Arascus sat down with Kassandora. Malam was busy right now and frankly, he imagined that Kassandora had a far better rapport with Elassa than Malam did. “When are you planning on going to assist the dwarves?”

“I was going today, I’m going to have drag a telephone line into there.”

“Before you go, we need to do something.”

“What?”

“Convince Elassa that Baalka is to be awoken, she’s a mage, she’ll be able to enter the soul.” Kassandora sighed and looked at Arascus for a few moments.

“And Anassa can’t do it?” She was asking the question because it had to be asked. But they both knew the answer.

“Would you trust to let Anassa into your mind?”

King Richard VI of Allia sat in the meeting room of the Shadow Council with his wife Eleanor by his side. Her in the royal gown of Allia, him in a suit for kings, both with crowns over their heads. It was a large room in the palace, with windows leading to the empty countryside gardens outside. A few horses were trotting about, with some of the local aristocracy enjoying the sunshine. Richard looked over at his beautiful wife, her lovely golden hair falling down her back and then to the members of the Shadow Council; a much less pretty view.

The Shadow Council, for its imposing name, had nothing to do with secret governance or subterfuge. The counsellors were called that because they should stay as close to the Crown as to be its shadow. Each of their names were public, all of them were elected officials by Parliament. They were the foremost method of communication the population at large had with the King, pro-monarchists would be elected when the population was satisfied, republicans would be elected when defiance was to be shown instead. Thankfully, in the recent election, driven by the unity and fanaticism of Epan Separation, the monarchists had won an overwhelming majority.

So Richard sat there and sighed. Of the nations which had taken part in Epan Separation, Wissel had convinced him that Allia would be hit the least. Richard had believed it. Who hadn’t believed it in fact? Lubska was always going to be an invasion route for the Pantheon. Rilia was exposed too, Doschia and Rancais were on the continent as well. Allia was an island, Allia should have been safe, Allia was untouchable.

Well. Allia was in fact untouchable. The oceans ensured that no foreign army would step foot here, and the Alanktydan blockade ensured that no a single supply got in. The only exception was air-cargo from Epa, precious planes that shipped Lubskan grain here and Allian engines to be put into Doschian tanks.  The entire continent had pooled its civilian airfleet into ECCAF, the Epan Coalition Combined Air Fleet. The Allian officers in Camford who were directing the nightmare that was ECCAF would be remembered in the books as some of the greatest logisticians in all history. The fact that there hadn’t been a single collision yet, that the crews were getting rotated as they needed to be, that translators were there for every plane to deal with each Epan language, that somehow, the planes actually landed on time, that fuel was always there to make sure they could go back into the air, was, quite frankly, incredible and record-shattering. It had more than a thousand heavy cargo planes, each one carrying more than a hundred tons. Potentially, at any one point in time, there could be more than a hundred thousand tons of supplies in the skies above Epa.

A single large cargo ship could handle two-hundred and twenty thousand.

Richard smiled to himself. A single ship had double the tonnage of all ECCAF. Every city in Allia with docks was already overflowing with parts. Allia was supposed to be the beating heart in the Coalition for specialist parts. Well, Allia had done its job, the heart did beat, but the veins were all clogged. “The Parliament has approved the Control Orders Bill.” Richard said, frankly, whether they passed it or not didn’t really matter. There were ways to achieve everything he wanted to achieve today, the C.O.B. simply made things smoother. “It is time to discuss rationing.”

That was the word of the day, it had been for the past week in fact. Already shops had started limiting sales to customers, but the chaos of private enterprise had to be replaced with the stagnating control of government, it wasn’t about ensuring quality of life. It was about ensuring life. “In regards to that, where should we start?” Lord Bertrand asked, a tall skinny man, Minister of the Economy. Royalist. Bald. Glasses.

“The easy part first.” Richard said as he leaned back. “Food.”

The fact that food rationing was the easy part was so terrible Richard wanted to laugh at the sheer horror of it. He didn’t, because it was true.

