Last Stand in Lychford

by Paul Cornell

  It was going to ask them. It was going to ask them the question and they were going to answer it, and it was going to somehow use that gathered belief and bring the world, the universe as they knew it, to a close.

  “What can we do?” said Zoya. “I want to kick its arse. I think maybe I can now. But where do I even start?”

  “Do magic, Mummy,” said Jas.

  “What Judith . . . what that old woman speaking through Trill said,” Lizzie said. “Make it up. And—” She looked around, a sudden idea in her head, and saw that the fairies had now gathered with Trill, were looking both pleased to see him and furious at the same time. “Do any of you still have one of those arrows?” she said.

  “Yes,” said one of the fairies, “but they’re full of our blood, we don’t understand what—”

  “Let me handle that bit.” She pointed at the angel. “You’ve got a target.” She had a terrible feeling she didn’t have time. The crowd were already chanting “yes.” It would only take a moment for the angel to ask its question.

  But just as Lizzie was thinking that, she was startled to see arrows exactly like the ones that had been fired at her suddenly embedding themselves all over the descending angel.

  The crowd bellowed in fury. Lizzie and everyone else turned together to see what had done this.

  Into the market square, on steeds that looked like the dreams of horses, made of wind and fire, here came Finn, whole again, in gleaming armour, and with him were a horde of fairies, firing arrows and yelling so fiercely that Lizzie felt the anger of the crowd turn immediately into terror.

  And there, right at the front of them, pale as death, hanging on like she was about to fall from the saddle, was Autumn Blunstone.

  * * *

  “I owe you too,” the familiar voice with the Irish accent had said. “Damn it.”

  And Autumn had woken like she’d once woken from an anaesthetic, only then she hadn’t felt so pleased with herself and fearful at the same time. She’d woken in the saddle of something terrifying, which was galloping straight toward . . . and then through . . . the wall around the town. She’d only just about had time to realise that there was an army with her, an army of guards that felt like they’d been literally assembled out of thin air, their emotions yelling between them that they were confused, having been suddenly drawn from many places and many dreams, but also determined, because they were doing the new and sudden will of the king.

  Autumn saw Lizzie ahead, saw her out of all things in the instant they burst into the reality of the marketplace. She saw a moment later what was overhead, and she understood that here was their enemy. In the same moment, the fairies got that too. They heard a message from the king and began to fire at blurring speeds. It felt desperate. It felt like they only had seconds. But they were surely doing this because this was the only weapon that could reach that thing. Why would arrows hurt it?

  And indeed, the angel was batting aside their shafts.

  Except . . . now it was flailing, landing on the ground by the church, but stumbling, nearly swatting aside the people who were running to it in adulation. It clutched for just the one or two arrows in its chest, the one or two that had been fired not by her fairies but by those with Lizzie, the one or two that . . . were filled with fairy blood.

  And then Autumn saw Lizzie step forward to say something to the angel.

  * * *

  Lizzie had never been so scared. But also she had never been so certain of her purpose. “You’ve got the fairy blood in you,” she called up to the angel, over the angry shouts of the human beings all around. “So the control system has got to you, too, right? If it works on fairies and humans, it’ll work on whatever you are. So now you believe completely in the aims of the project, don’t you?”

  That actually got a few cheers from the onlookers.

  “Of course . . . I . . .” The warm voice had started to sound angry, flustered.

  “You actually believe that the purpose of what you’re doing is to bring eternal peace and justice. So. I have a question. Can you actually deliver that? Can you get it done? Or have you just been lying to everybody?”

  The angel gave out an anguished howl.

  “And if you’ve just been lying to everyone, now you believe in the project, don’t you think you should tell us? Don’t you think what you’re really going to do is against the aims of the project? Don’t you think you should stop? Or are you able to lie to yourself too?” Lizzie watched as the angel felt, as she did, the belief of the crowd falter with every grimace it made. It was fighting its own instantly grown conscience. It was at war with itself in exactly the way she now wasn’t. She glanced over to Autumn and saw that her friend was looking at her with new appreciation.

