Far Off Unhappy Things
Chapter Twenty Three: The End of All Things
By Renko Doremi Rodenburg
Reinhild found herself in the abandoned abbey with nothing at all save her sword, Helmatöt. The Red Fox was gone, and so was Hyacinth. Her hair had returned to its usual red, and her skin was leathery and full of blemishes. Her left arm was disfigured, though usable. For a moment she had sat at the brook, and wept at the beauty and strength she had thrown away for Hyacinth her sake. Then, when she found her tears to be normal salty tears instead of amber droplets, she had become unable to even cry.
For a brief moment, the briefest moment, her life had been ascendant. On an upwards curve. But it was not to be. It was never going to be. She was no heroic champion fighting for a noble witch, nor was she a famous rogue, a trickster, a folk hero. She was Reinhild. A toy for the nobles to pass around, a miserable wretch with no home, no family and no destiny. Her only companion was the cursed shortsword, ever hungering for death.
And death she would give it. When nearing the end of their lives, the barbarians of the Forests of Forever Fall went seeking their final battle. Old age or melancholy would not take her. She would die in battle, and this miserable stint of life as a free woman would finally be over.
There were some debts she intended to repay in kind or die trying, so she headed towards the Twin Cities. She did not bother masking her trail, and she did not bother to find adequate shelter or forage for proper food. When she left the heath behind her, she was attacked by a dryad twice. Unlike the nymphs, who made of flesh and bone were almost human, dryads were more plant than person. She cut them down with reckless abandon, and ate the only flesh they possessed- their eerily human eyes- to still what little pangs of hunger she was able to feel through the miasma of despair clouding her mind.
Two days walking away from the cities, it started to rain. It had never properly rained in her entire life, so it caught her by surprise. The canopy protected her from the worst of the downpour, but the water trickling along the trees turned the ground into mud nonetheless. In the distance, on the slopes of Luson, she witnessed a mudslide. Entire trees found themselves unable to hold onto the wet ground, and slid off the weathered mountain like water off a warded cloak.
One day walking away from the cities, she found the armies of Princes Summer. They were doing surprisingly well considering their heavy equipment and the foul weather, and had taken control of the main road. Rows of slaves, some Reinhild’s own people, were pulling the machinery of war along the road. It would not be long now, and the Twin Cities would fall under siege. To avoid them, she headed down towards the river Lus. That was dangerous, doubly so now that the river had swollen to twice its usual size under the relentless rain, but it was a way into the city without having to deal with enemy armies or guards who could recognize her from back when she had broken free from her slavery. There was no doubt in her mind that the pile of corpses she had left on the stairs of the palace of Autumn were still fresh in their memories.
Along the riverbed, in the giant canyon that cut right through Luson and Lusan, she found that she was not the only one with this idea. Around a campfire protected from the rain by a rocky outcrop sat familiar faces- people she had not expected to run into again, let alone all at once.
“What in the Autumn’s name has happened to you?” Carver asked, at once concerned and belittling.
Next to him sat Lyren, in the body of an Angel of Winter. Next to her sat Airy.
“You jest,” Lyren said. “I thought she abandoned us for the wizards, I really did.”
Reinhild shook her head, and sat down next to Carver. “I followed them to stab them in the back, but the opportunity never came. I was injured.” She sighed. “Where,” she said, but couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence. Instead she gestured at Airy, hoping that got her point across well enough.
“I thought I spotted Aiden crawling along the river with a huntsman,” Airy said. “Turns out it was not Aiden, but a certain Lyren who was trapped in Aiden’s body by the adversary.”
“The adversary?” Reinhild asked.
“The demon you inadvertently helped free from her imprisonment. The apprentice of the Winged Witch, who, like all of us, seeks the End of All Things.” Airy smiled contently, gazing into the fire.
“I don’t understand a thing anymore,” Reinhild said. “I am driftwood being ferried to my destination by the river Lus.”
“Aren’t we all,” Airy said.
“Speak for yourself,” Carver said.
“Tell us what happened to you,” Lyren said.
“I will not,” Reinhild said. “I will rest here but for a moment, and then I will climb the caverns and fight my way up into the palace through the dungeons or die trying.”
“What for?” Airy asked.
“There is someone I want to fight before I die,” Reinhild said.
“Autumn?” Carver asked.
Reinhild shook her head.
Night was rapidly falling, and before long it was entirely black in the canyon save for the dancing flames of Carver’s campfire. From the dark came a humming sound, a soft but deep thrumming. Then Guinevere and Ellen stepped forth into the light of the campfire, followed by a floating broom- the source of the sound.
“Can you not fly ahead so fast, we thought we’d never find- hey, what is Reinhild doing here?” Guinevere asked.
“Our queen has been demoted to pawn, and lest we interfere, will die before dawn.” Ellen tipped her rather large hat as she said it, then made a curtsey. “I am Ellen,” she introduced herself. “Are these friends of yours and Reinhild?” She asked Airy, gesturing at Carver and Lyren.
“Long story,” Airy said.
“No,” Lyren said.
“Are we allies, Reinhild? I wonder,” Carver said.
The newcomers sat down next to the fire as well.
“Hey Reinhild. What happened to you? Your- you were beautiful last we met. What happened?”
“The-” she stammered. “The Red Fox is dead. She died. I lost her.”
Airy raised one eyebrow. “How’s that possible?”
“I would really, really like it if other people stopped eating the chess pieces off my board in the middle of a game,” Ellen said.
“Explain that,” Carver said.
“I will explain everything only once,” Ellen said. “Is now the time?”
“I suppose so,” Guinevere said. “Listen well to what she has to say.”
Lyren and Carver shrugged. Reinhild nodded.
“A war is raging,” Ellen said. “Not a war fought with arms or spells, but an ideological war. A war of ideas. A war with hearts and souls as battlegrounds. It is a war fought in secret, and merely knowing about it makes you a target of those fighting in it. It is called the Consensus War, a war to decide What Is and What Is Not, to decide what is Real and what is Dust. This war has spilled into the Lands Lost. For an eternity, your world has been governed by certain rules. By patterns. Pieces moved along ordered lines, always playing out the same story. But now the rules have broken down, and the world is coming to an end. The players in this war care not for the sanctity of your world, for the beautiful pieces playing out their tragic stories. Even worse is that the breaking down of the order of this world has enabled other dimwits to inadvertently worsen the damage. Look at here Reinhild for example- at every turn her destiny as the Red Fox is stolen from her. At this very moment, Prince Autumn lies dying in the Autumn Court as several key players move to claim the Autumn Throne. It is the final war, the last battle. One sunrise and one sunset remain, and then awaits us all the End of All Things.”
“You jest,” Lyren said.
“That cannot be,” Carver said. “Autumn is eternal.”