Richard turned to Duke Maximilian. Minister of Agriculture. Royalist, although all aristocrats were. Short hair. Dark suit. Quite muscled and lean. An unorthodox man though, quite popular amongst the population because of how much time he spent with farmers in the countryside. Every month, there would be a new image of the man wrangling sheep or digging holes in fields. “I told you to prepare notes.”

“Ah yes.” Duke Maximiliam spoke in a low voice, fitting for a man who did so much work outside. He tapped the folder on the table as every other of the ministers turned to him. “Firstly, the hard rationing we cannot compromise on.” The man pulled out a list. “Lamb, beef, pork and poultry we have no choice but to set controls on.” Richard felt Eleanor’s hand take his, already they were starting off badly. That was all meat basically. “Lamb, due to the prevalence of sheep in the north, can have looser restrictions. The others…” Maximiliam trailed off and had to take a second to regain control. “Well, it has to be redistributed centrally to make sure the general population gets the required proteins and calories. If we don’t, we’re consigning the cities to vegetarianism for who knows how long. High-effort jobs can have extended rations too, to get people out of the offices and onto the trains.” Richard smiled at that, the train workers had been striking recently.

“It will be done.” Richard said. “Arthur, write it down, all meats to be rationed. Maximilian, I expect you to work out the intricacies of weight and so on.” Arthur was Richard’s secretary. At least for today, it was the sort of position that was used to train new court assistants rather be anyone of importance.

“I was actually thinking of rationing by price.” Maximilian said. “Otherwise there will be runs on the butcheries for when the good cuts of meat become available.”

“Specifics are yours Maximiliam, next.” Richard sped him up.

“All dairy products. We simply don’t produce enough milk. We can’t import enough either through ECCAF. There is no substitute.” Maximiliam said as Arthur scrambled to write. “All products made with imported sugar too, although that may be good for the general health of the population.”

“It won’t be for morale.” One of the other ministers spoke up. There was some laughter at that and Maximiliam nodded.

“In regards to that, I am working on publishing the Austerity Cookbook.” Maximiliam said and Elliot, Minister of Education, coughed. An intellectual man, from Camford, tall and skinny. He looked out of place in the suit of a bureaucrat and not the jumper of a professor.

“I would like to raise a point on this later.” Elliot said. “But continue.”

“It’s just a cookbook with recipes we can work on. Carrot cake and the like. Things people will like, vegetable pie is another, tomorrow, I will be running a competition on EIE for who can make the best foods with only locally sourced goods.” Maximiliam finished.

“Have you thought about Vitamin deficiencies?” Duke William asked, Minister of Health. A true philanthropist, the man had been involved in a scandal some years back when his wife sued him for recklessly spending on the poor. He was emptying their treasuries so quickly that if she didn’t stop him, the entire Noble House of Arcester would have gone bankrupt.

“I want to provide all schools with blackcurrant juice and rosehip syrup to be given out to parents. We don’t have enough milk for them anyway.” Maximiliam said. “And the Grow-Your-Own scheme is a better success than all predictions said it would be. Even people in cities are growing tomatoes on their windowsills apparently.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news.” Bertrand said. “But the storerooms are running out of seeds. What ECCAF brings is given away basically the day it arrives.”

Richard asked the question this time. “What do you suggest then?”

“I suggest we start charging for the seeds, or accepting returns. A pound of vegetables for a packet of seeds or something of the like. If everything we gave away was grown, Allia would be able to feed all Epa with the amount of vegetables that should be here.”

“Write that down.” Richard said. “Call it the Pound a Packet scheme. Don’t charge for it though.” Arthur’s pen furiously scribbled against the paper as the King of Allia turned to Maximilian. “Is that everything?”

“Everything has shortages.” Maximilian said. “But fruit and vegetables will fare better if we just let them be subject to availability rather than controls.” He looked through his notes one last time and shook his head. “I have nothing else on such a short time scheme, we’ve covered the most important things anyway.”

Richard took a deep breath. That was the easy part done.

Hilarious.

People starving was the easy part.

Richard turned to the next issue. It was one that wasn’t large yet, but it could spiral out of control. “Chief Officer Lloyd. The report on criminality.” Chief Officer Lloyd, in a grey moustache and close cut grey hair, a blue suit, just as the police on the streets wore. He was head of all of police in Allia.

