Chapter 641 – She-Devil of Rancais
There is little good that can be said about Anassa or her Sorcerers. They are a headache. We have no general way to deal with them, Anassa does not want them to be dealt with in the first place. She has stated to me multiple times that they are her kingdom, and that just as she does not try to interject into the business of Kavaa’s Clerics, of Fer’s beastmen or of Kassandora’s army, she expects that the same respect is given to her. They are hers, hers alone, and they are not to be touched. She has even told me today that if I have so much time to be busy worrying about her, then I should ask Malam for more work.
Unfortunately, in this regard, Arascus is also incompetent. He treats the Sorcerers not as problems to be solved but as tools to be used. After the war, they are simply going to be dealt with eventually. ‘Dealt with’ in this situation, I do not know what he means. Will he just kill them? I highly doubt that. Will they be given estates in the countryside? Maybe cottages somewhere rural and then just excluded from general society? Of one thing, I am certain, there is no world or timeline in which a sorcerer is able to hold down a job or be used in any sort of civilian employment. The only who can be reasoned with are those who have recently completely their awakening.
Anyone who deals with sorcerers on a constant basis will soon realise that they do not ever get better. They simply fall deeper into their delusions of power. They have one Divine, it is Anassa. It is not like a human, where one day they may compare themselves to Fer for charisma, to myself for romance, to Kavaa for (wrongly-assumed) charity, to Kassandora for strength of will, to Arascus for success. No. Everyday, they spend themselves working in Anassa’s shadow. The woman is a Divine and every listen she holds, she taunts them as to why they are so incompetent that they cannot match her. It is so easy after all, if she can do it, why can everyone not?
Ultimately, it is a mindset I can fathom and I find utterly repulsive. On a general level, there is no single fashion in which they can be integrated. Granted, all souls need a special touch, but there are general patterns we can use to aid them. With Sorcerers, the pattern would be a removal from Anassa’s influence. A task like that would be like trying to make a fish exist without water.
The only, single, positive I can say from the perspective of managing the population of Sorcerers and the single reason that I don’t throw my hands up whenever I stray to the problem of integrating them is that they are so few in number. Whereas in the Great War, the Empire had tens of thousand of them, here, they barely measure over a thousand. Arascus has simply given her too much to do for her to create more of her devoted followers.
Ultimately, what I dread and what I think will happen, is that I shall be tasked with individual, case-by-case rehabilitation, for each of these learned killers.
- Excerpt from the Private Diary of Goddess Helenna, of Love
Jacques looked over the blinking lights of the Bolfech Control Room. Nothing out of the ordinary today, just as there was nothing out of the ordinary yesterday, it was the same job he had turned up to a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. He had seen Epan Separation, Imperial Epa, the Anarchia Crisis, all of it. And nothing had stopped him from simply waking up in the morning and going to work.
He sipped his coffee as Francois and Henri both pulled out their phones. This was the daily ritual, once the checks were done, once everything was working, what was there to do in a power plant? Simply watch the numbers go up? This is what their life had come to down, reading about the war, talking about pretty girls, and trying to kill time. “The fleet is going to sail out in Arseille.” Francois said.
“I’ve heard that. Did you see? They got Deferre.”
“I didn’t like him.” Jacques said over his coffee. “Do you know his son?”
“What about him?”
“He got a conscription letter.” Jacques had read up all about it on the forums. The Empire wasn’t corrupt, he couldn’t believe that. But likewise, some people knew which strings to pull and where to pull them. “Guess where he got sent to?”
“Where?”
“Strat bomber squadron.” Jacques said. “You can confirm it, it’s fucking real. Dude is flying now.” The rest of the room stared at him. Henri and Francois just narrowed their eyebrows. The lights in front blinked green, as they always did, everything was running smoothly on that huge board that was akin to seeing a night-time city from the bird’s eyes view. Francois kicked his deck and rolled across the room towards one of the cabinets which held snacks.
“Flying?” He just said. “What fucking flying?”
“Exactly.” Jacques said. “He’s sitting who the fuck knows where. What a life.” Henri chuckled in laughter as he caught a chocolate bar Francois threw across the room. Jacques caught his own and began to peel off the wrapper. “That funny?”
“Well.” Henri said. “We’re not ones to talk, are we?” He looked over to the green board then back at the other engineers of the Bolfech nuclear power plant. “What the fuck do we do?” Francois and Jacques both burst out in laughter at that. Francois rolled his hand through his brown hair.
Jacques put his wrapper down and bit into the bar. Honey-nut this time. The fridge was almost always stocked, supposedly they were to keep in the cabinet besides it, but the bars always tasted better when they were crunchy. “We work hard.” He turned back to the screen. All green, everything working as it should. The computers here ran the power plant, the men were only in charge of reacting in an emergency. It was a blessing of a job, they were as essential as men got. There was simply no getting around the fact that the nuclear power plants needed engineers to operate, if the world was ending tomorrow, they would still be here today, still working and monitoring and only seeing the conscription officer when he came to get a brother or a neighbour and never them.
“Working up a sweat.” Francois said and threw his wrapper into the bin. “I found a new game recently.” And so things settled down. The daily conversations started. They stopped when the computer began to pull a single control rod out part-way to increase the power. Francois dropped a joke when it finished by itself and the light changed from blue: adjusting to green: steady. “Phew, I’m tired after that.”