  Suddenly the angel stood straight once more. “No,” said the voice of David Cummings. “Okay, so you’ve inconvenienced the boss, but I’ve taken direct control now, the plan is still on, enough of this lot still believe, so all I have to do is ask—”

  But then Zoya yelled something Lizzie couldn’t understand.

  * * *

  Zoya had suddenly understood that Lizzie had made her play, and Autumn was looking out of it, and that the fate of the universe was up to her. So she’d thought of her mum, thought of a few of the Ukrainian words for anything fairytale that she’d always used, and, shouting them, had grabbed hold of the land, from horizon to horizon.

  She’d staggered for a moment, astounded that had worked. She looked down and saw Jas looking calmly back up at her, acknowledging with the barest of expressions the extremity of what her mum was doing. Zoya’s mum hadn’t lived long enough to meet Jas. Zoya knew she’d be proud to see her. She hoped she was, somehow, proud to see this.

  Heaving like she was holding a weight in a cartoon, Zoya, aware that now everyone around her was watching, aware that if she dropped the world, well . . . that would be bad, wouldn’t it?

  “Now,” said David Cummings, “let’s carefully consider our options here.”

  And Zoya knew then that she had him by the balls. But how did she finish this? Oh. Right. What that old woman inside the fairy had said. Make it up. “Expellium fu . . . dgeoffium!” she bellowed, stumbling verbally and literally at the moment she realised Jas could hear her.

  She pulled on the horizon as she shouted.

  The angel went flying like he’d had a carpet dragged from under him. He spun for a second as a barrage of emotions including doubt and ridicule hit him. But it was the immense loss of control that Zoya could feel in that instant that did for him. It was what Cummings, in his last second bid to keep a lid on things, had been trying to avert.

  The angel tried to right itself for a moment. It failed.

  The angel exploded.

  * * *

  Autumn staggered over to where Lizzie stood with Zoya, as what could only be described as pieces of angel fell all around them. She could feel that the wall around the town had vanished in the same instant the angel had lost control. “Hey,” she said.

  Lizzie embraced her. “You came back.”

  “It was . . . a journey,” said Autumn. “I’ll tell you about it later. With cocktails. Oh my God.” She went over to where Luke was fallen to the ground, looking anguished. It was a look he shared with a lot of the people who were picking themselves up, surprised and startled to be helped to their feet by fairies.

  “I believed it,” he said to her. “All of it. I let you down.”

  “You never let her down,” said Lizzie, helping him to stand. “You’re only human and you did everything you could. And she loves you and you love her. Right?”

  “Right,” said Luke, laughing, like Autumn now found herself doing, at how direct Lizzie could be. When she wanted to be.

  “Mistress,” said a voice behind Autumn.

  Autumn turned to see Zoya was on one knee, bowing to her, Jas laughing beside her. “Oh my God,” said Autumn, “don’t do that.” She hauled her to her feet, Jas helping.

  “Well, I gathe
r I am meant to be your apprentice, yes?”

  “That’s fine, I saw what you did, I’m assuming I missed a lot, but no, I never called Judith anything and I don’t want you calling me anything either.”

  “I don’t know,” said Luke. “Kind of horny.”

  “And that guilt and uncertainty lasted how long?”

  Trill came over, a look of immense relief and pleasure on his face. “I can feel, once again, the presence of the king. I am returned to my previous state. Do I take it that the war is over?”

  “It’s over all right,” said Finn, marching up in his armour, flexing his fingers as if he was still trying this new body on for size. “And this lot won it. Oh, dispose of my other bits quickly,” he said to Autumn. “You can’t keep copies of me.”

  “I wouldn’t want to,” said Autumn, hugging Luke’s arm.

  “Sure you wouldn’t,” said Finn.

  The red-faced man who’d been shouting a lot earlier strutted over, looked between them all, and adjusted his tie. “Mistakes were made,” he said. “I believe we should all move on together. Welcome to Earth.” And he extended his hand. To Trill.

