Conquest of Avalon

Luce II: The Master of the Tower

It always felt strange returning to Ortus Tower these days. Decades in the making, the Tower had been the symbol of the future for Luce’s entire life, the literal pillar supporting the metaphorical modern society that gave Avalon its strength, for good and ill.

Until Luce had constructed the Memorial in Charenton, it had been the tallest structure built by human hands at thirteen floors, though the Empire of the Fox had always claimed that their palace in Malin won the contest by virtue of the hill it sat atop, as if distance from sea level were the true architectural marvel.

Did that play a role in Father’s decision to tear it apart stone by stone? Did I inherit the same spiteful impulse when I insisted that the Memorial surpass Ortus? It was impossible to say for sure.

Regardless, the power of the old world was waning. Ortus Tower had survived fierce opposition in its day: attacks from traditionalist Cambrian nobles, the Shining Prince’s followers, and even Pantera the Undying herself. But could it survive irrelevance?

The glossy black stone and rigid cylindrical design that had once screamed modern felt more dated than ever, an artifact of the abortive Cambrian Revival movement in architecture that boasted few exemplary buildings outside Ortus and a few outbuildings at the College.

Far older buildings like the Royal Palace where the Grimoires had first landed in Avalon had a weight of history behind them, as if they had fully completed the transition into artifacts. As it stood today, Ortus Tower was caught in an awkward middle ground, a sop to the scientist who preferred to stay close to home rather than build the future in Charenton, unconstrained by the antiquated Avaline interdict against spiritual research.

But is that the inevitable flow of time, or the master of both Towers playing favorites with the one he built? Would it even matter? The fact was, new graduates of singular talent and vision preferred Charenton, while the mediocre seeking nothing more than a comfortable life of reasonable prestige stayed close to home. More than half of the scientists in Ortus predated Luce’s tenure as Overseer by years or decades, slowly collecting mothballs as their research crawled forward.

The elevator was still a rickety birdcage hastily incorporated into the design after the initial phase of construction, as was the ugly dock retrofitted to allow airship moorage. The staircase up the floors was narrow enough that a persistent legend had spread among the scientists that people had been physically smaller at the time of its construction. The cramped offices surrounding each lab, the dearth of windows, all spoke to a building that felt every second as old as its hundred years.

Yet on the roof lay the Nocturne gate, the key to the future. And the only chance I have to save my brothers. As long as the process worked safely, without any wider danger to the world, success could solve the most important issue facing Luce in a matter of months.

Would success pull the gravity of the future back towards Cambria? Would the Memorial Tower one day be a mere artifact in its own right, a remnant of the fanciful ambitions of the despised Prince of Darkness? Not if Luce had any say in the matter. He was still the Overseer of Ortus, still the Prince of Crescents. And no matter how much he protested to Charlotte, he knew that Father would rather he be the one ruling Avalon in his name than Harold, and that he’d do a far better job.

Perhaps once I save Harold’s life, he’ll abdicate out of gratitude. Harold had done stranger things, like slice his own body with a dangerous artifact to create a shadow of himself, then try futilely to deflect his guilt about it onto the mechanics of magic. It was comforting to imagine that as the reason Jethro had opposed him, no longer truly Luce’s brother but an amalgam of Harold, darkness and insanity. Given the conflicting reports about the power of Gemel, it was hardly inconceivable. But even in that most generous interpretation to Harold, he’d still listened to Jethro, still lied to Luce’s face and willingly sent pirates to capture him or worse.

And I’m not fully convinced. Jethro hadn’t done anything in Malin that a spiteful Harold wouldn’t have done himself with proper motivation; four years of sparring with the Prince Regent had made his methods abundantly clear. He’d been apologetic in Charenton, less spiteful even than the original, despite supposedly being Luce’s enemy in a way Harold was not.

And even if he was corrupted by darkness, he’s more a victim than anything. Neither deserved death, let alone the horrifying fate that awaited one or both of them if Father predeceased them.

Failure was not an option.

It was hard to give the department directors the attention they deserved as Luce made his rounds, mind preoccupied with the implacable problem before him. He struggled to focus on even monumental developments, like Wallace Wellesley demonstrating successful communication via the lethiograph all the way to Charenton, Charles des Agnettes conveying the broadest ideas of communication instantly from miles away.

