Conquest of Avalon

Eloise IV: The Circumnavigator

Florette’s hair billowed out behind her, her face carefully turned to minimize the time it spent whipping her in the face.

If she were smart, she’d cut it short. But what a shame that would be. With it blasting up into the air behind her like that, she looked like those old carvings of the Undying they’d nicked from that museum, striding confidently across the sea to claim her kills.

Eloise leaned against the railing next to her, earning herself a warm smile as she put her hands behind her head. “You look absolutely miserable. A matter of global importance, I don’t doubt, weighing you down.”

Florette shrugged. “I mean, in a way.”

“Yeah? What’s on your mind?”

“Terramonde.” She laughed, the sound lighting up the air around her head. “A bit literal, maybe, but you’re dead on.”

Must have spirits on her mind, after that duel. “I know what you mean. I live my whole life in fear that the earth spirit will suddenly swallow me whole. Makes it impossible to do anything, that certainty hanging over my head.”

Eyes might have rolled at that, but her smile remained. “I was just thinking, you know? The Seaward Folly’s probably one of the fastest ships in the world. It can cover more ground faster, and so it can go farther with the same amount of supplies. Even around the other side of the world, maybe. Have you ever done the math?”

“I wrote the proof, obviously. That’s why we’re heading due west right now.”

“I mean it, though. No one’s ever done it before. That guy who disappeared… Uh… I’m forgetting his name. But he was working with the ships of half a century ago, way slower, and with a much larger crew.”

Eloise couldn’t help but frown. “That guy thought the earth spirit was a third its size. Most likely, he died of thirst out on the open ocean, if he didn’t end it himself first to spare himself the pain. Same for his crew.”

“I suppose…”

Seeing the way Florette’s face fell at that sent a pang through her. Have to say something to save it. “Look, don’t worry about sailing around the world. It’s just a vanity prize, anyway. Once it was over, you'd end up right back to where you started.”

≋

Eloise scowled at the discolored patch on the front of her coat, the result of lacking supplies and the like. It wasn’t so objectionable in principle, much like a scar — the fact that it was there meant that she’d survived. That whoever had tried to kill her had failed. It wasn’t as if the fashion of it particularly mattered.

But the fact they’d been able to get so close was a failure on her part, and an impossible one to ignore.

Worse, I’m sitting on a pile of weapons I can’t sell. “Idiot,” she muttered quietly to herself. Always find the buyer first. Now anyone getting ahold of them in the city would attract too much attention, and shipping was too closely inspected and limited in capacity to find a buyer further afield. Might as well have sent them all with Florette, for all the good they’re doing me here.

I have to clean up with the crew, too. One of them had stolen from her and set her up to die. Whoever gave the order was more important, but Eloise was in no position to allow liabilities like that in her midst either. It’s going to be a nightmare tracking them all down, too. Florette had handled most of the personnel once Eloise had made a few recommendations. The people she knew were the least likely to do something like this, but that also meant that the most likely culprits could be near-impossible to find without a name or face she could remember.

“Bad day, Eloise?” Mince, the woman Jacques had supervising distribution on the northwest of the city, sported a scar herself, an extremely visible jagged line across her face, and it sent a similar message. Something that would pose issues on the legitimate side of things, perhaps, but that wasn't an area where she’d ever shown much interest anyway.

“How could it possibly be a bad day with your sunny visage to brighten it? It’s almost blinding.” Eloise brushed past on her way into the room, not sparing her another look.

Better not to look too fixated, or it might give away her suspicions.

There weren’t many pistols floating around. Florette had taken about a third with her to sell in Guerron, and a few of Avalon’s elite could be expected to have them. They had on the train, anyway.

Neither would want to kill her, at least not by sending someone to gun her down the street. Florette was a reckless child half the time, but she was also direct. If she’d really been that torn up about things, she’d probably have asked for a duel then and there.

Better not to dwell on that, anyway.

No, undoubtedly the weapon that had nearly ended her had been slipped out of her own supply, by one of her own people. A fucking rat.

