had of course been involved once or twice, trying to get people to assassinate the king and such, but she was hardly the source of all of Camelot’s problems. Most of her subterfuge was in the past for Artur, where only Ambrose could undo it.

As Artur started giving out orders to the knights, Ambrose thought he saw Mordred glaring at him, but when he looked that way the boy was watching Artur intently. Perhaps he had a concealed dislike for Ambrose, or for magicians in general? Something to keep an eye on, for sure.

---

 
Mordred stood in his usual spot at the parapet, looking out over the town below. He knew that the kingdom was his by right, he only needed seize it from the idiot he was ashamed to call father.

“Your time will come soon, my child.” Mordred heard the familiar voice issue from behind him. He did not turn to look, because he knew eyes were on him, eyes that could not see his mother lurking there.

“My time is now, I think.” Mordred replied quietly, without moving his lips much. ”The king is in Gaul until Winter Solstice at least, and he left that dolt Lancelot in charge.”

“Lancelot is a womanizer and a fool.” Morgana whispered. ”Apply pressure, and he’s our man.” There was a rustle of cloth from Morgana’s robes as she set something down. ”This letter is signed by Gawain. It says that the king is dead. It is addressed to him, and it says that Artur spoke of you with his dying breath, recognizing you as his son. It also forgives him for sleeping with the queen.”

“False?” Mordred confirmed.

“Of course. The only person who might see through it is Ambrose. The Myrlin.” She scoffed the title, it was a joke to her.

“He has not been seen here in many years.” Mordred scoffed. “The old man probably crawled into some hole and died.”

“Make no mistake, he is still around.” Morgana corrected her son. “He is conserving his resources. Avoid him if you can. Try not to kill him if you can’t.”

“Not to kill him, mother?” Mordred asked. “He is your enemy.”

“I want him defeated, not killed. This is a time for finesse, my son, not bloodshed.”

“No.” Mordred whispered.

“What did you say to me!?” Morgana’s voice rose, building anger.

“I am going to be king. I will not be your pawn. I will kill who I please, and I will spare who I please.” Mordred’s smile vanished, then came back cruelly. “You can’t stop me.”

“You would reject all I’ve done for you!?” Morgana hissed.

“No, mother. I would do what needs to be done to realize it.” Mordred said. “I will not let your magician’s games get in the way. I will - ”

But a metallic smell drifted to him, and knew his mother was gone. Yes, she was the woman that bore him, the woman that paid for the finest tutors to look after him, to train him to be a king. But if even that family tie would keep Mordred from the throne, then it must be severed. It was his destiny to be king. He would be king.

Mordred lingered ten precise seconds, then walked away, ignoring his mother’s false letter. It was time to be King. Time to seize the moment. His way, not Morgana’s.

---

Ambrose appeared on the parapet, gnarled staff in hand, and saw the battlefield below, shadowed by a gloomy, overcast and smoke-tainted sky. What was left of the town was trampled to foundations and ashes, and littered with bodies. It looked fresh - hours old only. Two ragged, broken armies stood on either side of it - one in front of the gates, below him, and the other farther out. Between them, two mailed figures dueled, swords and shields ringing blows through the cold air. One of them was clearly Artur.

Ambrose was spotted in the army below, and the call went out. Belatedly, he realized that they weren’t Artur’s troops - they bore the colors of another. Black on Crimson. Mordred? He ducked in time to avoid the volley of arrows, and set his timeslip to take him back a few hours and out onto a nearby hill.

The battle was almost accidental. Artur’s army, returning early, saw the red flags on Camelot’s towers, and circled round, through the woods, right up to the town’s verge. As soon as the gate opened, they charged up toward it, not realizing that Mordred was impatiently leading his own army out to seek Artur’s force. Mordred had numbers and position, but Artur’s troops had surprise and experience.

Lancelot, still inside Camelot, had closed the gates behind the usurper, letting the armies decide who would be king. Ambrose respected that decision, though it would probably mean whoever won would exile him.

At last, the two armies drew back, and Artur and Mordred came to parley. Ambrose struggled to think of a way to even begin to roll this back. Could it be one of Morgan’s plots? And how could he even begin to unravel this one? How far back did it go?

“Yes that's me, and no, it's not.” Morgan, wearied-looking, was at Ambrose’s side. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. That’s my... my son.”

