The Mirror's Truth: A Novel of Manifest Delusions

by Michael R. Fletcher

  “Kart awful?” The long scar running from the old man’s right ear, across his lips, and ending on the left side of his chin tightened his words, giving them a strange accent.

  “Potato mash,” said the cripple.

  “Fine.”

  The cripple poured liberal splashes of something milky yellow with black flecks floating in it into two steel mugs. He shot one back himself before sliding the other in front of the old man. Then he closed his eyes and looked like he was about to be ill.

  The old man raised the cup and thought of even older friends. Were they dead, long dead, or ancient history?

  The pretty man joined the old man at the bar. His hips were slim, his shoulders wide, and he moved like a cat. “You look older than those mountains,” he said, nodding toward the peaks to the north. “But you still move well.”

  “Piss off,” said the old man.

  “A feisty old fart,” joked the Swordsman.

  “Piss off,” repeated the old man. “Or die here in this nameless armpit.”

  The Swordsman raised a perfect eyebrow and struck a perfect pose. Sunlight, red and gold, lit him like he glowed from within with holy light. “I am the Greatest Swordsman in all the World. I came to this…armpit, to kill a man. He fled before I arrived,” he said, conversationally, “and I’m a little—”

  The old man made a wet fart with scarred lips.

  “I warn you old man—”

  “Begone.”

  “I’m already in a foul mood—”

  Eyes of hammered iron turned on the Swordsman. “Me and my stick against you and your pretty swords.”

  “Hardly a fair fight. You wouldn’t last—”

  “Fine. Piss off.”

  Twin swords hissed from their scabbards and glinted cold. “You,” said the Swordsman, “are a dead man.”

  The old man lifted the steel cup with his left hand—the one missing the last two fingers—and drained it in one gulp. Collecting his walking stick and holding it like a sword, he turned. “Ready?” he asked.

  When the Swordsman lunged, the old man disarmed him, shattered his wrists. The young man collapsed to his knees, eyes streaming tears, staring confused at the ruin of his life’s work.

  “I am the Greatest Swordsman in the World,” said the old man, huffing in old man annoyance. Spinning his walking stick in nimble fingers, his flat grey eyes grew distant, lost in endless seas of time. “In this reality,” he said. “In the one across the mountains. In the one on the far side of the Salzwasser Ocean. In the reality on the far side of the Basamortuan. I am the Greatest Swordsman in all the Worlds.”

  “Who?” begged the Swordsman.

  “I am—”

  Wichtig woke.

  He lay sweating on cold stone, the pain in his foot dwarfed by the pain in his left hand. The room sounded strange and lopsided and he remembered Schnitter sawing his left ear off. Wichtig blinked and hot tears trickled from the corners of his eyes. He drew a deep, sobbing breath and was surprised to find his chest unconstrained. Testing his legs and arms, he found himself freed of bondage.

  He sat up. Naked, he was unimaginably happy to see his best friend still nestled between his legs. Hearing the laboured wet intake of breath, he turned and saw Schnitter lying on the floor. Wichtig blinked, trying to fit the scattered pieces into something making sense.

  Schnitter was everywhere. Her limbs—both arms, and what remained of her legs—were stacked neatly in a corner, blood pooling around them. Her wounds, where the limbs had been cut free, were expertly wrapped. The Körperidentität’s throat had been opened and her vocal chords surgically removed. Some strange instrument held the wound in her throat open so she could breathe. It was strangely bloodless. He saw Schnitter’s jaw perched atop the table of knives and barbed hooks. Her tongue lay beside it.

  He listened as she drew another wet breath through the yawning chasm of her opened throat. The wound looked somehow sexual, like a nightmare version of what lay between a woman’s legs. Wichtig shook the image away and stared into the gaping sockets where Schnitter’s beautiful brown eyes had been. Wrapped in bandages, she looked like a potato with a head.

  “What the hells?” asked Wichtig.

  Swinging his legs off the table, he stood with a whimper when the foot with the severed toe touched the floor. If he felt bad after his encounter with the albtraum, he felt a thousand times worse now. He felt dizzy from blood loss, hungrier than he could ever remember feeling.