Why did this always keep happening? The kids at school, the crew on her ship, and now people who’d been well-paid for a simple job. And Florette…

Jacques gave her a quiet nod as she took her seat, a gesture she returned. She knew what was coming, and he’d need the support. The numbers didn’t lie, no matter how much everyone else in this room might.

Here I am, back again. Almost ten years, yet it looks just the same.

“Good, it looks like everyone is here.” Jacques’ meetings didn’t abide by Captain Verrou’s Rules of Order; he could afford no ambiguity as to who was in command. “Ms. Sunderland, report.”

Sunderland looked around fifty or sixty, her short hair gray but not yet white. In her hand was an ornate teacup, steam wafting up from it into the room. Did she bring that with her? These meetings aren’t catered. “People are on edge, Mr. Clochaîne. No matter how many bulletins instruct them not to panic, too many have seen how low the city’s wood stores have run. Avalon’s apparatus is potent, but not yet sufficient to compel people to disbelieve their own eyes. They grow more suspicious, more paranoid.”

“How terribly specific,” Eloise couldn’t help but say. “Next you’ll tell us that no one’s happy about the sun being gone.”

“Thank you for your input, Elise,” she responded with a gentle smile, as if she weren’t purposefully messing up the name. “As I was saying, suspicions are only growing. Per your instructions, I’ve closed down the eight Aranea’s locations without easy tunnel access and hearths sufficiently voluminous to meet the condensed demand. An additional seventeen have been modified to vent heat from the bakery area to the dining chambers to save on fuel. My eyes and ears bring me word of several topics potentially of interest, though as always I must caution you that the pulse of public discourse often has only a tenuous relationship with reality.”

She began a long speech, reccounting every useless bit of trivia the random fools discussed over their cups of coffee, all that had caught her agents’ eyes. Jacques liked to be abreast of the city, even if it meant boring everyone else to tears at the start of every meeting.

Eloise listened carefully, though, since there was a chance that this was the person trying to kill her. They’d never had any particular quarrel, but that hardly made it impossible. It wasn’t like her old crew had needed much provocation to leave her to die in a desolate wasteland. Why do people always act the same, wherever I go?

“...the Prince is spending more and more time in the company of his Spiritual Liaison, prompting many to speculate. An affair, perhaps, though many go so far as to suspect that she enticed him to make sinister pacts with her dark patrons. Lady Perimont held an event for the forresters and guardians, honoring them for their efforts maintaining law and order in this dark time. Captain Anya Stewart has been seen at four locations, meeting with her territorial counterparts. No questions for our staff or direct indication of suspicion against us.”

Jacques frowned. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned. They’ll take any excuse to go after us. Any word on what she’s looking for?”

“Nothing firm, but she arrived with Lady Perimont. It’s not a stretch to imagine she might be following up on the late Governor’s accident.” She stared at Eloise, her smile going flat. “The timing of the incident is certainly suspect.”

Fuck. If one of the grunts they’d hired was willing to fob guns off on someone trying to kill her, it wasn’t hard to imagine that they or others might have let something slip within Ms. Sunderland’s long grasp, but Eloise had been hoping the whole thing would just be buried.

Florette was gone, after all. Safe.

Jacques looked at her, the rest of the room following their eyes. “She may well come talk to you, Eloise, with questions about the attempt on your life. I trust you know what to say.”

Of course she will, right at a time when my image needs to be cleanest. Brilliant.

Eloise forced a laugh. “I’ll invite her to one of our meetings, that way she can learn everything she needs to.”

“This isn’t a joke,” Mince growled. “We’re all tied up in this shit because of you, and I’d sooner die than go back to prison. Mr. Clochaîne asked you a straight question. He expects a straight answer.” Consider that a tally in your column, then. Mince was at the top of the list already, really, but Eloise had been in this business too long not to recognize the flourish with one hand while the other picked your pocket. She could be putting on a show to cover for a subtler architect of destruction.

Her arms folded to maintain an aura of strength. “The Prince isn’t Perimont. It’ll take more than suspicions for him to turn against us.” On me, anyway. Probably. “In any case, there aren’t any threads left for her to pull. At least, none on my end. I’m aware that everyone has a different tolerance for risk in how they conduct their operations.” Mince, for example, had spent two years in a cell for checking on a stash being monitored by the Guardians. “As for this Stewart woman, I expect her to be enthralled by my descriptions of our charitable discounts on candles for the impoverished. I’ll wish her good luck in catching my assailant.”

