Chapter 016 - We Are the Fuel

  Mark froze, his hand still hovering where he’d retracted it. Of all the things he had expected, hearing the word ‘Earth’ spoken so casually was not one of them. To Tori and Valerie, it was the name of a dead world from a history lesson, a place disconnected from their reality. To him, it was home. To hear Deirdre utter the name, linking it directly to him as if it were a simple fact, was profoundly jarring. Something the others had deemed an impossible truth of his existence was apparently common knowledge.

  “You… know about Earth?” he finally managed, the question coming out quieter than he intended.

  Deirdre’s expression softened at his obvious shock. “I do and I don’t,” she said, leaning against her counter. “I’m the town’s representative for the Provisioners’ Guild here in Enceladus. It’s my business to know who is coming and going, and what goods they’re carrying. You, my dear, are the second most interesting thing we’ve had in years.”

  The confirmation that his arrival was official guild business did little to soothe him. “And… What else is being said?” he asked, deciding it was better to know the full extent of his notoriety.

  A mischievous glint appeared in Deirdre’s kind eyes. She pursed her lips, feigning a look of grave concern. “Oh, it’s so terrible, really,” she said, her voice dropping seriously. “The more superstitious lumberjacks think you’re a bad omen, a specter risen from a dead world come to haunt the Ironwoods. Some in the Militia garrison are convinced you’re at least a spy from California, sent to steal the secrets of our sawmills or worse.”

  Mark felt the blood drain from his face. A spy? A ghost? California?

  Seeing his reaction, Deirdre’s serious expression broke, and she let out a warm, genuine laugh. “Relax, love,” she chuckled. “That’s just the idle imagination from those with too much time on their hands. Most folk are just curious or don’t really care. They want to know if it’s true you have no magic at your age, and the merchants are betting on how deep the pockets are of the man the Oracles favored. The house is enough for some folks to talk.”

  She was deliberately avoiding the biggest piece of gossip, and he had to push. "And the rumor about me being from Earth?"

  Her smile widened into a knowing grin. "Now that's the most interesting part of the story, isn't it?" she said, her voice dropping a little. "Earth is a memory, love. A fairytale some use to scare or inspire their children. But if a man stands in my shop and tells me he just walked out of a fairytale... well, I'm a Provisioner. It's my business to believe a customer's story, especially when it's this valuable."

  The relief was immediate, though the mention of his house reminded him of Lothar’s warning. “The Provisioners’ Guild,” Mark repeated, latching onto a safer topic. “Valerie mentioned the Guilds, but what does yours do, exactly?”

  “Ah, the noble Provisioners,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “We’re the ones who make sure the goods get from the farm to the fork. We manage the supply wagons from Dione, stock the larders for the Guildhalls, run most of the taverns, and operate many little shops like this one. We’re the glorified stock-keepers and publicans of the Collective.” She paused, then leaned forward over the counter, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But between you and me, we’re the most important Guild of them all.”

  “How do you figure that?” Mark asked, intrigued by her sudden intensity.

  “Simple,” she said with a sharp grin. “The Engineers can build those magnificent steam engines, and the Miners can dig up their endless mountains of ore, but the moment a worker misses a meal, the whole grand machine starts to slow down. An army, a workshop, a city… they all grind to a halt if they aren’t fed. They are the engine, Mark, but we are the fuel that keeps it running.”

  He couldn't help but smile. It was a project manager’s logic, a clear-eyed assessment of a critical supply chain. He felt a level of respect for the friendly shopkeeper based on shared backgrounds, if very different. Deciding it was time to get his own small project underway, he pulled the paper list from his pocket.

  “Right then,” he said. “Let’s see if I can get some of that fuel. Can I start with… flour?”

  “Of course,” Deirdre said, turning to a stack of rough-spun sacks against the wall. “Coarse or fine? Wheat or Rye?”

  Mark felt a wave of relief. It was a normal question. A simple, beautifully normal question. “Fine, please. Wheat.” He continued down his list. “And eggs?”

  She pointed to a basket of large, pale-blue shelled eggs on the counter. “Right in front of you.”

  He looked from his list to the items, a genuine smile spreading across his face. At least some things seemed the same, if the colour was a little off. He continued down his list, a quiet conversation flowing between them as Deirdre gathered his items.

  “Bacon?” he asked next. “And some mince, if you have it.”

  Deirdre chuckled. “Forager, Leafrun or Stonehide Boar, Cliff-Drake or the fake veggie stuff?” She gestured to a series of thick, smoky slabs hanging behind the counter. “If you're feeling flush, I recommend the Ironwood Forager. A bit sweeter.”