This time, Wellesley received the symbol for fire, the simplified insignia modeled off the Montaignard pin for simplicity and clarity. That meant consumption, danger, spread, but also warmth, passion, drive, and the future. What did it mean that Charles had conveyed that message here? Wellesley wasn’t entirely sure, and neither was Luce.

With refinement, it could render the semaphore telegraph towers scattered across Avalon wholly obsolete. Without it, the lethiograph was as obtuse as the spiritual visions it was derived from, improved only because it was theoretically accessible to anyone. But in such a state, it was likely to remain a specialized curio, suitable only for the rare instances when it was worth giving up clarity for speed, and had access to one of the rare individuals who could reasonably parse the symbology for even a vague sense of meaning.

Crete was still absent, waylaid in Charenton by what she claimed was a spark of inspiration, so Rebecca filled in to give her report, a routine accounting of modest developments in the DV bomb, largely in concentrating the radius for a more powerful, geographically constrained result. Useful, especially in limiting the damage should it ever need to be used, but iterative, far from the sort of inspiration that would normally prompt Crete to duck Luce’s summons to Cambria.

“Well, if you ask me, I think it’s just a cover. Kelsey told me she met someone down there. Isn’t that an interesting thought?”

Interesting and bizarre. The Marbury family name was allure enough on its own for most suitors, and Lucretia’s brilliance more than enough to single her out from among them. Her greatest flaw, a lack of morality, was if anything only a benefit to most of the notable families of Avalon. She had no lack of options, nor had she ever expressed any particular interest in dalliances with commoners, married rather to her work.

Unless this is just another ploy, angling for more power or influence with me. Even then, it ought not to matter too much, since she was already on the ship heading back. Obviously the temptation, be it from Camille or the mystery man, hadn’t been sufficient to draw her in.

“I heard from Sabine too—her boat’s arriving tomorrow morning. Apparently she met your friend Fernan in Guerron and they hit it off, too.”

“Maybe that’ll finally be enough common ground to get her to accept my invitation to dinner.” Learning from Camille, Luce had made the painful effort to keep his most valuable assets close personally, rather than merely professionally, but Srin Sabine had proven an obstacle to properly cultivating Rebecca, and her apparent dislike was getting more and more difficult to understand. And if she was constantly pouring poison in Rebecca’s ear, it would be difficult to ensure her loyalty.

It was far from a major problem, barely even a minor one, really, but it was perplexing enough to be intriguing. Perhaps a word with Fernan would be enough to finally bring her in. Worth a try, at least.

Luce skipped past his office once he finished his rounds, heading instead up to the roof where the massive dark disc of the Nocturne Gate hung in the sky. With all of the instruments and framing surrounding it, it looked like it was resting normally on the roof, but the reality was that it remained fixed in place, the Tower built up to reach the gate in the sky rather than the inverse.

The radius was wider than the Tower’s itself, the gate visible even from the ground provided one got enough distance, and if the results from the Cloaks of Nocturne held, it could be the key to salvation not only for Harold, but the world. And if we get something wrong, it could usher in an endless Age of Darkness anew. Luce knew the risks, and he had no intention of being reckless.

Today was just a proof of concept. He set up the flashing lights to the same frequency that had worked with the Cloaks, only set up for two seconds of exposure. It had taken minutes for any kind of visible results before, the time for the effect growing the larger the cloth sample, so the massive gate to Nocturne would likely need hours or days for the vibration to take effect. Two seconds might not even be enough to move the needle measuring resonance, but it was also surely too short to avoid any kind of cascade that risked opening the gate.

Also readied was the counter-frequency, proven to immediately dampen the effect and return the artifacts of Nocturne to normal, and nearly certain to do the same with the gate. Everything was set to go, but Luce still hesitated. If I’m wrong, this could rend apart the Tower, with Cambria not far behind. Worse, if Khali still lingered in Nocturne, plotting to return to her home, she might leap at the slightest opportunity.

The trick was to open the gate a crack, just enough to siphon power from the dark world on the other side and remedy Pantera’s curse without risking anything unwanted coming back through.

After a moment of thought, Luce shortened the timer to one second, then flashed the light at the Gate.

And nothing visible happened.

Good. Dooming the world would have been pretty bad. His fear had been that the increased proximity to Nocturne would reverse the effect, with the gate reacting faster and more violently to the stimulus, but the clear result was that it scaled just as expected. That made things so much easier.

