Far Off Unhappy Things: Solitary Reaper
Chapter 5: Alexis
By Renko Chazakiel Rodenburg
Sail of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais,
As you move among the bright trees;
As your voices, under the larches of Paradise
Make a clear sound,
Sail of Claustra, Aelis, Azalais,
Raimona, Tibors, Berangere,
‘Neath the dark gleam of the sky;
Under night, the peacock-throated,
Bring the saffron-coloured shell,
Bring the red gold of the maple,
Bring the light of the birch tree in autumn
Mirals, Cembelins, Audiarda,
Remember this fire.
– Ezra Pound
Servants chanted as they passed glass equipment around. One group would start a chant, a call, and another group would reply with a rapport as they assembled the alchemical machine. None of them understood how the device they had taken apart and were now in the process of reassembling worked. The chants Alexis had taught them had ritualized the instructions on how to operate the machine, but this conveyed no knowledge on what they were actually doing.
“Lord Bloodrose?” One of the servants asked him, gesturing at his arm. He turned over the arm to give the servant access, who hummed his mnemonic, his set of instructions, as he cleaned Alexis’ arm before inserting a needle attached to a glass cable. The flexible glass, like almost all components of Alexis’ complex alchemical mechanisms, was an invention of the Lady Fleur. She had taught students at the Spire a lot of her secrets, but far from all, and now she had vanished. Some of her works were irreplaceable. No matter how skilled Alexis’ servants, no matter how well trained in executing their ritualized work, someday an irreplaceable part of the filtration device they had now finished putting together would break.
And then Alexis would die a slow death.
The filtration machine sprung to life with a soft hum. In his veins flowed not the blood that filled the veins of lesser men. Instead, he had replaced all of the fluid with alchemical philters that conducted the soul far better than ordinary blood ever would. This was his greatest work so far, his magnificent invention. The downside was that none of his organs were functional anymore after flooding his veins with mercury for years, and that his biological processes slowly decayed the crystalline fluids. This necessitated running all of his blood through the filter once every week or two, before impurities built up enough to start having an impact on his health.
From his veins, dulled and muted colours were sucked into the large, glass contraption. Slowly, the fluids were separated into seven individual components by rotating flasks, the contents of which were then ran through various filtering devices before bright, colourful crystalline fluids were fed back into Alexis’s veins through the intravenous port. The whole process took less than thirty minutes – slightly over two hours if you counted the necessary maintenance and assembly of the device.
Converting the instructions to operate it into ritual, into a religion that could be passed from master to apprentice without a serious risk to the information encoded within the practices, had been his second greatest work. He would not age as long as he could filter his ‘blood,’ and he needed people to operate his alchemical laboratory, to man the supply lines of complicated technology that actually gave him his eternal life. At once he didn’t want his secrets to leak, and no fellow alchemist or wiseman could be trusted with access to even a scrap of his knowledge. They’d usurp him within the hour of learning enough to replicate his works.
But some things were irreplicable. Things the Lady Fleur had made for him on commission. And no glass-worker in the Lands Lost, as far as he knew, could reproduce some of the artworks the Lady Fleur had made on his commission. And now she was gone. Missing. With not a hint as to where she had vanished to.
“REMEMBER THIS FIRE,” his disciples prayed in unison as they watched his blood be split into seven brighty coloured substances, purified, and fed back into veins. When the process was done, he ripped the intravenous cables from his arm and stood up from his throne. He spread his arms and addressed his servants.
“Through your works I live forever, through your works I am empowered to work miracles. Through me you live in wealth, through me your children will live in wealth and their children’s children and their children on my lands, from here onto eternity.”
They bowed. He left the atrium that contained his throne, and the disciples continued praying as they started to take the alchemical machine apart again, to clean and purify it.