  Trill stepped forward and smiled at the hand.

  Autumn led the others away, pleased to hear Finn, behind them, encouraging Trill to go ahead and be a diplomat, because after all there wasn’t a prince anywhere nearby. “I think I made some suggestions to the king,” she said, “about where we all go from here.”

  Epilogue

  LIZZIE AND AUTUMN did indeed talk about everything over cocktails, and then at the Vicarage, with strong, sweet tea. Autumn, feeling that she had her best friend back, asked her what it was that had disturbed their friendship so much. Lizzie told her she didn’t really remember.

  Zoya, having negotiated quite a pay rise from what Judith had been getting, because, Autumn figured, she supposed she was hardly going to pick someone else, had come to work at Witches. She’d also proved herself to be an excellent apprentice. It’d be a long time before she could deliberately do anything as spectacular as what adrenaline and improvisation had allowed against the angel. But she was very interested and willing to learn. And, with a bunch of old books her mum had left her, she significantly increased Autumn’s occult library.

  The extra costs of having her around would, Autumn discovered, be more than met by the increased interest in all things magical the locals were expressing. What had previously been denial had now become acceptance. So there were at least a few customers around, actually buying things, most of the time. Carrie Anne Christopher, who’d led a small army of local nonbelievers back through the wall as soon as it had fallen, had also been in the lead of coordinating local response to the enormous media presence that had descended on the town. There was, after all, grieving to be done, whatever the supernatural background, the “impossible stuff,” as everyone started to call it. The townsfolk of Lychford swiftly learned to simply agree with the pet theory of whoever was interviewing them. Autumn suspected that serious military people of some kind had been nosing around too. They probably weren’t so easy to repel. And there were some, well, eccentric enthusiasts who’d just about moved in and were here for the long haul, helping the local economy and cluttering up her shop. Still, in the end, while the grief of families was taken on by Lizzie, the true story was whispered by the locals in the pubs and the parts of it that were impossible became a media sensation for a while, and then eventually ceased to be. Because they were impossible. The name of the town would be known forever now, but only in certain circles. As ever.

  This acceptance of the supernatural among the locals, though, had, in a wonderful way, extended to an acceptance of Autumn herself. The first time she’d ventured back into the Plough after “the incident,” Rob the landlord had looked around his regulars, gone to the door and locked it, then gruffly told her her money was no good here, and that drinks would be free to her, always. And she’d found, and this had made her start crying, that everyone in the pub had started to applaud her.

  Autumn supposed, in her more cynical moments, that a lot of the town’s inhabitants had opted to applaud rather than apologise. But she’d take it.

  * * *

  In the last minutes of Halloween, Zoya Boyko, having been able, for the first time in her life, to pay for a babysitter, found herself standing by what the other two called the well in the woods, surrounded by supernatural beings. She’d been introduced to the well a few days earlier, when Autumn had decided that, whether or not Zoya had been sort of naturally initiated when the power of the land had sorted out its book-keeping error, they should really go through with the ceremony.

  Autumn had been busy with Finn arriving at all times of day and night with many messages from his father. It had all led to this. Standing around the well, listening for the distant bells of Lizzie’s church, stood Lizzie herself, Autumn, Finn, representing his father, Cummings, back in human form, representing his boss, and many other extraordinary figures, what she would have called demon and gnomes and sprites and pixies. Though she’d advised that not many of those names were accepted by the nations themselves. Autumn was holding a document, on parchment, and a quill pen. On the document was written the tortuous new agreement that would be all that would keep the supernatural nations at peace with each other.

  “No more borders,” Cummings sighed. “No wonder the boss has gone back to sleep. Even being an all-powerful angel bored him a bit. But this? What will we all do?”

  “Bicker,” said Finn. “Instead of frigging invading each other’s collective consciousnesses.”

  “Prince,” said Autumn, a warning note in her voice. “But Mr. Cummings is correct. Under the agreement there’ll be regular meetings of leaders, committees and subcommittees. And a truth and reconciliation commission.”

