Last days of Autumn

Far Off Unhappy Things

Chapter 22: Last days of Autumn

By Renko Doremi Rodenburg

“Achlys, you have to sit still and let me treat your legs.”

Fleur watched as Maxwell and Akela tried to calm down her uncooperative sister.

“It hurts,” Achlys yelled as she trashed around trying to escape Akela, who was pinning her to a heavy wooden table in House Charis. “I’m better off rotting anyway.”

“Achlys, you’re going to die if we don’t treat this infection. Sit still.”

“Death is an illusion,” Achlys said.

“Fleur, tell her to stop thrashing around,” Maxwell said.

“Autumn,” she cursed. “Achlys, sit still and let Maxwell clean your wounds.”

Emain- Clementine’s accursed champion, now wearing the skin of a vampire- descended the stairs into the living room. “What’s going on in here?” She asked. “Wait, who is that?”

“Achlys,” Fleur explained. “She’s been through a lot.”

“You look like you’ve been through hell indeed,” Emain greeted Achlys.

“Winter,” Achlys cursed. “You’re all working with Clementine, the whole lot of you.” She tried to free herself from Akela’s grasp again, thrashing around with renewed vigour.

Emain shook her head and said something to Achlys, inaudible to Fleur. Achlys promptly passed out.

“What did you do to her?” Fleur asked.

“I bade her to sleep,” Emain said. “She’ll wake up in an hour or two.”

A burst of anger welled up in Fleur. “Emain, she might not be Clementine, but you will still treat her- or me, for that matter- with respect.”

“Hey,” Emain said, throwing up her hands in a defensive gesture. “Just trying to help.”

“Thank you Emain, but be mindful of Achlys- and for that matter, Fleur- their feelings,” Maxwell said. “And having power to spare does not mean you should throw it around like that. One day you might antagonize the wrong person, one with more power to spare than you do.”

Emain shook her head and made a retching noise, but did not complain.

“Achlys her biology is really odd,” Maxwell said to Akela. “Her flesh consists of layers of flakes. If we remove the rotting parts, we might be able to halt the infection before it spreads so far that it kills her.”

Fleur wanted to object. Wanted to complain. There was something gross about mortals putting their hands on her sister. But Achlys needed help, and she wasn’t going to sit still long enough for Fleur to convince Violet to help- and Maxwell had proven a true friend. The first friend she had had in ages. Maxwell and Akela would help Achlys, and maybe she would even join House Charis. They’d be one step closer to being a real family again.

“I’ll go get disinfectant and bandages. Do you need anything else?”

“Tweezers and a scalpel. God, if only I hadn’t antagonized that alchemist.”

“Maxwell, he was experimenting on her in the first place. And his attitude to us was reprehensible. If anything-”

Fleur didn’t finish her sentence. For a long time she had wondered if Maxwell was merely playing a role, pretending to have hidden stores of knowledge and power as a sort of mimicry or camouflage to survive in the harsh environment of Luson. Now she knew he was truly dangerous- who knows what else he had stashed away in his myriad pockets.

There was a deep wisdom in Maxwell’s mannerisms, she understood now. Alexis had acted all-powerful and invoked the ire of someone with more power. Perhaps living with Prince Autumn for years had desensitized him to real feelings of danger, protected by his status as Court Alchemist. It didn’t matter- the end result was that Maxwell had stood up for himself and for her.

Now when she looked at him, she didn’t see a petulant young mortal playing with fire. She saw a mysterious abyss, wise beyond his years. It made her heart flutter.

“Hmhm,” Maxwell said. “But I acted rashly and in anger. It might spell trouble for us down the road. Still, I don’t think I’ll soon forget his face.”

“Can you all make some space in here?” Akela asked. “Let me and Maxwell try to treat Achlys without hovering around us all the time.”

“I’ll go sit outside,” Fleur said.

“Idem Ditto,” Emain said.

She had hoped Emain would go back upstairs to her room, not tag along outside. Alas, there was little she could do about it. Together the two left House Charis.

“Wanna go somewhere?” Emain said. “I haven’t been around for a few hundred years so I’d love to wander around for a bit.”

