Fortune’s Fools

A short story by Jan Neilson, about a moment Alison and Fionn shared after the rise of Cabora and the revelations about Alison's true identity.

Canguine: Corantine 1669

Fionn O'Connell, 'pirate who sails the land', sat brooding over a pint in the Broken Compass. The weather was foul; nothing would be moving out of port until the winds died down a little and the rain eased up. It was unseasonably rough weather for mid-Corantine, and he could only hope it wouldn't last. However, the storm had been raging for over a day and showed no signs of abating; O'Connell and the few other Sea Dogs land-locked by the storm were bored rigid. Fionn most of all, as most knew his reputation and none would gamble with him, having better uses for their coin than as payment of gambling debts. Fionn was therefore forced to spend his evening nursing a pint and brooding over the past.

It came in flashes, like the turn of cards in a Fate Witch's deck; Lucrezia, with her poisonous beauty and mad, ensnaring eyes. The bracelet, gone long since. That damnable Francine, his old partner in crime -- to what lengths he'd gone to save her miserable hide... Bonny McGee and their trip to the Sidhe lands. San Felipe, where the Hanged Man burned, Allende taken...

"I'm looking for Jeremiah Berek."

Fionn jerked a little in his seat; the voice had followed his own thought so closely that it might have been plucked straight from his head. Stranger still, the voice was vaguely, temptingly familiar in a way he could not place: the accent was impossible to trace, but there was Avalon in it, and Vodacce, and a hint of Castillian. Curious, Fionn turned in his seat to get a look at the newcomer.

He could only stare for a moment; the woman was a beauty and no mistake. Removing a fancy cloak embroidered in the Castillian fashion revealed a careless tousle of dark curls and a tantalising figure. Better still, she wore tight leather trousers favoured by Vodacce men, showing her legs to good advantage, and a shirt that slid off one shoulder to reveal a flash of red undergarment. A Jenny, then -- well-travelled and obviously doing well for herself. He wondered about her price for a moment; a romp with a Jenny would bring relief from the night's boredom, and more besides.

Eventually, he tore his eyes from her body to her face, belatedly realising that no one had answered her implied question. The wry, teasing smile on her face suggested that she had expected no less. That smile widened as her eyes met Fionn's, suggesting that a discount might be in the offing if he made an approach. His own good looks, he reflected briefly, were often useful to him.

The Jenny's face was ... familiar, somehow, and as her own smile faltered, he saw a little closer into why. He had seldom seen this woman, but the times he had, she had been solemn -- solemn or unconscious, dying ... "Alesio?"

It was impossible, or should have been. He couldn't even say why he connected this woman to the pirate Strega he'd once known; the pleasant-looking girl was now a comely woman, and the difference was staggering. Except for the hint of Vodacce in her accent, there was no way to identify her as one who had formerly been known as Alesia Caligari before running off to join Allende in a life of piracy as Alesio. In any case, Alesio was dead, had to be. Three Strega had been at her, and Berek's tale had suggested that the witches were far removed from mercy.

But the woman's eyes widened in slightly fearful recognition and she moved to his table with all due speed. Ignoring the disappointed groans of every other man in the tavern, she sat down opposite him and said, "Oh, please don't! I don't know how far that whole thing's got out and it's very disconcerting in any case! It's Alison, alright?"

Fionn was somewhat taken aback by her vehemence, but understood the importance of an alias. Therefore, he merely blinked and said, "Alright, then; Alison it is. Now, what would you want with Berek, then?"

'Alison' huffed out an exasperated breath. "Well, to find out if he's still alive, for one thing, what with the whole thing with Bonny and Reis, and then there's all the questions because, well, my past isn't exactly something I want to find out about through penny dreadfuls as you know how inaccurate they can be and I have no idea what happened to the rest of the crew and they should at least know that Allende's alive and free and then there's Cabora but maybe you know of that from Celedoine but--"

"Wait." Fionn held up a hand to halt the flow of words. His other hand went to his head, which was reeling with names, memories and suppositions. Strangest of all was this woman, who was Alesio but so very different now. For one thing, she had been so reserved when he last knew her, and now she chattered like an angry magpie. When he had collected himself a little, he could only say, "I saw you. In San Felipe. You were--"

"Dead or at least dying, I know," said Alison, seemingly remarkably calm about it. "I heard you had a bracelet from Lucrezia?"

