Conquest of Avalon

Camille VI: The Planner

The days were growing longer, Camille knew, but it felt like there was less and less time with each dawn that arrived.

Between training with Lucien, overseeing the sacrifices, managing the offerings at the Temple, and planning for the aftermath of the duel, her only moments of reprieve were spent asleep. And thanks to the help of a bountiful supply of pixie powder, that had been growing shorter as well; she was unable to justify spending any more time in bed than absolutely necessary.

Not to mention handling her informant in the Sun Temple.

As ill-mannered and boorish as Fernan’s friend had been in the initial meeting, the boy was proving pliable enough in his own way. Reliable too, if not particularly enthusiastic. And his utility after the duel was still very much in question given his junior position with the Sun sages. Still, six thousand florins and a sundial were a small price to pay for a set of eyes on the inside.

“You are certain no one saw you?” Camille blinked the fatigue out of her eyes. “Your appearance is quite conspicuous.”

“I’m sure.” Fernan drummed his fingers on the table between them. “No one followed me out of the Temple, and I made sure that no one was around before climbing the gate. It’s strange how sparse the Spirit Quartier is, isn’t it?”

“Not particularly.” Camille leaned back in her chair. “The people here are sages and their households. Most of the lower sages and acolytes have quarters at their temples, and those who don’t make perhaps one trip between the two per day. Not to mention how much fewer people there are in the first place.”

Fernan nodded. “It’s kind of nice. Hard to find time to be alone in the city. What is this building, though?” He gestured his arm around at the dilapidated surroundings. Paint peeled from the walls, scratches and tracks from vermin crisscrossed the wooden floor, and the grounds outside were wildly overgrown from lack of use.

“A Temple to Lunette, the Moon spirit, and an estate for her sages. Duke Fouchand established it here for diplomatic purposes, to engender friendship with the Delunes of Ombresse.” She bit her lip. “When Ombresse was besieged, Duke Delune refused to yield for the better part of a year. As the city starved, he feasted in his palace, all the while singing the praises of those defending his city.”

“Oh, I think Fl––I think someone told me about this. They ate him, right?”

“I doubt it.” Camille shook her head. “I’ve heard all sorts of things about the fall of Malin that I know are just exaggerations and rumors, spread because the story is more appealing than the truth.”

“Did King Harold really call down a bolt of lightning to break the northern walls?”

Camille frowned. “No, but he may as well have. It was one of their contraptions, launching metal balls fast and hard enough to make them crumble. And the sound… It is not for nothing that people compare it to thunder.”

“I see.” He tapped his fingers against the table. “So what happened in Ombresse then?”

“The peasants did pull him from his horse during a procession, and threw open the gates to Avalon. No one found his body afterwards. He was fat, Fouchand tells me, but I imagine the only ones he fed were the cats and dogs. With the gates opened, the grain could flow again.”

The fire in the boy’s eyes narrowed as he leaned back. “Oh.”

“Regardless, we will not be disturbed here, provided you did not lead anyone to it.” She placed her arms on the table, leaning forward.

“I didn’t.” He flicked his head back and forth. “And I don’t see anyone now, either.”

“Good.” It certainly seemed a useful ability, tracking heat through all manner of obstruction and far into the distance, with his flaming eyes cultivating a fearsome image to match. But people so changed by the spirits always paid a price for it, usually far more than the boon was worth. Not for nothing had all of the sages alive in Guerron refrained from seeking permanent alterations like this, nor any of the Leclaires in the last two hundred years. From what he had said, Fernan was no exception. “What do you have for me, then?”

“Right.” He took a deep breath. “Lord Lumière maintains the utmost confidence in his victory, an opinion shared by the other sages. No one’s even discussed the possibility of him losing, or what things would look like afterwards if he did.”

“And the boy?”

“Aubaine?” Fernan smiled. “He’s cute. Adventurous little guy, too. I caught him today in the cellar trying to steal wine so he could go on a vision quest. Lord Lumière was not happy about it.” The flames in his eyes dampened down, flickering as they did. “Nothing’s going to happen to him, right? He didn’t do anything wrong.”