“Is that smart?” Fleur asked. “What if someone recognizes your body? Or worse, someone recognizes you? And Luson isn’t exactly the most stable right now.”

“What do you propose we do then? Sit on Akela’s fencepost and pretend to be old friends while we catch up?”

“I guess we can head into Luson.”

Side by side, they walked the uphill road to the Twin Cities main gate. As they did, a large group of mercenaries, armed to the teeth, hurried out of the city. They were better equipped than most, and Fleur recognized a wizard from the Spire among them.

“That’s not good,” she said as the group of soldiers passed them by.

“Why not?” Emain asked.

“The Lands are falling apart. If they’re sending out the big guys, I only assume that the forces of Summer are almost at the gates. If the forces of Summer are almost here, then Autumn is still out of commission.”

Emain shook her head, but did not explain why she disagreed.

A while, walking along main street, Emain pointed out that it didn’t seem like anyone else had figured out Autumn was in a coma.

“The inner circle will guard this secret with their life, though I imagine the rest of the court is wondering what’s going on by now.”

“Why don’t we coup the Autumn Throne ourselves?” Emain suggested.

“My friend wants to save the Lands Lost, and doing so would only start a war with my siblings. The conflict would never end, the world torn to shreds. If we can’t restore the status quo, then no matter who wins, this world dies.”

“Clementine wanted more than eternal stagnation, you know,” Emain said. “For all of you. Not just for herself.”

Fleur looked Emain in the eyes. Her eyes were brown, stained with an ever so slightly present red.

“You don’t understand anything about us, bodythief. Whatever Clementine’s noble goals, she has caused more pain in my life than any other being could ever hope to accomplish.”

“Sheesh, no need to explode at me. Let’s head to the hanging gardens. I wanna look out over the city and see how much has changed. You have to forgive me, it’s all so awfully nostalgic being back after such a long time.”

“That’s right next to the palace, have you lost your mind?” Twenty minutes alone with Emain, and Fleur already wanted to strangle the woman.

“And?” Emain said, dismissive. “I’m a vampire noble, and you’re Fleur. Nobody’s going to bother us.”

“Maxwell has lethally injured the court alchemist. Autumn is in a coma, maybe even dead. Ten different equally shadowy groups are planning to attack the city to capture the throne. Nobles. Merchants. Cults. Several of my own siblings if Maxwell is right.”

“And what are we going to do about that?” Emain asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know! Maxwell freed you from imprisonment to help with that exact thing. He- he believes that with enough connections, we can anticipate and prevent others from making moves. I don’t understand exactly how, but he’s got some kind of secret magic. Some manner of control over ‘narratives’. If Maxwell has thought far enough ahead to recruit specific people, he’s got a plan. We just have to wait.”

“What better way to wait than on a bench in the shade in the hanging gardens.”

“Emain!” Fleur exploded. She could no longer care enough to maintain her composure. “Why do you want to go to the hanging gardens so badly? What are you up to?”

“By Clementine, you’re such a pain in the ass. Fine, we’ll go somewhere else. Where do you want to go?”

“Not near the palace. We’re risking enough walking around in the city as is.”

“Let’s go swim then. There’s springs downtown, right? Are those still open?”

“Emain, time didn’t pass in this world until six months ago. Of course they’re still open.”

“I can for the life of me not comprehend how time could be frozen ‘until six months ago’, but I’ll leave the thinking to the Amazing Maxwell and his Educated Witches,” Emain sighed.

“Autumn, you are insufferable.”

“I’m glad you still love me,” Emain said, winking.

Fleur followed the other girl to the bridge, then down to the lower part of town. It was built in a straight line along the cliff, with stone buildings on one side and cliff dwellings hewn into the rock on the other. The same water that welled up from the abyss beneath the earth to give rise to the river Lus rose to the surface in the form of hot water here, and had been used for industrial purposes in ages past. These days it was used to heat a series of baths and pools instead.

That was wrong, Fleur realized. This was one of many worlds, each split from a common source. There wasn’t a ‘past’ where it was Summer or Spring, those were entirely different worlds, separated by an impossible to traverse gulf of both space and time.

Except that was also wrong, because Mary had casually wandered from Summer- real Summer, not the remnant they called Summer in this version of the Lands- straight into Autumn.

