The Mirror's Truth: A Novel of Manifest Delusions

by Michael R. Fletcher

  The inside of his mouth didn’t feel any better. Top and bottom, teeth were missing or broken and jutting at odd angles. He leaked blood at a terrifying rate, his chest slick, the front of his bed sheet—how the hells did that stay in place?—more red now than yellow.

  Once Wichtig gathered what coin he found, he took the shorter man’s sword, the giant’s far too long to be useful. He didn’t know why, he wanted two swords. Just needed something of his old perfect symmetry. Using a nearby man to pull himself to his feet, he stood weaving as if drunk.

  “Get me into that tavern and I’ll buy you a drink,” he said. Or some wet and gushing flappy-lipped version of it. The man understood and helped him into the nearest building, propping him in a stool at the bar.

  Wichtig slammed the sword and a coin on the bar, enough for several rounds, and then grabbed the man’s shirt. He pinned him with flat grey eyes, hiding his pain beneath layers of bravado and a fear of showing weakness. “Get me a surgeon and there’s more.”

  The man nodded once and disappeared out the tavern’s front door.

  Pushing himself straight, striking his best regal pose—the World’s Greatest Swordsman holding court—Wichtig tried to straighten his shirt and then remembered he wore only a gore-spattered bed sheet around his waist. Leaning heavily against the bar, he waved over the bartender.

  “Ale,” he said.

  “All we have is Kartoffel.”

  “Cart offal?”

  “Distilled potato mash.”

  “Fine.” Why did that sound familiar? Wichtig shrugged the thought away. When the beverage arrived, he didn’t so much drink it as throw it at his mouth. A decision he instantly regretted. It felt like someone doused his face in lamp oil and set it alight.

  “Again,” he said, torn mouth turning the words into a sopping slur. He caught sight of his reflection in the filthy brass mirror mounted behind the bar. He was slashed from his right ear and across his lips to the left side of his chin. Wiping at the blood, Wichtig caught a flash of pale white and saw the giant’s sword had grooved the bone on its way out. “Am I pretty?” he asked no one and fell off his stool laughing. When he managed to regain his seat he found the bar quiet, everyone staring at him. “What?” It sounded more like whaff.

  A Swordsman, young and bulging with muscle, stood at the door. He had eyes only for Wichtig who turned away to find his next awful drink awaiting him on the bar. He threw it in his mouth and hissed at the pain, spattering the bar in a red mist. His eyes ran with tears and he laughed, the choking sobs of a mind unwilling to accept what has happened.

  “You,” said the young Swordsman, striding toward Wichtig. “You killed Arg Groß?”

  Wichtig had no clue what the idiot was raving about. “Go away. Busy.” Talking sprayed more blood.

  The Swordsman approached Wichtig to stand sneering at his side. “I’ve killed dozens of Greatest—”

  Wichtig killed him with the sword lying on the bar. The dead Swordsman toppled, taking the sword with him. Wichtig, deciding he’d never make it back into the stool if he tried to retrieve the weapon, threw back another drink of searing agony. The pain kept him awake, meant he wasn’t yet dead.

  The man Wichtig sent returned with a surgeon—an old man, himself looking dangerously intoxicated. Wichtig paid the man and dumped the rest of the coin gathered coin into the shaking hands of the surgeon.

  “Fix,” he said, gesturing at his face with his partial hand.

  The cutter, surprisingly deft for a man so clearly well into his cups, caught Wichtig’s wrist and lifted it for a tentative sniff. His nose, bulbous and deep pored, slashed red and blue with broken veins, wrinkled in distaste. “Rot,” he said. He stared at Wichtig, blinking as if struggling to focus for several heartbeats before saying, “Got a room?”

  Wichtig took a couple of coins from the surgeon and tossed them at the innkeeper. “Now I do.” He grabbed the drunken cutter by the shoulder. “You’ll have to help me.”

  The innkeeper directed them to a room, and Wichtig and the surgeon—clutching a bottle of Kartoffel to his chest—stumbled up the short and leaning staircase. The Swordsman wasn’t sure who leaned on whom more.

  Once in the room, the surgeon sat him in a rickety chair and laid out a bag of assorted instruments, reminding Wichtig of Schnitter’s tools of torture, though not as clean.

