Conquest of Avalon

Camille IX: The Wicked Sorceress

In mere hours, Levian had rendered Charenton a ruin.

Even on the outskirts, the stone walls had visible gouges, cracked and crumbled along with the gatehouse. Beyond the walls, a massive pit had formed, already more than half full of muddy water. And within the city’s limits, it only got worse.

The streets were still flooded to waist height in some places, their drainage system not built to account for a torrent like this. Simply making it to the central square took upwards of three hours of crossing back and forth through the southern region of the city, skirting around the new lake forming outside the city walls. For once, the encroaching Winter was a boon, since otherwise the air would no doubt be thick with mosquitos.

A bad enough flood could do much of this to a city, though Charenton had never faced one nearly this severe, but it wouldn’t have sliced through the foundation of the Hôtel de Ville and sent its upper half crashing into the square, nor collapsed the opera house in on itself, recognizable in its rubble only because of a few less-shattered marble columns poking out of the debris.

The harbor had practically disintegrated, docks reduced to driftwood scattered throughout the city. Occasionally some of the wood was even scorched, which Camille had no idea how to explain. It certainly couldn’t have been Levian’s direct work.

Most of the flimsier houses weren’t in any better condition. Sturdy stone monuments that hadn’t caught Levian’s personal attention could weather the flood, but shacks of thatch and wood didn’t stand a chance. More than half of the buildings they passed looked irreparably damaged, and it only intensified the further in they went. As did the smell.

Twice, to her great embarrassment, Camille had to call a halt and sneak off to relieve herself of stomach sickness, a problem with an easy solution that the frost had snatched from her fingers, as if only to make her final days more cruel.

Levian did this using power my family gave him. Power I gave him.

It was sunset by the time they reached their accommodations, quarters set aside on Anya Stewart’s old ship that Luce had confiscated. With the docks reduced to flotsam, it had skirted around to the northern edge of the city and dropped its anchor as close to shore as the water’s depth allowed, everyone remaining ferried to and fro with rowboats far too few in number for the volume of cargo piled on the beach, probably all that had survived Levian’s assault.

Past the cargo were rows upon rows of tents, starting white in color for several rows before turning motley greys and browns, the tents themselves half the size of their white counterparts. No doubt the constant back and forth from the ship involved supplying them, unless the flow of goods was going the other way.

From the looks of the ridge over the beach, the entire city had sunk by several feet relative to the surrounding countryside, a fact Camille had confirmed when they ascended a shoddy wooden staircase up to exit Charenton’s confines. From there it was a short boat ride to the newly renamed Progress, letters emblazoned on the side beneath the initials A.R.S.

Keeping them out in the water would make it extremely easy to kill them, separated out from the rest of the city where an explosion couldn’t do anymore damage, but if that was to be her fate, so be it. It would barely make any difference anyway.

Camille unpacked her meager belongings from her valise, arranging a Leclaire Blue dress next to a sea green on the bed without being able to decide. The negotiations wouldn’t begin until the next day, so she spent most of the next few hours reviewing the value charts Simon had made for her to assess exactly how much any potential technological or economic offers were worth while Mordred poked around the ship looking for traps.

When he returned to her quarters, it was only to say that he hadn’t found anything yet. However, he fully admitted that Luce was more than his match in this area, and could well have disguised a bomb amidst the heavily-modified workings of the ship’s engines. Scant comfort, but that seemed to be the way of things these days.

Whether it was a trap, Camille fully believed that these were the nicest accommodations left available for guests. Several floors were still closed off for cleaning or repairs—or converted into makeshift dry storage—, but the fact that it was intact at all was a remarkable testament to the threat posed by Avalon’s technology. Seventeen years ago, their ironclad ships had crumpled and sunk when Levian’s High Priest turned the water against them; now, apparently, they could even survive being in the vicinity of the spirit himself.

Ill portent for the future, that they’ve come so far in the time we spent desperately trying to get back to where we started. Camille could only hope that her reforms made a difference once she was gone, the push for new technologies getting the Empire onto a somewhat even footing before Magnifico died.

Otherwise they’d be crushed.