  “Let’s try the Stonehide for now,” Mark said, fascinated, the reply being several large strips being dropped onto wax paper.

  “Good choice, it's a lot milder than the others. And the mince is from a Drover,” she added, scooping a hefty portion of coarse, dark red meat from a large ceramic bowl onto a piece of wax paper. She saw his questioning look. “The big, shaggy cow-like things you see pulling the wagons.” She expertly wrapped the package and pushed a tiny, freshly cooked morsel across the counter on the tip of a knife. “It's safe to eat raw. Go on, try it.”

  He hesitated for only a second before popping the meat into his mouth. The flavour was rich, earthy, and surprisingly familiar. “It’s like beef,” he said, the word tasting strange and foreign in this new context.

  As she weighed out his vegetables and wrapped a loaf of light, fluffy bread, Mark could feel her gentle but persistent curiosity. He knew she was fishing for more stories to add to the town’s growing gossip pool about him, and he decided a few carefully chosen nuggets wouldn't hurt. It might even make him seem less like a ghost and more like a person.

  “So,” she began, her tone casual, “a place with no magic at all. It must be very quiet.”

  “Not exactly,” Mark replied with a small smile. “We have our own trains, smaller ones that run through the city itself. Trams, we call them. They move a lot faster than I’ve seen your Great Cog move, but they don’t climb mountains.” He thought for a moment. “And it’s a lot more crowded. The city I’m from, Manchester… it has nearly three million people.”

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  Deirdre stopped what she was doing and stared at him, her jaw slack with disbelief. “Three… million?” she repeated, her Irish lilt thick with incredulity. “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating, love? I don’t even think the predictions have put the Ark at that many people.”

  “No exaggeration,” he confirmed, feeling an odd pang of homesickness for the very crowds he used to complain about.

  The revelation seemed to shift something in her perception of him. She finished bagging his groceries, her movements more thoughtful. “All those people,” she murmured, as if to herself. “And not a Heart among them.” She looked up at him then, her expression turning from simple curiosity to something more serious, more personal.

  “It leads me to wonder, then,” she said, her voice soft but direct. “Since the Oracles saw fit to give you a head start… what are you considering for your first Heart?”

  The question hung in the air, heavier than the sack of flour Deirdre had just placed on the counter. A Heart, the magical tattoo formation. It seemed so far to be a basic requirement of this society, the source of increasing personal power and strength he so conspicuously lacked. The Oracle had given him the means, Valerie and Sam were giving him some training, but he hadn't given a single thought to the actual choice.

  He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Honestly? I know nothing on the subject,” he admitted, the truth of it feeling stark and a little pathetic. “I’ve been a bit busy focusing on the ‘not being completely helpless’ part.”

  Deirdre’s answering laugh was warm and without judgment. “A worthy goal, to be sure,” she said, her eyes twinkling as she tallied his purchases on a slate. He could still feel her gentle prodding, the friendly but persistent search for more information. “Well, the choice of a Heart is the choice of a life, so they say. It all depends on what you want to do. What sort of work did a man in a city of three million do, anyway?”

  “I am... I was a project manager,” Mark said. “I led teams. We planned logistics, managed resources, made sure things got built on time and on budget.”

  Her eyebrows shot up in genuine interest. “Ah, a man after my own heart!” she exclaimed. “Keeping all the wagons running on time, making sure the right parts get to the right people. Sounds to me like you’re a natural for the Heart of the Conductor.” She nodded toward the bustling street outside. “That’s a rare one, you know. Highly valued by the Merchants and us Provisioners. It’s all about understanding the flow of things.”

  She paused, tapping a finger on the counter thoughtfully. “Or, if you were a leader of people… a Heart of Community, perhaps. Good for keeping morale up, smoothing over disputes. Every Guildmaster worth their salt has one of those.”

  Mark listened, a strange feeling dawning on him. Conductor. Community. He’d thought of magic in terms of fireballs and healing lights, raw and elemental forces completely alien to his own experience. But these concepts… They were familiar. They were logistics and human resources, translated into the language of magic. For the first time, he considered the possibility that his old skills, the ones he’d thought may have been useless here, might actually have a place. He was physically weak for now, but he had been a specialist in a field that, apparently, had its own magical applications.

  He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “It’s a lot to take in,” he said. “Where I’m from, magic was just fantasy. Stories in books and films. It was always the flashy stuff, you know? Fireballs, lightning bolts, wizards in towers. We never had stories about wizards who were good at… logistics.”

