The Mirror's Truth: A Novel of Manifest Delusions

by Michael R. Fletcher

  “Has to be an unbroken mirror,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “A sliver of glass…her heart…” Zukunft looked away. “Reasons.”

  Damned Geisteskranken. He heard Stehlen’s voice in his head: Already your plan is going to shite, old man. Stehlen would hate Zukunft the instant she saw her.

  Bedeckt stifled a laugh. The ugly Kleptic would want to kill him when she found out he left her behind. He pushed thoughts of Stehlen aside. She was a problem for later.

  “Once we get you a new mirror you can tell me what direction we should be travelling, and what I need to do next?”

  Zukunft watched him, eyes measuring. “You can still change your mind. We could go anywhere.”

  We? Gods knew what was going on in the mad girl’s mind. “Does it matter how big it is?”

  “The bigger the better,” she said, again raising an eyebrow.

  Bedeckt ignored the innuendo. “Of course.” No way could he carry a floor-to-ceiling mirror around the city-states without breaking it. “Doesn’t effect how far you see?”

  She shook her head, dark hair sweeping across her shoulders. “No.”

  “What about something this big?” Bedeckt help up his hands making a circle with his fingers about the size of her face.

  Zukunft shrugged, uncaring. “Good enough.”

  He stared at the fragments of broken glass scattered about the floor. “How about a steel mirror, one that won’t break?”

  Green eyes narrowed. “Has to be glass.”

  A reflection is a reflection. “Why?”

  “Because…” She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip. “Because glass is sharp when it breaks.” She drew short breaths, her chest rising and falling quickly and Bedeckt was glad she couldn’t see him watching her. “Glass cuts.”

  “Fine,” Bedeckt said, dragging his eyes away. Damned Geisteskranken. “Let’s go.”

  Approaching the only door in the room, Bedeckt hesitated. He wanted to know what was out there before he opened it. The entire plan relied on Zukunft keeping him a step ahead of everyone and already he was walking blind. Leaning forward he listened, hearing the sounds of a busy street beyond. Selbsthass City. The heart of the Geborene Theocracy. The last place he wanted to be.

  Just survive long enough to get her a damned mirror. Whoever these Wütend worked for, they had failed. He was still alive.

  “You know,” said Zukunft, leaving the sentence hanging.

  “What?”

  “Breaking a mirror is seven years’ bad luck.”

  Bedeckt laughed, a humourless grunt. “If we live four days, I’d say we’re doing well.”

  Zukunft’s jaw tightened, her fists clenched.

  Was it something I said? He gestured at the corpses. “Search them for money.”

  She stared at him, face an unreadable mask. “How about you search them.”

  “There’s already blood on your dress.”

  “And if I get any more blood on it I’ll be taking it off altogether.”

  The dress, a green no doubt selected to match her eyes—though how she managed that in the greyness of the Afterdeath he couldn’t imagine—hung and clung in all the right places. Bedeckt turned his attention to the dead. Rather look at them than her, would you, old man?

  No, and that was the problem. “I’ll search the bodies.”

  Bedeckt hunted through blood-soaked pockets and money pouches without much luck.

  “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” said Zukunft, watching him.

  He straightened from the last corpse. It was a good thing he brought some coin. And having been out of Stehlen’s Kleptic presence for a week there was some chance he still had it. “Hardly,” he said. “I could crush you.” He made a fist with his whole hand, knuckles crunching.

  “You’re afraid to look at me.”

  He laughed, a derisive snort, and didn’t look at her.

  “I remind you of someone? A daughter?”

  “Gods, no.” Bedeckt returned to the door. “Let’s go.”

  “A lady friend from a really, really, really long time ago?”

  This time he turned to give her a dark scowl.

  “Is that it? A lover from—”

  “Do I seem the type to have lovers?”

  “Some women like big men. You’re scarred and a right mess, but not ugly.” She tilted her head, examining him. “Not completely ugly,” she corrected.

  “Thanks.” Bedeckt returned his attention to the door. The street beyond sounded utterly normal. Hopefully that meant there wasn’t an army out there waiting for him.