“What do you mean,” Reinhild said. “What do you mean my destiny has been stolen from me?” Rage was welling up in her stomach. Her left arm itched, a burning sensation.
“Dear,” Ellen said. “You are the Red Fox. There’s always a Red Fox. You were supposed to be the Red Fox until your inevitable death, only to be reborn and do it all again. You’ve done so a thousand times and were supposed to do so a thousand times more. But someone keeps interfering, has inked this ugly life you’ve led over the one you were supposed to lead.”
Tears streamed down Reinhild’s face. “No,” she whispered. “Not Hyacinth. It wasn’t Hyacinth that did this to me. Tell me it wasn’t her.”
“When did you meet Hyacinth?”
“A little over six months ago,” Reinhild whispered.
“She cannot be the cause of your torment then,” Ellen said. “When would you say your life went off the path laid out for you?”
Reinhild was quiet. Endless memories, pain and suffering in a myriad of forms, washed over her. “When I was taken as a slave to the Twin Cities, together with my sister.”
“Winter,” Ellen cursed. Carver visibly recoiled. “Who did that, Reinhild? Who took you from your family?”
“Traders,” Reinhild said. “City-folk. Weaklings made strong by money.”
Ellen shook her head and looked at Guinevere.
“Only one trading family is under the sway of the Consensus War,” Guinevere said. “Weyer. They’ve been contaminating this world with endless nonsense from Elsewhere, from introducing new crops to importing clothes that don’t belong.”
“How do you know it was them?” Reinhild said.
“No-one but an outsider free from the laws of this world could have kept you from your destiny. Which brings us to the second issue- how did you lose the Red Fox? Who killed you?”
“The champion of Aster,” Reinhild said. She felt no need to mention the rest of all that had gone down, there in that godless abbey.
“Winter,” Airy cursed.
“If this all is truth,” Carver said. “What use is there fighting? What can we do? Aren’t we all going to die tomorrow anyway then?”
“First of all, we’re not going to die,” Airy said. “Something much worse awaits us- The world will be reshaped, and you along with it. Anyone on this plane will be molten into paint for the next god of this world to paint a new vista with.”
“Then what,” Reinhild said. “Then what do we do?”
Airy’s eyes glittered, and for a moment Reinhild thought she saw much more than the flickering of flame reflected in the angel’s eyes- a field of snowflakes or a sea of stars, perhaps.
“Tomorrow, everyone attacks Luson at the same time. Amidst the confusion, we’ll cut the rot out of the Lands. We assassinate every last one of the offending parties, and restore order to this world.”
“How?” Lyren asked. “How do you plan on doing that?”
“We’ve planned and plotted in the dark places of the world for a long time,” Ellen said. “And Guinevere, beautiful Guinevere, will wield the power of Autumn and Winter both to put an end to this madness.”
“The-” Reinhild stuttered. “The Red Fox? Can she come back to me? Can I be fixed?”
Ellen shifted her head slightly. Her hat cast her face in shadow. “No. But tomorrow, if we win, you can be the Red Fox in your next life again.”
“I see,” Reinhild said.
“Will you go with us, Reinhild?” Guinevere asked.
Reinhild nodded.
“And you, Carver? Lyren?”
“I was going to murder this ‘adversary’ of yours tomorrow anyway,” Carver said. “I take it she’s one of the people we’re going after?” He asked.
“Emain, yes. She’s one of the people that cannot be allowed to run amok in this world,” Guinevere said.
“I’m with you too,” Lyren said. “Though I cannot promise I will be of much use. I still have not figured out how to actually use my wings to fly.”
Guinevere nodded. “You plan on going up through the caves, the catacombs and then the dungeons of the palace, I take it?”
“Yes,” Carver said.
“We plan on flying over the walls while the defenses are distracted by the army of Summer attacking. Reinhild, do you wish to climb up with Carver and Lyren, or do you want us to carry you with us?”
Reinhild shook her head. She would die before letting an angel carry her through the sky. The only time that happened to her people was when wild angels ripped them from their tribes, carried them off to eat them in their nests. “I will go with Carver,” she said.
“Alright. In case we do not manage to meet up in the confusion tomorrow, anyone trying to go for the Autumn Throne is suspect and has to be put down.”
“Kill them all and let the Deer God sort them out,” Carver said.
“Exactly,” Guinevere said. “Now let us rest. Tomorrow we go to war.”
The next morning Reinhild, Carver and Lyren set out to climb up the ancient tunnels. Lyren had shared some bread with her, but it sat heavy in her stomach. The desire to eat had mostly abandoned her. They followed Carver, who apparently knew the tunnels by heart.
“You never know when you have to escape Luson unseen,” he said as he lit a torch using a little metal box that produced flame. “Never thought I’d see the day where I’d be sneaking in instead of out, though.”
As they walked, Reinhild thought about what Ellen had said the day before. That she was destined to be the Red Fox. That her life should have been different. Rationally she wanted to reject the idea that she could have been someone- that she would have been someone. But deep down she felt a yearning for more, feelings she had always stuffed away as delusions of grandeur. She glanced to her side, at Lyren, whose life had taken a dark turn as well.
“I know we weren’t close,” Reinhild said. “But in that vale, we were comrades in arms. I don’t know the ways of your people, but where I come from that means we are sisters now.”
“Reinhild,” Lyren said. “My people keep your people in pens as food. I could not care less about your comradery.”
“Lyren,” Carver chided her. “We have a common enemy. And the Deer God does not care for money nor for birthright. We’re all the same in death- meat on a spit.”
She wondered why the older huntsman was sticking up for her, but could not bring herself to ask.
“Do you have a plan to get your body back?” Reinhild asked.
“Yes,” Lyren said. “I will choke her to death and force her to switch or perish together with my body.”
“I see.”
“Did you know these tunnels used to flush wastewater down into the river?” Carver said as they walked on through the endless winding maze. “A bit like the current sewer system, but far, far grander.”
“I did not,” Reinhild said. “I loathe city-things like that.”
“You hate sewers?” Lyren asked.
“I hate sedentary life. I hate cities and the weakness they breed. I hate people whose power comes from stone and gold instead of their ability to rip their enemies their throats out.”
“You would loathe the Black Forests,” Lyren said. “Vampire society is ten times worse than the Twin Cities in that regard.”
“There is a reason I’m not in the Black Forests,” Reinhild said.
“You and me both, Red Fox.”
“Don’t call me that,” Reinhild snapped at Lyren. It hurt to hear that name.
“Autumn,” Carver suddenly swore as he raised his hand, gesturing for Lyren and Reinhild to stand still.
“What?” Lyren whispered.
“There’s things ahead.”
“People? Monsters? Guards? What do you mean, things?” Lyren whispered.