Interesting.

“You have my word,” Camille assured him. “My quarrel is with the father, not the son. But if little Aubaine has taken a liking to you, that could be very fortuitous indeed. Do what you can to further win his affections.” Even if Fernan were excluded from any formal regency, a lowly sage of a lesser spirit, a personal relationship with the soon-to-be child lord would be invaluable at arranging a peace.

“I’m going to show him Mara later. Promised I’d do it after his lessons.” He frowned. “It feels so calculated though, putting it like that.”

“Peace will be best for him too, Fernan. And Aurelian has made it plain that it cannot exist as long as he lives. Aubaine, however… He is young enough that his father’s hatred has not yet had time to set, nor is he even yet a sage of Soleil.”

Fernan blinked. “Was that in question? He’s six.”

“I was seven when I made my pact with Levian. Exceptional though I was, this sort of thing is not unheard of, especially in times of great trial. Lumière may even initiate him into it before the duel, as a means of winning even in defeat.” Camille bit her lip. “If there is anything at all you can do to forestall that, I prevail upon you to do so. Your reward will increase commensurate with the extra effort. Failing that, at least make it known to me as soon as possible.”

“Sure.” His mouth twisted to the side. “I really doubt it though. He told me that family is more valuable to him than spiritual power. I don’t know Soleil, but if he’s anything like Gézarde, I would be shocked to see Lumière push Aubaine into a spirit contract before he was an adult.”

Camille smiled. “Your patron is not unusual in that regard. There is not a sage alive who has not at least once narrowly avoided their spirit claiming their soul for eternal torment. For most, the moment of greatest danger lies in the initial forming of the contract, but the risk ever remains.” She bit her lip. “Of course, he would want to present a positive image of himself to you. I would not absolve him of suspicion, nor lower your guard. Even if he truly does value the boy above his own power, he will not settle for any situation without both. He has some plan for this duel; I am absolutely sure of it.”

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know about that.” Fernan tapped his finger against his hand. “They’ve been sacrificing more and more people all the time, building up spiritual power that way, and Lord Lumière has been practicing some great burst of spirit magic in turn. A few times every day we’ll hear it, a loud crack ringing through the air.”

“Practicing?” Camille blinked. This was beginning to fall into place. “Of course. Thank you, Fernan.”

“Uh, sure. Happy to help.”

“I should hope so.” She reached into the purse hanging from her belt, pulling out a large handful of coins and tossing them onto the table in front of her. “Here. This is around four hundred florins. Consider it an advance, for services already rendered.”

Fernan raised his eyebrows, bewildered at the gratitude and respect she was showing him. “Oh. Thank you.” These lesser sages made it so easy.

“That will be all.” Camille stood, pushing her rickety chair under the scratched table. “I expect you here again at the same time two days from now.”

“That soon? I don’t think I’ll have anything new to report.”

“Find something.” She turned and walked through the doorway, leaving the ruins of the dining room to enter the main hall. “And wait a few minutes to leave, so there’s no risk of us being seen together on the street.”

Not waiting to hear his confirmation, she made her way down the hall, to the servants’ entrance at the back. There, her horse was saddled and ready, tied to a gate well-hidden by overgrown hedges. After a thorough examination ensured that no one was around to see it, she led it out the back gate and mounted it.

Her mind was racing the entire way back, examining the implications of what the young sage had gleaned from the Sun Temple. What it meant, and how she could counter it.

It was perhaps not enough to fully explain Lumière’s confidence, though given his arrogance that was still a possibility, but it did fill in a key gap in her knowledge.

“It’s just like you said!” Camille yelled to Lucien when she arrived at the top of the hill in Villemalin, the large palace tent catching the light of the sun.

“That seems reasonable.” Lucien’s hair was matted with sweat, his armor still strapped in place from sparring with Christine, although the master of arms did not appear to be present. “What is it that I said though?”