House Bloodrose, he thought as he wandered his mansion. From the atrium to the upper gardens, from the upper gardens crossing the bridge to the art gallery. House Bloodrose. His parents were dead. His extended family was all dead. He had no wife, and no intention of ever taking one. He was a one-man noble house. One was enough, after all, when you played at being immortal. On the walls of the gallery had once been portraits of a long line of Lords and Lady of Bloodrose, but he’d ripped them all down and burned them in the great brazier in the lower gardens. Legacy. Disgusting. Those stuffy nobles had not made him who he was, and in clinging to legacy, he believed, one clinged to death. Death. The Black. The first step in the Great Work. He had died already, and he had come back. He has suffered conflagration and had been reduced to ashes and he had been reformed.
At the end of the empty gallery a staircase spiralled down. Two floors down was an exit to one of the streets of Luson. The city was built vertically more so than horizontally- allegedly because the original inhabitants had possessed wings. Alexis wondered if it was true as he put on his coat and wandered into the bustling city. It was gigantic. A layer-cake of city on top of city on top of city, with at the very summit the gigantic palace of the Deer God. From the right vantage points the city’s twin was visible- Lusan. Not ruled by noble houses but by merchants, the ‘coin lords,’ and by mages. The wisemen of the grand Spire, which rivalled the palace of the Deer God as far as landmarks went. In both cities, men had built houses on gigantic stairs, on bridges and under bridges, and in the structures that had allegedly once been ‘aerial loading docks,’ from where the original inhabitants had allegedly sailed their great sky-ships. It made sense that a race with wings would sail through the sky, though Alexis wondered how. Had they fashioned giant wings for their ships as well? Had they somehow reduced the weight of their ships to lighter-than-air? He knew nobles and merchants that experimented with balloons and hot air, but such contraptions were cumbersome. A far cry from the elegant ships implied by the aerial loading docks.
Who knew? Nobody alive, save perhaps the Lady Fleur, and she was unforthcoming with knowledge. She volunteered almost nothing, and still the pittance of knowledge she had shared with some of her students at the Spire had revolutionized several fields of science. And she was missing! Alexis cursed his luck again and again, and wondered where she could have possibly gone after two thousands years in Luson.
He walked up the stairs to the palace of the Deer God, taking a short break halfway to look out over the city beneath him. It was verdant, with the foliage and vines growing seemingly everywhere except the Hanging Gardens where it was supposed to grow. Who knew what the groundskeepers were doing? Perhaps their knowledge had diminished over the eons as the knowledge of the wisemen and the alchemists. This temple had been ancient, he remembered, before the Deer God had moved in. Before Prince Autumn. Before the laws of the world had been codified, when everything had been chaos.
The Lady Fleur had been around even then, he thought as he continued back up to the palace. He stared down the guards as he walked inside, and made his way to Prince Autumn’s private council chambers. There were no guards posted at these doors. The Deer God did not need guards. He was the ruler of the Lands Lost. He was the God of the Lands Lost. Lesser men required others to maintain their power. Autumn did not. No matter how capable the magician, a human noble was dependent on others. All humans were, in the end. Human society was a pyramid of dependencies. Worldly rulers ruled as long as they could hold their grip on the reins of power, and the moment that grip slipped, as it so often did, they died. This was not the case for Prince Autumn. He was not Deer God of the Lands Lost by virtue of political acumen, by virtue of the military might he commanded. He did not rule through wealth or through fear of force and he did not rule through complex, legal institutions. All these things were true and all these things he could do and did quite well- but in the end The Prince ruled because he was undeniably God. Anyone who opposed him died. He was capable of everything. The world bent and folded around him, and if it so pleased him, the world broke.
Alexis took a deep breath, and walked into the council chambers. “My Lord,” he whispered as he knelt before Prince Autumn, who was busy unfolding a bunch of maps on the large, stone table in the middle of the room.