Now Reinhild heard it too, the muffled sound of people trying to hide their footsteps. Suddenly, it fell silent.
“They’ve heard us too,” Carver said.
“Hey,” someone yelled from further up the tunnels. “We don’t want to fight.”
“Fine with us,” Carver yelled back.
One by one, three disheveled men came shambling around the corner. Their faces were pale, their hair as dry as paper and just as white. When they saw Lyren, they froze. “Oh god,” one started to yammer. “Please. Spare us.”
“I just said we don’t want to fight,” Carver said.
“What happened to you?” Reinhild asked.
“You wouldn’t get it,” the man leading whispered. “Our god has left us. A demoness has destroyed our lands, bringing with her horrid fire and light. We have nowhere left to go but down.”
“You are making fools out of us,” Lyren said. “What are you talking about? Where are you from?”
“Up,” the second disheveled man said. “Up, which is also down.”
“Right,” Carver said.
“We’ll be going now, then,” the man in front said. Very carefully the three shuffled forwards, shielding their eyes from the light of Carver’s torch as they passed him. Anxiously fiddling and with held breath they quickly passed Reinhild and Lyren, nodded at Lyren, and then ran away.
“What is going on up there?” Carver muttered.
“He just told us,” Lyren said. “I assume they’re escapees from the dungeons under the palace. Whatever torture the Deer God has inflicted on them has clearly addled their minds.”
“You can’t know that,” Reinhild said. “Things are going awry. Who knows what awaits us.”
“The catacombs,” Lyren said. “And then the dungeons. So keep your hand on that evil sword of yours in case we run into guards.”
“Keep moving and be quiet,” Carver said. He took the lead again, guiding the group through the winding tunnels. Eventually they arrived at a stone archway with intricate carvings of skeletons burning in flames along the sides.
“Here we are,” Carver whispered. “From here on it becomes dangerous. The catacombs are unguarded, because they’re haunted. It is a death sentence for ordinary men to walk through them.”
“Haunted how?” Reinhild asked.
“They’re filled with stone prisons for the restless dead. You can hear them howl, if you listen. Over time, this has eroded the place. Brought it close to the lands of the dead. Step into the wrong dark alcove and you’ll find you have passed on. Worse, things escape from the sunless lands into the catacombs themselves. Shades who have escaped judgment, devolving into beings of shadow,” Carver explained.
“I do not fear them,” Lyren said “My kind has long transcended life and death. The lesser dead yield to my blood and will, and fall in line.”
“You aren’t-” Reinhild started, but Lyren interrupted her.
“I am aware of my predicament, barbarian. But my will is the same, and my claim to the black throne has not lessened in the least.”
“Okay,” Reinhild said, putting her hands up in a defensive gesture. “I didn’t mean any offense.”
“Stop bickering and follow in my footsteps,” Carver said. “Not one step to the side of me.”
In silence, they followed the older huntsman. Reindhild couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life the man had lived. The huntsmen were similar to barbarians in some ways, yet different in all the ways that mattered. Like barbarians they moved around, treasured self-sufficiency and relished the thrill of combat. But they hunted for sport, not nourishment. They didn’t see themselves as part of the cycle of life and death, but as above it. Worst of all was that they worshiped Prince Autumn, the woodland tribes their worst foe of all.
“It’s awfully quiet for a haunted locale,” Lyren whispered as they followed Carver from room to room, from antechamber to antechamber. Endless rows of granite coffins lined the walls.
“It is,” Carver said. “The restless dead have gone quiet.”
“That can’t be good,” Reinhild said. “What would scare the dead into quiet obeisance?”
“The escaped convicts mentioned something about their god having abandoned them, being chased off by a demoness who wields flame. If their ‘lands’ are the dungeon, then perhaps their god is Prince Autumn. We know Autumn is out of commission, so perhaps his replacement has seen fit to purge the dungeons with fire?” Carver said.
“Someone from the lands of Princess Summer perhaps?” Lyren asked. “The forces of Summer basically have the Twin Cities surrounded. I’ve heard that their seers can speak to spirits, bid them to rest.”
“Makes sense,” Carver said.
They moved on, and eventually reached a massive round chamber. In the flickering of Carver’s torch Reinhild could see paintings on the walls and on the domed ceiling above them and recognized familiar faces among them. “Hyacinth,” she said as she pointed her out. “Fleur, Aster, Clementine. I don’t recognize the others.”
“You are mistaken. That is Saint Jakinta, our progenitor,” Lyren said, also pointing to the mural of Hyacinth.
“Your progenitor?” Reinhild asked.
“She made the first woman into a vampire. She was cast from heaven for the transgression. We worship her the way you all worship the Deer God.”
Reinhild wanted to bite back, say that she wasn’t like Carver- but then got a better idea. A wry smile formed on her face. “That makes sense. She has large scars on her back- I reckon that’s where her wings burned off as she fell.”
“What are you talking about?” Lyren asked.
“Your goddess. Her skin is almost entirely free from blemish, except for two nasty wounds on her back.”
“And how would you presume to know that?”
“Because she sleeps in the nude, and I have spent many nights being driven mad with lust for her,” Reinhild said, narrowing her eyes. It was painful to suddenly admit to something this intimate, something she hadn’t expected to ever confess. But perhaps it was easier because she was using it as a weapon to hurt Lyren, or perhaps it was only easy now that Hyacinth had cut her out of her life.
“You lie,” Lyren said. “You know not what heresy you speak. My mother would have your tongue for this.”
“Hyacinth, or Jakinta, as you call her, has power over the dead. Once, she had me undress and carved runes into my back and arm to fuel the flames inside of me with the souls of the dead. She gave me wings of fire and darkness, and shrouded in such I slaughtered an entire settlement of Kyklopes.”
A strange feeling of radiance overcame Reinhild as she said it. Something about it felt right, narrating the things she had done. It made her feel a little bit more like Reinhild again, instead of just a broken toy.
“That is nonsense,” Lyren said, now angry. “You got thrown across the room by the adversary and immediately lost consciousness. You couldn’t fight off a single Kyklope, let alone a whole village.”
“I lost my power,” Reinhild said, and immediately realized she had made a mistake as the radiance ebbed from her body again. “I lost everything,” she muttered.
Suddenly, previously dead torches in sconces on the walls of the chamber burst to life. Lyren, who was about to say something, stood with her mouth agape.
“What now,” Carver muttered. “Something’s coming.”
The flames flickered, orange and red. The flames flickered again, and became white and pale green.
“What’s happening?” Lyren stammered.
“Pale fire,” Carver said. “Something’s coming. Group up, backs to each other. Don’t let them surprise us.”