  The surgeon splashed Wichtig’s face with more Kartoffel before the Swordsman could explain he already did that downstairs, and then drank several pulls while Wichtig blinked tears from the harsh alcohol stinging his eyes.

  “Ready?” said the old man.

  “Yes,” lied Wichtig.

  With a brackish belch the old man set to work. First he sewed Wichtig’s lips with a length of catgut. Each tug of the needle felt like claws tearing at Wichtig’s reality. The missing ear was bad, but this…

  Take away his beauty, his physical perfection, and what was he?

  Wichtig tried to ask the surgeon what beauty was worth but the old man told him to shut-up.

  Finally, tying off the ends of the thread, the surgeon sat back and examined his work, nodding as if pleased. “Don’t talk for a while,” he said.

  “Arse,” managed Wichtig. His lips felt like someone sewed two dead cats to his face. He laughed, a mirthless chuckle causing the surgeon to give him an uncertain look. Cat turd face. That’s what Stehlen always calls Bedeckt when he has something on his mind.

  With a shrug the old man set to unwrapping Wichtig’s left hand. He tutted as he worked, complementing whoever did the bandaging and cursing them for not cleaning the wound first. When he peeled the last away, the sour stench of infection filled the room, clogging Wichtig’s nostrils. The Swordsman spat salty bile and averted his face, afraid to look.

  Wichtig weaved in and out of consciousness as the surgeon worked, carving away dead and rotten flesh. The old man paused often to either pour Kartoffel down his own throat or splash it on Wichtig. When he finally shrugged at his handiwork and declared whatever remained of Wichtig’s hand clean, he sewed that closed with thick strands of catgut. By the time he worked on Wichtig’s foot, the Swordsman was numb with drink and mumbling songs he remembered from his childhood.

  How was it he’d been a poet for years and now couldn’t remember a single one of his own poems? He wrote some of the more popular ones down. Did his wife still hold those as mementos, or had she tossed them in a fit of anger?

  Women are so sticking unpredictable, he decided. But then that’s why we love them.

  Stehlen. Now there was an unpredictable woman. Shouldn’t that mean he loved her all the more? It made sense but Wichtig doubted its veracity. Who the hells could love that murderous bitch? And yet someone did. He thought back to how Lebendig looked at the little Kleptic. Stehlen murdered the Swordswoman and yet Lebendig fell in love with her killer. Lebendig must have nefarious plan for revenge. It was the only sane explanation.

  Sane. What a gods-sticking joke.

  The surgeon stood and squinted down at whatever he did to Wichtig’s missing toe. “Done,” he said, reaching for the Kartoffel and finding it empty. “Just in time.”

  Wichtig watched the old man leave, and tried to decide what to do. The bed beckoned. He felt like he could sleep for a thousand years and still wake tired. He lifted his hand and stared at the fresh white bandages. His old bandages lay strewn about the floor, dark and stained and stinking. Gathering them in his whole hand, he tossed them out the open window. Sounds from the tavern below leaked through the floor, muffled and insistent. What are they talking about? Were they still discussing his fight? Were they talking about him?

  I have to know. Discarding his bloodstained bed sheet, he selected a fresh one from the bed and wrapped it about his hips.

  Better.

  Jaw clenched against the pain, Wichtig felt his way to the stairs, one hand always pressed against the wall for support. He descended slow and careful, unwilling to spoil his entrance by falling perfect arse over scarred face
.

  As the tavern’s patrons caught sight of him they fell silent and he graced them with a flourished bow only slightly less gorgeous for his need to keep a grip on the stair railing. The inn exploded with applause and cheering and offers to buy Wichtig drinks.

  Much better.

  Limping to a table far from the bar and its mirror, Wichtig collapsed into a chair. Each time someone brought him a cup he nodded and said nothing, gesturing at his ruined lips if anyone tried to drag him into conversation. Already drunk, the night became a blur of faces and words. Maybe kartoffel wasn’t as bad as he thought. Maybe everything was going to be okay. Maybe once the stitches were removed the scar would give him a more rugged air. Maybe.

  Hadn’t he been thinking about finding a woman when he first rode into whatever town this was?

  Unbrauchbar, some part of his booze-soaked brain offered up. Too drunk for a woman. And he didn’t want to see what he knew he’d see in their eyes. He thought back to all the times he flinched away from Stehlen’s smiles, and poured more kartoffel down his throat.