They’d arrived a day earlier than expected, largely because Camille and Jethro had ridden north on their own rather than bring a large procession into this panther’s den from which there was very likely no escape, which meant that they had a day to kill in Charenton before the official negotiations began.

Unaccustomed to this sort of aimless wandering—to having free time in general after the last several months—Camille rotely followed Mordred from the shore into the city, having to hold her nose the moment they left the beach.

“It’s Leclaire!” she heard someone yell, pointing at her with rage in his face. “Levian’s sorceress!”

“It’s the Witch of Dawn!”

“She did this!”

Camille froze as they edged closer, staring at the advancing malcontents with a mix of guilt and resignation. I might as well have. One of them got close enough to spit on her, but he jumped back when Mordred stepped in front of her. He pulled out his handkerchief and wrapped it over the blue in her hair, trying to pull her out of the sight.

Every person they passed had a dirty look for her, either withdrawing to avoid getting close or approaching to spit at her feet and condemn her, but despite their obvious hostility, none of them attacked her.

Apparently they feared the Prince of Darkness more than they hated her, though it seemed to be a near thing.

Eventually, they made it far enough that Camille wasn’t recognized, and the sodden survivors stopped directing their complaints directly at her, but they hardly slowed.

“I saw the whole thing, I did,” said a woman helping clear debris from the town square, still flooded to ankle height even now. “Charenton was finally ready to throw off Avalon’s tyranny, so the Prince of Darkness sicced his mistress’ beast on us all. Leclaire loosed the arrow, but Grimoire gave the order.”

“What makes you so sure?” Mordred asked, keeping his tone as neutral as possible. Or perhaps he simply didn’t feel strongly about it naturally, though given his strange shifts in mood whenever Luce came up, Camille didn’t think it likely.

“The mad scientist got everything he wanted! Simone Leigh was carved in half, her freedom fighters devastated enough that they could barely fend off the monster. Madeline Nella had to turn over all their weapons to avoid being fed to the beast! My cousin heard the Tyrant of Charenton was on his way back from a conspiracy meeting with the Red Knight and Pantera the Undying when Levian struck, plotting his punishment on all of us for rejecting his takeover.”

I speak for Avalon, Camille remembered him saying in his letter, but apparently he didn’t speak for Charenton, for all that his forces ruled it. Knowing Luce, even a Luce hardened by betrayal enough to lure diplomats into an explosive trap, none of that was true, but it was hard not to take some small amount of pleasure in hearing that someone else was in the same boat as her when it came to Charentine opinions.

“Pantera’s been dead for a hundred years,” Camille corrected, not entirely sure why she was bothering. “Slain by Harold Grimoire.” Though knowing Levian, I can’t help but wonder if he was involved in clearing the way for his own ascension to Torrent of the Deep.

“Are you daft, girl? It’s right in the name: Undying.” The woman scoffed, then turned back to her work.

“Try not to mind her,” said a sandy-haired man studying the clearing efforts without appearing to be directly involved. “Her brother served with Leigh and didn’t make it out of the flood. The Prince’s Lieutenant led the beast straight to him.” He sighed. “To think we fled Malin to get away from this. Just our luck.”

“Fled Malin?” Camille bit back her surprise as best she could. “What’s to flee? I hear it’s doing better than ever now that the Prince of Darkness is gone.”

The man shrugged. “Could be, never had to deal with him there. When we left, it was Perimont. Hangings every day in the name of security, and he couldn’t even keep the harbor safe.” Camille couldn’t help but be relieved, even though in practice it made no difference. “I saw him out there with my own two eyes, laughing with his son and the prince—the heir, not Darkness—like a hundred people hadn’t just been immolated right under their noses.”

“No one could have predicted that,” Mordred said, taking a half step back. “It wasn’t really a hundred people, was it?”

“Hundred eighteen. At least, before they stopped counting officially. Thirteen were just schoolkids, not even sixteen years old, grabbing a pastry from The Dockside Bakery. Four died right away along with the baker, but her husband and rest clung to life for days, writhing in agony as their skin tried and failed to knit itself together.”

Camille felt herself grow sick, holding up a finger to excuse herself.