“It is actually positive.” The man said. “Trends are generally good, serious criminality is going down; murders and the like. We’ve not had a single one in the whole country for a year now. Petty robberies are going up and…” He looked slightly uneasy with himself. “I actually have a radical proposal.”

“Well?” Richard said as he leaned forwards. “Out with it.”

“The chaos caused by the logistics shortages is likely to cause starvation in the cities. Even if people won’t be dying of hunger, we can be certain that malnutrition will be rife. And…” Lloyd looked down at his interlocked fingers and took a deep breath.

“Well?” Richard asked.

Lloyd finished, rallied himself and looked at everyone on the table. “Ultimately, our goal is to ensure there is an Allia. I do not propose changing any of the laws, however I will say that we should give tacit permission to the criminal gangs that smuggling is now effectively legal.” Richard blinked as the entire table turned to the Chief Officer. The King did not shut down though, and it was Eleanor who leaned forward.

Eleanor had always been blunt, but she wasn’t scolding the man. She spoke softly, as if genuinely inquiring. “Explain yourself Lloyd. What is this?”

“I propose a massive clamp down on any known drug traffickers immediately. We can get them off the streets within the week.” Lloyd said. “And then…” He took another breath. “Well, they’re smuggling drugs into the country even though we’re under blockade. We deal with them, we give them permission to smuggle food, we keep watch on them, we allow them to keep profits untaxed. If we find a gram on powder on them, I propose the hangman immediately.” He shrugged. “I assume most will not take the risk when such an easy alternative is provided.”

“I see.” Richard said. “You’re saying we don’t clamp down on black markets.”

“When the war is done, we shut them down.” Lloyd said. “But whilst the war is going on, the black market can be viewed as a redistribution of goods.” He spread his arms out. “If we’re building a safety net for the population, then the black market is a second net for those who fall through the first one.”

“And what happens to those who fall through this one too?” Bertrand asked. Lloyd locked eyes with him as he answered coldly.

“They starve.”

“I actually agree with this idea.” Eleanor said.

Richard nodded along. “I concur too, we’re fighting against the country starving here.” The entire room seemed to relax as Lloyd wiped sweat off his brow.

“It is radical, and I don’t like it, but…” He sighed.

“It is sensible.” Richard said. “Problems down the line with it later on though.”

“Of course.” Lloyd said lightly. “We’ll have a criminal problem later, but that can be solved. People starving to death can’t return back to life.”

“Arthur, don’t write this down.” Richard said. Some things were better when they weren’t included in the minutes. “Lloyd, you have permission. I want this done, turn the dealers into patriots.” There was some laughter at that, Richard had to make the joke, because now they were finally out of the children’s section of this pool of problems.

Another problem down. Richard turned to the next issue. One word which chilled the atmosphere in the entire room, this was the part he had been dreading. “Everyone now, I asked everyone for opinions on this.” He sighed. “Electricity.” Taking electricity out of a city was akin to taking the blood out of a man. The continental countries had this issue too, but they had plentiful reserves of coal. They had Karaina to trade with. They had forests to fell. They didn’t have to extract gas from the ocean.

They weren’t an untouchable island.

The entire room fell silent for a few moments. “Rolling blackouts.” Betrand broke the silence. “It has to be done, we simply cannot power the country at this point. There is not enough fuel for the stations. Rancais is sending us what they can through the undersea cables, but I expect them to be cut eventually when Alanktyda realizes they are there.”

“I actually agree.” Maximilian said. “We can’t lie to the population either, we give them dates and hours of when blackouts will occur in each region. I wanted to mention this before, but the Pound a Packet scheme should also include kettles.”

“Kettles?” Richard raised an eyebrow and Maximilian nodded.

“Yes, I’m not being farcical here. We already have power surges at seven in the morning and six at night. It’s because of the whole country brewing their tea.” Even though the topic was silly, Richard realised the issue the more the man spoke. When was the last time he missed his morning tea or coffee either? “We want to rid the population of kettles, or at least get rid of enough of them that they stop making the power graph look like this.” He made a line in the air with his finger, with two noticeable spikes that went from the table to above his head.