  Wichtig breathed deep and lifted his left hand to examine the damage.

  No way around it, no changing reality no matter how much he wished he saw something different; the last two fingers were gone. The bandage wrapping his hand was soaked through with blood. The stain was a dark and evil looking brown.

  I should change these bandages.

  He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his mutilated hand. And what if it started bleeding again and he lost consciousness? He already felt like he might collapse at any moment. If he passed out after removing the bandages, he might bleed to death.

  No. This was not how Wichtig Lügner, the Greatest Swordsman in the World, died.

  You’ve already died. Knifed in the gut by a little boy. Does it get any worse than that?

  Summoning courage, Wichtig glanced down at his foot. It too was bandaged, the material stained through with brown blood.

  You’re going to have to change these bandages eventually.

  Sure, but not right now.

  Wichtig reached up to scratch at an itch and caught himself lifting his damaged hand out of habit. None of this was real. It couldn’t be. How many Swordsmen had he killed without suffering a single scratch? When he and Bedeckt and Stehlen entered the Geborene church to steal Morgen, they battled the boy’s Mehrere bodyguard. Wichtig, surrounded on all sides by multiple copies of a single very skilled Swordswoman, walked away unscathed.

  He stared at his hand, imagining the missing fingers were still there, willing them to be there.

  You’re no Halluzin.

  Again Schnitter’s optimized form drew his attention.

  How?

  She couldn’t have done that to herself, could she? Were her delusions so powerful? No. Someone must have bandaged her wounds to keep her alive. She would have bled to death otherwise. Now she’d take days to die. Maybe longer. Dehydration and starvation would be her end unless someone came along and either ended her suffering or found some way to feed her through her open throat.

  He knew his preference.

  Maybe I’ll stay here and feed her myself. I could keep her alive for years.

  No, that wasn’t his style. Anyway, feeding a potato woman sounded terribly boring no matter how much she might be deserving of his vengeance. It wasn’t so bad. His manhood remained and his hair would cover the missing ear. He was still ruggedly handsome. The ear might even earn him some extra attention—and who couldn’t use more attention?—if he invented a good enough story. Perhaps he saved a princess—

  “Wait.” I was thinking about something before the ear. What was it? He blinked down at Schnitter. “Who did that?”

  Maybe rescuing a princess wasn’t the best story. Women hated competition and if Wichtig told a girl he rescued a princess, well of course he rutted her after. What if he lost the ear saving a family member? That was better. Women loved men who gave a shite about family.

  Schnitter coughed a fine mist into the air above her.

  “Damn it! Who did that to you?”

  It was like trying to remember how much money he had when Stehlen was around. Damned Kleptic.

  “Morgen,” he said. It must have been Morgen. The godling must have finally stepped in and saved him.

  Wichtig examined Schnitter. No, Morgen would never do this, it was too messy. The boy might kill the woman, but not like this. Someone wanted Schnitter to suffer. Someone punished the woman. Was it because of what the Körperidentität did to Wichtig?

  Could it have been Bedeckt? No. Bedeckt would have h
acked the bitch into pieces and left her for dead. What Wichtig saw here bordered on art.

  “Morgen,” Wichtig whispered, afraid someone beyond the door might hear. “If you did save me, you took your sweet time. You should have come sooner while I still had all my gods-damned fingers. Arsehole!”

  Suddenly cold, his skin puckering with goosebumps, Wichtig turned a complete circle. He saw no sign of his clothes.

  “Shite.”

  Even Schnitter’s gauzy wrappings were gone. Cursing, Wichtig selected one of the longer knives from the table of surgical instruments. Clutching it in his whole hand, he limped to the door. He pressed his ear to the wood, holding his breath as he listened.

  Nothing.

  Wichtig pulled the door open, ready to explode into a frenzy of violent action and praying he wouldn’t have to. The hall was empty but for the corpse of a large hound. Wichtig wanted to kick the beast for eating his toe and fingers but to do so would mean either standing on the foot missing a toe or using that foot to do the kicking. Both sounded painful. He settled for spitting on the beast and again thought of Stehlen. Gods he was grateful she hadn’t seen this. She’d never let him live it down.