“Really nothing has changed,” Emain said as they walked through the narrow streets of the lower parts of the city. Several people sped away as they spotted them. Probably scared of my ears, Fleur thought, barely suppressing the impulse to fiddle with them.

When they reached a street with several hot springs, Emain closed her eyes, and let her finger wander for a moment. “That one,” she said, settling on a small building hewn into the cliffside. As they entered, the owner of the place went a deadly shade of pale.

“H- h- oh- welcome, welcome, what can I can I do for you?” He stammered.

“Pool for two, if you let anyone bother us we string you up by your intestines,” Emain laughed while taking out a gold Florin and pressing into the man’s hands.

“Behave,” Fleur chastised the girl. “You should really put in an effort to stand out less.”

“Tsk,” Emain spat. “I’m paying the man the same he normally makes in a year. Lighten up a little.”

They entered the pool, which was quite spacious for a cliffside dwelling. A hallway lit with mechanical lamps led to a room with towels and space to leave their clothes, with a hardwood door leading to the bath proper.

“Remind me to buy normal clothes soon,” Emain said as she worked to undo all the straps keeping her black leather armor together. “I can’t believe this bitch walked around in all this all day.”

The dresses Fleur used to wear would’ve been a hassle to take to a place like this, but the simple adventuring gear she had picked up a while ago- blue pants, a tough brown shirt and a blue overcoat- were a lot easier to get in and out of.

“I’ll be damned,” Emain said. “You’re quite pretty underneath those boyish clothes, even with the anorexia.”

“Hey, be normal,” Fleur chastised her.

Emain finished taking off her armor and undergarments, then struck a pose with one arm behind her head, twisting her body slightly.

“What do you think?” She asked.

“What do you mean?” Fleur asked in return.

“Of my body?” Emain replied, an unpleasant tone in her voice. As if she was talking down to a child.

“Pray tell, what judgment do you expect from me regarding your body? Should I congratulate you for stealing a muscular body? Should I pat you on the back for having picked a victim with clear skin, free from blemishes?”

Emain laughed. “Fleur! I can’t believe this.”

“What is your problem, Emain? What is so funny?”

“I can’t believe you’re not into women,” Emain said.

“Oh,” Fleur said. She suddenly felt painfully aware of Emain her gaze, and the carefree if somewhat hostile atmosphere immediately made way for a deep sense of shame.

“Look at her blush,” Emain laughed. “Come, let’s head into the bath. You can hide in the water if you don’t want me to look at you.”

The bath was a rectangular room with a recession dug into it. The recession was tiled with ceramics, and a copper pipe pumped hot water from the underground springs into the bath while, while another pipe pumped the water back out on the other side, most likely to be used for heating and then discarded into the river.

“Clementine, that’s hot,” Emain swore as she stepped into the water.

“Your body temperature is much lower than that of a human,” Fleur said as she laid down in the bath, only her face sticking out of the water. “So of course the water feels hot.”

“I see,” Emain said. “How’s that for you?”

“Hm? Oh, my body is mostly moonstone and linseed oil. The water would need to be boiling before it becomes uncomfortable.”

“Interesting. Your skin looks as soft as mine, though.”

“Hmhm,” Fleur muttered. “I’m starting to see things.”

“Like what?”

“Patterns. Paths. You keep trying to steer today in specific directions. Maxwell does the same, but less bluntly. It’s a magic I was unaware of until recently. Now I see it everywhere.”

“Clementine showed me the truth behind the world,” Emain said. “This world is a stage. You can direct its players the way you would direct actors.”

“I’ve heard it be called a stage, a story, a poem, a painting, a reflection. The underlying message is clear to me now, though.”

“Yeah,” Emain said. “It’s wonderful, don’t you think? We are the chosen few with real agency. The only people who matter. We are those who look behind the curtain at the face of God, and see our own reflection gazing back at us.”

“That is your takeaway from all this?” Fleur asked, staggered.

“What is yours?”

“That nothing is real. That I’m not Fleur. I’m a pale shadow of a real Fleur, somewhere in another time and space. When you subtly guide the actors around you on other paths, doesn’t that make you wonder who the playwright is? Isn’t that terrifying?”

