Conquest of Avalon

“And it will come about during this year that a most dreadful portent takes place. For the sun shall give forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during this whole year, resembling the sun in eclipse, for the beams it sheds will not be clear nor such as it is accustomed to shed. And from the time when this thing happens men will be free from neither war nor pestilence nor any other thing leading to death. Such is only the beginning.

“Khali is not omnipotent. That much alone appeared in doubt on her ascension, but ultimately I did seal her away. She can be defeated, though not without cost. So too shall it be two thousand years hence. A Day of Nocturne, when the dark spirit emerges from her prison to wreak havoc upon the world and its people.

“Versham assures me that spiritual visions cannot see the future, that true prophecy is impossible. Binders and sages and even spirits alike have tried to witness the future for millenia, without a single documented instance of success. His argument is compelling, yet I cannot deny the reality of what I saw. Deep in my very core, I felt the truth of it, fueled by Khali’s very essence. I have learned to trust such feelings, for the world would be lost without them.

“Nearly the entirety of Terramonde looks to me as the world’s savior. This, I do not say to boast, nor even affirm their praise, but simply to lend that weight of trust to my words. The world I saw in that far of day had grown complacent, ineffective. Weak. Readers in this Age of Gleaming may balk at the suggestion, still reeling from Khali’s fury, still on guard against Pantera’s incursions.

“But nonetheless I have seen it, and I believe it. No binders contest her upon her return, no spirits turn against her. For all the marvels of civilization humanity creates in our future, all of our accomplishments great and small, the world shall fall to ruin. All who could oppose her simply capitulate or flee, and the world shall never recover from it.

“If Versham is to be believed, this future is not written in stone. Perhaps it may yet be averted. If that ever is to be, we must be prepared. Some distant future generations may balk at my words, content in their listless mediocrity. They must hear them nonetheless. All must hear them. Khali’s threat has not ended; her curse endures. Remain vigilant always. If the next two thousand years are spent preparing instead of forgetting, humanity may yet survive.”

All of it was right fucking there in that book the whole time, and Florette had ignored it to focus on other things.

How could a valuable text stolen from an Avalonian Director, apparently written by the Great Binder herself, have seemed like something worth setting aside?

And the whole world is paying for it now.

Not that she really could have done anything about it. Shit, said Avalonian asshole had had possession of it for far longer, probably years, and hadn’t done anything. No one had.

No one’s even doing anything now. Fucking Eloise just saw it as a business opportunity, a way to get back in with her old asshole boss who’d tried to kill Claude, just because she’d been such a miserable failure as a pirate captain. Really, it was scant surprise that she’d managed in a few months to alienate her entire crew enough to maroon her in Refuge.

I could have saved you from that fuck-up, if you’d kept me with you. Just the thought of it caused Florette to dig her nails into her hands, the audacious selfishness, dripping with condescension.

Fuck her. It wasn’t worth dwelling on. She wasn’t worth thinking about. Bitch.

Better to dive into this book, to see if there was anything to do now, whether or not it were too late to avert the greater tragedy of it all.

So far, though, Florette hadn’t had much luck.

The Great Binder had led a fascinating life, assuming the book told the truth about it, but little of it seemed to be helpful here. Her astounding feats of magic and skills had defeated Khali, but if the darkness spirit really had returned, she would surely be on guard against them.

And even that much wasn’t certain. The Great Binder’s descriptions of both Khali’s initial rampage a hundred years ago and her hypothesized Day of Nocturne two thousand years after seemed slightly off, compared to what was happening now.

For one thing, the sun always remained in the sky in her book, simply occluded and weakened by darkness, unable to perform its role. Not so, here. Nor had any of Khali’s followers made an appearance, droves of evil spirits following her cause. More than half of the vaguely practical advice had to do with subduing or killing them, as did a great portion of the Great Binder’s notable feats.

Not entirely useless, if Florette ever got on the wrong side of a spirit, but nothing that seemed relevant enough to even help mitigate this, let alone resolve the problem.

And maybe nothing can. It wasn’t productive to think that way, but it was hard to avoid, staring up at the stars in the sky as the hours stretched on, sleeping in fits and spurts that made it nigh-impossible to mark the passage of time.

At least she could move about the ship freely. The crew had been paid enough not to ask any questions, and the crates of weapons would have been too difficult to hide from them anyway. Eloise had kept about two-thirds, to better pay the remaining crew, but that still left a half-dozen enormous, heavy boxes sealed tightly in the general cargo hold. All of this would have been even worse if she’d had to spend it trapped in a smuggling closet or something.

Pacing helped, even if the ship was too small to do much more than that. It let her get away from the Great Binder and Khali and Nocturne and everything that had gone so suddenly wrong in the world. And the empty bed in her room.