  Deirdre threw her head back and laughed, the rich sound that filled the shop. “Fireballs! Oh, that’s a bonfire waiting to happen! I’m sure some wild-eyed mage out in the Verdant Conclave could manage a lightning bolt if they put their mind to it, but what’s the use in that when you need to keep a forge hot or a train running on schedule?” She finished packing his goods into a sturdy cloth bag, her expression turning more serious, though the amusement still danced in her eyes. “The Guilds aren’t interested in party tricks, love. They want reliable, practical tools. That’s what our Hearts are. Designs for a purpose.”

  She leaned on the counter, her full attention on him now. “Take that Heart of the Conductor I mentioned,” she said, her voice dropping as if sharing a Guild secret. “It’s not about flashy lights. With a Conductor’s Heart, you don’t just read a shipping manifest, you can feel it. You can stand at the depot and feel a delay building up at the Rhea mines before the first wagon has even left. You can feel the rhythm of the entire town’s supply chain, the flow of goods, the schedules, the weak points, all at once, like a song.”

  Mark stared at her, the description inspiring some possibilities he wouldn't have considered for magic. It was a perfect, supernatural articulation of what he had spent his entire career trying to achieve with spreadsheets and flow charts. He’d always talked about getting a "feel for a project," for sensing where the bottlenecks would form before they became critical. The idea that a magical Heart could turn that professional instinct into a tangible, reliable sense was both deeply strange and profoundly, fundamentally appealing.

  The idea was a powerful one, a potential path forward that felt less like becoming a different person and more like an evolution of who he already was. But it was overshadowed by a more immediate concern. He shifted his weight, the conversation giving him an opening to address the other warning that had been weighing on his mind.

  “That’s something to think about,” Mark began, his tone turning more serious. He leaned a little closer to the counter. “My neighbor… he mentioned that some people might not be happy about my current living arrangements.”

  Deirdre’s friendly expression tightened for a fraction of a second, the only sign that he’d struck a nerve. She began arranging his items into a large wicker basket, her movements suddenly very deliberate. “Ah, well, you know how it is in any town,” she said, her voice a little too breezy. “There’s always a few with more ambition than sense. People who think they automatically deserve the best of everything, even when they’re already drowning in riches they haven’t earned. Names, Titles, idiots.”

  It was a masterful deflection, saying everything and nothing all at once. Mark didn’t push, but his silence was its own question. Deirdre let out a soft sigh, her attempt to brush it off clearly unsuccessful.

  “Look,” she said, pausing her work to meet his gaze directly. “You’re a curiosity, but you’re also an asset. You’re something of a blank slate with powerful backing. You have official citizenship papers, a house most Guildmasters would envy, and the Oracles themselves have taken an interest in you. That makes you a valuable piece on their board.” She gestured vaguely towards the Guildhalls in the center of town. “Don’t be surprised when they come calling. The Engineers, the Miners, even the Artisans. They’ll all want to poach the ‘Oracle’s favorite’ for their own. Some will be more… persuasive than others.”

  Mark nodded slowly, the political landscape of his new home becoming clearer and more treacherous. He was a prize, a symbol, and a target, all before he’d even learned his way around town.

  Deirdre slid the wicker basket, now laden with all his items, across the counter. “That’s everything on your list, love. Lets call it 1gold, 4 silver.”

  Mark took a few moments to fish out the correct coins, having to make sure what was correct, “Stupid question, but is that a good price for all this,” he gestured to the basket.

  “Oh, our money will be new wont it.” she said, a considering look on her face, “This is about the average you will see this time of year, the bacon will get more expensive at some point”

  He reached for the basket while exchanging a few coins, his muscles immediately protesting the unexpected weight. He grunted with the effort of lifting it. “Thank you for everything,” he said, forcing a smile. “Right now, I wish I was a bit stronger just to get this lot home.”

  As he turned to leave, a final, critical thought struck him. He looked back at Deirdre, who was already watching him with an amused expression.

  “One last thing,” he asked. “You wouldn’t happen to know where a man can buy some good tea, would you?”

  A genuine, warm smile returned to her face. “Now that’s a question of taste, isn’t it? But you’ll want to see Old Man Hemlock. He has a stall on the east side of the main square. Sells nothing but tea leaves from every corner of the mountains. He’s a miserable old fool, but his wares are the best in the Collective.”

  With a final nod of thanks, Mark hefted his basket and pushed the door open, the bell chiming his departure. He stepped out into the bustling market, now considerably more busy than before. The basket was heavy, and his mind was heavier still, filled with new thoughts of magical options, guild politics, and the location of a fool who apparently sold the best tea in the mountains.