She snorted, dismounting from her horse. “Practice.”

“Ah, of course.” He raised an eyebrow. “Now it all makes sense.”

Camille rolled her eyes. “You talked about how sages’ most powerful expressions of power are often poorly utilized and untrained, since practicing with them is generally a colossal waste of spirit energy. But that’s what Lumière is doing: instead of stockpiling everything, he’s training with his most powerful abilities to ensure he can win the duel.”

“That doesn’t sound much like him,” Lucien noted, sliding his sword back into its scabbard. “He was the worst about firing off a beam of light and hoping it would do the trick. I only had to evade two before I closed the distance and put my blade to his neck. Never wanted to spar with me again, either.”

“He must have learned from it.” Camille shrugged. “Or one of the other sages at the Temple advised him to. In any case, now I have an inkling as to the origin of his overwhelming confidence.”

Lucien scoffed. “It’s just ego. We already knew all that. He doesn’t have a plan for losing because he can’t conceive of the idea. It doesn’t mean he has a master plan.”

She glared. “Take this seriously. It’s fifty of your people in Soleil’s clutches if he bests me, and I’ll be dead besides. I want to believe that he’s just an idiot grasping for power, but I cannot afford to assume it.”

“No, of course.” He wiped sweat from his forehead, looking appropriately ashamed. “I just mean, think about who he is. If he has some master plan to win, it’s probably overwhelming you with pure power. That’s why he’s sacrificing so many people already.”

“That is likely,” Camille admitted. “It would make victory a matter of finesse. Evading until he drains himself of power could be impossible, especially if he were willing to tap into his own life.”

“Which he would be.”

“Which he would be,” she agreed. “Khali’s curse! Why did he have to insist on this?”

Lucien shrugged. “He’s wanted my people gone as long as we’ve been here.”

Camille snarled. “He is too stupid to realize that retaking Malin is the best way for all of us to be free of this putrid city and gone from his presence. Why could he not simply cooperate?”

“Have you asked him?”

“Of course I have!” She waved her hands for emphasis. “He said that it would not solve the core problem and then insulted me. There is no way to get through to him.” Although, if he truly showed the affection for his son that Fernan implied… “We would have to force him to the negotiating table.”

“If Fouchand couldn’t do it, I don’t see why you could, Camille. Just kill him and be done with it.” Lucien placed a hand on her shoulder. “We have to be unified in the face of Avalon. People like him, we’re better off without.”

“I know. I’m only worried that I’m missing something.” Camille bit her lip. “If something goes wrong, promise me that you’ll kill him.”

“I’m offended that you would even ask.” He placed his hand over his heart. “No matter what happens, Aurelian is a dead man. If he wanted to live, he had many chances to stop antagonizing us.”

She nodded firmly, grabbing his hand in her own. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“But you’re going to win.” His green eyes caught the light to almost twinkle. “I believe in you.”

If only that were enough. It was so impossible to be sure of anything. In the council chambers, Lumière was just a moronic bully, easily outwitted. But in a duel? Where his spiritual might could potentially be sufficient to overcome all of her efforts in one fell swoop?

She needed more. More preparations, more information, more anything. There had to be something she was missing, and she would find it before the duel began.

Forcing a smile, she let go and stepped back. “You keep marigold wine in there, right?” She pointed at the palatial tent behind him. “I need all the information I can get.”

“A vision quest?” Lucien raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“We trained at dawn, I helped Annette in town with preparations, and I’ve obtained the day’s information on the Sun Temple. I do not believe there is a better use of my time, at the moment.”

It was, in fact, a rare moment of reprieve, largely due to the fact that she had set aside far more time for the meeting with Fernan than had turned out to be necessary. “I will not waste it.”

“That’s not really what I meant.” He shifted his eyes to the side. “Maybe take a nap, or something like that. Not to mention the danger of misinterpreting things.”

“I know better than to go mad chasing prophecy, or running from reality.” She stared him down. “Lumière’s got his six year old doing it. I cannot fall behind. If there is any insight that can help me see through his plan, or work around his power…”

He nodded reluctantly. “It’s in the storeroom. You’ll drink it somewhere safe, right?”