“Let who surprise us?” Lyren asked, but she complied nonetheless. The three grouped up in the center of the room. Reinhild drew Helmatöt, and Carver dropped his torch to draw his fileting knife. Lyren did not wear a weapon, but raised her fists. They looked around, and suddenly Reinhild noticed three shapes standing in the doorway. One by one they entered, clad in black robes and adorned with dozens of little amulets. Around their necks were mirrors, and on their waists they wore lanterns aglow with green light. Most threatening of all were the weapons they wielded- scythes, like those used for bringing in wheat. Despite scythes being farming implements before being weapons, many a petty lord who had pushed his subjects a little too far had found out the hard way that they could easily be wielded as fearsome weapons.
“I’ve got a lantern to guide souls on their way,” one of the three sang as they entered the room and started circling Reinhild and her companions. They were all pale women, Reinhild noticed now. They moved gracefully, so gracefully it was almost as if they were simply floating or gliding across the floor.
“I’ve got a mirror to lead the living astray,” the second sang.
“What do you want?” Carver said.
“I’ve got a scythe to steal your life away,” sang the third, paying Carver no heed.
They removed their hoods.
“Oh, great,” Carver spat. “It’s you.”
“You know these women?” Reinhild asked.
“Carver,” Lyren said. She didn’t finish her sentence.
“Glad to see that you remember me,” the second of the women said. “I vaguely recall you saying something along the lines ‘Ye are but a minor spirit, none will come to aid thee’ as you dragged me through the undergrowth until even my skin had chafed off of my body. Do you wish to rescind those words?”
“What do you want,” Carver growled.
The woman stuck up her right hand. Two fingers were missing, with black blood alight with tiny green flames leaking from the wounds.
“Carver?” Reinhild asked.
The three women started dancing around them. Had they been any less practiced in their dancing, it would have come across as silly. Instead, their unnaturally smooth and precise movements chilled the room and scared Reinhild senseless.
“Why don’t you tell them?” The first said.
“Why don’t you regale them with your great deeds?” The second said.
“Why don’t you explain to them what you did that autumn day?” The third said.
“Every day is an autumn day,” Carver said.
“Carver, these are Lampades or Keres,” Lyren said. “What did you do?”
“I-” Carver started, but he was interrupted by all three spirits bidding him to silence at once.
“The arrogant little huntsman here cut off my fingers, chained me up, dragged me through the forest until my clothes and skin both had been scraped clean off, then sold me to vampires so that they might keep me in a circle to try and break my mind into servitude,” the second of the women explained.
“We don’t take kindly to that,” the third spirit said.
“In fact, the act was tantamount to a declaration of war,” the first said.
“It was a cute trick though,” the second said. “How many more prophecies have you stored on little papers in that coat of yours?”
“More than enough,” Carver grunted. “I’ve bested you once, and my friends are each more powerful than I am.”
All three laughed in unison. “Fool!” The second hissed. “I am a diplomat, an emissary. Of course you could best me in combat. But my sisters here are warriors.”
“I am Maria of Thanatos,” the first said. “I have slaughtered thousands who would dare stand against Death.”
“I am Helen of Thanatos,” the third said. “I have killed hundreds who would dare stand against Death, and thousands on the battlefields of the Consensus War.”
“I am Morana of Hades,” the second said. “Aramis Herbley, known as Carver to your peers, you stand accused of standing against Death and aiding those who would unmake reality in the Consensus War. Speak now in your defense.”
“I thought you were a minor nymph,” Carver said. “My mistake. But what nonsense you are babbling about with regards to this war of yours I know not.”
“Carver, Ellen has explained the Consen-” Reinhild started, but she was interrupted by Morana.
“Silence, redhead. Or you will face judgment along with the huntsman.”
Behind her, Lyren laughed.
“The Lands Lost are about to fall to ruin. I was on a mission to arrange forces against those who would destroy the Autumnal Lands. You stood in my way and with that act have damned millions to oblivion.”
“We are marching to stop those who would destroy the Lands right now,” Carver said. “Up above, the war is raging. If you waylay us here, we will not be able to play our part.”
“Oh how very clever he thinks he is,” Helen said.
“The little boy has grown into quite the poet, don’t you think,” Maria said.
“All those stories, Carver. Did you really think you could appropriate them for yourself? You are no storybook hero. You are no warrior-poet defying impossible odds until he can finally face down the Deer God. Your story is one of cutting women to pieces to make some quick florins. You cannot save yourself by throwing our own words back at us,” Morana said.
“Shut up,” Carver growled. Reinhild felt true hate in his voice. The spirit was evidently poking at some sore spots inside of him. It was frightful- she wondered if she’d survive people poking at her every insecurity.
“Was that your defense, boy?” Maria asked.
“Was ‘Oh sorry, I thought you were an unimportant woman’ the extent of your argument?” Helen asked.
“It’s tragic, you know,” Morana said. “Emily is living as blissful an unlife as is possible for a shade, enjoying every delight of Elysium. She was a good woman, Carver.”
“What are you talking about?” Carver muttered.
“Aramis Herbley, you have stood against Death and abetted the cause of those who would bring about the End of All Things. For these sins alone you and your entire lineage past and future are sentenced to death and unending torture thereafter,” Morana said. Her verdict sounded barely like a woman’s voice- much closer it resembled a heavy gate falling shut.
“Stop using that name,” Carver said. “And Emily has nothing to do with this. Nothing.” His voice broke. Reinhild could swear he was about to start crying.
“Do not cry, Carver,” Morana said. “You are about to be reunited with her in the lake of boiling blood. Perhaps there will be days where in the stomach of Kerberus you can find a brief respite from unending pain in the arms of your beloved mother. If she can bring herself to forgive you for damning her with your actions as well, that is,” she laughed. Little bits of spittle flew from her mouth as she did, and burned straight into the stone floor, her sadism tangible.
Behind her, Reinhild heard Carver ruffle through his pockets. “Take this,” he said as he handed Lyren his knife. He took out another weapon for himself, a sickle that seemed almost luminescent in the green light of their surroundings. “Their weapons kill if they manage to land even a single scratch on you. They’ll try to catch you in the sweeping arcs of their scythes, and they’re both stronger and faster than we are. I’ve got tricks up my sleeve, so keep them at bay long enough for me to get those out to level the field.”
“We have no quarry with your companions, Carver,” Morana said.
“Lyren, the Deer God preaches self-interest above all. If you walk from me I won’t resent you for it,” Carver said.
“Stop your foolish jests and let me focus on the fight, huntsman,” Lyren said.
“Reinhild?” Carver asked.
“I have no love for nymphs,” Reinhild said. “And I have no particular attachment to my life either.”
“Just remember that their weapons- woah!” Carver yelled as the first of the women swung for him with her scythe.