“Get off your knees, nerd,” the Prince said. A gigantic man, almost three meters tall, his voice carried tremendous power. Prince Autumn, the Deer God of the Lands Lost. He looked like an androgynous young man, though enlarged to ridiculous proportions. From his messy dark blonde hair, two massive antlers grew. He wore a white toga, a single sheet of white silk woven by a goddess of beauty inhabiting the riverlands down east, fastened at his back by three large golden arrows. From his antlers small jewels and charms dangled. The stench of blood that hung around him was only barely masked by the expensive perfumes he wore. “Good that you’re here, I hope the rest doesn’t keep me waiting,” Autumn said, pouring over his maps with great attention.
“What are you looking into, lord?” Alexis asked, cautiously approaching the Prince. Even after three years of being on the innermost circle, he still hadn’t grown comfortable around the Deer God.
“Changing allegiances, redrawn borders,” Autumn muttered. “I don’t like repeating myself, so I’ll save it for when the other three finally arrive.”
“I bring bad tidings then, lord.”
“The Lady Fleur,” Autumn immediately said. “Yes, I had suspected her absence. Like a persistent itch, or a pea under the mattress that’s suddenly gone.”
“Do you know where she went, lord?”
“I haven’t the faintest,” Autumn chuckled. He seemed to find some strange humour in the situation.
Then Tintenzunge entered the council chambers. An older man, slightly shorter than Alexis. He wore garishly painted clothes, lined with pockets in which tinkled the vials in which he kept the various inks and paints from which he drew his powers. He was a sorcerer, a wiseman, a magician. A middling alchemist at best, but the greatest wizard of his age. Tintenzunge was the sole master of a secret art which allowed him to restructure the fabric of reality with relative ease, which Alexis had deduced required his access to the dozens of vials and inkpots he carried around, but which was a complete mystery to him beyond that. “I see the runt is already here. The giantess and the waifish princess?” Tintenzunge asked, his voice raspy and hoarse.
“The Lady Fleur is missing,” Alexis answered. “Gunthilde, I suppose she will turn up when it pleases her to turn up.”
“Missing?” Tintenzunge spat. “Poppycock. Autumn, where is she hiding?”
“I haven’t the faintest,” Prince Autumn sighed. He became agitated. Every time that Tinten put him on edge like that Alexis wondered if the older sorcerer was about to meet a grisly and demeaning end. But so far the Deer God had tolerated the man.
“Huh, must’ve fallen through some crack, then.”
“What do you mean?” Alexis asked the man. As always, he refused to answer, seeing ‘the runt’ as beneath him.
With the sound of a thunderclap, Gunthilde announced her presence. She’d somehow snuck into the room without being detected by any of the other three occupants, then thrown the door shut with as much force as to almost deafen Alexis. Gunthilde was a barbarian, a member of the hunter-gatherer tribes of the forests that surrounded Luson. But even for a barbarian she was preposterous. Though not as tall as Autumn- not by a long shot- she was a veritable giantess, standing head and shoulder above every other human in the Lands. Her hair was red and yellow and orange and oker and gold and burnished copper, and shimmered when sunlight touched it. Her eyes were red, and her skin pale and freckled with spots that seemed to mimic her hair. The only things on her person were her chainmail shirt and skirt, woven so fine as to be practically translucent, and a leather belt which kept the scabbard of her hideous greatsword, Gutachschwert. It was made of some strange alloy so heavy that even with her intimidating frame she should have trouble swinging it around, but she handled it as if it were a rapier.
These were the innermost circle of Prince Autumn, the closest confidantes of the Deer God. Tintenzunge, the wizard, who acted as prince-regent of Luson and Lusan, the second highest authority in the Lands. Gunthilde, Autumn’s lover, and the only woman so far to have survived sexual encounters with him. She led his armies, campaigned against uppity tribes and the armies of Princess Summer, Autumn’s rival down south.
And then there was Alexis. His own role was a sort of court philosopher or inventor? The Deer God had him come up with projects ranging from the sociological to industrial. Lord Alexis Bloodrose, only member of House Bloodrose, and alleged to be the cleverest man alive. Couldn’t be that clever, Alexis thought, if he had somehow gotten entangled with the Deer God.