“Obviously.” Rolling her eyes, she began walking into the tent. “This is nothing new.”

By the time she had the bottle in hand and had traveled back to the empty stretch of beach north of Vetain Tower, the sun was beginning to dip into the water, casting rays of orange and red across the sky. The waves crashed against the rocks, droplets splashing onto her face.

History was rife with stories of sages misinterpreting the often-metaphorical or inapplicable visions that the appropriate substances could induce, but with the right expenditure of power, nothing would be inaccurate, even if it were maddeningly obtuse or misleading.

This was a calculated risk, but lack of knowledge was her greatest source of anxiety about this. Any insights into Lumière’s plan could mean the difference between a pathetic, shameful death, and glorious victory.

Camille gazed out over the ocean as she uncorked the bottle. Taking a deep breath, she tossed it back.

The taste was sweet, clinging to her throat like honey, but far smoother than even that. Pleasant, rather than sickly.

This was the moment where the festival louts would stop, most of them not even sages, then claim that their hallucinations were indications of some greater truth. But they did not have access to the power that she did.

Channeling her spiritual energy into the water in front of her, Camille let loose a pulse through the waves, flattening the water into a disc in front of her. She relaxed her control, allowing the impulses of the energy to guide her shaping of the water, small ridges elevating out of the circle to form shapes that seemed to come alive.

The rest of the world narrowed to nothing but that small point in front of her, pulsating like a beating heart, filled with the energy of the world. The disk began to fill with color, sprays of pink and green and red splashing across it, blurring together and spreading apart as her fingers danced across it.

As she moved her hands, the colors began to coalesce, deep reds and oranges lining the outside, with a bright yellow circle in the center. Points grew out of the top of the circle as the bright yellow faded to beige, until it took on the appearance of a cat’s face, submerged under the water. Flicking her wrist, a purple cloak emerged from beneath, smothering the cat until none of it remained, a yawning void in the center of the reds and oranges.

Camille tried to focus the images into something more concrete, willing the thought into being as she expended more energy. The purple cloak grew and shifted, dancing and swaying as it did, until the figure of a jester filled the frame, a golden crown sitting atop his head. He clasped his hands together, and an explosion of light erupted from him, consuming the entire image.

Once the light faded, a massive glass tower remained in the center, a flailing boy tumbling from it into a darkened gate. Once he passed through, the tower shifted to dark stone, rings around the side, with a crackling black circle at the top that slowly grew until it filled the frame again.

Then the glass towers were everywhere, shimmering in the light of the sun even as it was eclipsed by darkness, throwing them back into shadow.

She saw a dark green serpent riding the crest of a wave with a sense of warm familiarity, dashing a scrap of purple cloth against the rocks at the shore but disappearing itself into the depths of the water.

Focus.

With a final burst of power, she sought out clarity, presence. And that, she found. The images grew crisper, more real, changing faster and faster until they seemed to outpace the movements of her hands.

Duke Fouchand, holding out his hand to a skeleton in a black coat that reached past his knees.

A man in a paper crown, dipping his head to a flaming lizard before devouring it whole.

A fox, gnawing off its leg to escape an iron trap.

A raven, flying after a woman without reaching her.

And Lucien, staring into her soul with his bright green eyes. She reached out to him, but a bolt of lightning struck between them, sending her scrambling back. When she looked up, the sky was free of clouds, only the sun remaining, fading every so gradually into darkness.

By the time she felt normal again, the moon shone bright above the water, casting a shadow behind the tower onto the sand. It felt as if only minutes had passed, but she knew better.

The fatigue filled her again, stronger than before, but she could not sleep yet. Before the images faded, she needed to parse them out, and find the meaning within them.

Metaphors, events happening far away, or deep in the past. Never foretelling the future, as some sages had gone mad believing, but they were always significant in some way. And they were always true.

Given what she had seen, that was scant comfort.