Everyone began to move at once. To Reinhild’s astonishment the Lampadas refused to halt their dance even in combat. It was almost hypnotizing to see them move, twirling their scythes around with fluid but calculated motions. A flurry of steel that made it impossible to close in on them. Occasionally they sensed a moment of hesitation, a misstep, or even Reinhild blinking, and immediately struck at her. All she could do was dance out of their way, and lift her shortsword up to deflect any blows coming her way. It was the only thing the three of them could do- there were no openings in the Lampades’ deadly dance. But they were oddly cautious, and Reinhild wondered why.
“Why aren’t they killing us?” Lyren asked, evidently having noticed the same.
Another slash aimed at Reinhild. Another sweeping movement aimed to drive Lyren back. Another blow in an attempt to make Carver dodge and break formation.
“They’re waiting for an opportunity to separate us,” Reinhild said. “They could roll straight over us but for some reason they don’t.”
“It could be that they’re only allowed to hurt me,” Carver said. “They haven’t passed judgment on you, and these types of spirits are extremely strict about their rules.”
“You need space to cast your spells, right?” Lyren asked. Before she got an answer, she rushed forward. Betting her life on Carver and Lyren their intuition, Reinhild did the same. Her target was the third of the Lampads, Helen. For a second Reinhild thought this was where her story would end, her head lopped from her shoulders by a scythe-wielding reaper.
But Lyren had the right idea. Helen went on the defensive, and only half-heartedly struck at Reinhild.
“You’re right,” Lyren yelled. “They’re not allowed to hurt us. Reinhild, you and I are Carver’s shields. Do not let them close in on him.”
Reinhild fell back from her assault on Helen, right in time to intercept Morana attempting to slice Carver’s feet from his legs. Behind her, Carver started to recite something from a slip of paper he pulled from one of his pockets.
“On the twenty-third of September,” he said as he ducked below Maria’s scythe as she aimed at his head. He used the opportunity to pull his slip of paper through the flames of his torch, igniting it. “Death came to fair Luson, to take the old Huntsman to His cold domain. But his appointed time it was not, and a crafty man he was- their weapons broke on his skin.”
The burning piece of paper he had been holding vanished in a flash of light, and a warm orange glow enveloped his skin.
“You cannot kill me,” he laughed as he dashed straight at Morana, moving seven steps for every step he took. For a moment Reinhild thought he would move straight through her defenses and cut out her throat with his sickle.
Only for a moment. A moment later Morana smiled, and lopped Carver’s head off.
“No!” Lyren screamed.
“Has someone neglected to mention,” Morana said, her smile wider than her humanoid face should allow, “that it hasn’t been the twenty-third for a while now?”
The other Lampades laughed.
“And by consequences downstream of his own actions to boot,” Maria said.
“Ironic,” Helen said.
Lyren dropped Carver’s fileting knife, and stared at Morana as she picked up Carver’s head by his hair.
Attempting to fight the Lampades was a fool’s effort, Reinhild realized. Bested by powers beyond her comprehension once again. Where was the Reinhild who had piled the dead up in front of Autumn’s palace when she made her escape from the bonds of slavery? The Reinhild who had exterminated the Kyklope tribe terrorizing Guinevere’s village? She felt helpless beyond measure. The fight had left her body.
“Search his coat,” Morana commanded the other spirits. “I want to see if he’s carrying my fingers.”
“No,” Lyren said. “No. Leave him, his stuff isn’t yours.”
Morana aimed her scythe at Lyren. “Make me. Pick up your oversized knife and make me.”
She stared at the knife, but didn’t move.
“You? Readhead? You want to make a play at avenging your friend?”
“He wasn’t really my friend,” Reinhild said, shaking her head. “He was a comrade in arms. They die. It happens.” She didn’t really mean it. Her heart wasn’t in it. But this was like her, wasn’t it? Lying and smooth-talking her way out of things. It’s how she’d escaped the tower after the raid had gone sour, too.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Morana asked, squinting at Reinhild.
“No,” Reinhild said. “I have never met you before in my life.”
“I am very, very old, redhead. We could’ve met in another place, another time.”
Reinhild was quiet. What use was there crying about her lost life to a deathgod that had just beheaded one of her comrades?
“No fingers,” Maria said, having rifled through Carver’s pockets. “He had a whole lot of garbage on him, but no fingers.”
“Anything else is inconsequential,” Morana said. “Let us head to the Paths of the Dead, and hunt his shade.”
“Perhaps he will leap into the Phlegethon,” Helen said. “To avoid damnation.”
“We could bet on it,” Maria said. “Perhaps we can taunt him with the prospect of reuniting with his mother as we hunt him.”
“I’m looking forward to it already,” Morana said. “We’ll recover my fingers some other day- no doubt he has traded them with some petty alchemist or arcanist.”
The three turned their backs on Reinhild and Lyren, and for a moment Reinhild wondered about trying to stab their leader in the back. She shook her head. There was no way she would be fast enough. As the three left the room, they faded into shadow. The flames on the walls turned back to normal.
“They’re gone,” Lyren whispered. “And so is Carver.”
“Yeah,” Reinhild said.
“What now?” Lyren asked.
“We continue.”
Lyren did not move. She stared at the murals on the wall, clearly visible now that the torches in the wall sconces were lit. “Do you really know Jakinta? Have you really slept with a Goddess?”
Reinhild shook her head. “I have not slept with her. I was her servant for a while. Her champion. She never reciprocated my love for her, and has cut me out of her life.”
“Who are you, Reinhild?” Lyren asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We should move on,” Lyren said, hesitantly moving towards Carver’s corpse. She seemed to shake off her state of shock as she ruffled through his pockets and helped herself to his more valuable belongings. “Yeah,” she said. “We can’t stay here. The restless dead are quiet for now, but who knows for how long?”
Reinhild nodded, and followed the once-vampire out of the circular room. At the doorway they carefully checked if there wasn’t some lingering portal to the land of the dead, and then carried on forward. It wasn’t far to the dungeons, and after a good fifteen minutes of wandering through halls and halls full of coffins and skulls, they found the staircase up to the cell blocks hidden under Autumn’s palace.
“This-” Lyren muttered as she saw the devastation that had been wrought on the dungeons.
“This must be in jest?” Reinhild asked, mimicking Lyren’s voice.
Before them, the hallways of what had once been the dungeons had been warped into unrecognizable shapes. They curved, bent, and flowed organically into each other. Cells had been squashed together, ripped apart and redistributed as if someone had plucked them from the rock they had been hewn into and strewn them around at random. In places, there were wide open spaces so large that trees grew in them, almost resembling the outside world. In other places cells had been combined and restructured into makeshift castles, squat and compressed between the floor and ceiling. Awestruck, Reinhild and Lyren wandered the desolate dungeons.
“What happened here?” Reinhild asked. “What did this?”
“I know not,” Lyren whispered. “And I loathe to find out,” she said while pointing at scorch marks and charred bones.