Ambrose’s guard rose, but as soon as he saw her wearied, defeated demeanour he relaxed some. “Mordred?” She didn’t look like she’d spent enough years here to raise a child to Mordred’s age. “Why, Morgan?”

“You were winning. I had to try something new.” She admitted. “But even he is against me now. Bloodthirsty.”

Below, the two men stepped back and took combat stances. Morgan gasped. “A duel! Disagreements aside, we’ve got to do something, Ambrose.”

“Morgan, you’ve done enough.” Ambrose waved his gnarled walking-stick in front of her.

“But he’s my son!” She started to claw at her timeslip. ”I have to do something!”

Ambrose waited until she was absorbed in her frantic struggle with the device, then hit her over the head with his heavy druidic staff. Morgan fell to the ground, out cold. “Sorry, Morgan. This one’s out of our hands now.” He muttered, picking her up.

Below, the fight raged on. Mordred was faster, but Artur was, even at sixty years of age, stronger and more skillful. It was an even match.

“I’m sorry, my liege. I cannot help you any longer.” Ambrose whispered as he set his own timeslip for home. He knew he wouldn’t be coming back. With one last look at the duel below, Ambrose activated the handpiece, and he and his errant junior partner vanished in a purple flash of light.

This story written based on a prompt from Klazzform's Short Story Competition on rpgcrossing.com.

"12-24-40"

[Archive transcript of author/columnist Adam Ginsburg’s interview with temporal
pioneer and Nobel-winning physicist Dr. Howard Whitway, November 22, 2090]

Dr. Whitway, thank you for sitting down with me today. I know you’ve gotten a lot of interview requests, most of them with people better-known than me.

Whitway: Bah, they all want to either do puff pieces or use me as a prop for some other purpose. Though I suppose I’ll do some of ‘em eventually out of boredom, so I’d better not put them down too much.

Dr. Whitway, you are aware this interview is being recorded, correct?

Whitway: Yeah. If sayin’ something that tame puts ‘em off, oh well. If I were to really say what I thought about most of the talkin’ heads you’d never be able to play the recording in polite company, Ginsburg. Let ‘em scratch their heads on that, and I wager eight of ten will still want an interview.

Er... Okay. Dr. Whitway, I really have only one major question to ask, however short or long it takes to answer.

Whitway: One question? Is it a multi-part or somethin’?

Perhaps, but it’s pretty simple. You’ve seen a lot in your lifetime, which for us spans fifty-eight years but in your subjective time has been a good deal longer. What’s the one thing you’ve seen in all your travels, physical and temporal, that sticks out in your mind the most? I know you’ve told stories of hundreds of memorable things, but I figure for every story you’ve told to the world there are three you’ve kept to yourself.

Whitway: Most people would sit an’ think for a while on that one, Mr. Ginsburg, but I won’t. There’s really only one event like that.

Go on.

Whitway: I saw this early in my career, on the fifth or sixth trip. Same trip as where I sat and listened to Churchill’s ‘fight on the beaches’ address on a cracklin’ old nineteen-thirties transistor radio. I think it was after that, though. I was fiddling with the TSF settings, castin’ about, since I was already in London. I stopped to make another change, and I heard the sound of cello strings from nearby, so I went to check. Now, I could tell right off that I’d landed in the Blitz - the building I stabilized in front of was totally bombed out, nothin’ but two walls and a pile of burnt bricks. It was a cold and gloomy early evening, and there was dirty, crunchy snow pushed into all the corners and nooks, so I guessed February, maybe January or December at the earliest. The cello sounded like he was warmin’ up, and pretty soon there was the sound of a couple of other guys there with violins tunin’ up too. It was only a two block walk, so I got to the little street corner just as they started in earnest. And d’you know what they were playin’, Ginsburg?

What was it, Dr. Whitway? A patriotic tune, perhaps?

Whitway: Ha! No. It was the first few notes to the old carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” [Whitway hums a few bars slightly off-key.] You know it?

I think I’ve heard it once or twice. You don’t hear the old carols much anymore.