  Is that me now?

  Someone said something funny and Wichtig couldn’t remember if it was him. Probably.

  Anger. Harsh words. Steel and blood and more kartoffel and someone lay underneath Wichtig’s table keening like a stomped kitten. Wichtig rested his sore foot atop whoever it was.

  More faces, some so young they didn’t need to shave. Bright eyes, eager. Swords and daring words bragging of future deeds.

  Missing toe forgotten, Wichtig danced. Steel slashed red with blood. Schnitter said she would optimize him and maybe she did. Maybe she pared away a little of the extra flesh. He didn’t need it. He was faster now. He danced and spun like a darting fish in the lake, liquid and beautiful. His fresh bed sheet once again stained red he stared at the half dozen swords laid out on his table like trophies.

  Where the hells did those come from?

  Wichtig drank the kartoffel someone put in front of him.

  When was the last time he ate?

  Pain.

  Everything hurt.

  His foot. His hand. His head.

  Specially his head.

  What the rutting hells is that stench? Puke? Had someone puked on him?

  Wichtig cracked an eye open and groaned. He lay sprawled on the floor in a gelid pool of kartoffel vomit. Rolling over he found himself staring up at Morgen’s face, reflected in a stained window. The boy looked down at him with interest. He was young again, like Wichtig remembered him before the wee shite Ascended.

  “Guh,” said Wichtig, his lips leaden and puffy.

  “Rough night?” asked Morgen, raising an eyebrow.

  “What took you so long?” Wichtig tried to say.

  Apparently understanding, Morgen grinned his happy little boy grin and Wichtig realized the kid was filthy, his hair caked with dirt, his clothes stained and crumpled.

  “You’re a mess. Reality catching up with you?” said Wichtig around his ruined lips. The kid looked messy, but oddly happy. I don’t remember him ever looking this content.

  “Funny, coming from you,” said the boy, taking a long moment to examine Wichtig. “Especially now.” He grinned again, showing brown teeth. “Anyway, I’m not Morgen.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  How fortunate for Gefahrgeist that the people they rule don’t think.

  —Geschichts Verdreher - Historian/Philosopher

  Morgen watched Bulle, a lumbering behemoth of a man towering eight feet in height, return across the bridge at the Gottlos border. A double-bladed war axe most men couldn’t lift rested on one massively muscled shoulder. The axe was clean, unbloodied, and Bulle seemed calm. Not that it was easy to read the facial expressions of a bull. Sweeping horns, capped in dull iron inscribed with mystical runes, protruded from his monstrous skull. A mane of coarse hair, so black as to be oily blue, hung past shoulders damned near as broad as Morgen was tall.

  A rare breed of Therianthrope who long ago partially twisted into his animal form—his torso was human, if impossibly large—and then stayed there, Bulle spotted Morgen and approached. When he arrived he dropped to his knees, prostrating himself before his god. Morgen never asked for such obeisance, but it seemed to make the Therianthrope happy.

  Sitting back on his haunches, Bulle looked down at Morgen, waiting. He never spoke first.

  “Report,” said Morgen. He’d sent the big Therianthrope to scout the tower on the Gottlos side of the bridge. The man ran inhumanly fast, making it near impossible for archers to target him.

  “The garrison held a dozen guards and maybe twice that in support staff, husbands, wives, and family.”

  “They didn’t give you any trouble?”

  Bulle shook his head, iron-clad horns cutting figure eights through the air. “They’re dead.”

  Much as Bulle was capable of it, charging into a tower and killing dozens of armed guard wasn’t his style. Particularly without clear orders to do so.

  That’s more Stehlen’s style. Thinking about the Kleptic left him feeling dirty, infected. He picked dry blood from under his fingernails, pocketing the flakes without thought. “How did they die?” he asked. “Was this the work of Geisteskranken?” Did someone else war with Gottlos?

  The Therianthrope shrugged, grunting through the heavy cast-iron ring piercing his nose. “Most had cut throats or were stabbed in the back. Some were killed while sleeping.”

  Damn, that did sound like Stehlen. She would have come this way, but why kill everyone?