“How do we find the exit?” Reinhild asked. “There’s got to be a path leading up into the palace somewhere.”
“We walk around and hope we find the exit before whatever haunts this place finds us,” Lyren answered.
They walked for almost an hour before they suddenly heard voices.
“No!” A hoarse voice cried out. “My empire! My subjects!”
“What now,” Lyren spat as she hurried to hide behind a mangled mess of rock and metal where the clearing bled into the dungeons again. Reinhild quickly followed her.
“That whore! She burned down my entire empire!” The voice called out again.
“Be quiet, Achlys,” a much quieter and silkier voice, barely audible, rang out. Reinhild looked at Lyren, who returned a gaze of understanding. Together they waited, until a group of three people came into view.
“Autumn fuck me bloody,” Lyren swore as she recognized Maxwell. “It’s the wizard.”
“It’s Fleur,” Reinhild said, pointing out the second figure in the procession, who carried the third on her shoulders.
“Who is Fleur?” Lyren asked, somewhat confused.
“One of Hya- I mean Jakinta- her sisters. The woman she’s carrying must also be one, but I’ve never seen her. She’s injured.”
“I had such plans with this place,” the woman being carried by Fleur howled.
“Can you tell her to be quiet?” Maxwell asked.
“I just did,” Fleur said. “Achlys, be quiet. You can be a good corpse and weep in silence.”
The three moved past Reinhild and Lyren their hiding place.
“They seem to know where they’re going,” Reinhild said. “We should-” Before she could finish her sentence, Lyren got up and ran after Maxwell and his companions.
“Wizard,” she screamed. “Where is my body?”
Maxwell and Fleur almost tripped as they turned around, startled. In the process, Fleur almost dropped their last companion, but recovered with seeming ease. Reinhild made a mental note that Fleur was considerably stronger than she looked.
“Oh, wow,” Maxwell said. “That’s fast. I thought we’d do this whole revenge business much later.”
“What?” Fleur asked.
“Angel!” the third woman yelled. “At last.”
“Everyone, this is Lyren,” Maxwell said. “Lyren, these are Fleur and Achlys.”
“Wizard,” Lyren hissed. “You will listen to me. Where is my body? Where is the demon you freed from the tower?”
“Emain,” Fleur whispered.
“Lyren,” Maxwell said. “Listen to me. We don’t have much time. Autumn is dying. The Lands Lost are in danger. We have to head to the throne room right away or a cataclysm of unfathomable proportions befalls the world.”
Lyren pointed Carver’s oversized knife at the group. “You should’ve thought about that before you made me your enemy, little wizard. Tell me, was I always going to be a sacrifice? You picked me out specifically, didn’t you? For my body.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Maxwell said. “Lyren, we can work this out later. I’m sorry, for what that’s worth, okay?”
Reinhild knew Lyren wasn’t going to back down. She wondered if she should let the confrontation play out, spiral out into a fight- but she didn’t want to lose Lyren. Her chances of survival were below zero. Instead, she climbed up out from behind her hiding spot as well.
“Stop!” Reinhild yelled. “Stop this. No fighting.”
“Hey,” Maxwell said. “What the hell happened to you?”
“You!” Fleur said, mouth agape. “Hyacinth’s champion. You- you killed Richard!”
Vague memories of a man in chainmail flooded into Reinhild’s mind. Memories of the taste of flesh, memories of Hyacinth holding her and feeding her blood. Her left arm itched, felt hot.
“What?” Three people asked at once.
“Shut up,” Reinhild said. “Be quiet. All of you. Lyren, Maxwell, Fleur. Maxwell is right. We’re in trouble. If we start stabbing each other or throwing magic right now, we only diminish our odds of making it through the palace alive.”
“You can’t be serious,” Lyren said.
“Lyren, either we work together or we all die.”
“Reinhild,” Maxwell said. “I assume Lyren wants revenge or her body back, but why are you here?”
“I-” Reinhild started, but then fell silent. She had to think about that for a bit. “I don’t know if we are going to live or die. In any case, I feel like I’m fast approaching a conclusion. Like a piece of wood being carried along the river Lus, to disappear into the sea at journey’s end. Before that end befalls me, there’s someone I need to see one more time. If I can help you stop this end of all things in the process, all the better.”
Maxwell and Fleur nodded. Achlys made a retching sound.
“Lyren?” Maxwell asked. “We can fight later. We have to hurry to the palace.”
“How do we know you aren’t trying to take the throne for yourself, wizard?” Lyren asked.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Maxwell said. “I’m not from this world to begin with. And Fleur and Achlys know better than to meddle with forces like these, or to start a war with their other sisters.”
“Like Clementine,” Reinhild muttered.
“What secrets has Hyacinth spilled to you?” Fleur asked, suddenly agitated.
“None,” Reinhild answered. The sparks of fire in her heart stirred again. “I learned of her in a tower on the edge of the world,” she said. “I traveled to the land of ice and snow in the north, and there I found a hole in the fabric of All Things.” She felt the power behind ‘All Things’ vibrate on her tongue as she spoke. There was something here, something she still did not quite understand. Some power inherent to speaking. To narration. “I found your oldest sister hidden away there, where she granted me great power. I have fought and died as champion for both Hyacinth and Clementine, yet here I remain so that I can tie up the last act of the ongoing disaster of my life. Now you will all stop bickering and show me the way into the palace so that I may meet my destiny.”
The rest all looked at her, facial expressions torn between bewilderment and awe. The scars on her left arm glowed red, bright with power.
“Very well,” Maxwell said with a grin. “Follow Fleur, she’s been here before.”
They all followed the girl in blue as she guided them through the warped remnants of the dungeon. The stairs up were well hidden, obscured from sight by some optical illusion created by the strange shapes the walls had taken on around them.
“Do you know what happened here?” Reinhild asked.
“I made this place my domain and kingdom,” Achlys said. “I ruled here for an eternity contained in a week. Then Fleur took me away and that Summer whore burned down my kingdom in my absence.”
“What?” Lyren asked.
“Mary,” Maxwell said. “She came from a different Lands Lost, one where it is always Summer instead of Autumn.”
“The lands down south?” Reinhild asked.
“Hmhm, no. A wholly different world.”
“I don’t understand,” Reinhild said.
“This world is an illusion,” Fleur said. “There are many many more figments like it, all slightly different.”
“That’s heresy as well as idiocy,” Lyren said.
Maxwell shook his head. “I wish it were so. We’re at the stairs. The city is under attack by the forces of Summer, so I doubt there’ll be many guards inside. They’re all needed on the walls, in the streets. However, there’s a few people we have to be wary of.”
“Like?” Lyren asked when it became apparent Maxwell wasn’t going to finish his sentence unprompted.