Emain laughed. “Fleur, let me tell you something about me that might help you understand my philosophy. Do you know how it works, when I change bodies with people?”

“I don’t,” Fleur answered. “Though if I were to do something like that, I’d work with reflections. Use reflections to access the soul, then switch them around.”

“That’s because you have it easy,” Emain said. “You breathe magic. You are magic. You don’t even have to think about it. For us mortals, it’s different. Magic comes to us through laborious effort. We work magic through elaborate rituals.”

“Yeah,” Fleur said. She had studied at the Spire for years. She understood a small measure of human magic.

“So I devised a ritual. Using principles of similarity and correspondence I devised a process that slowly overwrites the contents of someone’s brain with the contents of my brain. Using principles of equivalent exchange and reflection, I greatly sped up the process by running it in reverse on my own brain.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t move souls around. I overwrite someone’s personality and memories with my own, and I overwrite my brain with their personality and memories. I’ve gotten really good at it. It took agonizing, terrifying minutes at first. It’s over in less than a second now.”

“Wait,” Fleur said. “Then who am I talking to right now?”

“Lyren Walkenburg, with the personality and memories of Emain Sinclair.”

“What?” Fleur said. “What- wait, doesn’t that mean- is there an original Emain? Huh?”

“Fleur, we humans only live for sixty or so years at most. The original Emain is long dead.”

“Do you still have Lyren her soul? If she- if you die, what remains?”

“A confused mess of a shade, and sometimes not even that.”

“That’s bleak,” Fleur said. “That’s horrifying. How can you be okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? My life is great. I’m rich, I’m strong, I’m sitting in a hot bath with an almost-immortal body, I’m enjoying the company of a sexy witch. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Emain laughed. Not her usual amused chuckling, but a hearty, genuine laugh.

“But you’re not real!”

“Neither are you, Fleur. Nothing around us is real. But doesn’t that make us at least equally real as the mess we inhabit?”

Fleur let herself sink all the way down into the water, and let the air flow out of her lungs. There was no reasoning with Emain- the woman was stark raving mad.

“Say,” she said when she surfaced again. “How did you end up sealed?”

“Hah,” Emain replied. “When Clementine and I tried to assassinate Autumn, I tried to steal his body. That didn’t go too well, because my ritual was diverted to an amulet around his neck. A clever trick that, creating a body double of sorts, to draw magical heat.”

“So you copied your personality to- wait a minute, what happened to the body you were copying from?”

“I don’t know,” Emain said. “My memories end at the failed attempt. Maybe it ended up having all of Autumn’s memories, or maybe it was left blank. Who knows.”

“Harsh,” Fleur said, getting up from her back and sitting down against the edge of the bath. The water was quite shallow, she realized, and self-consciously eyed Emain to see where she was looking.

“Do you have like, some emotional baggage? Some problem with sexuality?” Emain asked.

“That I don’t want to- wait a minute, you’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“You’re steering the narrative. What are you playing at?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Emain laughed, holding up her hands in a non-threatening gesture.

“You are! I didn’t think about it, because I didn’t think of going for a bath as sexual, but first you wanted to go to the gardens, then to the baths- you were trying to get us somewhere the two of us would be alone in a context that can be constructed as romantic. You’re doing that narrative manipulation thing.”

“Fleur, has anyone ever told you that you’re no fun at all?”

Fleur took a deep breath. “Yes. I have in fact, been told I’m no fun my entire life. By Clementine, by Hyacinth, by Aster. I’m no-good-Fleur. I don’t like scheming, or fighting, and I don’t like sex, especially not with family members. Everytime I have pushed back when other people wanted me to do things I didn’t wanna do I have been called ‘no fun’. Eventually they just stopped involving me in their life, which was fine with me- until they killed our dad and plunged this world into the hellscape it is today.”

Emain stared at her, wide-eyed and aghast. After a moment she managed to collect herself. “Wait, you had a father?”

Fleur exploded. “Oh, I guess Clementine didn’t spill all of our secrets to you, did she?”

“Clementine didn’t talk much about her past or personal life,” Emain mumbled, averting her eyes from Fleur.

“Well, maybe you weren’t as close with her as you had everyone believe, then! Maybe you were just a champion, a pawn, like every one of our pawns through the ages.”