Fionn spat an oath at the sound of the witch's name. "A bracelet and more besides. A few adventures, a week in jail ... all sorts."

Alison's smile was sympathetic. "You sound like Francine; she wants Lucrezia dead for the havoc played with her life, too."

Again, Fionn stared in shock. "Francine du Paix? Dark blonde, Porté sorceress?"

"Uses too many words to say even the simplest things?"

Fionn, bemused, shook his head. "I think we both have a lot of talking to do. And I need another drink." When Alison stood up, he waved her back down again and stood up himself. "I think you're owed this one," he said. "Anyway, you know the rules of this place. And we both know the answer to 'Did you live?'"

Alison smiled, apparently recalling her pirating history. The Broken Compass was famous for its love of a good story. A Sea Dog would come in, tell his tale and be asked, "Did you live?" If the man said, "Yes, I did", he would be called a liar and thrown out. If he said, "No, I didn't", the other drinkers would say, "Well, it must be true" and buy him a drink. But Alison's smile was sad; the joke, in her case, was far too true.

Then Fionn turned and went towards the bar, shaking his head again and thinking that at least his boredom was at an end.

* * *

"I only found out who I was a few months ago," said Alison. She was subdued now that he had told his tale -- subdued, solemn and slightly sad. She was a little more like the Vodacce girl he'd known, but it gave him scant comfort; the Avalon woman she'd somehow become seemed so much more at ease.

"I met your Francine in the Midnight Archipelago, of all places," she went on. "Apparently they were mucking about with a Syrneth device there, on L'Ile du Bêtes. They seem to do an awful lot of that -- mucking about with Syrneth artefacts, I mean -- don't they?"

Fionn nodded ruefully. He still remembered the bracelet, and the pain as the pearls adorning it turned black. "We ... they," he corrected himself, "...don't get much choice."

Alison chuckled. "Oh, don't tell me," she said; "I got myself thrown in with that lot when ... well, it was some big mess to do with binding an unSeelie -- Redcap, of all things -- in some Syrneth fiddle. I was more keen to get out of the Archipelago than anything else so I just sort of played along. So after that little fiasco, we caught a ship to San Arrant -- oh, and you know Alejandro and Idunn?" He thought he did, and was hesitant to get the newly-talkative woman off on a tangent in any case, so he just nodded. "Well, they got wed. On board ship, of all things. In any case, when we docked, Lucrezia was there, waiting.

"Well, we all thought she was there because of Alejandro. He had the bracelet you got from her, y'see, and she'd been plaguing the group for some time. But she actually didn't seem interested in him at first. She wanted to talk to me. I couldn't think why at the time -- presumably common-born Avalon Jenny like me -- but it wasn't as if I could remember not meeting her. My memories are only really clear starting around Sextus last year."

Fionn hand closed around his wrist, where the bracelet had once been. "After the Hanged Man burned."

"Apparently." Alison shrugged this off, going back to her original thread. "In any case, she called me 'the little patchwork girl' as soon as she set eyes on me. Said 'we can't put everything back'. Also something about how she'd picked me up because I was useful and she could put me back down again. It was all quite scary, to be honest ... but I suppose you'd know all about that. She was at you too once, wasn't she?"

Remembering Lucrezia's riddles, Bryn Bresail, San Felipe and the bracelet, Fionn shuddered and said, "Aye. I hope she never is again."

With a smile of commiseration, Alison continued. "Well, we had a lot to do after that. Crossed a few barricades to get to Free Castille, a couple of nasty encounters with the Inquisition..." Here she rubbed her thumbs, and Fionn wondered exactly how close and how nasty those encounters might have been. "We tromped through a Vodacce swamp and I think we did good there but we never found out for sure. But every time we thought we were free, Lucrezia was there, dogging us.