The laughter died when the door slammed open.
Francois, Jacques and Henri all shot up in their seats when they turned towards it. Shouldn’t they have gotten an alert? Maybe it was an inspection? But then how could it be an inspection? Inspectors did not come in military uniforms.
A group streamed into the room, men and women in dark red coats that hung low, all with caps, all with red outlines on their fringes. Jacques had seen them before, on the news and on the internet. Back during the Anarchia Crisis, they had come too. Well, one of them at least. There wasn’t a single person in Rancais who did not know the She-Devil Sorcerer that had butchered its way through Rancais. Supposedly ending up in her unit was a punishment for the worst of the worst. There were times when Jacques hadn’t even believed she existed, that she was just a myth told by soldiers to make themselves seem more impressive than they already were. “I am Sorcerer-Captain Fleur Ambelee.” She spoke in perfect Rancais. “This power plant is seized for military purposes.” She crossed her arms and looked around the room. “I was expecting five.”
She could not have been possibly any older than twenty one. Jacques would believe it if she told them she was still in her teens. And yet she stared at the three engineers with a gaze far worse than any teacher, either of his parents, his boss, even when the recruiters came round, they were more friendly than that. The men around Fleur were all taller than the Sorcerer-Captain. All more physically imposing and all of them made sure that they did not get an inch ahead of her. Fleur’s eyes narrowed. “Well?!” She shouted. “Have we lost two men? Where the fuck are they?!”
“They’re not in!” Henri replied immediately, his own voice a reactive shout more born out of the terror than anger. For a moment, the group went still. Some eyes grew wide for a moment. Lips pursed.
“Did you just raise your voice at me?” Her voice was stone cold. She practically bit at the air. “You civilian?” She said the word with all the vile hatred of a slur.
“No Ma’am!” Henri shouted back and realised his mistake. He immediately correct himself, bringing his voice down to that of a submissive servant. The girl may have been the youngest person in the room, but she carried herself with all the authority of a Divine. And she obviously did not like that answer either.
“If you open your mouth again, I will cut out your tongue.” She hissed. Then looked to the others Jacques and Francois. “Shut down your power plant, now.” Francois and Jacques looked at each other, then at Henri, then at Fleur. “Do your ears work or are you deaf?”
“Won’t that cause a blackout?” Francois asked. Jacques already knew the answer. It would. The major cities in the south would need to be told, as would the rest of the grid so that the other stations could up their power outputs. Fleur turned to Francois, if glares could kill by themselves, the man would be dead a dozen times over by now.
“Did I ask for your precious and honoured opinion?” Her voice was full of sarcasm. Francois opened his mouth and closed it. That was the smart thing to do. “Write me a risk assessment whilst your at it.” She bit each word off, then turned to the board of green. “How long does it take to shut this down?”
“Into what state?” Francois asked. Fleur turned to him, her brows went, one of the men she had brought with her shook his head. The silence held for a few moments as Fleur thought.
“Off state.” She replied. Jacques hoped that Francois would catch onto what the Sorcerer-Captain meant. It was the most obvious thing on Arda. She wanted a total shutdown of the reactor. Either Francois was being difficult or he was stupid, the second at least was excusable. But Jacques imagined it was the first, after all, who would take orders from a girl that stormed in? She was half their age after all!
“But there’s-“ Francois began and Fleur snapped her fingers. Crimson wings appeared around her, they turned to spears, they launched forwards, stopping barely an inch from Francois’ neck. Jacques eyes went wide, Henri squeaked and put his hands over his mouth as they watched the spiderweb from behind her.
“Off state is off state.” She said coldly. “It’s a binary, one or zero. You’re either alive or dead civilian. There’s no states to it.” She pointed to the board. “Do you understand, or should I put it into simpler terms for you?” Fleur continued, truly the She-Devil Sorcerer, her reputation was well deserved. “Kill this thing before I decide you’re not fucking useful anymore. There’s three of you here, what leverage do you think you have?”
“None!” Francois said.
Fleur just stared at him for a moment. “Do you think you’re smart?” She hissed. Francois just stared at her. Jacques was glad that the man did not say anything.
“A full shutdown takes hours.” Henri said from the side. The sorcerous amalgamation of visual violence disappeared from the air when the words processed in Fleur’s mind.
“No it doesn’t.” She said.
Jacques found the way to get out of this situation. “We can kill the fission but it can still overheat after. That takes a day.” Fleur stared at them. She moved her arms, brought back one sleeve of to reveal a silver watch on her hand.
“You had eighteen hours ten minutes ago.” She stared at the watch. “Unless it speeds up.” Jacques turned to Francois and saw Henri giving the exact same terrified look. It? What was It?
“That could damage the reactor.” Jacques said.
And that terrible gaze turned towards him. It was as if Fleur was looking at an insect, a cockroach that had made her pillow its bed. As if that cockroach stood on its hind legs and just spoke. As if she had to consider whether the words that she just heard were human tongue or just some vile, insectoid garble sprayed at her. “If you value your life, you will be out of here in ten hours and get as far away from here as you can. You will not leave until I can cut the power to this facility and collapse the structure.”