“Sorry, this isn’t a fitting discussion to have in front of a lady. Point is, Prince Harold was there. He saw it all, saw how Perimont reacted, and he trotted back home without a second thought, leaving Perimont to his bloody business. Everyone says that Prince Lucifer is so much worse, a dark-hearted tyrant, but if you ask me the other prince isn’t any better, nor the king. Avalon’s rotten all the way down, chasing power no matter the cost.”

Camille nodded gratefully, peeling away to deal with her problem near the shore. Things were disgusting enough in town as it was, and she was a guest here, however much they might despise her.

“Just like Leclaire.”

She frowned, but didn’t argue the point.

Mordred accompanied her out, not following so much as setting the pace; he seemed even more eager to flee the malcontents than she was. As she turned to face him, more than anything, he looked... guilty.

What are you up to, ‘Jethro’? What are you doing? “I know why I feel sick,” Camille said, trying to read his face for any more clues. “What do you have to worry about?” Because someone arranged that bombing, and stirring up conflict while Magnifico was in Guerron is certainly one way to try to get him out of the way.

“I—” Mordred hesitated. “I’m worried about the negotiations tomorrow. We might both be doomed by fate, but I’d rather accomplish something than die in agony knowing I’d failed, and it’s a real possibility. Not something I’d really thought about until now.”

“So you’re scared?” Camille shook her head. “No, I don’t believe it’s that. You might not be lying, but you’re trying to lead me from the truth. Tell me what’s really going on.”

He exhaled, sinking to his knees as they looked out over the raging waters. “We all have our secrets.”

“They serve no one when carried to the final departure.”

Mordred’s head dipped, his face twisting.

“I ask not to judge. I’m guilty of my own share of death, perhaps even greater than yours. But if I’m to trust you for what’s to come, I need to know the truth, not a convenient evasion. Did you arrange the Malin harbor bombing?”

The wind whistled as Mordred considered the question, then stared back up at her with watery eyes. “It was only supposed to blow up Magnifico’s ship. Avalon had to think they were under attack from Guerron to reignite the war.”

And there it is. “And you stole my earrings to plant them on the ship to frame me for it so I’d look responsible.”

He laughed bitterly, burying his head in his knees. “And it didn’t end up mattering! Such a clever plot to frame you and Lumière—hence the sundials, though he actually was involved—and it never quite came together. Even steering around that Stewart kid with my letters! I—I didn’t know you then, Camille. I didn’t think—I’m sorry.”

Well, that doesn’t count for much. “It doesn’t matter anymore. In a week I’ll be dead.”

“Oh, right.” Mordred stood, pulling out a plant of heart-shaped leaves from his jacket, rumpled and dried, but preserved freshly enough that it still ought to serve its purpose. “This is for you.”

“Silphium.” Camille reached for it, then hesitated. “Annette scoured the countryside. I thought the frost wiped all of it out.” She’d had to look with the utmost discretion, but Camille had no doubt that she’d exhausted every available resource.

“I never go without it. You can’t be too careful.”

Camille let out an incredulous fragment of a laugh, snatching the leaves from his hand. “You’re not wrong about that.”

“Well, I hope it helps. If I were going to die in a week, I wouldn’t want to be pregnant either. Though maybe it’s already too late, if it’ll leave you infirm for the negotiations.”

“Much healthier than I am right now.” Camille let her immense relief show, trying to momentarily look past the fact that he’d tried to frame her for mass murder. The fact that he’d failed was scant comfort, but the commiseration and service he’d offered since... Granting her this reprieve when it mattered most...

Was there any point in holding a grudge when she’d be dead in a week anyway?

“Really?”

“Immeasurably.” Camille patted him on the shoulder, not sure if she should really be soothing him. “Silphium is infused with the magic of Erones, spirit of bonds. He created it so that love could be easy, uncomplicated. But it’s still fragile, in the frost as in life. I’ll be better again by tomorrow. More than better, given how the last few weeks have gone.” She frowned. “If you always keep it on you, I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Well—” Mordred blushed. “I just made sure they got it. There wasn’t usually much talking afterwards.”

Camille raised an eyebrow. “‘They’, is it? Well, I wouldn’t know about that. And I’m not ungrateful, not at all, but our earlier topic of conversation was, I’m afraid, not yet finished.”