"It probably sounds strange to you, since you know me from before, but ... well, I'm terrified of Sorte. I mean really, morbidly terrified. I didn't know... I always thought... Well, I'm not a Strega anymore, so I didn't even have a clue. I thought I might've been a courtesan or vedova who'd really hacked off the Strega of her house, and that's why I was so afraid." She laughed, and it came out ragged. "I suppose I wasn't so far wrong at that. In any case, I suspected I was Vodacce by then, so when one of the Tessatore wanted to talk to us all, I was petrified. Then she told me I was Strega, once upon a time, and I was not taking that news well at all. Not only am I so scared of Sorte now ... well, I can read, you see. And then ... when she made me see a strand..."

Alison drank deep from her tankard at that point, obviously trying to collect herself. Fionn used the time to fit the new information into the tale he already knew. Berek had left Alesio's dying body in an inn in San Felipe. "I don't know what the witches did to her, but she's beyond our help," he'd said. After that ... well, Alison's tale, not to mention her very existence, suggested that her life had been somehow rewoven. As his fate had been narrowed to one deliberate channel over a year ago, hers had been altered to the point where she was a completely different person -- new accent, new nationality, new personality ... she even looked different. It was small wonder he had barely recognised her when she had first walked into the Broken Compass. Thinking of the sheer power that was necessary to account for the much-changed woman before him, Fionn said, "It's not strange. No man would blame you for such a fear. I'd think it strange if you weren't afraid, after all that."

Alison set her tankard down with a wan smile. "Well, that one strand I mentioned? It turned out terribly useful, when all was said and done. Seems the strongest strand, the only one Lucrezia could save, was the one that connected me to Allende. I didn't know it at the time, of course; I knew it connected to someone from my past, but no more. Anyway, that was only because Lucrezia mentioned a 'him' when she was giving us all a right bollocking for not following the damnable thing. We took one day off for a friend's wedding and we get that bloody witch harping at us.

"So after that and another day's pure foolishness, we finally followed that accursed strand to Caligari Island and wound up in the dungeons. Nasty place, that. I don't know why I ... well, I suppose I wasn't given a choice when it came to Allende's fate. Anyhow, whatever Lucrezia's reasons, I'm just glad she gave me a chance to put things right. Your Francine helped; without her skill at picking locks, I don't know what I would have done. We found Allende's cell; the strand led me, and I led the others. We pulled him out. Allende's free."

Alison paused again. For a woman who'd pulled off such a daring rescue, she seemed positively miserable about it, in Fionn's view. If she hadn't already said that Allende was still alive, he'd have thought the worst. Eventually, he said, "So where is he now?"

Alison hesitated a moment, then spoke, keeping her eyes on the table as she did. "He's on board the Black Dawn. We met Celedoine and her crew on Cabora."

Fionn knew about Cabora -- everyone on Théah did. Some island pops up in the middle of the Crescent Sea for no apparent reason, and it becomes news very quickly. One question remained, and after a moment, Fionn collected himself enough to ask it. "What the Pit were you lot doing on Cabora?"

Alison kept her eyes down. "When we freed Allende, we triggered some sort of alarm. There was no way of going back the way we came without being outright slaughtered by Caligari's men. We went to the deepest part of the dungeons, where we found the strangest ship. That was our only means of escape, but we had to set off the last switch to be allowed onto the ship." She finally met his eyes. "The pearls on that bracelet are all black now. We finished it. We raised Cabora ... and sank Caligari Island in the process."

They were both silent for awhile, lost in thought. Eventually, Fionn spoke. "I heard about that. Not surprised, either. Only that lot could cause a cock-up that big."

Alison blinked at him, saw his smile and joined him when he started to laugh. After a moment of that, her face grew serious again. "There's more. It might be hard for you to hear."

Fionn had already seen it. "You said Celedoine's crew."

"As we were landing on Cabora, we saw the Crimson Rogers sailing away from the island at speed. When we arrived, we saw the Dawn. Celedoine met us and said that Bonny had gone after Reis. They sent us to find Bonny ... or at least her body, if nothing else. The others had met McGee; they'd gone to the Archipelago as her passengers on the Dawn, as it turned out. I suppose that's why they agreed, for all Cabora's a spooky place.