Even if it couldn’t really help her escape her own thoughts.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for much of a reader,” Cassia said, suddenly appearing in the room before her. Messy red-brown hair, bloody shirt, all was exactly as it had been last time. “Evil pirates aren’t much for intellectual pursuits, are they?”

Florette jumped, holding her hand to her sword. “What do you want?” This isn’t supposed to be happening. I’ve left Malin!

“I just want to talk.” Cassia’s eyes narrowed. “We didn’t get the chance earlier because you were too busy stabbing me to death.”

The image filled her mind once more, Cassia bleeding out on the floor as the wood beneath her stained red. Florette pushed it out of her head as fast as she could manage, drawing her sword. “Then talk. What even are you?”

Cassia stretched and shifted, growing in height, until Governor Perimont entirely replaced her, hole in his chest where his heart would have been. “I’m something not much threatened by that.” He waved his hand dismissively at the sword. “I survived King Romain’s charge on the day of the Foxtrap. Your little knife is nothing, girl. It suits you.”

Is this just how it’s going to be, now? Will they follow me everywhere? The thought was almost too horrifying to contemplate. “I killed you. That’s not nothing.”

“Certainly, Malin will face challenges, bereft of my leadership. But the bones are strong. This is but a temporary setback, and a minor one at that. For the moment, Captain Whitbey is a capable steward, and he is not alone. Even now, my wife is returning to finish what I started, and Simon will grow into his role in time. You accomplished nothing.”

He said that before… Eloise had mentioned that it might be a trap left behind by a defeated sage to menace Malin’s occupiers, and the repetition lent some credence to that theory, but it didn’t quite fit. This was reactive, in a way that no trap could be.

Maybe it’s just me…

“I didn’t accomplish anything either.” Cassia sighed, slumping down to the floor. “I never managed to slay a spirit or protect an innocent life. My life was cut short too soon to do anything, all gone to waste.” Abruptly, she hardened her gaze, jumping back up to a standing position. The transition was so sudden as to be unnatural, not unlike when her face changed back and forth from Perimont’s. “Nothing for it but to get right out and start making a difference now! Starting with the spirit conclave. It’s important and it’s necessary.”

Wait, what? “How can you change your mind just like that? And a Spirit conclave…” Florette blinked, competing possibilities racing across her mind. “Are you a construct of some sage’s magic? Someone spirit-touched as they died? Or—”

“An evil spirit most foul,” Perimont interrupted, a snarl on his face. “The sort of disgusting thing that feeds on misfortune, fueled by deaths taken in retaliation. The sort of deaths you took, stupid girl.”

A spirit… What would a spirit be doing here, on this ship? Why is it tormenting me?

“That’s how you caught my attention, you vile little worm. You murdered me for the fallen, and so the Fallen took notice.” His form twisted and shifted again, shrinking to fit Cassia once more. “I’m adaptable. Fierce. I can take on whatever comes my way.” Abruptly, she began to sob. “Even if it wasn’t enough.”

“Um… Are you alright? Is…”

Perimont nodded. “I’m no expert on spirits myself, but I’m remembered by some binders that I fought alongside. Lord Arion, for example, among others. They might explain that a spirit such as myself, worthless carrion feeding on the souls of the damned, can only harvest their energy and not their being. Imperfect impressions drawn from living memory, rather than a true reflection of character.

“How might Cassia Arion react to her own death? None alive have seen her do so, and so guesses must be made, divined from what information still remains.” Perimont stopped talking, and Cassia continued where he left off. “Father thinks I would mope and grieve because that’s what he’s doing. But my cousin Luce remembers my personal drive and ambition best, because that’s where he connected with me the most, and the part of me that he feels most guilty about letting you snuff out.”

“You don’t have to keep rubbing it in.”

“But I do.” Her voice took on an ominous tone. “I appear before killers in the form of the lives they’ve taken, that they might never forget. You were in real danger of simply moving on, compartmentalizing away the guilt.” Flames began to creep up around the sides of her face, smoke and haze obscuring the form until only a vague silhouette remained, a sword sticking out of its chest. “You don’t even remember me, after all. Stabbed to protect your friend Fernan on the day of the duel. I can see that I haven’t entered your thoughts even once.”

That’s right… In all the smoke and fighting, Florette had reached out almost blindly, just trying to get a sense of footing and avoid being killed. Was he one of the sun sages or one of the Fox-King’s guards? In the smoky haze, there was no way to even tell.

“That had to be done. I was protecting us.”

“Precisely,” Perimont agreed. “Sacrifices made to preserve things of greater importance. Civilization cannot expand without cost, after all. If a few rebels must hang to let the message sink in, what of it? In one hundred years no one will grieve for them. Even I might not be much remembered. But that matters not. Society endures. Civilization can persist long after the likes of us are gone, spreading and propagating without end and improving the lives of all under its care.”

Florette frowned. “That’s not the same at all and you know it. I was protecting a friend by killing one person, not some vague elitist notion of civilization by killing hundreds.”