“Weak,” Mince scoffed. She isn’t even being subtle. Though she doesn’t really have to be, either. “If you want to be convincing, you should be pissed off. You know who doesn’t have much to say, just wants to end things as soon as possible? Guilty people.”

“Well, you would know.” That was terrible advice, too. The first lesson in this business is to talk to authorities as little as possible, ideally never, and everyone in this room ought to know that. Mince was setting her up to go down, in her own clumsy way. So perhaps my getting caught would be enough for her? A hangman’s noose wasn’t that different from the tip of a sword, in the end, though it would certainly be an ignoble end.

Mince bristled at the observation. “Don’t you want to get whoever tried this on you? You were so close to bleeding out in the street.”

“Nothing good ever came from seeking revenge,” Eloise said, giving Mince a pointed look. “Better to let it be. That’s what I’ll tell her.”

That was enough to get her to drop it, at least.

Aneoeuf was next to report. “Had to water down the product to stretch the supply far enough. Even then, we’re going to run out in a matter of weeks. I already closed everything down at the market, had my crew go out woodcutting and find a nice forested spot to sell to the other workers. Going alright so far.” The lieutenant for the east side had apparently gotten his nickname from some incident involving a mule and a breakfast gone wrong, but no one had ever been willing to tell Eloise what.

Jacques sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We agreed that everyone would raise the prices. It’s a basic economic principle.”

“Tried that the first couple days.” Aneoeuf shrugged. “We cleared almost double stretching it out like this.”

“But diminished the reputation of our product in the process.” He shook his head. “No, it’s plain that with shipments so limited, this approach is untenable. Even your ‘solution’ only buys a bit more time. Unless anyone has had any more success?”

No one had.

“Which brings us to Eloise.” He smiled. “I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that it’s great to have you back.” You might actually be speaking for no one but yourself, come to think of it.

“Right.” Eloise frowned, running through the people in this room as she had a hundred times before, though this time not directly speculating about who would want to kill her. She glanced at them all, seeing each pair of eyes look to her, waiting for her to begin. “Well, it’s just like you’d expect. The sun going out has completely ruined the market for candles. No one needs them anymore, it turns out. We’re deep, deep in debt.”

She forced a smile, holding her arms tighter against her. “Jacques always joked that his greatest enemy was the sun, but it turns out he was right. Revenues have more than doubled, with sales exceeding that by another third. Most of the delta consists of charitable grants and partnerships with the Governor’s office, more than paying their way in goodwill. Not to mention those who will grow to know and prefer our brand. Now that Marco’s crew has taken care of Caring Candles and Dayglow, we can only expect returns to rise even further in the months to come.” No asymptotic ceiling here.

“Excellent, Eloise. Thank you for taking the initiative on those contracts, by the way. I’d had a mind to do something similar, but I couldn’t get to implementing it very quickly.” He clasped his hands together. “And the supply? Could you enlighten this table as to how long we can meet such demand?”

He already knew, of course. They’d gone over all of it at the meeting before the meeting. This wouldn’t be an easy message to deliver to this group, after all.

“Assuming growth continues at or near this pace, three months. Eight, if you’re willing to compromise on the formula and accept more diversified sources of materials.”

“Circumstances must.” He nodded. “Any competitors using purer wax formulas can be addressed in other fashions.” As he waved his hand around the room, the many rings on his fingers each glistened, shimmering at different angles as the candles’ light touched them. “I hope the issue is plain to see, for all of you, and the wisest course to follow.”

It is. Aneoeuf had his hand resting on the back of his neck; Mince was grinding her teeth; and Marco’s hand gripped firmly around the hilt of his sword, knuckles white.

“As of now, all extralegal operations are suspended while we explore alternatives for local supply. You will be compensated as contractors in the meantime, as will up to four people from each of your respective crews, chosen at your discretion. Some performance of candle-related work will be necessary to maintain the façade. The rest will have to make their own way for the time being. Given the circumstances, they should understand; they’ve seen the shortages themselves, after all.”