“First and foremost, Tintenzunge. The court poet. He’s a wizard of tremendous power, and is going to attempt a ritual to claim the Autumn Throne as his own. If he succeeds, the Lands Lost disintegrate, and we die. We’re here to assassinate him, but we’ll have to be careful. Ideally either Emain or Fleur fights him. Second, several of the nobles have sided with Tinten and they all wield power as ridiculous as they are great. Third, Autumn has an honour guard of inhuman soldiers that wake up if palace defenses are breached, though I’m not sure if they’ll be functional if Autumn is still unconscious.”
Reinhild nodded.
“Wait,” Lyren said. “What if we stop this wizard but Autumn dies anyway? What has happened to him anyway, that he’s incapacitated?”
Achlys smiled and took a deep breath, but before she could say anything Maxwell hushed her to quiet. “That’s a long story,” he said. “But the court alchemist, Lord Alexis, is on our side and says he can heal Autumn. The problem is that Tinten has chased him out of the palace, so that he can’t get in the way of Tinten’s coup attempt.”
“Where is the adversary? What role does she play in all this?” Lyren asked.
“Who?” Maxwell asked.
“It’s what the Cults of the Hunt call Emain,” Fleur said. “It’s been four hundred years or so, so forgive them for having forgotten her name as she rotted in that dungeon you dragged her out of.”
“Ah,” Maxwell said. “The adversary. That’s got a good ring to it. She, Alexis, and Mary are attacking the palace head-on as a distraction.”
“I see,” Lyren spat.
“Hey, you can fight her after all this is over, okay?” Maxwell said.
“Understand this, wizard. When I have my body back, I am going to incapacitate you. I am going to break your hands and rip out your tongue so you cannot work your magics. Then I am going to drag you to my homelands, where I will have you subjected to torture so advanced you humans can barely conceive of it. I will turn you into one of us, so that you will live forever as we tie you up with silver cords and brand you with sigils of agony.”
Maxwell smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Lyren spat a milky glob of angel saliva on Maxwell’s boots.
“Enough,” Reinhild demanded. “Enough.” She gestured for the rest to follow her, and ascended the precarious spiral staircase up, through the roof of the cavern and into the palace. The room above the dungeons was charred black, and the heavy steel doors had been ripped from their hinges.
“Mary,” Maxwell said, shrugging. “Somewhere in the last two weeks she carved herself a staff, and she turned out to be quite adept at commanding flame.”
“She was bending time the first time we met her,” Fleur said, nodding.
“Do you ever feel like we are missing things?” Maxwell asked.
“Like things pass us by and we only catch their afterimages?” Fleur asked him in return.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t until recently. Now I have seen the whole of the world, and suddenly I’m most frightfully aware that I might know nothing at all.”
“I loathe that demoness of summer love and flame,” Achlys added. “We should kill her.”
“Stop this comedy routine, fools,” Lyren spat as she walked out of the room.
A feeling of vertigo overcame Reinhild. Like something had quickly passed her by, leaving her reeling. Before she could grab hold of it, it faded again, leaving nothing but a faint afterimage of discomfort. Her arm burned, and she could feel fat boiling under her skin.
“Reinhild, easy on the infernal magic,” Maxwell said. “Or you’ll run out of soul to burn before we’re out.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” She asked, bewildered, as she stared at her left hand. She flexed it a few times, felt the burning muscles in her lower arm contract and expand. They ached. They screamed. “Yeah, it does feel like that’s what I’m doing.” She cursed Hyacinth for not teaching her how to properly use the powers she had granted her.
“Nobody around,” Lyren said, having moved further into the hallway to take a look around. “Sounds of battle ahead, behind and above us. The-”
A heavy rumbling shook the palace, and a sweet smell that Reinhild vaguely recalled from somewhere else wafted into the hallway.
“Mary,” Maxwell said, smiling.
“And Emain is with her?” Lyren asked.
“Most like-” Maxwell started to say before he realized his mistake. Wildly but ineptly flapping her wings, Lyren rushed down the hallway to the left of them- no doubt to seek out her rival.
“Curses,” Fleur said.
“Christ,” Maxwell said. “Ah well, there’s zero chance she survives against Emain, Mary and Alexis in her current state. Good riddance.”
“Where did you learn the name of the Saviour?” Achlys asked.
“Achlys,” Maxwell said. “It is far stranger that you know who Jesus Christ is than that I know that.”
Reinhild had to suppress a chuckle. She had no idea what they were arguing about now, but the dynamic of the three was charming, almost funny. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and reminded herself that Maxwell was her enemy.
“The Saviour is one of my patron’s most hated enemies,” Achlys explained. “He doles out eternal life like candy, getting in the way of Winter’s own goals.”
Maxwell bent double laughing. He fell onto his hands, and had to wipe tears from his eyes. Whatever context Reinhild was lacking apparently made the conversation all the funnier.
“Is this how I learn that Jesus is real?” Maxwell coughed while trying to suppress his laughter. “Achlys, you’re hilarious.”
“Maxwell, we have a poet to kill, remember?” Fleur said.
“Right, right,” he said as he recollected himself. He patted Reinhild on the shoulder as he passed her by to take the lead. She flinched, but did not recoil. There was no hostility in the gesture. “Come along Red,” he said. “You and I in front, Fleur and Achlys in the back.”
“Can Fleur protect herself and Achlys while carrying her?”
“Not in the conventional way, but they can guard us from magical attacks. That’s why we’ll be a shield in front of them.”
There was something charming about Maxwell. He was deceitful, a trickster, but also charismatic. The way he hid in the folds of his words reminded her of some playful, sprightly creature.
It reminded her of the Red Fox, she realized as pangs of pain shot through her heart. Stifling her emotions, she followed the boy wizard into the hallway.
“There’s nobody around,” Maxwell said as they traversed hallway after hallway. “Best to avoid the main hall though, we better go upstairs through one of the smaller side passages.”
“It’s calming, the quiet of the empty palace halls contrasted against the clamor of combat outside,” Reinhild said.
“It’ll get a lot less calm on the second floor,” Maxwell said.
He led the group to one of the passages he had mentioned. A walkway for servants, hidden behind the walls so they could traverse the palace without getting in the way of the lords. They went up a staircase and again Reinhild marveled at how incredibly strong Fleur was. She wondered if her strength came from some kind of magic, or if her witch physique was simply radically different from humans.
Up the stairs and through the doors was devastation. The entire hallways had been smashed to pieces, and several dead Knights of the Sun as well as dead angels were scattered on the floor. At the end of the hallway, next to jagged shards that had at one point been a stained glass window, stood Guinevere.
“Autumn,” Fleur cursed. “What is she- Maxwell, kill her!”
“What?” Maxwell asked, confused.