Whitway: Yeah. Anyway, they get those few notes in, and the air-raid sirens start screaming, and the floodlights go up, and over the sound of the wind I start hearing the buzz of German planes. There weren’t that many people there, maybe two dozen plus the three players, and at the sound of the sirens the players falter, and the one lady with her two kids kneels down and holds on to ‘em like the world’s gonna end, ‘cause for all she knows, it might, just like it might have all those raids before. But the cellist, he got this wierd, solemn look in his eye, and he put the bow back to the strings, and louder than before played those first few notes again, and one or two of the guys in the crowd start singing along, quietly, like they’re afraid the Germans’ll hear ‘em. The first bomb hit the city right on time, just as the singers got to the “Tidings of comfort and joy” part. The violin players flinched, but I’m not sure that the cello man even noticed. When the second verse started up, the whole crowd was singin’, me included. I didn’t think I knew the words, but somehow I found ‘em, as the planes buzzed overhead, and the bomb blasts kept beat. Every time I looked around, the crowd had gained another few people.

I’d imagine that the police broke that up rather rapidly.

Whitway: Well, a group of six or seven of ‘em came around, but they got one look at the scene and took off their hats and just stood there. It was the strangest thing. One of ‘em looked like he was tryin’ real hard not to shed a tear, and to be honest I didn’t blame him. There was somethin’ just... unnatural about the whole thing, but not in a bad way. Like God ‘imself was there with us, shakin’ his fist at the German bombers.

You’re a physicist, Dr. Whitway, who believes in God?

Whitway: Up until that night in London, Ginsburg, I would’ve laughed in your face for even askin’. ‘Physics is no place for religion’, I would’ve said. But when the players started the old carol up a second time, I sung those first few words like a prayer: ‘God rest ye merry’ - in today’s English, you’d say ‘God keep you strong.’ In that moment, I was sure that there was a God, and that he had picked sides in that war. And judging by the expressions on the other faces on that street corner, I think that’s what everyone else saw too. The bombs kept droppin, and the sirens kept screamin’, and you know, I didn’t really notice ‘em. All there was was the cellist player, the two violin players, and the crowd. Even when one of the bombs hit a building across the street, lightin’ the whole crowd up like a bolt of orange lightning, no-one seems to notice, ‘cept the policemen. It was like we’re all in a bubble.

The building across the street was hit, and no-one was hurt?

Whitway: Don’t ask me to explain it, Ginsburg. But I tell it like it was. The wall on our side stayed up, and the rest of the building fell down in the other direction. But the cops all dove for cover when it happened, and I lost track of ‘em. Anyway, those players repeated “God Rest Ye” one more time, then switched carols, and did a bunch of others. The air raid sirens died down at some point, but we kept on going. It felt like hours, but I don’t recall more than six more carols, so it might’ve been more like half an hour after the sirens stopped.

That’s a... powerful story, Dr. Whitway.

Whitway: Ginsburg, if you don’t believe me, if you want to call me a loony, say it. But wait ‘till I’m through, ‘cause there’s more.

I’m sorry. Please continue.

Whitway: Anyway, after the last carol, which was “Silent Night”, the crowd begins to break up and go home, because it is gettin’ really cold. And for a second, there’s a clean path between me and the cellist, and I swear he locked eyes with me. Normally, y’know, if you’re outta your own time you’re a ghost, no-one notices you and you can’t change things. But darn it all, I swear for that one second that ol’ cellist knew who I was and where I was from. It was like... like God was telling him that there was a better future coming, and that he and everybody else in England just needed to stay strong for a little longer. Like he was gettin’ a gift for havin’ enough faith to keep playin’ when the sirens started, that he was gettin’ a look at the way the whole war would play out. After that second, the man just bent down and packed his cello into its case. When the crowd cleared, he was gone.

What happened next?

Whitway: Nothing. That’s it. I didn’t want the night to end, but time moves on no matter what we do to stop it. And I’ll never forget that night, Ginsburg. You might say I’ve spent the rest of my life looking for its equal, and I never did find it.

I can understand why. And you’ve never told anyone this?

Whitway: Not a soul. And if anyone else that was there ever told the story, I never saw evidence of it.

Lucky, then, that you found your way there.

Whitway: Ginsburg, I don’t think luck had a thing to do with it, any more than the epilogue of a novel is placed there by chance. Believe it or don’t, I’m convinced that there was purpose to my being there.

I see. Dr. Whitway, thank you for your time.

Whitway: You don’t believe a word of it, do you?

It doesn’t matter. What matters is whether my readers will. And I intend to let them decide for themselves.

Whitway: I can respect that. But may I make a suggestion?

What’s that?

Whitway: Christmas Eve, nineteen fourty. That was the date. I pulled the log data from my TSF unit after I got back. Next month’s the hundred and fiftieth annniversary of that night. If you’re gonna put this in one of your columns, it might do better if you released it before then.