  “There’s more,” said Bulle, rolling huge shoulders, bone and muscle rumbling like low thunder.

  Heavy clouds blanketed the sky, a cold mist of rain fell without surcease. The Geborene god, shielded by the belief of his followers, remained dry. Morgen nodded for him to continue.

  “The corpses are all naked. Their clothes and the garrison’s food supplies and weapons were thrown into the midden pit.”

  The wind shifted and Morgen caught the gagging back of the throat stench of rotting bodies.

  “General Misserfolg,” said Morgen, turning to find the man waiting at his shoulder. “Send the men in. Bury the dead. Occupy the garrison. We’ll clean it up before we move on. It’s part of Selbsthass now.”

  Misserfolg bowed, but his eyebrows said he wanted to voice an objection.

  “Yes?” demanded Morgen.

  “This will delay us. We should march on. We could be in Unbrauchbar tomorrow and the capital two days after.”

  Morgen turned on the General. “March on? Leave this mess? This…” He gestured toward the tower and its reeking dead. Where Selbsthass was rolling green hills, everything south of the Flussrand was dirt and rock. “I told you this is part of Selbsthass now.” And I’ll make it perfect.

  “The longer we give King Schmutzig to prepare—”

  “You’re telling me you’re okay with Selbsthass being filthy.”

  “Well, no. It’s not really Selbs—”

  Morgen smashed General Misserfolg to the ground with a flicker of will, pressing him into the mud until the idiot’s choked groans cut off. “Did I not say this is Selbsthass now?”

  The General made a mud bubble, his chest heaving, feet twitching and kicking.

  “Did I not just tell you this is Selbsthass, you goat rutting whore!” He leaned down to shout at the back of the man’s head. “Selbsthass shall be perfect! Always! Everywhere! Here! In the Afterdeath! Do you understand me?”

  Morgen drew a calming breath and released the General. Misserfolg rolled onto his back, coughing and blowing mud from his nose.

  “Do you know why you’re not dead?” Morgen asked.

  Misserfolg stared up at him, eyes widening as he saw Bulle move forward to stand at Morgen’s shoulder. The Therianthrope held his monstrous axe in one hand, ready should Misserfolg prove dangerous.

  “You’re not dead,” said Morgen, “because I do not want to be served in the Afterdeath by incompetent fools.” He swept his gaze across the gathered
masses of his troops. They stood in tight ranks, lines perfect, ready to cross the bridge at his command. My command. “You are relieved of duty,” he told Misserfolg. “I will lead this army.”

  Misserfolg made no attempt to rise, staring miserably up at the god he failed, eyes filling with tears. Morgen knew a moment of pity and crushed it. Konig would never allow himself to be swayed by such weak emotion and the Theocrat was the most effective ruler he ever met.

  That’s not true, said Nacht, flickering into existence in an oil-slick puddle.

  Who, then?

  Erbrechen, the Slaver.

  I don’t want to— But Nacht was gone again.

  Erbrechen Gedanke, the Slaver-type Gefahrgeist who enslaved Gehirn—once Konig’s Hassebrand and now Morgen’s. The bilious slug ruled his swarm of near-mindless followers with his unshakable need for worship. Morgen didn’t share that need, but saw the appeal. If the Geborene obeyed every command perfectly, weren’t left to misinterpret his words, he could achieve a world of perfection much faster. Morgen frowned as he wrestled with the idea. People were clearly flawed and regularly made flawed decisions. Would removing the possibility of making imperfect choices move people closer to perfection?

  Who then would make decisions? I am not yet perfect. And he needed his followers to believe in his perfection to achieve it. Did that require more free will than a Slaver-like level of control would allow? Would mindless devotion be a flaw? His mind chased the idea in circles.

  He glanced down at Misserfolg still whimpering and sobbing in the mud. A powerful Slaver, Erbrechen wasn’t particularly good at leading. He tended to forget his followers, allowing them to starve or go months without bathing. Morgen could do better.

  Practice makes perfect, said Nacht, once again watching Morgen from his mud puddle.

  I thought you were gone, said Morgen, disappointed.

  Keeping an eye on Wichtig. He’s having a rough time.

  Why do you care? Morgen asked.

  Nacht shrugged, sending ripples through the murky puddle. I like him. But that’s not why I returned. I want you to think about what I said.