“Half breed!” Achlys screamed.
Reinhild stepped forward. “Guinevere, what is going on?” She asked.
“Where did you run into my sisters?” She asked as she approached the group, two shortswords in hand.
“In the dungeons under the palace,” Reinhild said. “I didn’t know they’re your sisters.”
“Fleur? Who is this?” Maxwell asked.
“A half-breed with delusions of grandeur,” Fleur spat. “She’s here to kill us.”
Reinhild took a good look at the swords Guinevere was carrying. One was beautifully patterned with a relief of leaves and nerves, and glowed a faint orange. The other was adorned in a relief of snowflakes and glowed a pale silver. “Is that true?” Reinhild asked.
“Yes,” Guinevere said.
“If you want a fight you can have it,” Maxwell said. “But I suggest we postpone it until after this mess around us has been dealt with.”
“No,” Guinevere replied, her voice cold as ice.
“Put me down,” Achlys yelled as she started to thrash around on Fleur’s back. “I will belch the mists of death over this woman, drown her in the waters of the Styx.”
“Stay put,” Fleur commanded her sister. “You are no good in a fight, you don’t have any of your soldiers with you. Autumn, you don’t even have feet.”
“Reinhild?” Maxwell asked while first gesturing at Guinevere, then pulling his finger across his throat to suggest ‘kill her’.
“Why do you want to kill them?” Reinhild asked. She had no intention of playing loyal soldier for Maxwell.
“For depriving me of a childhood, for casting me out and for their endless hate,” Guinevere said. “I could have been someone, you know. I could’ve been someone if not for their endless meddling in my life.”
Reinhild’s heart almost stopped, so tightly did it flex upon hearing those words.
“She’s a halfbreed,” Fleur said. “A child of our mother after she left our father. She’s wrong. She’s a stain on the world.”
Reinhild looked at Achlys, at Fleur, and at Maxwell. She shook her head, and cleared it of the mist Maxwell had somehow placed therein. “Go ahead,” she told Guinevere. “I don’t care. I’m here to meet someone before I die. I couldn’t care less about Fleur or Maxwell or this hateful world.”
“Reinhild,” Maxwell said, a thin veneer of false surprise on his voice. “Red. Come on.”
“Don’t call me that,” she sighed as she stepped out of the way.
Maxwell, Fleur and Achlys screamed as Guinevere charged them. Fleur threw Achlys from her shoulders, and dodged away from Guinevere, who came straight for her. Maxwell drew some kind of weapon or wand from his pockets, a slender black tube with a grip attached. As Fleur stumbled away from Guinevere, she swung around and drove her first blade into Achlys her abdomen.
Fleur screamed, and Maxwell pulled the trigger of his weapon. A massive thunderclap resonated through the hallway, loud enough to make Reinhild’s head spin. She carefully inched back, away from the fighting. Whatever it was supposed to accomplish though, nothing happened. Perhaps Maxwell had missed with his spell, or perhaps Guinevere had some kind of protection against the thunder-magic Maxwell had used. Before he could cast another spell, Guinevere lopped Achlys her head from her shoulders with her second blade. She turned around and charged for Fleur again. Another thunderclap resounded, and this time Maxwell’s magic took effect-
Swords clattered as Guinevere fell, her remaining momentum causing her to fall at an awkward angle and roll forward, smearing blood over the floor. As she came to rest, dark blood pooled around her. Reinhild didn’t have to check her pulse to understand that she was dead.
Fleur screamed and screeched incoherently as she fell to her knees and crawled towards the corpse of her sister.
“No!” Maxwell screamed, as he looked around in a panic. “No! Goddamnit, no!”
Reinhild shook her head.
“You!” He screamed. He aimed his weapon at Reinhild.
“I can’t die here, Maxwell,” she said. “I have an appointment with fate.”
“Curse you, Red. Curse you. Fleur, Fleur are- are you okay?”
Fleur wailed and cried in response.
“Reinhild,” Maxwell’s voice boomed. “If we both live through this hell, you will rue the day you idly stood by as my friend got murdered. I swear it, Reinhild. I swear it on my name and my power and I swear it on my godforsaken cloak, Red.”
His anger swept through the hallways, but Reinhild could feel it was impotent. This wasn’t the curse of a wizard, but of a frightened boy. She shook her head, turned around and headed for the throne room.
As she approached it, she steadied her breathing. Her heart pounded in her chest. Terrified for the possibility that she opened the doors and would find nothing, nothing at all, she almost threw up. With every last drop of self control she steadied her heart and breathing, and kicked open the door to the throne room.
The extravagant room was covered in marble and gold and amber in every shade of orange, yellow and red. It was decorated with bones and skulls of forgotten megabeasts, and through the open windows the ever-present weeds that covered the Twin Cities entered the room to sprout into magnificent golden flowers. In the centre of the room stood a throne of ivory, and on that throne sat Prince Autumn, Deer God of the Hunt, Lord of Rot and Decay, Prince-Heir to All Time and Space.
He was gaunt and anorexic. His skin hung loosely from his frame. His pores were wide with pus, and his eyes had glazed over. The stench in the room made clear at once that Autumn was not in a coma, nor otherwise incapacitated. Autumn was dead, and had been for a while.
Before him, holding on to a gigantic greatsword, kneeled his consort and favoured plaything. The only woman in the Lands who had survived a sexual relationship with the Deer God for longer than a week. She was as gaunt and broken as he was, but she was still alive.
“Gunthilde,” Reinhild said as she walked into the throne room.
Gunthilde looked up at her sister, made a pained face and let go of her greatsword. “Rein,” she stammered. Then she died.
Reinhild didn’t have the energy to scream. She didn’t have the energy to cry, or feel anything but the cold chills of quiet resignation. She looked at her left arm and flexed her hand as whatever profane power she had almost reacquired left her again, her runes fading from blazing insignia to pale scars.
Outside, war raged. Ballistae made whipping sounds, and tremors of catapult ammunition battering against the walls shook the entire city. There was screaming outside as Knights of Sunlight clashed with the mercenary warlords of Autumn. There was the flapping of wings as Angels picked off the injured on both sides, dragged them onto the rooftops to devour them.
“Fox,” someone behind her spoke with a voice dripping with magic. Reinhild didn’t reply. She was stuck in a haze. A man with more severe burn wounds than skin clad in black and gold robes singed with fire passed her by, dragging a blonde girl in purple robes behind him. She thrashed around, making moaning sounds. As he threw her against the wall, Reinhild saw that where her mouth ought to be was only smooth skin.
“Wha?” Reinhild stammered.
Before her, the man took out a vial with gray liquid. He anointed his tongue with it, then locked eyes with the dead Autumn.
“End,” The Poet-King of the Lands Lost commanded, and thus came the End of All Things.