Even though now I need to find a way to project enough power at the right frequency to overpower the inertia of this massive gate. Nothing at their disposal would be sufficient, Luce realized with a back of hand calculation, which meant exploring novel options.

He rushed back to his office to begin working on the problem, but was surprised to find a black-haired girl with stone grey eyes waiting patiently across from his desk.

“Lady Vas Sarah, thank you for accepting my invitation!” Though I wished you’d made it while Charlotte was still here. Something about the Jay politician’s bearing put Luce ill at ease. She was beautiful, to be sure, and he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with her inability to make eye contact, since he got on fine with Fernan.

And getting this right was crucial, unless Luce wanted to cede control of the Great Council to Harold and his Harpies.

“My pleasure, Your Highness.” Sarah didn’t turn around to face him, instead staring forward across the Overseer’s desk until Luce took his seat behind it. “I’m pleased you remembered my name.”

“Uhhh... of course.” Thank you for bringing that up again, as if it wasn’t embarrassing enough the first time. When Luce first had approached the Jays about the Treaty of Charenton, he’d called her Cindy, and Sarah seemed ill-inclined to ever let him forget it. Off to a great start.

In an effort to reset things, Luce poured her a glass of brandy and set it loudly on the desk to draw her attention to it, then poured a glass for himself. “You’ve read my proposal?”

“It’s certainly an interesting idea.” She smiled, looking more devious than elated. “I speak for the Jays when I say that we’re all confident in our constituencies. Your proposal won’t unseat any of us, while it should gut the power of those Harpy pillocks who never lifted a finger for the peasants of their respective boroughs.”

“So you’re amenable?”

“Provided all goes well in Carringdon?” Her unseeing eyes stared straight through Luce. “We’ll consider it. But we have serious concerns. For one thing, you’ve yet to give us much upside.”

Oh, fantastic. “Breaking the Harpies isn’t enough?”

“If it were a sure thing? Perhaps. But you’re asking us to cede power, nominally at any rate, in order to prop up your Aunt. I just don’t see the benefit as outweighing the cost.” Sarah leaned back in her chair, her voice going sickly sweet. “There’s more we’d want from you, to make this an equitable proposition.”

She reminds me of Camille, Luce finally realized, instantly placing his unease. Which really isn’t fair—there are plenty of pretty noblewomen who aren’t plotting to steal a city from me, I’m sure. Still, it made Charlotte’s absence feel all the more acute. Malin had been Luce’s greatest failure, and the single largest reason had been a failure to listen to his Lieutenant.

And I have good reason to be wary of making commitments that she hasn’t vetted. But could he afford to wait, with Carringdon tipping the balance of power until the situation was resolved? Not likely.

“What do you want?” Luce asked frankly, not bothering to maintain the polite tempo—cutting through the facade straight to the heart of an issue had always been the most effective way to deal with Camille, and likely the only reason he’d been able to press her to sign the Treaty of Charenton at all.

“Oh, nothing much.” Sarah chuckled, sending a shard of dread straight into Luce’s spine. “The first thing is something you’d want anyway, I’m sure. One of your journals in Charenton is sniffing after the Twilight Society, with an eye towards Crete Marbury in particular. So far it goes no further than a woman named Marie Laure, but this could spread if left alone. You need to kill it.”

“Did you mistake me for Lord Monfroy? I’m not going to kill a journalist for you.” Even Camille had found a way to deal with the journal problem better than that, though it served her more than me by orders of magnitude.

“Kill the story, Luce. Come now, I wouldn’t want you to do anything immoral. It’s your city, and there’s none of the Avaline speech protections to contend with.” She placed her hand on the table, almost an invitation. “Crete works for you. Do you think you would come out smelling of marigolds if a journal in your city tore her apart for unethical research done on your watch? It’s as I said, mutually beneficial. Really, you should be thanking me for making you aware of it in the first place.”

Thinking about Crete, the DV bomb might be one answer to the power problem with the Nocturne Gate. In its current state, it wouldn’t even be possible to test compatibility without wiping Cambria off the map, but if Luce recalled correctly, there were a few Nocturne gates far from any civilization, out at sea or high in the sky or in the windswept Fortan Highlands... This could work. But not if the Great Council was falling apart behind him. After Malin, Luce would never again abdicate his political duties to focus on the scientific problem before him.