"They didn't find Bonny," she said, after a pause in which Fionn had already begun to grieve for his former captain. "They ... we found Reis. His body, anyway. But his red coat was gone, and so was his scythe ... and the Rogers had sailed."

In the silence that followed, a horrible thought formed, born of a superstition unknown to all but sailors. It was given further shape by a piece of news he had heard over dinner the evening before, about how the Crimson Rogers had struck again, and no mention was made in any change in the Dread Pirate Reis. "Oh, Bonny..."

"Well, we don't know for certain what happened," Alison assured him -- Alesio hadn't been overly superstitious anyway, and what she might have picked up from her crewmen had apparently been lost in the transition between Alesio and Alison. "We couldn't stay to be sure, much as some of us would've liked to. We came back on the Dawn, and Allende's aboard her still, so far as I know."

"So," Fionn said, "you're looking for Berek to tell him all this." And Theus help the man when he hears it, he added in the privacy of his head. I'm used to all this bollocks and my head's still reeling.

Alison nodded, then added, "Also to ask him things. I'm just very curious, is all. I mean, I spent a year or so wondering. I found out the strangest things, all in bits. I could read and write, but only in Vodacce, for all I thought I was Avalon. I also felt at home in Castille, and Vaticine City, well..." She shuddered, rubbing her thumbs again. "Then I could sail. Then I was a Strega, of all things. So now I know the truth, but it doesn't help. I ... I like being Alison, don't get me wrong. It's just that I need to know what led to where I am now. I want more of a history than just "Fled the Great Game, helped start a pirate nation, betrayed my captain, died, was brought back as a Jenny, linked myself to a bunch of lunatics, and raised a giant Syrneth continent."

Fionn raised an eyebrow. "You want more than all that?"

Alison rolled her eyes and gave another exasperated huff. "I want the rest of it, O'Connell! Adventures on the high seas and all that sort of thing! If I've been a pirate, I should have more to show for it than a fondness for the rigging!"

"Actually," Fionn told her, "you were more for maps and such. Heights reminded you too much of home, you said. Made you uncomfortable."

"Lovely," muttered Alison with a rueful chuckle. "More reading. Well, never mind. I've not got long; I'm to meet the others and Pietro won't half fuss if I'm late. Could you let Berek know all this, if you see him again?"

"I will," said Fionn. As Alison got up to go, he stood up as well, adding, "But leaving town tonight'll be tough going, even over land, the weather being as it is. Might be safer if you stop here overnight."

Alison looked him over, smiled a little and put on a rather attractive expression of innocence. "Well, I can get them a message to make sure no one will worry. But won't it be hard to get a room so late, with no one sailing?"

"I think I could be of help with that," said Fionn, silently thanking Theus that he'd taken an inn that allowed women in the rooms. Alison merely smiled and grabbed her still-damp cloak.

* * *

Much, much later, Fionn realised he'd forgotten something, and turned his head towards the woman lying beside him. "Will you see Francine?"

"Mm-hmm," came the groggy reply.

"Tell her..." He paused, not sure what he wanted to pass on to his former lover. Eventually, he settled on, "Tell her I'll shoot her for a mad dog, should I see her again."

"M'sure she'll thank you for the warning," Alison replied. Before Fionn could think of a response to her arch tone, he fell into a satisfied sleep.

* * *

When he woke, Alison was gone and his purse was ten Guilders lighter. He was sure he'd paid before she'd so much as shed her cloak, but he really was in no position to complain. It had, after all, been a night to remember for many reasons.

He also found a note, written in slightly shaky Castillian:

Had to go; message to deliver. Taken delivery fee. Had a lovely evening.

A.

Fionn smiled a little, then just laughed. His life had been strange ever sine Lucrezia had called to him in that long-ago tavern, but despite every situation he'd ever been in, he'd never dreamed he'd spend a night with Alesio the pirate Strega. And she was going to deliver his message, though she'd made him pay through the nose for it. Well, he'd have to return the favour; find Berek and tell Alison's tale.

"After all," he said, holding up the silver ring he'd taken from her finger in the dark, "I've taken a delivery fee as well."