“Gunthilde, beloved,” Autumn said,before grabbing her by the waist and kissing her on the mouth. They spend a couple of minutes kissing, with neither Tintenzunge nor Alexis himself knowing quite where to look.
“You probably wonder why I have assembled you here,” Autumn said.
“Yeah,” Gunthilde said.
“Hmhm,” Alexis said, nodding.
“No,” Tintenzunge said.
“Things that ought not to be moving in my realm have sprang into motion,” Autumn began, pointing at one of his maps. It was a map of the Lands Lost, with some of the borders of the principalities and dukedoms redrawn. “Wonderful stability is being threatened on all sides.”
“How?” Tintenzunge asked, almost indignated.
“I know not,” Autumn said, shrugging. “The black forests to the north have consolidated under a single ruler, who has declared herself prince-regent of the entire area. Aside from that, the entire realm is now cloaked in some kind of shroud, a perpetual darkness. As you can imagine, this has somewhat drastically empowered the hold the vampires have on the area.”
“This ruler, a vampire herself?”
“Yes. Though there’s still unsubstantiated rumours she’s allied herself to ‘a witch,’ which I think is worth investigating.”
“I see.”
“In the south, my rival sister is moving again. But it is not just armies that march against us. The boundary of seasons is being redrawn. Summer is moving up north, and Autumn is receding.”
“Impossible,” Tintenzunge said. “To even suggest that would be heresy.”
“Heresy against who?” Autumn suddenly screamed at him. “Will you hold me accountable for speaking heresy, Tintenzunge? I have no room in my court for sycophancy and rigid, unwavering zealotry. I am your god, and if I tell you my power is receding because my sister is moving against me, then that. Is. What. Is. Happening.”
“Apologies,” Tintenzunge solemnly said, looking at the floor. The Deer God was probably the only person in the Lands who could rattle his otherwise unflinching demeanor.
“Best sit down before you faint, Tinten, because next we look north, further north than even the forests, beyond the mountains, someone else is moving against me. A new season, waging war on the Silver Prince, the Prince of Winter.”
This spiked Alexis’ curiosity. That was unheard of. He’d long suspected a fourth season would make sense, as some heretics preached. The alchemical process was composed of four elements, death, sunrise, vigour and sunset, corresponding to the four natural elements. Wind, Earth, Fire, Water- it’d make sense that the seasons would have a corresponding fourth.
“What?” Tintenzunge said. “How? What ‘season’ up north? What do you mean?”
“I know it not,” Autumn said. “A new rival? A new principle born into the world? Perhaps it is the End of All Things at our doorstep. Whatever it is, I aim to come out on top nonetheless. Redraw your borders, I say, Prepare your soldiers, upstarts. I am the undisputed god of the Lands Lost for a reason.”
“I see,” Gunthilde said.
“Lord, do you suppose these events have a common cause?” Alexis asked.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’m not well-versed enough in metaphysics to really understand cause and effect,” the Deer God answered. “Ah well, who is, these days?”
“I, euh, yeah,” Alexis muttered. “Lord, I mean. Yes, Lord.”
Autumn heartily laughed. “Common cause or not, I do not feel like investigating. I have a hunt prepared, with some of the nobles of the royal court. You three each go investigate something. Leave no stone unturned. Do what you do best.”
“Oh,” Gunthilde said. “I’d looked forward to going hunting.”
“Then you assemble your armies and march towards Lady Summer,” Autumn said while shrugging. “Plenty of meat there.”
She smiled and nodded in response.
“Do you wish for me to investigate any of the remaining two upheavals in particular, Lord?” Alexis asked. He was curious about the new season, of course, but nonetheless also curious about the darkness that had fallen over the Black Forests.