So Luce grit his teeth, then hissed out a reluctant, “Thank you.” That didn’t mean ceding all negotiating power, however. “But the Twilight Society has nothing to do with me, and it’s not as if it covers all of the Jays either. Why should I step in to protect Monfroy and his little club?”

“Because I asked you nicely.” She smiled again, removing her hand from the table. “And because your little election scheme is dead in the water without willing Councilors using it for their seats. Burn Monfroy if it has to be someone, but it’s important to keep the damage contained. You wouldn’t want to lose Crete, or Rebecca’s Sabine for that matter.”

“Sabine’s in the Twilight Society?” Does that explain her dislike for me, sight unseen, or only make it more confusing? Hard to be sure when it was far from the most important thing to consider at the moment, so Luce stuck the thought on the shelf for later. “Nevermind. My real question is why you want to keep it. You have advanced warning—it should be easy to distance yourself and any other Jays before any news breaks out, let Monfroy hang with the society while you come out clean.”

Sarah sighed, maintaining her unblinking stare. “We’re the last people left who care about the truth when it comes to Nocturne. Considering the gate right above our heads that you’ve been so insistent on tinkering with, I’d think you of all people would understand the value of that. Do you want to go after the power of Khali’s domain with only binders and scientists who know nothing about it, raised by decades of propaganda?”

“Avalon’s blindspots don’t mean that you’re right just because you believe something different,” Luce said, and meant it, but he couldn’t help but grant to himself that she had a point. There was obviously more to Nocturne than the official accounts said—Luce knew that personally, after his experiments.

That didn’t say much in favor of the Twilight Society though. He’d seen his ancestors make sacrifices to Khali in this very city, when it had been nothing but a few grounded ships on a beach. They were a continuation of that ideology, the old Cambria and the old Grimoires, when Luce was trying to do something new.

“Your brother doesn’t seem to have the same compunctions. He removed several artifacts from your family archives and donated them to the Tancredi museum, including the white IXI brick and its tentacled tendrils.”

What? Luce almost spat out his brandy with bewilderment. “IXI?”

“Text printed on the white brick. You should go see it for yourself. The point is that he seems more invested in the truth of history than you are, and his harpies might similarly be better partners in the advancement of the truth.”

“Well, that’s obviously not true.” The northern heartlands where they drew most of their support had fought or feuded with the Mamela since long before the Grimoires had ever made it to Avalon. They certainly would want nothing to do with a coalition of Jays and the western isles. “Harold’s just doing it as a ‘fuck you’ to our father, just like most of what he does these days. He’s a child throwing a tantrum. What I’m proposing is a real partnership.”

“Then invite us in, Luce. We all stand to benefit.” She clinked her glass of brandy against his, then took her first sip. “It’s time the western isles had a College of their own, don’t you think? We were hit harder by the summer of darkness than anyone else in Avalon, thanks to the vaunted decisions of the royal family. Wouldn’t it be nice to pay that back? An endowment from the Prince of Crescents, focused not only on your scientific achievements but literature and history, the real history... That would go a long way towards setting things right, don’t you think?”

It sounds like you want to craft a propaganda mill and you want me to pay for it. Whatever was true about their beliefs and whatever was false, taking that approach was antithetical to science. But what was the alternative? Refusal would kill any partnership with Sarah, and with it, the rest of the Jays. Luce could push back on smaller points in the educational content, ensure that history wasn’t swept aside where inconvenient to her aims, maybe. It was worth a try, surely? To make sure the rest didn’t fall apart?

Charlotte wouldn’t want him to flinch at doing what was necessary. Already, she was in Carringdon, ensuring that they had any chance of success at all. What would she say, if Luce told her that he’d blown up the whole thing over something as small as this? It’s just a starting point. I’ll still have leverage.

“The truth is as it is, whatever we think about it. I’d be happy to support an institution in the western isles providing that education to anyone who wants it. Including literature and history,” Luce finished with a trace of disgust on his tongue. “I’ll talk to this journalist and make sure there’s no blowback that we don’t want. And I’ll ensure that the Jays are key partners in any coalition that forms once the Harpies fall. Satisfied?”

“Eminently.” Sarah raised her glass. “To the truth!”

“To the truth,” Luce echoed less enthusiastically, hoping dearly that he hadn’t made a horrible mistake.