“...Oh.”

Despite herself, Camille reached out and embraced him, then pulled back. “I have a plan in mind for once these negotiations are worked out—provided Luce’s surprise doesn’t kill us, anyway. But I need to know I can trust you. As nice as this is, it doesn’t change what you did.”

“But—”

“Or what I did.” Camille sighed. Nothing ever will. “Why are you really doing this? Tell me now or slink off to whatever doomed fate awaits you. But I have to know if we’re going to do this together.”

Mordred reached towards her, then stopped himself. “I suppose it is time I told you the truth. Not that I’ve ever knowingly lied to you, but...” He sighed, then reached for his face. “I did bargain with the face stealer in Guerron, and what she gave me was crucial to deceiving Luce, but...” He pulled the skin from his chin, ripping off his own face with a gruesome tearing sound, until the blonde Jethro visage was simply a mask in his hand.

Beneath it was the guise he’d used when impersonating Prince Harold, apparently his real face.

“Magnifico—Harold Grimoire—really is my father. I was never lying to Luce about that. I didn’t realize what a monster he was until a few years ago, but he never really cared about me.”

“A third son of the king.” Camille nodded as everything clicked into place. “That’s why Luce saw a Harold in Cambria when you were still in Malin.” They must be twins, but then why wouldn’t Mordred have been raised a prince? Perhaps it was related to his curse—twins were often a sign of magical portent, for good and for ill in equal and opposite measure, the two spirits pulled to their extremes to avoid resembling each other. Of course, actually acting on that was barbaric and outdated, not to mention enormously hypocritical given how Magnifico approached spirits and magic. From what I recall, his appearance is exactly the same too, plus twenty years of aging. “So this is all just about family resentment? Luce and Harold got the royal treatment while the bastard was left out in the cold?”

Mordred’s eyes narrowed. “He wants me dead, Camille, just like Soleil and the Duke, like Lumière. It’s useful to him, and that’s all he cares about: power, no matter the cost. I only picked ‘Boothe’ because Mordred Boothe is an anagram of ‘Doomed Brother’.”

Doomed by fate, he said once. Whatever Magnifico had planned for him, Mordred apparently didn’t think he could escape it forever. Camille wasn’t sure how to unpack that, though, so she simply asked, “Anagrams? Isn’t that a bit childish?”

“Being overly concerned about the appearance of being childish is a bit childish.” Mordred shrugged. “It’s something of a family tradition. The first Harold Grimoire did the same thing when he infiltrated Micheltaigne as ‘Laird Heirgroom’. My father is lazier about it now, though, given he just took the name of a street in Cambria for his alias. It wasn’t my first choice anyway—that was ‘Jethro’, of course.”

“It’s not a bad name,” Camille—who had taken a similarly lazy approach as Carrine Bourbeau—offered sincerely. “Better than Grimoire, that’s for certain.”

“Maybe...” He pressed his hand to his face. “Luce was always his favorite, got all the lessons and attention, and it seemed like they were so in sync. I thought I had to get him out of the way just as much as Father, but... When I met him again in Malin, he’d changed so much, expanded his perspective—or maybe there was always more to it than I’d realized, eyes clouded by jealousy and resentment.”

“It’s made all of us do things we regret.” Laura Bougitte, for example. “There’s nothing to do but be better going forward. I have to believe that.”

“I almost got him killed, Camille! Twice! When I tipped off those pirates, I knew it was a possibility and I didn’t even care! And then once I spoke with him, I realized that he might have even been willing to help with my plan... It’s...” He trailed off, uncertain and despondent. You also helped depose him from Malin, even after that fateful meeting apparently changed your opinion.

Perhaps he was still hiding something, but after the magnitude of what he’d confessed to, it was just as easy to believe that he’d been stuck in his old thinking long enough to see it through, even when circumstances had changed. “It’s impossible to know. But you didn’t get him killed. He’s alive, here in this city.”

“Yeah, probably readying a trap to kill us.”