None of them dared to object. Not one. They might be willing to kill Eloise, but they knew they were in no position to argue with Jacques.

No, their resentful eyes turned to her instead, practically everyone in the room. And one of them wanted her dead. If the rest don’t too.

Why does it always come back to this?

“Dismissed.”

≋

Eloise slumped down against a withered husk of a tree, splashing pink sand into the air.

The prince kept walking for a few paces, then stopped. “What, already? You’ve been complaining about me stopping to rest for the last three days. There’s got to be over two hours of sunlight left!”

“Oh, sunlight in summer! What a scarce resource! Especially in this fucking wasteland. Yes, brilliant, conserve our sunlight.” She put her hands behind her head, leaning back against the tree. “I’m the one who has to catch all our food, and I say it’s time for a rest. At least one of us is completely exhausted, and I’m guessing it’s both.” Hard not to sleep like shit on this sand. “Come on, set your stuff down. We can take an hour and I’ll still have time to fish before it’s dark.”

He glanced briefly at the bracelet on his wrist, then swore. “There are only six wristwatches in the world, you know. If I can’t repair this, I’m taking it out of your ransom.” Setting his portion of the water-boiling thing gently down in the sand, he chose the shade of a different tree to rest under, seven or eight feet away.

“Hey, Prince Cipher, you’re obviously the expert on destroying ships. Know anything about building them?”

“Of course. I have to,” he insisted with a frown. “I’m the Prince of Crescents, Lord of Crescent Isle. The entire shipbuilding facility there is under my command.”

“You’re the one in charge of that place?” Eloise laughed. “Probably a bit late to be telling you this, but the security’s a joke.”

“I’m aware.” He ground his teeth. “The Director supervises it, anyway, he just reports to me.”

“Sure,” she said with a smirk. “But you’re informed, yes? Kept abreast of all the latest developments in the world of shipbuilding?”

Eyes narrowed at that. “You might be able to steal some of Avalon’s secrets, but you’re not going to get me to give them away just by asking.”

“Fine, fine.” She shrugged. “I was just wondering what the reach on your new stuff was. Ships keep getting faster, you know. Traveling further. Like those new ones, they burn coal instead of just using the wind, right? Do you think they could make it all the way around the world?”

“There’s bound to be a ship that can, eventually,” the Prince agreed.

“But it hasn’t happened yet?”

“Not to my knowledge, and I’d be the one to know. Maybe a few of the hybrid models, if they caught the right… current? Windstream? Trade…something? Ultimately it’s all just convection applied to fluids, but the vernacular…”

This is the man in charge of building the most advanced ships in the world? “Tradewinds are the ones we already know about and use for trade. Not unknown streams on the other side of the world. You mean as long as the heading is fair. Which it could be, for all we know.”

“Fine, sure. But you run into the tyranny of the ox and the grain.”

“Don’t tell me Avalon has a legend about a cow that guards the ocean.”

“No, it’s a principle. The ox can carry a wagon, but it can only go as long it’s being fed. If you pile the wagon with grain, the ox will stop when it runs out. Bring another wagon, and you need another ox. It’s the same with coal and steam-power. Combustion engines still need fuel.”

“Ah.” That makes a lot of sense, honestly. “Why not use that hybrid you mentioned, then? Didn’t you say they could do it?”

“Well, we couldn’t guarantee the safety of the crew, for one thing. Those models might manage it under the best of circumstances, but you need a healthy margin of error on an expedition like that. We’re at least twenty years off from a design that could manage it, and that’s if the function of our progress over time remains constant or better. As long as we don’t hit an asymptotic ceiling, you know?” I do, but it’s ridiculous that you expected me to. “It’s hardly unheard of for technological progress in a field to see diminishing returns over time.”

“But it’s something you’re working towards? Even if it’s not really worth anything beyond being able to say that you did?”

“Of course it is! Circumnavigation is a key global milestone in cartography and science alike. Temperature readings from the other side can give us insights into the entire earth spirit’s climate. Measuring the… headings, can help us fill in our maps of winds and currents, look at how heat transfers across the entire surface. It could create an entire field of global fluid dynamics. Maybe there’s a correlation with Terramonde’s magnetic plane! Or a pattern to which areas have more concentrated spiritual energy.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That last one’s more of a pet theory, admittedly. The correlation’s pretty loose on this side, but getting data on the back of the earth spirit would at least let me put it on a slab if I’m wrong.”