“Yes,” Autumn said, waving his hands vaguely in the direction of the maps on the table. “You go investigate the forest. Tintenzunge is likely to take the entire place apart with his magic if I send him, and I’d prefer that kind of destruction aimed at a serious rival. Besides, you cannot travel far because you need to return to the sciences that keep you alive, do you not? Learn what you can from the vampires. Find out what you can about this ‘witch.’ Perhaps you can learn a new art by taking apart the veil of darkness?”
Alexis nodded.
“Investigate a new season,” Tintenzunge muttered. “I have business to attend to here. These cities do not govern themselves, Prince.”
“They can govern themselves for a few weeks. Besides,” Autumn said as a sadistic smile formed on his face. “I’ve had some constructive conversations with Lord Bloodrose over here some days ago, who has some very interesting thoughts on governance and the organization of nation-states.”
Tintenzunge paled. “Surely you do not threaten to let this runt take over my role as regent?”
“He is the smartest man who has ever lived,” Autumn said, shrugging.
“He is not,” Tintenzunge spat.
The Deer God took a deep breath, and stared into the middle distance for a moment. “Tinten, I am not in the habit of killing a talented regent and sorcerer merely because he annoys me. As you well know, I prefer to vent my anger on unsuspecting civilians instead. Nonetheless, this is the second time in an hour you have contradicted me. If you do so a third time, I’m going to carefully take your lower legs from your knees, grill them until the meat falls off the bone, and then sharpen the bones into stakes. I’ll have your lady wife dragged before me, and I’ll fuck her with your own sharpened shins until her intestines fall out of her vulva. Then I am going to eat her. Do you understand me?”
“I understand, my lord,” Tintenzunge said, bowing his head.
From any other ruler, the threat would’ve been the delirious anger of a man who could only rule through fear, only keep his minions in line through anger. Not Autumn. He would act on his threat, and he’d do it with no real malice. He’d have forgotten it was a punishment for Tintenzunge halfway through the process, having lost himself in the rapturous joy of torturing a mortal to death. He bathed in blood. He ate people. Sometimes he got horny in the middle of a meeting with his own noblemen, so he’d push one onto the floor and would rape him to death before clearing his throat and asking where, again, they had left off in their discussion before he got distracted.
Being in the same room as him felt like signing your own death warrant, bringing it to the executioner, and then meekly laying down on the chopping block. Nonetheless, Autumn had so far never actually hurt his innermost circle, so perhaps if he even tolerated the grating Tintenzunge, Alexis was actually safer here than anywhere else in the Lands Lost. Until the day Autumn couldn’t bring himself to care for him anymore, of course.
“I’m starving,” the Deer God said, and Alexis instinctively took a step back. “Gunthilde, before you leave for the lands of Summer, do you want to play ‘if you can escape the forest, you’re free’ with some slaves?”
“Of course,” the giantess said, smiling widely. Her teeth had been filed into points, or perhaps had always been like that.
“Have fun good luck don’t die,” Autumn said, and then left with his lover, carefully maneuvering through the door to not get his antlers stuck.
Alexis took a few deep breaths, and was about to leave as well when Tintenzunge put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know what sick sense of humour possessed the Deer God to put his faith into a twenty year old upstart from a minor house,” he said, “but trust me if I tell you it’s safer for you to move to the Black Forest and then stay there.”
“Thanks,” Alexis said. “I’m nineteen actually, not twenty.” The old sorcerer didn’t frighten him. No matter his magical prowess, it was cumbersome, human magic. It required materials, reagents, and ritual. He was beneath Alexis, who had attained alchemical enlightenment at an age younger than most learned men had been admitted into the Spire.
Tintenzunge only spat, and left the room before Alexis.
Black forests, witches. Perhaps the Lady Fleur had thrown in with vampires? It was possible. The veil of darkness could be her artifice. If that was the case, Alexis was actually rather excited to venture into the vampire’s territory. The Lady Fleur had always been close with him, so that might make his quest all that much easier.
He shrugged to no-one in particular, and headed back home to collect his belongings.