I imagine you’re right, Dr. Whitway. I’ll see what I can do.

This story written for Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com.

"The Founder"

Jack trudged through the hard-packed Arizona desert, processing what he’d just been through. They’d finally done it, he kept thinking. Finally found a way to get at the Academy.

The device strapped to his wrist, no bigger than a wristwatch, was useless for its original purpose now - if it still functioned as designed, he would not be walking through triple-digit heat in a tight-fitting black jumpsuit with nothing to drink. The knowledge that he had only to go another thirty minutes or so to reach Salome was a comfort, but also a nagging reminder that starting an hour ago, Jack couldn’t just press a button and find himself sitting in a cool, air-conditioned restaraunt, sipping a cold beer.

The facility control room was a mess. What consoles weren’t dark were either on fire or blinking madly, a cacaphony of warning lights and sirens competed to disorient Jack’s senses. the Founder, an ancient, pinched woman, threaded her way through the ruined space as her life’s work groaned and creaked, dying. Hopefully, most of the Academy personnel made it out, Jack was thinking, but at the same time he knew there were nowhere near enough time to program everyone's wristpieces. She noticed Jack come in, but didn’t change her trajectory.

The old woman fiddled with one of the more intact displays for a moment, and it popped open, revealing a small space. ”Wait for me in Salome. Wait for me to be ready.” She called urgently across the room, tossing the contents of the cubbyhole to Jack - it was a wristpiece data card. Jack wanted to argue, but the Academy shuddered again, and a sickening, rushing sound started from somewhere in the depths of the structure, rising toward them. Jack panicked, pushed the card into his wristpiece, and -

The rise leveled off, and Jack saw a road at the bottom of the other side. Grateful for the downslope and the promise of nearing civilization, Jack hurried forward, reaching the road in a matter of minutes. Uncertain which direction lay toward Salome, Jack looked in both directions. Hills and curves obscured both not too far from his location.

Just as he was about to pick a direction at random, though, a car pulled around one of the bends and headed in his direction, an old, beat up Chevy. Seeing Jack, it slowed down. Jack got a good look at the driver -a woman, maybe twenty-five, stick-thin, with thick-rimmed glasses and a mass of unkempt dark blonde hair settling around her face now that the animating wind from the car’s motion had settled. ”You lost?” She called out.

Jack went to answer, but something about her seemed familiar, something he couldn’t place. It was unlikely he’d seen this girl before, could it be that he’d once met one of her ancestors, or maybe one of her descendants? Possibly. The Academy had taught Jack that the world wasn’t as big a place as people thought. ”I’m...” Jack tried to start, but his dry throat caught on the desert dust and he managed only to cough for a few seconds. ”Trying - to get to... Salome.” He managed to force out, loud enough that the woman in the car might hear.

”I was just going there. Want a ride?” She asked, and Jack wondered immediately why she would trust him in her car. Grateful of the offer, though, Jack nodded and approached the car cautiously.

As Jack got in, the woman put her foot on the gas and he was pressed into the seat a little bit too much for his liking. ”Only a few minutes out.” She said, loudly over the wind in the open windows. ”You air force?” She gestured with one hand at his jumpsuit, without taking her eyes off the road.

Jack, after a moment to recall what he knew about twenty-first century American military organizations, nodded cautiously. Her association of him with that group might be what made her trust him enough to offer a ride. ”Is it that obvious?”

”You crash out here or something?” She replied to his question with a question.

”Umm... Or something.” Jack replied enigmatically, intentionally so. ”Not at liberty to say. I’m Jack.” The truth of how he’d come to be walking across the desert was a bit more complicated, of course.

”Helen.” She responded. ”Cell phone’s in the bag in the back seat, if you need to make a call.” Jack looked back, to see that the back seat of the car was filled with period electronics equipment, some of it almost top-of-the-line and some more antiquated. Sitting atop the whole mess was a large, bag-like purse.

Jack shook his head. ”I’m good for now. My orders for this situation are, stay in the area, someone will find me.” Jack hoped that sounded like something an Air Force pilot would say.

”Secret project, eh? Fine.” She seemed intrigued. ”I won’t press.”

”You seem to have a project of your own going on.” Jack gestured to the back of the car. ”You in robotics?”