“How did I come this far just to end back in school again?”

“Maybe we should teach more classes about how to avoid being a complete scoundrel. Clearly yours failed.”

Eloise ignored the jab, sliding down further against the remnants of the tree. “Would you do it, then? Sail around the world?”

The prince wrinkled his nose. “After this, if I never set foot on another boat in my life, I’ll die happy.”

Oh, right. “Well, you’re in luck then. There’s a good chance you’ll die happy before the month is even out.”

“Thanks for that,” he said with a childish frown. “It’s not like I would have said yes before all this, either. Once the technology is up to the task, all some sailor needs to do is pilot it on-course for a few months and they get credit for the whole thing, even though they’re practically a passenger. No, sailing on a trip like that would be a waste of my time. Better to focus on more important things…” He sighed. “Like, for example, not dying in this desolate wasteland, miles away from all my family and friends. Failing that, at least dying second so you can’t eat me.”

“Don’t tempt me. I’m really sick of fish.”

That got the slightest smile out of him, gone as soon as it was there.

≋

“Man, I would have had it locked down. People are so bored now, cooped up inside to stay warm, ready to meet in the tunnels for a little escape. I was going to stock up, right before this all started. If you hadn’t stopped me.” Margot was leaning back against the wall, hands behind her head. “Flushed what I did have out to sea, too. My big, brilliant sister. Really outdid yourself there, huh?”

Eloise pulled a coin purse from out of her pocket. “I’m not apologizing for keeping you out of a cell, you nitwit.”

“Oh, please. The guardians are stretched so thin right now, they’d probably let the Blue Bandit walk on by. Nah, the issue isn’t security. It’s supply.” She sighed. “Whole city’s dry, the way I hear it.”

I have the exact opposite problem, an abundance of product with no one to sell it to. “I don’t know why you think me catching you is somehow a license to brag about being a small-time criminal. It’s disappointing and pathetic.”

“So says the pirate! Come on! Besides, this would have been my chance to move up from small time. I could have revolutionized this whole business! You know, if you hadn’t ruined it.”

“It seemed simpler than breaking you out of prison, itself easier than finding a school that would take you, afterwards.” How did she become like this? “Wait, you remember the Blue Bandit?”

Margot turned her head away, mumbling. “Mom talked about her a lot.”

Eloise lifted her hand, then let it drop. “You have a good memory. What were you, three? Four? I don’t remember anything from when I was that young.”

Mom did talk about her a lot. The girl no older than I was, fighting tyranny. Funny to think about, after all that had happened since. I’m almost ten years older, but she’s still forteen.

“Some things you never forget.” Margot slumped down onto the bed beneath her. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“No, of course not.” Eloise sat down on the bed next to her, maintaining a respectful distance.“I guess it always comes back to that, in a way.”

“Everyone’s always traveling in circles. People don’t change.”

Eloise frowned. “You’re way too young to be saying stuff like that. You’ve changed, for one thing.”

“Have I? Or are you just now noticing who I am because this is the first time you’ve spent more than a week here in years?”

“I… You have to understand, I was keeping you safe… Providing…”

“Sure.” Margot shrugged. “And thank you for that. Honestly. But this is just the way things are. Mom saw what was going on with the Blue Bandit and she vowed to do something about it.” And she died the exact same way. “She was a good person, that’s just who she always was. Us…” She shrugged again. “But it’s not like there’s anything you can do to change that. Just the way things are.”

Traveling in circles…

“Oh,” Eloise said with a start. “Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“Just realized something, that’s all,” she said as she stood. “Could be a solution to my problems. Even catches two fish with one hook.”

“Uh, good?”

“Yeah, it is.” Eloise gave her a firm nod. “I’ll be back in a few days. Stay out of trouble.”

“Ugh, fine, sure. What are you doing that’s so important anyway?”

Eloise turned back to look at her sister, forcing the words out of her mouth. “The right thing.”