  “Bureaucracy instead of mythology.”

  “Exactly,” said Lizzie. “Have you read the small print?”

  “Actually, no. The boss told me, before he turned in, to just come along and sign whatever it was. So there wasn’t really any need for me to spend my valuable time doing that.”

  “Thought not,” said Autumn.

  They all reacted as the sound of the church bells chiming midnight sang across the clear night air. “All Saints’ Day,” said Lizzie.

  “The end of Samhain,” added or corrected Autumn.

  “The day,” said Lizzie, “when the powers of . . . other . . . go back to their places and we go back to ours. The day for new starts.”

  With a flourish, Autumn signed the document and handed it to Finn. He signed, too, and handed it to the gnome beside him. Finally, having passed around the circle, the signed document got to Cummings, who tiredly swiped his signature across it with a ballpoint and tossed it back to Autumn. “Well, then—" He was about to turn to go.

  “Clause eighty-seven,” said Finn, holding up the paper so he could squint at it.

  “I can’t see from there,” said Cummings. With a roll of his eyes at being forced to do so, he stepped forward and bent to look at the level Finn was holding the paper.

  Which was when Autumn produced from behind a tree an enormous broadsword and cut his head off with one swipe.

  The head bounced off. Making all the supernatural beings who had read the small print nod approvingly.

  “I think,” said Autumn, putting the sword down again, “his boss felt that was an acceptable concession.”

  “He’ll be back,” said Finn. “Slightly inconvenienced. But oh, that was satisfying.”

  “For me too,” said Autumn.

  “I think,” said Lizzie, “that Judith would approve.”

  Zoya decided, as the three of them walked home through the woods, that she was going to have to learn a lot more about this Judith.

  * * *

  The following June, in St. Martin’s church, presided over by a delighted Lizzie, Autumn married Luke.

  The happy couple had a full church. Which, to Lizzie’s continuing joy, wasn’t an odd occurrence these
days. Autumn wore a green wedding dress, which had taken some finding. Lizzie’s sermon was about how much she loved these two, how much they’d done for the town, and how she’d had to use marker pen on the bottom of Luke’s shoes because his best man from the college had written some very rude things on them for when he kneeled down in front of the congregation.

  They went off on honeymoon to Canada. Where, Lizzie was sure, they would find some sort of supernatural menace. And hopefully ignore it.

  Lizzie watched them drive off in the white limo through the marketplace, both of them singing, actually singing, although it did seem to be different songs. Zoya, who looked as uncomfortable in pink bridesmaid frills as Jas looked delighted, was now trusted to run the shop while the owner was away. She and Lizzie had been spending a lot of time together lately. And she’d stopped calling her “reverend.”

  “So, Lizzie,” she said now, “all back to yours after?”

  * * *

  Lizzie did bring a few back. And there were a few toasts for the happy couple, who’d texted from the airport to say Lizzie wouldn’t believe what those with magical senses would encounter at Heathrow. Eventually, because Zoya was making the most of, and this was still rare for her, engaging a babysitter, all that remained were her and Lizzie, sitting up late with glasses of whiskey.

  “So,” said Zoya, looking at her over the rim of her glass with really quite a piercing gaze. “Are you ever going to come out to Autumn?”

  Lizzie was proud of herself for not even disturbing the surface of her own drink. She’d kind of expected the question. She let her gaze meet Zoya’s. And let it stay there. “Perhaps at my own wedding,” said Lizzie Blackmore.

  About the Author

  Lou Abercrombie

  PAUL CORNELL has written episodes of Elementary, Doctor Who, Primeval, Robin Hood, and many other TV series, including his own children’s show, Wavelength. He’s worked for every major comics company, including his creator-owned series Saucer State for IDW and This Damned Band for Dark Horse, and runs for Marvel and DC on Batman and Robin, Wolverine, and Young Avengers. He’s the writer of the Lychford rural fantasy novellas from Tordotcom Publishing. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, a Hugo Award for his podcast, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his Doctor Who. He’s the cohost of Hammer House of Podcast.