She laughed, a high-pitched sound that Jack found unsettlingly familiar, but could not place. ”No, physics. These days a physicist needs more hardware than a factory to do any real work.” She shook her head. ”It’s a long-shot project, but I got funding for it, so...” She shrugged.

Jack nodded, but let the conversation drop off, when over the next hill he saw a glint of sun off of metal. As they cleared that rise, Jack got a good look at Salome - it was pitiably small, nestled in the dry hills. In short, a perfect place for the Founder to hide a bolthole, should she decide she needed one in this time. Just enough civilization to have the comforts, not enough to really risk having something discovered.

”You have any money on you?” Helen asked as the car passed the outer line of buildings. ”That flight suit looks a bit snug for pockets.”

”I don’t. But I can get some. Is there an ATM around here?” Jack knew that the Academy had bank accounts with all the major financial institutions of every period in history that had financial institutions, for just this purpose. He’d need an ATM card, of course, but Academy gear provided for him there.

”Yeah.” Helen looked like she was holding something back, but didn’t for very long. ”But I shudder to think of where you might keep an ATM card in that flight suit.” She looked embarrassed for saying it almost immediately.

”I don’t have one. A card’s heavier than the data it stores.” Academy rule: Never carry with you what you can fabricate once you get there. Most Academy travel gear had to be fabricated from raw energy prior to departure to avoid risk of some interesting and dangerous particle physics paradoxes. ”But I can reprogram any old blank gift card to access my account.”

Helen looked confused at this, but shrugged it off. Probably not technology widely available in this time, Jack considered briefly. He had to be more careful than he usually was on outings, he decided, since there would be no going back and cleaning up after himself in a second run through unless the Founder’s ace in the hole here in Salome was more than monumental.

Despite obvious misgivings, Helen took Jack to a convenience store, where the pair managed to convince a tired cashier to give them a blank gift card. Jack took the card, slipped it between his wrist and the watch-like device there strapped, and went into the restroom, more to let the wristpiece do its light-flashing magnetic-strip reformatting trick in privacy than because he needed to use the facilities.

Back in the car, Helen drove the two blocks to the bank in silence. Jack fiddled with the card, but said nothing, not wanting to bother his benefactor any more than necessary. Jack got out and headed for the blue-and-white ATM in the wall, for the first time not sure how much money was in the account. To the perspective of the bank computer, many other travellers like him would come later to both add and remove funds, travellers whose journeys were to Jack in the past. Who could say what was in the communal account at any given point along the stream?

Despite Jack’s worries, the ATM spit out $400 in crisp twenty-dollar bills without complaint. The gift card recovered, Jack returned to the car, where Helen was still waiting. ”Thanks for the help, Helen.” He offered her five of the twenties. ”I think I can manage from here.”

She waved off the money, and Jack wondered if he’d acted wrongly. Was that a faux pas in this culture? ”It’s almost six. What do you say you buy me dinner and call it even?”

Jack considered. It wasn’t going to hurt anything, and if the Founder arrived she’d be able to find him no matter where he was. ”Deal. Though you’re going to have to tell me what’s good in this town.” He got back into the passenger seat, and Helen, with a quick smile, turned the car back toward the main road. The sun was just beginning to sink behind the hills, and Jack shielded his eyes from its waning rays.

After only a minute or so of driving, Helen turned off the road into the parking lot of a small, beat-up looking structure whose sign claimed it to be a family restaurant. ”Best restaurant in Salome.” Helen explained. ”But that isn’t saying much.”

Jack was in the ready room, prepping for a mission to the Second Dark Age, when the Academy shook and the Founder’s voice came over the speakers. ”Attention. All personnel evacuate. This is not a drill. Evacuate the facility.” That was the first time that Jack had ever heard fear in the old woman’s voice, and that scared him more than the thought of the Academy, a structure constructed outside time itself, was under attack. It went without saying that the attackers were the Gaunts, but there wasn’t time to wonder how they’d managed to find a way to get at the Academy’s unreachable base. Jack ran to the Founder’s command center, hoping that he could at least get the old woman out...

”You all right, Jack?” Helen asked, and Jack started. He looked down to see a mostly-eaten plate of steak and potatoes in front of him, and looked back up to Helen. She looked rather worried.

”Uh, yeah, just a bad memory.” Jack shook his head. ”I lost focus there for a moment. What were you saying?”