“Write that down Arthur. Kettles into the Pound a Pack scheme.” Richard said. “Will it make a difference though?”

“We go step by step.” Maximilian said. “We cut the fat so that the hospitals can stay on.”

“I would go further.” Elliot said, the professor-esque Minister of Education. “We cut heating to certain sections entirely, it’s still the summer, we have months to adjust the population at large to the idea of what I’m calling DHZ, Designated Heating Zones.”

“It would be brutal.” Lloyd said. “If we start cutting power to heating.”

“Baby steps. Kettles first.” Elliot said. “Then between the hours of two to six we cut power. Expand to one to six, then twelve to seven.”

“I was wanting to suggest alternative fuel sources.” Maximilian said. “Wood and the like.”

“We would deforest Allia entirely within the year if we started burning wood.” Elliot said. “But for rural areas, I would encourage it. It’s cities that are the problem here. City blocks don’t have fireplaces.” Richard nodded along, this is why no one wanted to touch this issue. There was simply no way to fix it without grinding the nation to a halt.

“What is with the DHZs you mentioned?” Richard asked.

“Public libraries, schools, town halls, gyms and swimming pools. Anything that can fit a large amount of people should become a DHZ where people go to stay warm. These, we heat with electricity.” Elliot said. “I contacted Camford to run the numbers on this. On what we could use to heat the country I mean.”

“And?” Richard asked.

Elliot shook his head. “From top to bottom. Our coal is not as clean as the Epan coal, we would cause smog if we started burning in mass to warm cities. Rural areas can handle it, cities cannot or we would drowning our own people in smog. Wood is a short term resource, I have no issue with cutting the forests down, most of them are plantation woods anyway so there’s no historical value in them but…”

“There’s a but?” Lloyd asked in disbelief.

“Wood has other uses.” Elliot said. “When you Maximilian mentioned the Austerity Cook book, we already have a problem.”

“We have a problem with a book?” Maximilian asked.

“With paper.” Elliot said and Richard realised the scale of the issue. “Paper cannot be reasonably moved through ECCAF when we’re moving food through it. The country will run out of paper in a week, maybe two. I’ve already instructed all schools to start taking textbook donations or moving to electronic. Camford is emptying its storerooms to send books to the schools in the area, but…”

“I see.” Maximilian said.

“The Austerity Cook Book is an excellent idea because again, how long will we actually be able to power the country for?” Elliot asked. “So it should be printed immediately.”

“I have a draft.” Maximilian said. “There’s spelling mistakes in there probably, but there’s a draft.”

Bertrand shook his head and crossed his arms. “It’s fitting we ration the ration book.” Richard had never heard such a miserable chorus of pained laughs. He sighed and went back to Elliot. The professor nodded at the joke, saw the King looking at him and continued.

“Simply said, there is no good answer. We simply have to keep cutting until we reach a baseline where we can keep the industry and critical infrastructure on.” Elliot said with a sigh. “I was going to ask about fuel, but I can see from your face Thomas that it isn’t an option.”

Thomas was the Minister of Transport. Stocky, bald, also with a moustache. He had lost his hair long ago, when working in the mines. The man in charge of making sure the roads don’t have potholes and that the trains get everywhere on time. The man was talented, Richard had to give it to him even with the train strikes ongoing now. That had broken the twenty-three month strike-less streak. It sounded terrible, but it was actually the second longest in history. The only other time that the train-workers had not gone on strike for such a long time was before the train existed. “I actually have a solution. We luckily have a good amount of stored fuel, enough for twenty months more or less with austerity measures, although if we’re going to be burning it for power, it will be less.”

“We don’t want to burn it.” Bernard Hinleck said, a man who had been a student of logistics a few months ago at Camford University, and now was the main method of communication between the Crown and ECCAF. Skinny, and the youngest here by a dozen years. “ECCAF needs it to refuel planes. If the birds need to bring enough fuel to land, take-off, and fly back to Epa Continental, we would need to cut the amount of weight we can load on them by roughly a third.”

“A third?” Thomas asked.