  Limping and shuffling and whimpering, Wichtig made it to the stairs. He stopped to lean against the wall and catch his breath.

  Gone was his grace and poise and perfect balance. Get in a Sword fight now and you’re a corpse.

  “Sword fight? I don’t even have a sword.”

  Wichtig limped up the stone stairs, throbbing agony pulsing the length of his leg. At the top, he stopped to stare at the gore spattered corpses of half a dozen naked guards. Not one bore a single weapon better than the knife he already held. Weren’t they been armed with swords last time he saw them?

  For a moment he wondered if the Gottlos garrison had something about fighting naked. Then he remembered the guards wearing worn and threadbare liveries of Gottlos.

  An hour later, Wichtig was sure every single person in the garrison with the exception of Schnitter and himself, was dead. The old tower stunk like an abattoir, the floor slippery with blood and spilled organs. A tornado of violence cut through this sleepy outpost.

  Everyone dead. It reminded him of Stehlen.

  Could she have followed him from the Afterdeath? Had she saved him?

  That made no sense. She’d have gloated.

  And you did leave her behind in the Afterdeath. She’d kill you for that for sure.

  The psychotic Kleptic was incapable of such subtlety.

  This isn’t subtlety, this is mayhem. This is Stehlen’s style of— Where the hells are my swords?

  Wichtig limped through the tower in search of clothing and weapons. What was he thinking about before going in search of his swords? Why the hells were all these corpses naked? Had whoever killed them stolen their clothes? Who would do that? And where were their weapons? He stepped over the corpse of a naked serving girl, her throat opened.

  Stehlen.

  Had she escaped the Afterdeath to protect Bedeckt? He couldn’t imagine Stehlen protecting anyone.

  No, if she was here, alive, she was no longer bound by the Warrior’s Credo and forced to serve the old goat. Just as likely she’d kill the old man for killing her.

  Why, then, didn’t she kill me?

  She wanted to rub it in his face. She found him and saved his life, punished the woman who did this to him, and left him naked and unarmed except for a silly little knife.

  She stripped the corpses and hid their weapons to keep me naked. The Kleptic bitch was gloating.

  “I’ll kill her.”

  But if she left Wichtig alive, it was because she wasn’t finished yet. She’d always been jealous of his talents, of his relationship with Bedeckt. If she wasn’t going to protect Bedeckt from Wichtig, the only reasonable answer was that she was here to kill the old man first.

  Nothing else made sense.

  “She has no idea who she is up against.” She should have killed Wichtig when she had the chance.

  Wichtig stopped again, leaning against a wall to rest and catch his breath. All this whimpering was exhausting. I have to think this through. Intelligence and cunning were his advantages. Stehlen was mayhem personified, but her unwillingness to plan was her weakness. She was predictably unpredictable.

  He thought about how unreasonably angry Stehlen got every time someone killed someone she wanted to kill. She must want to kill Bedeckt before I kill him. That left two clear choices: either Wichtig killed Bedeckt first, or saved the old goat from the Kleptic. A surprisingly difficult choice. Beating Stehlen at her own game was worth an awful lot, but then Morgen promised fame and fortune.

  Really? What are the shite’s promises worth?

  Here was Wichtig, alive and broke and naked. Where was the god? Where was the promised wealth and fame?

  Morgen could stick himself. The god deserted Wichtig and he’d pay for that. If Wichtig decided to kill Bedeckt, it would be in spite of the godling’s desires.

  Giving up on the search for his swords, Wichtig instead went looking for a way out of this bloody tower. He found the main entrance and one of his swords leaning against the closed door.

  Where was the other sword?

  Wichtig swore and spat. What use are two swords be to a man with one working hand? He cursed Stehlen, now sure she was behind the butchery.

  Once outside the tower, he found the garrison midden pit, a score of strides across and filled with clothes and weapons swimming in a briny sea of shite and piss and assorted other detritus.

  Still naked, he stood staring. Should he dare the pit, swim out and rescue a pair of pants and a shirt? There was a laundry room and tub within the tower. He could scrub the clothes into some semblance of cleanliness. He might not achieve anything like his usual sartorial splendour, but anything was better than wandering the world naked.