  “So what is it?” she asked.

  “You’re a child.”

  “A child? Hardly. I’m—”

  “When you’re my age you’ll understand.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” she said, voice cracking. “I’m Geisteskranken. I’ve died once already and I’m only twenty. I won’t see half your age.”

  Is she crying? He dared not look. His time with Stehlen and Wichtig hadn’t prepared him for tears. Even Morgen, the Geborene godling, hadn’t cried. “I…” Bedeckt didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t wrong.

  “And so I’ll live each and every day I have. If my time is short, at least I’ll have used it well.”

  Then what the hells are you doing here with me? For that matter, how had she ended up in the Afterdeath at such a tender age? She wasn’t bound by the Warrior’s Credo either. How had she managed that? Suicide? He hadn’t asked and he never would. He prayed she wouldn’t tell him. “Fine,” he said, still facing the door. “You’re all grown up.”

  “Ah, sarcasm. The defence of cowards.”

  “Cowards?” he said, pretending to listen to the street beyond. “If you had any idea what I’ve—”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “What question?”

  “When you forget, you look at me like I’m a woman. But mostly you’re afraid to look at me at all. Are you missing more than an ear and some fingers?”

  He heard the teasing tone but still said, “No,” and was annoyed at how defensive he sounded. Gods, she played him better than Wichtig. Was she Comorbidic, Gefahrgeist as well as Mirrorist? That could be a bad combination: a self-centred psychotic who knew the future. She’d see the outcome of her manipulations.

  “Then why?” she asked, voice soft, pleading.

  It’s an act. It had to be an act. “I have a list,” said Bedeckt, in spite of himself.

  “A list?”

  “Of things I won’t do.” He laughed. “It’s easier than listing the crimes I am willing to perpetrate.”

  “Sometimes you don’t talk like the kind of man who slams another man’s head against the floor until his skull breaks.”

  What did you say to something like that? Thanks?

  “Looking at women is on your list?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then look at me.”

  Bedeckt turned to face her with a growl. “We have things to do. We need horses and supplies.”

  “Why am I on your list?”

  “I don’t hurt children.” He swallowed, remembering the feel of sliding Stehlen’s knife into Morgen’s heart. Liar. But lying wasn’t on the list.

  Zukunft opened and closed her mouth, changing her mind about whatever she first thought to say.

  She knows I killed Morgen. She knew they were here to undo the damage he’d done.

  She looked at him like she thought he was crazy. Or was that pity?

  Bedeckt swung the door open and stepped into the street and a crush of pedestrian traffic. Sane folks pushed and shoved on their way to wherever the hell people who had lives not involving theft and murder went.

  Bedeckt stopped and stood rooted. Selbsthass City in the Afterdeath was different from the Selbsthass City he and his murderous companions stole Morgen from, but this was different again. The streets had always been clean and straight, but now they were pristine, gleaming white. He
blinked at the stones beneath his feet. Were they been white-washed, or replaced with white stones mined from wherever white stone came from? He remembered the people being softer and happier-looking than any city-state he previously visited; the bankers’ quarter of Geldangelegenheiten being the one possible exception. But these people, the crowd streaming past him, glowed with health. They were clean in a way no one was ever clean, their clothes crisp. He caught the scent of harsh soap and remembered Morgen’s obsession with cleanliness.

  Stupid bastards have no idea what they created in their designed god.

  “Stay close,” Bedeckt called over his shoulder.

  Zukunft, right behind him, put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it tight. Glancing back, he saw fear in her eyes and said nothing. Was it the city, the press of people, or something else? Perhaps returning to life was scary for some folks. Certainly it wasn’t something anyone ever expected to do.

  Bedeckt pushed his way into the crowd. Zukunft followed, her nails digging into the meat of his shoulder even through his chain armour. Everywhere he looked he saw Geborene priests, immaculate white livery worn over bright chain hauberk, polished swords hanging at hips. In the distance a massive wall towering ten times the height of a man surrounded the city. Men, white little dots, patrolled the top of the wall.

