Beyond Redemption

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Morgen had been too close to an uncomfortable truth: Only someone with the best interest of the Geborene at heart must help me Ascend. The child would never understand, it wasn’t that simple. Where did Konig end and the Geborene Damonen begin? Without him at the helm the church would surely falter and fail.

  The boy must die by my hand. Those whom you slay serve in the Afterdeath. If all else failed, that truth would be his escape. The new god would serve, would save him from his demons.

  Can you do it? Can you kill a child? Yes; yes, he could. In ordering Aufschlag’s experiments, he’d been responsible for countless deaths. But you’ve never actually slain anyone before, not really. He’d never used a blade to cut flesh, never choked life from a throat. Could he poison the boy? If I did, would the boy still serve in the Afterdeath? Would Konig have killed Morgen, or would the poison have killed him? It was the sort of annoying question philosophers could discuss for years and never answer. Was poisoning different from killing someone with a knife? Were these just two different weapons? It felt different. Poison felt distancing. Perhaps among the tediously sane beliefs of the masses there could be one answer. The strength of Konig’s delusions, however, defined his reality. The truth was, he believed it mattered.

  And that was all that mattered.

  KONIG RETURNED TO his chambers to find his three Doppels waiting. Abandonment sat in the high-backed chair Konig used when receiving important guests. Trepidation and Acceptance stood to either side of the chair.

  This arrangement reveals much. I must watch Abandonment carefully. How long have they been here plotting?

  Abandonment spoke first. “We have not been sitting here, planning to harm you. We are the only ones who will never abandon you. We can’t.”

  Konig snorted. “I haven’t suddenly grown daft in the last hour. Save your talk.”

  “Morgen loves us,” said Acceptance quietly. “He loves us and we will do him harm. The one person who ever loved us.”

  “He’ll abandon us,” Abandonment snapped at Acceptance. “Like everyone else, you pathetic worm. Morgen is a tool to be used and nothing more. We will pretend to love him as long as it suits us.”

  Acceptance met Abandonment’s eyes, challenging. “We’ll kill him.”

  “That was always the plan. He must Ascend, and we must have control when he does.”

  “The plan could be changed,” pleaded Acceptance. “We could save the boy. We don’t know he has to die to Ascend. If enough people believe in him, he might Ascend anyway.”

  A wave of relief washed over Konig. His Doppels remained divided. He stepped forward and said, “No. The plan cannot be changed. What is the love of one child in comparison to the worship of millions? Morgen is a tool to be used and nothing more.” He felt a stab of annoyance at mirroring Abandonment’s words. Had the Doppel’s influence grown beyond the others?

  “We know you don’t believe that,” said Acceptance. “We know what the child means to you.”

  Trepidation, the quietest, most reticent Doppel, looked from Acceptance to Abandonment and finally to Konig. “The boy is dangerous. His power grows too quickly. We will lose control.”

  “There is no we. I will control him,” said Konig, but suspected Trepidation might be onto something. This was the advantage of being able to speak to one’s subconscious. Most people floundered about, never really knowing what they thought. He might not trust them, but in a way, they were the ones he could most trust. “Tell me the rest, Trepidation.”

  “Are Morgen’s powers a sign of the faith of the Geborene believers, or are they his own delusions taking form? Are we creating a god, or just an extremely powerful Geisteskranken?”

  “Is there a difference?” asked Konig. “Does it not make sense he becomes a Geisteskranken before Ascending? If anything, this tells us our plans are working.” He growled in anger and corrected himself. “My plans.”

  “No,” whispered Trepidation. “This is too fast. The boy must have been unbalanced to begin with. If his powers develop too fast, we will be unable to force his Ascension. He may fall short of being a god, but a Geisteskranken backed by the worship of all Selbsthass could overpower us.”

  “No,” disagreed Acceptance. “The child loves us. He trusts us.”

  “And you are a fool to trust him.” Abandonment rose from the chair and paced the floor, his crimson robes whispering against the thick carpet. The Doppel mimicked Konig’s gait perfectly—obviously.

  Did Abandonment’s distrust refer to Morgen or himself? He often suspected a flow of subtext beneath everything his Doppels said and did. It seemed they communicated on a level he could detect but not comprehend. As he felt earlier, he could trust them, but only inasmuch as he could trust in himself to understand them—and right now, there was doubt.

  Trepidation sat in the now-empty chair. “If Morgen understands his power, he will become very dangerous. We’d be fools not to consider the possibility he might be using us for his own ends.”