“You have no right to talk to me like that, no right at all!” Emain yelled. “I’m your equal. Hell, given that Clementine was ten times the witch as the rest of you combined, I’d say that having been Clementine’s champion and favoured apprentice puts me squarely above at the very least you, Fleur.”

“Above- above me? Pray tell, what do you mean by that?”

“C’mon, Fleur. You’re the least of the witches. You’re the youngest. There’s barely any stories about you. You’ve been dead last in the duel game for your entire life.”

“You,” Fleur fumed. “You are a mortal. You’re not even that. You’re a copy of a copy of a mortal. I understand we’ve known each other for a very long time, but you do not get to talk to me like that.”

“Okay, be that way. We don’t have to talk to each other,” Emain said.

“Emain! You followed me outside. You wanted to go to the garden or to the baths. I didn’t ask for- you bitch! You followed me outside to try and playwright me into a sexual situation. I’m leaving.”

Fleur got up out of the bath, and stormed off to dry herself. Angry and annoyed, she haphazardly dried herself with a towel. While she was putting on her clothes, Emain entered the room, rolling her eyes at her. “Fleur, I’m sorry. But Clementine is a sensitive subject for me.”

“You’re a disingenuous bitch, you know that?”

“Okay, no apologies then.”

Done drying herself, Fleur started to put her clothes back on. Emain kept standing in the doorframe, watching her.

“What do you want? Go away.”

“Tsk,” Emain spat as she picked up a towel herself.

With her clothes back on, Fleur checked to see if she had all of her belongings and left. When she arrived at the entrance, she found the owner of the place standing by the open door. From outside came an odd noise, familiar, yet something Fleur couldn’t immediately tell.

“What’s going on?” She asked as she walked up to him.

“I don’t know,” the man whispered.

Outside, wind howled and rain poured.

“It’s raining,” Fleur said.

“It’s never rained like this before,” the man answered.

“I know,” Fleur said, and then she hurried out the door and into the rain.

It had, of course, rained like this before- but that was long before the man was born. After the seasons fell the weather had always been the same. Overcast, and just slightly too cold to go outside without a coat. Though the riverlands had slightly more rain, it had at most drizzled in the area of the Twin Cities. As Fleur hurried home, the city streets had mostly gone empty save for a lunatic from the Church of the Nine Spoked Wheel. The man paced back and forth on the bridge connecting the two cities while waving a bell around and yelling about the end times. Fleur ignored him, and hurried back out of the city and down the path to House Charis. The dirt road had turned into mud, and she was glad she wasn’t wearing one of her dresses. Completely soaked she walked into House Charis, and immediately had her jaw drop in bewilderment.

Maxwell was crouched next to Achlys together with Alexis. The two of them were messing about with little bottles of tincture, putting it on cloth before dappling it on Achlys her now clean wounds. Achlys herself was awake, and angrily glared at the other end of the room, where next to Akela and Amelie sat Mary, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands. Behind her rested a large wooden staff adorned with a carving of a crescent moon.

“What?” Fleur said.

“Hey Fleur,” Maxwell said without looking up. “We wondered where you went. When the rain started and we couldn’t find you we got worried. Glad you’re okay.”

“I went swimming,” Fleur said. “Why are these two here? Are we friends with them again now? What happened?”

“You went swimming?” Mary asked. “In this weather?”

“No, I- Emain wanted to go swimming. It wasn’t raining when we- what is going on?” She was getting frustrated that nobody was explaining what she had missed, as well as growing anxious. Something was wrong.

“Where’s Emain?” Maxwell asked, pouring another vial of bright golden tincture onto a piece of cloth.

“Who cares! I asked why Alexis and Mary are here.”

Alexis put down his medical supplies and got up. He shook his head. “Tintenzunge is attempting a coup. Mary and I had to flee the castle. We didn’t know where else to go. I’ve already made up with Maxwell.”

Fleur took a few deep breaths to calm down. “Tintenzunge? The court poet? How is Autumn doing?”

“I don’t know,” Alexis said. “Mary was treating him. Her magic is potent against the sicknesses brought on by Winter.”

Achlys made a retching sound and a pouting face.