“I actually had this idea too.” Bernard said. “To cut the amount of fuel we’re using so I ran the numbers. As it is, ECCAF is already not keeping up.”

“What would be cut?” Richard asked.

“Medicine your Highness. ECCAF brings in food, then medical supplements, then medicine, then critical electronics.” He shrugged. “Critical electronics, I’ve cut as much as possible already, we can’t cut anymore.”

“What are those?”

“Materials to repair solar panels and wind farms, devices for the police, machine goods for industry and hospital machinery. We’re as bare-bones as it gets. In a month from now, if a car part isn’t made in this country, you won’t be able to get it.”

“So no touching ECCAF’s fuel.” Richard said. “Arthur, write that down. Thomas, your proposal?”

“We ration all civilian fuel.” He said flatly. “I have the proposal written in specifics already.” He pulled a paper out of his folder and slid it to the King. “But summed up, fuel will be split into two categories, civilian and essential fuel. Civilian fuel will be dyed to ensure compliance, essential fuel won’t be.” He sighed. “Numbers are still adjustable, but it should about three gallons a week per vehicle in urban areas. Exemptions will be for public buses but not taxis. And also for high-efficiency cars, the number should be ten gallons for rural areas, although I would like to run numbers by you two as well.” Thomas slid a paper to Elliot and another to Bernard.

“And for farmers?” Maximilian asked.

“Agriculture and logistics obviously cannot be touched.” Thomas said. “Either you walk to shops that have locally sourced food or you drive to shops that have locally sourced air.” He took a sigh. “Additionally, this will require a tightening of regulation, but we need to start looking at fuel efficiency in routes.” Thomas turned to Bertrand, the man behind the economy. “I don’t know if this is possible in any way, but there needs some way to make trucking companies not go on long routes.”

Bertrand sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Lloyd spoke up. “Your train strike Thomas, can you deal with it?”

Richard spoke up. “I was about to say. We’re in an exceptional scenario, the trains need to run, and they need to run on time.”

“So do we want them broken up?” Lloyd asked and Thomas sighed.

“Give me a week to negotiate with the leaders. I’ll inform them of the situation.”

“We don’t have a week Thomas.” Richard said. “You have two days. The trains need to be running.” A train was worth a dozen trucks on the road. During times of Peace, there would be time to negotiate, but everyday that the train workers were on strike was two days lost in fuel reserves.

Thomas sighed and nodded. “I will see what I can do.”

Richard leaned back and looked at everyone in the room. What a depressing sight they were, but then that sight was fitting for the situation of the country as a whole. All the main topics had been covered, this meeting had not been to discuss the war logistics, those were handled by the other leaders and by ECCAF. Allia had a war at home to fight. “If anyone else would like to speak up, I would advise you do so now.” Richard said. “Otherwise, we meet again in a week.”

One man did speak up. Emmanuel, the man in charge of the Foreign Office: Allia’s department for diplomatic affairs. He had a sharp jawline but dark eyes that were unusually sharp. “I do.” He said. The entire table turned to him. Richard rolled his hand to indicate to the man to go forwards. “It is radical.” He said.

“Well we’ve had a lot of that today already.” Lloyd said.

Emmanuel shook his head. “More radical than anything like that, with consequences…” He sighed. “Diplomatic consequences that may even strain our relationship with the Epan Coalition.” He looked at them all. “But, it would solve the food issue. Or dampen it at least, and that would ease up on all our other problems too.”

And now, Richard was intrigued. He leaned forwards. “What is it?”

Emmanuel took a sigh. “We contact Arcadia and ask for floromancers to assist.”

Now that it was said like that, it really was obvious. Floromancers were magicians that could enhance the fertility of soil, that cut increase the bounty of plants, that could speed up growth from a whole season to a week.

And if they asked for help from Arcadia, they were effectively aligning themselves with Goddess Elassa.

With the woman who had cracked a continent.

Who had just drowned more than a quarter of a billion people.

Where the death count could be measured a percentage of the total human population, and not a number.

He leaned back and thought. For once, he could not think quickly. Either they dealt with the devil of massacre in Arcadia or they brought the devil of austerity to Allia.

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