  He glanced at his bandaged hand and foot. The thought of immersing them in this swill of bodily waste turned his stomach. If he wandered into the midden, he had no doubt it would only be a matter of time until someone was removing his gangrenous limbs with a saw.

  Surrendering to the obvious, Wichtig gave up and hobbled to the stables. Within he discovered his beautiful white stallion, Ärgerlich, was gone. As was the gorgeous and uncomfortable saddle. The only remaining mount was a tan sway-backed mare. The beast was saddled. A single filthy sheet—stained yellow with fluids Wichtig didn’t want to think about—sat neatly folded upon the saddle.

  The horse, slightly crossed-eyed, watched Wichtig with dull stupidity as the Swordsman removed the blanket and wrapped it about his waist as a long skirt. It wasn’t much, but it gave him some small feeling of control. A naked man was a thing of mockery. A man in a bed sheet, armed with a sword and a bad attitude, was to be feared.

  I’ll kill the first person to comment.

  Wichtig searched the stable. Stehlen hadn’t left him a pair of boots. The Kleptic bitch probably tossed them into the midden along with everything else.

  Fine. That’s fine. I’ll use this. She’s only fuelling my desire to beat her. She’ll see. I’ll repay her a thousandfold for her little games.

  Wichtig mounted the horse, cursing the pain and awkwardness of doing it one handed. So many tasks he once took for granted he’d now have to relearn.

  He didn’t even want to think about sword fighting. As often as not he fought single-handed anyway, but he still always knew that second sword was there in case things went badly. Swords broke. They got caught in bones.

  You’re the Greatest Swordsman in the World. Nothing can stop you.

  “I’m going to call you Blöd,” he told the horse as he nudged it out into the courtyard.

  Blöd glanced over her shoulder, looking either at Wichtig or somewhere behind him.

  Wichtig pointed the horse south and dug his heels in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Put a score of people in a room with nothing to distract them. Confine them there, and they will make it t
heir hell. This is the basis for Swarm.

  —Zerfall, Gefahrgeist, Founder of the Täuschung

  Stehlen stood over Lebendig, watching the big woman sleep. She admired the steady rise and fall of her chest, the sweep of strawberry blond hair. The Swordswoman was an unstoppable force of nature. A mountain with will. A tornado with direction and intent. Gods she was beautiful.

  And you are hideously ugly.

  The Kleptic pushed the thought away, shoved her doubts back into the filthy recesses of her soul. She touched Lebendig’s shoulder and the woman’s eyes snapped open, instantly alert.

  “We have to go,” said Stehlen.

  Lebendig grinned up at her, teeth straight and white and strong. She caught Stehlen’s hand in her own and Stehlen remembered how fast the woman was.

  “What’s the rush?” asked Lebendig.

  “Wichtig. He’s here. I want to be gone before he’s ready to leave.”

  “Are we going to kill him on the road?”

  Was that a glint of excitement in the big woman’s eyes?

  “No,” said Stehlen. “We’ll follow.”

  Lebendig examined her for a long moment. Then she sighed and shook her head.

  Is she disappointed?

  “He’ll be easy enough to track,” said the Swordswoman. “Let’s break our fast first.”

  Stehlen glanced away, uncomfortable and not knowing what to say. “There’s no one to cook for you. We might as well eat as we ride.”

  Lebendig sat up, allowing the sheets to fall to her waist as she stretched muscular arms above her like one of those big desert cats. “Where’d they go?”

  “Here and there.”

  Lebendig raised an eyebrow and said “Kind of scattered about?” with a hint of a knowing smirk.

  “Kind of,” said Stehlen.

  “But all ending up in the Afterdeath?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Did they have much money?” asked the Swordswoman. Her question expressed simple curiosity and had none of the angry undertones Stehlen always heard from Bedeckt and Wichtig.

  Stehlen shrugged.

  Lebendig threw the sheet aside and stood, exposing the corded muscle of her legs. Glancing about the room she spotted the crumpled heap of her clothes. “Okay. Let’s go.”