“The situation went from bad to worse, then,” Fleur said.

“It gets worse still,” Maxwell said. “The forces of Princess Summer are almost at the gates. Tomorrow, this place turns into pandemonium.”

“Demonium what?” Fleur asked.

“A figure of speech. It means an incredible chaos,” Maxwell explained.

Fleur took off her drenched overcoat and put it on one of Akela’s chairs.

“Should I get you some chocolate, Fleur?” The old halfwolf running House Charis asked her.

“Yeah,” she replied as she sat down next to Mary.

“I wanted to go swimming as well,” Amelie said. “You never take me anywhere. It’s the end of the world and you still cannot find time to spend with me.”

“How about I spend as much time with you as you want after we solve the problem of the world ending?” Fleur asked the dead girl. “I’ll be yours and yours alone for months and months if need be.”

Amelie smiled. “Promise?” She asked.

“I promise,” Fleur said. “I’ve already promised you I’ll stay with you, remember?”

“Yeah,” the girl said.

Akela, who had gotten up to get Fleur a drink, returned. She put the cup of hot chocolate in front of her, and sat down next to Amelie.

“Strange times,” she said. “I’m glad this house is so full of life, though. Hear the rain clatter on the roof? It’s almost cozy, hiding in here all together.”

House Charis was full indeed. Once again Fleur was overcome with a terrible melancholy. The thing she desperately wanted- a family- was in arm’s reach, yet still somehow forever slipping through her fingers.

“Well,” Maxwell said, as he walked over to her side of the room, wiping his hands with a small towel. “At least we have a clear goal.”

“And that is?” Fleur asked.

“Tomorrow, while the city is attacked, we assassinate Tintenzunge.”

Fleur took a deep breath. “That’s a lot to take in,” she said.

“Hmhm, and it’ll be a hack job too. No real time for planning. But if we don’t stop him, Achlys claims he’ll rip the lands in half. The fabric of the world isn’t strong enough to survive the kind of conceptual revolution he’s attempting.”

“Christ,” Fleur swore. Maxwell burst into laughter. “What?” She asked.

“I’m rubbing off on you,” he said. “Do you even know who ‘christ’ is?”

“Tsk,” Fleur replied.

“Oh, and again- where’s Emain?”

“I don’t know,” Fleur replied, annoyed. “I told you. We went swimming. I had a fight with her, and then I rushed straight here.”

“Jesus,” Maxwell said. “Is she still alive?”

“What? No- I mean yes, she’s still alive. We exchanged words, we didn’t turn the lower city into a magical battlefield.”

“Okay, I’m glad,” Maxwell said with genuine relief on his face. It was rare to see Maxwell portray real emotion, Fleur realized.

“What now?” She asked.

“We’re just about finished up with Achlys. Alexis his medical and alchemical knowledge came in right on time. She probably won’t ever walk again, but at least the infection won’t kill her. So now we sit, we cook some food together, we dine. And then we prepare for tomorrow, and pray for the best,” Maxwell explained.

Fleur picked up her mug of hot chocolate and took a sip. The last few months of her life had been at once disastrous, and the first time in four hundred years that she had properly felt alive. Perhaps this was the effect of time moving again, some brief respite from eternal stagnation and perpetual decay.

Perhaps though, she thought as Maxwell sat down next to her and put his hand on her own, perhaps this was of her own making. Hers and Maxwells. She looked around House Charis, at Akela, the wolf. At Mary, the Astrologer. At Amelie, who had become akin to a daughter to her, and at Achlys. Her older sister, finally with her again. Even Alexis, who she didn’t really like, seemed to radiate a friendly warmth.

“I euh,” she stammered.

“Hm, what’s up?” Maxwell asked.

“I don’t know, it’s all a bit much. What if everything does go to hell? What if the End of All Things is at the gates, and what me and my sisters have been running from forever is here to collect it’s due?”

The entire table, even Alexis, smiled at her.

“It won’t,” Maxwell said as he squeezed her hand. “And even if it does, I swear on my name and my cloak that we’ll stay together. We’ll just run somewhere else, the lot of us.”

A wave of fatigue washed over Fleur, the last of her mental shields finally crumbling.

She started crying.