Helen sighed. ”You asked me about my project, and just as I started you spaced out. You sure you’re all right?” Jack merely shrugged a response, so she continued. ”I was saying, what my project amounts to is a stab at wormholes. There’s a lot of complicated physics stuff that quantifies it, of course.”

Jack, his Academy training covering more about such things than Helen realized, nodded. ”A wormhole to where?” He asked. ”They need an in and an out, you know.”

”I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.” Helen waved off the question. ”I don’t think this is going to work at all, it’s a slim chance. We’re not even sure wormholes are possible. But if they are, think. Instant travel. Maybe time travel.” Helen grinned. ”It’s worth a shot.”

Jack suddenly realized why Helen had looked and sounded so familiar, and at the realization his jaw dropped. ”Y-you...”

Helen frowned. ”You all right?”

”You’re the Founder.” Jack managed. ”You sent me back to before.”

”Jack, you’re not making sense.” Helen looked really concerned now.

Holding up a finger, Jack tried to regain his composure. Wait for me to be ready. She wasn’t talking about escaping the Academy in the first place. The old woman had sent him here to make sure that her younger self became the Academy’s Founder again, because she’d remembered him being here.

But no - the Academy lived in a meta-time bubble. Its time stream was not dependent on this one... Jack’s head hurt as he tried to figure out whether this Founder would found the same Academy or a new iteration, or simply a parallel one. Had the old woman even known herself?

Now with a distinct headache, Jack signaled for and paid the bill, and the pair headed back for Helen’s car. But once they were inside, she didn’t start the engine. ”All right, spill it, Jack. What got you so flustered in there?”

Wondering whether or not he would cause more paradoxes telling Helen what he knew or staying quiet was just as painful, so Jack decided he might as well tell her. ”Fair warning, this is going to sound crazy.”

”I’m a physicist.” She responded, as if that implied some degree of inherent insanity.

Jack shrugged, and leaned back in his seat. ”I’m not a pilot. I’m... What I do is hard to explain. I work for the Academy.”

”What academy?” Helen asked.

”No. The Academy. The organization that...” Jack expected Helen to not understand what he was about to say. ”...That you lead. You’re the Founder.”

Helen started to speak, to protest, but no words came out for several seconds. ”You’re from the... the future.” She shook her head. ”A time traveler.”

”Not the future. The Academy does not exist in time or space, and we thought it was impossible to get there without going though its defenses.” Jack shrugged. ”We were wrong. The Gaunts got in. I got out as the place fell apart.”

”Gaunts?” Helen asked. It was too dark to see her expression, but Jack guessed she was not taking this well from her tone.

”It’s a long story.” Jack didn’t want to scare her off - the Academy knew so little about them that there wasn’t much to say, other than that they were superhuman beings that killed Academy personnel on sight, and on several occasions tried to use Academy wristpieces to infiltrate the facility. ”But I know I was sent here to help you do something.”

”Something like what?” Helen’s voice sounded uncertain. Jack was surprised she hadn’t run off by now.

”I don’t know exactly.” Jack sighed, and was quiet for some time, until an idea occurred to him. ”But why don’t we start with your little wormhole project and go from there?” He gestured toward the backseat, and the cargo stored there.

Helen chuckled, a thought occurring to her. ”What if you cause a paradox?”

”It wouldn’t be the first time.” Jack shrugged. ”They aren’t so bad.” Besides, the more Jack thought about it, the more he thought that the Founder he knew remembered this conversation.

”And what if I say no?”

”You would have already.” That she hadn’t, Jack took as a good sign.

”Fair point.” Helen went quiet after those two words, and didn’t speak again for nearly a minute. Eventually, she spoke up again. ”What was your Academy for?”

Jack smiled in the dim light. ”At first, to preserve a piece of this world, because the Founder knew of the coming Dark Age. Later, its scope... broadened. I’m not sure how long in its own time the Academy stood. A long time.” Jack turned fully to Helen. ”Being the Founder won’t be easy, but make no mistake when I say that it is integral to humanity’s emergence from the dark that’s coming.” And Jack knew from his many trips to the time period in question how deep the Second Dark Age would grow to be.

”All right.” Helen nodded. ”I suppose there’s no harm in starting my long-shot wormhole project, at least.” She started the car at last. ”Who knows where that will lead?”

”I do. Hopefully, you will soon.” Jack responded quietly, probably inaudibly considering the sound of the engine, as they pulled out onto the road.

This story written for Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com.