“It’s not the same,” the burning shadow agreed. “But you ought to remember, just the same. Life is never taken without cost, and rarely does it not serve someone in turn.” Cassia took a deep breath. “But I’m not hostile to you, Florette. I’m simply taking a ride to Guerron alongside you.”

“You know my name?”

“I’m drawing on your impressions and memories for this very conversation. Of course I know your name. It’s time you knew ours.” The smoke from the burned man expanded slowly, drifting further throughout the cabin. “We are the Fallen, the remnants of those past. A life taken for a life, a retaliatory strike. And we will be silent no longer. The convocation to decide Soleil’s successor fast approaches.”

A spirit, traveling to Guerron to decide Soleil’s successor... “He’s dead, then? That’s why the sky went dark?”

“I would say ‘as dead as I am’, but that would confuse the issue. Yes. Soleil is no more.”

Instantly, things began to slot into place. The book’s account of Khali didn’t match what was happening because it wasn’t what was happening. It explained this happening almost two thousand years before it was supposed to, too. “And once Soleil’s successor is picked, we’ll have a sun in the sky again, right?”

The Fallen nodded.

“Alright. Ok.” Florette took a breath, centering herself in the room. If that’s true, then my next move just got a lot clearer. Had it somehow known she was thinking about how little she could do? “If you can pull information like that, maybe you can help me. Do you recognize this book? Can you tell me whether it’s real?”

Perimont took it from her hands, flipping through dismissively. “I’m afraid it would simply be too expensive. You’ve never met the Great Binder, insignificant little vermin that you are, and few remain alive who have. Fewer still that actually interacted with her in any meaningful way. Were one of them present, we could easily manifest her shade and determine how well it compared to this book, but there is no personal connection here, and drawing across such distance would waste an enormous amount of energy at a time when it’s at a premium. Not to mention putting ourselves in grave danger for no clear benefit. It’s simply not worth it, you ignorant fool.”

Does it have to keep using the form that’s so prone to insulting me? If the real Perimont knew his face and voice were being used to fuck with his killer like this, he’d probably be laughing smugly right now

Without being sure the book was real, it was hard to really know whether the spirit-fighting techniques within it were legitimate, and relying on bad information was an easy way to die. Luckily, Florette had someone else in mind she could talk to about it, even if they weren’t fully reliable either. Still, more information was a good start.

Before she could ask another question, Florette heard a knock against her cabin door. “Almost there! Guerron’s in sight now, if you want to come look.”

Finally!

“We shall continue this at another time.” Perimont folded his arms, dissolving into smoke gradually until nothing visible remained. Which raised all kinds of other questions, since as far as Florette and the Great Binder’s book said, spirits still had to exist somewhere. But that was a minor question, easily left for another time, after more important matters were attended to.

For now, she crept out of her cabin and walked up to the deck, making her way towards the bow for a better look. In the ever-present darkness, moonlight was the only way to see anything, and the gibbous moon in the sky was casting less and less of it each night, light side on the left to show it waning.

Florette braced herself to squint at distant shores, but she needn’t have bothered.

High above the water’s edge, a giant circle of red fire filled the sky, deftly illuminating the shores beneath.

“Thank fuck for that, right?” the crewman said beside her, staring out at the horizon. “We were thinking we’d have to slow down even more, send out the dinghies to chart the safest path. Especially with the wind being so weird in all of this. And all the ice… Cripes, that shit’s only been getting worse the further we went.”

“Already?” That was worrisome. “It hasn’t been that long since this all started…” Alarmingly, though, he was right. By the light of the flame, it was easy to see large chunks of ice floating in the water, thankfully still looking distant enough from each other to navigate through, though not trivially.

“It would certainly be faster than last time,” the Fallen whispered with Perimont’s voice, though by the time Florette turned to look, the smoke was already dissipating.

“Did you hear that?” the crewman asked. “It sounded familiar, like one of my old mates from back in the day…” He breathed deep, staring out at the shores in front of them. “Regrettable how all that turned out,” he muttered.

“Just the wind, I think.” It was probably a bad idea to reveal the self-described spirit most foul to people they’d intended to stay hidden from, especially on a boat with nowhere to run. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Florette turned her eyes back to the shore, trying to make out the state of the harbor. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could just make out the tower where Eloise had… the tower that marked the gate between the harbor and the city proper. South of that would be the wall, and…

Florette blinked. “Do you see that, to the south of the light?”

The crewman followed her pointed finger, gasping when he saw it.

Faint, for it was relatively distant from the light, but impossible to miss now that she’d seen it, was a massive distortion in front of the wall, seemingly floating next to it in the water.

No, wait, not a distortion. It was ice, transparent enough to show some of the wall behind it. Nor was it simply a chunk on the water’s surface, or even a large block.

That, just outside the gates of Guerron, was a massive, intricately carved ice castle.