  “This is impossible. I wasn’t dead more than two weeks.”

  “What is it?” asked Zukunft, releasing her hold on him.

  “I was here—I mean in this city, the living version—not more than two weeks ago.” He waved his partial hand, trying to encompass the entire city and its population. “Morgen couldn’t have built that wall and armed and armoured his priests in two weeks.”

  “He’s a god,” said Zukunft.

  Bedeckt eyed the people around them. No one seemed surprised or impressed by the city they walked through. This wasn’t something new. They were accustomed to the changes. Or Morgen somehow changed them too.

  If he can do this in two weeks, nothing I can do will stop him.

  Zukunft increased her pace until she walked at his side, long legs carrying her in a smooth stride, swinging her hips in a confident strut. Gone was the terrified girl who clung to him a moment ago. Was this bravado?

  “What’s your thing?” she asked.

  “My thing?”

  “Delusion. What kind of Geisteskranken are you?”

  Bedeckt shot her another dark scowl and once again she ignored it. “I’m sane.”

  “Right. Your friends, Wichtig and Stehlen—”

  “They’re not my friends.”

  “—were both Geisteskranken. You surround yourself with the delusional. Sane people don’t do that.”

  “Horse shite. I know how to make use of them, that’s all.”

  “Sane people avoid Gefahrgeist for fear of being manipulated.”

  “Wichtig is a minor Gefahrgeist at best,” said Bedeckt, increasing his pace.

  Zukunft kept up. “And Stehlen? Minor Kleptic?” she asked, knowing the answer. “How did you ever keep money?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Realizing Zukunft had no trouble matching his pace, and that he’d tire long before she, Bedeckt slowed.

  “I don’t believe you’re sane either,” she said. Bedeckt saw her examining him from the corner of his eye. “And then there’s me.”

  “You’re useful. Part of the plan.”

  “And that’s it?” she asked. “Just part of the plan. No other reason to bring me along?”

  “None.”

  She grunted doubt. “And your choices—”

  “What about my choices?”

  “People don’t escape the Afterdeath.”

  “I have to stop Morgen. I…I killed him. My choices made him what he is.”

  She ignored this, shrugging it away like it was irrelevant. “Sane people don’t plan to have their friends chase them, intent on murder.”

  “Them chasing me isn’t part of the plan. Knowing Morgen might send them is. Wichtig I can handle, but Stehlen will kill me for leaving her.”

  “You abandoned her.” She said it like the word meant something special, something he didn’t understand.

  Is she angry I left Stehlen behind? Why would she care? “Whatever you want to call it. You’ll keep me ahead of them.” Thinking he could avoid Stehlen forever was purest madness and if Bedeckt was one thing, it was sane. “With you seeing the future, I can decide when and where we meet.” He hoped it would be enough. And maybe the boy-god wouldn’t send Wichtig and Stehlen to kill him. Maybe Morgen had no idea Bedeckt fled the Afterdeath intent on stopping his insane plan to cleanse the world of imperfection. And maybe Wichtig will learn wisdom and Stehlen will forgive herself for whatever the hells she did.

  “Still,” said Zukunft, “your choices are insane.”

  “Don’t mistake stupid for insane,” said Bedeckt.

  CHAPTER TWO

  From each defeated foe, keep one small fetish. A finger or toe will suffice. Kill at least one fine horse and two dogs and keep those fetishes on your body at all times. GrasGott demands proof of your victories. Only those whose fetishes you bear will serve in the Afterdeath.

  —Warrior’s Credo (GrasMeer Tribes Version)

  Morgen, Ascended god of the Geborene Damonen, watched Konig bow and scrape. He loathed the domed perfection of the man’s bald head. The subservience was an act, fuelled by fear. This wasn’t even the real Konig but rather a Reflection who toppled the man from his mind and trapped him in the mirror from which it escaped. Morgen hated Reflections. They were liars, each and every one.