“Maybe, but he could have done it the moment we got on that ship. From the sounds of things, it would have helped his image in Charenton too.” Though if he’s not trying to kill us, I have no idea what his game is, and I may yet fail to survive it. “You said he might have helped with your plan... You framed Guerron for the harbor bombing; that was supposed to start a war while Magnifico was in Guerron... getting him captured, just like he is now. So it worked, despite not going as intended?”

“Better than I could have hoped for.” He nodded to himself. “Whatever else I’ve done, I stopped him from ruling Avalon. That’s worth something. I made my mark on the world. I have to believe it was worth it. We stopped him, Fernan and I, and now he can’t do any more damage until he dies.”

“So long as he isn’t freed.” Your friend Fernan turned that into a clear and present danger, when previously the possibility was remote.

“So long as he isn’t freed...” Mordred nodded. “Part of why I respect you is that I know you feel the same way as I do about that. You’ll do whatever it takes, no matter the cost. I saw that as you maneuvered around Luce, but it’s been a hundred times stronger since then. You spent the final months of your life dragging this continent kicking and screaming into the second century. You aren’t beholden to traditions. You aren’t afraid.”

I’m terrified. I have to die and I’m not ready. “There wouldn’t be any point. We have work to do.”

≋

The next morning, Camille felt as if she'd been given a new life—if perhaps a brief one.

“I extended safe conduct to the delegates from Malin for negotiation of terms, and I intend to honor my word. If any one of you attempts to break my vow, by any means, there will be consequences.” Prince Lucifer Grimoire was dressed nearly all in black as he addressed the discontented crowd; from his boots to the collar of his cape, only a few red crescent designs on his shirt cut through the darkness at all. One eye was covered by a black patch, gauze padding held beneath it, while the other held no warmth. From the looks of the large vertical scar from his cheek to his forehead, Levian had taken a personal interest.

“You don’t want to find out what they are,” Charlotte insisted, gesturing towards the massive new lake just beyond the walls with one hand while her other grasped the pistol at her belt. Of course she’d be here too. Standing close at Luce’s side with both a sword and gun on her belt, she looked ready to tear through the crowd herself. It galled, seeing a native Malinoise abandoning her people for Avalon, but that was so far from important that Camille didn’t spare it another thought. There had been traitors before and there would be traitors again, from now until the end of time. Camille supposed she was serving someone loyally, for all that it was bafflingly misdirected.

Luce’s guards parted around Camille and Mordred as they approached. She could see him mutter something to Charlotte upon the sight of Mordred appearing with his true face, but from their perspective it would certainly seem like an unnecessary insult.

“Luce,” Camille said as they approached. “Thank you for writing to me. I’m glad we could sit down and talk about this without further bloodshed.”

“Lady Leclaire,” Luce responded coldly. “And Mordred Boothe. What an unexpected surprise! I expected a diplomat’s retinue, of course, but I should have known better than to hope you’d avoid an opportunity to rub my nose in what you did to me.”

“Luce—” Mordred couldn’t get more than a word out before Charlotte interrupted him.

“You will address him as ‘Prince Lucifer’, traitor. ‘Your Highness’ would also suffice.”

Luce looked at her and shook his head. “This isn’t why we’re here. Let’s just go inside and get this over with.”

Camille and Mordred followed them into the bottom floor of the old Magister’s Palace, its front windows missing, though the glass had been cleared away. Set above the rest of the square, the higher elevation had already protected it better than most; the second floor looked almost normal, though the furniture was more utilitarian than the architecture would have normally warranted.

One of Luce’s guards opened a door and ushered them to their seats around a massive conference table. Luce took a seat at the head, window at his back, while Charlotte remained standing just behind him. In front of him was a bronze plaque with carefully carved text spelling out Avalon.

A similar label was propped up in front of Camille’s seat reading Empire of the Fox in script neat enough to be worthy of the words. Mordred sat down beside her in an unlabeled seat, accounting for about half the table. But to Camille’s surprise, a dark haired woman she didn’t recognize was already sitting at the other end of the table behind a placard that read United Lyrion League.

That alone was curious, but the writing over the seat next to her was utterly bewildering.

“Let’s get started then,” said Luce as the final diplomat stepped through the door: a bearded figure with fire spewing from his eyes. Fernan Montaigne took his seat quietly, adjusting the placard in front of him that read Guerron Commune.