  Failure, once the original Konig, watched from a hand mirror. Acceptance—one of the original Konig’s Doppels—had carried that mirror, thinking he could use the Reflection trapped within for his own purposes. The Doppels were dead and gone, Konig nothing more than a Reflection, and what had been a Reflection now manifest in the flesh.

  Morgen wasn’t sure whether it was sad or funny that the new Konig often conferred with the failure imprisoned within the mirror.

  People don’t learn. They don’t change. Was it that they couldn’t, or did it never occur to them to try?

  Morgen glanced about the chambers. Once the Theocrat’s, they were now his. The deep and gaudy rugs had been removed and burned, leaving barren stone; thick carpets hid dirt and dust. The majestic tapestries had been torn down and dumped in some deep basement. The unadorned stone walls were so clean they glistened. He scowled at the top corner where wall met ceiling. Were those cobwebs hidden in the shadows? If the cleaning crews were slacking on keeping his chambers clean, what must the rest of the city look like? He must walk the streets soon. Filth and complacency were one and the same. A perfect world would take effort, but it was worth it.

  He checked himself in the tall brass-mounted mirror standing in one corner. His robes were pristine, white like only a god can achieve.

  Konig said something about the troops Morgen didn’t hear.

  “Stand,” said Morgen. He didn’t really want the man upright—Konig was a tall bastard—but was curious if the Theocrat’s robes would show signs of dust from the floor.

  Konig rose and stood waiting, staring down his nose at the boy god. His robes were clean.

  I don’t have to feel small, don’t have to be a little boy. I can be anything, look like anything.

  Morgen pretended to ignore the Theocrat and glanced at his hands, picking at the dried blood he found there. A manifestation of his guilt, it wasn’t real. His hands would never be clean, not until he rid himself of the infection left by his time with Bedeckt, Wichtig, and Stehlen. They ruined him, twisted an innocent boy, taught him to lie and cheat and steal.

  And murder. Don’t forget murder.

  The torture he suffered at the hands of Erbrechen’s followers killed any chance at sanity. The Slaver tried to break him and succeeded, though perhaps not in the way intended.

  Morgen winced as he once again felt Bedeckt’s knife slip between his ribs and punct
ure his heart. That remembered agony arose every time he thought back to that day. A taste of penance.

  I used him, took his chance at redemption. And even though the old warrior died shortly after killing Morgen, Bedeckt had not once tried to make use of that power.

  Why? Bedeckt wasn’t a good man, not by a long stretch. Why hadn’t he abused the hold he had on the Geborene god?

  Peeling more dry blood from his hands, Morgen pocketed the flakes so as not to create a mess. He noted Konig and Failure watching. They’re looking for something they can use, some way to bend me to their purpose. Though the original Konig had been a powerful Gefahrgeist, his escaped Reflection showed none of that strength. Did this new Konig not share that delusion, or did he simply hide it from his god? It ate at Morgen that he didn’t know and dared not ask for fear of showing weakness. Konig was a self-centred bastard. There was no way any Konig could differ.

  “Report,” said Morgen.

  “Troops continue to arrive,” said Konig dipping a quick bow. “We’ve run out of room in the city. The barracks are overcrowded. It’s impossible to keep them clean.”

  Clean. Konig chose his words knowing their effect. He seeks to manipulate me. But to what end?

  “And?” Morgen asked.

  Konig swallowed. Though he towered over Morgen, he somehow managed to appear small, broken. All an act, Morgen reminded himself.

  “The army has grown by almost ten thousand in the last two weeks” said the Theocrat. “The city’s sewer system was never designed for this.”

  “Here in life, or in the Afterdeath?” Morgen could flit back and forth between life and the Afterdeath at will—there were some perks to being an Ascended—but he had yet to leave the church in either reality.

  “Both.”

  “Improve it,” said Morgen.

  “That will take time. Months. The city already smells…ripe.”

  Ripe. His city must stink of shite and horses and men in armour. He remembered the smell of Bedeckt, the sour stench of sweat and ale and teeth that had probably never been cleaned. And Stehlen, her breath could topple a horse.