  Acceptance looked distraught and raised his hands as if in supplication. “He’s just a boy. A child. We created who he is.”

  “No,” Trepidation disagreed. “We create who he will become. We have no idea what kind of person this child is. We must kill him now and start the experiment over. With what we have learned from our failures, the next batch would certainly succeed.”

  Konig chuckled, relief flooding him as he realized what the Doppels were trying to do. “Ah, I see. Yes, begin the experiment again. Of course.” He glanced at the reflections of himself gathered in the massive mirror, a crowd of identically gaunt, bald men. They hungrily watched the goings-on in a world they couldn’t touch. Konig turned to glare at each of the Doppels in turn. “Think me a weak-minded fool, do you? This experiment took a decade and I shudder to think how strong the three of you might be ten years from now. If I start again I doubt I’ll survive to see its completion. You want to control the god yourselves. Well, my sneaky little Doppels, that will not happen. I will raise this god. I will harness his power. I will bottle the three of you forever.” He pointed at Trepidation. “Out of my chair.”

  “We’ve just been keeping it warm with our imaginary asses,” said Acceptance, sketching a quick bow. Once Konig sat in the now-vacated chair, Acceptance added, “We shall never overthrow you.”

  Konig frowned at the Doppel. “But you shall try.”

  Acceptance shrugged. “Possibly. But you shall always be the real ass.”

  Konig saw Acceptance’s quickly hidden grin and the covert look the three Doppels shared. Had they tricked him, or did they now seek to confuse the matter by making him think they’d tricked him? It didn’t matter.

  Morgen would be his salvation . . . and their doom.

  CHAPTER 5

  A sane man is simply a man afraid to unleash his inner demons.

  —HALBER TOD, COTARDIST POET

  Stehlen examined the temple from her place in an alley not nearly as dark and narrow as she would have liked. The church, a run-down building with stone walls, looked like it had undergone recent repairs. The Geborene must have fixed this place up when their diseased religion spread here. Whoever ran this filthy little city-state was a fool for allowing them in. Priests were vermin; they spread ideas like rats spread plague, and once they’d infected the hearts and minds of the people, it was hard to get them out.

  While that self-aggrandizing twit, Wichtig, was off trying to kill the local Greatest Pigsticker, Stehlen had work to do. Were there justice in the world, Wichtig would be slaughtered and life could go on without him. Not to say she wouldn’t miss him; the idiot never seemed to notice when she borrowed money. Sure, he might claim he’d noticed, but she knew he lied. Bedeckt was more dangerous to borrow from. And sometimes she felt a little guilty. That’s why she always lent him money if he asked and never asked for it back.

  Stehlen leaned against a rickety wood wall, pretending not to be there. A gaggle of whores, gossiping among themselves, passed by, darting suspicious
glances in her direction.

  “You only see me because I don’t care,” she called to the whores, who hastened their pace.

  Gods, this is boring.

  Bedeckt’s plan was shite anyway. As always. How could she casually loiter outside a church in such a small city in the middle of the day?

  After half an hour of trying to look inconspicuous standing alone on a mostly empty street, she gave up and decided to come back later.

  Plans were for people too stupid to think on their feet. Better to deal with things as they happened instead of plotting for hours only to have everything go tits up the moment you tried to put your plan into action. That was Bedeckt’s thing. The grizzled old bastard would spend days planning something Stehlen could finish in minutes.

  Stehlen spat in the dust and tried to run a hand through her hair. Her fingers got caught up in something crusty and she gave up. Snarling, she went in search of a tavern. It would have to be one Bedeckt wasn’t sitting in, as he had told her to watch the church and get a feel for the movements of the priests.

  “Useless.”

  FOUR HOURS LATER and under cover of darkness she returned to the Geborene Damonen church. The city died the moment the sun dropped below the horizon. The streets became sullen and empty; or maybe that was her. Only brothels and taverns showed signs of life. The stained light of lanterns and candles shone mutedly through grubby windows, creating odd patches of street lit dirty gold. Stehlen avoided the light and crept along the walls, alert for piles of refuse. Though her night vision was excellent, more often than not her nose told her first when she was about to step in something unsavory.

  Why the hells am I hiding?

  Stehlen looked up and down the empty street. She should just walk in the front door and get this done. A last look showed her she was alone. Stehlen spat and marched up the front steps to the church’s main entrance. Damned if I’ll skulk around the back just to please Bedeckt.

  The large doors were unlocked and unguarded and she slipped inside. No stupid plan. No mucking about in the garbage dump behind the church. It was nice to enter such a place as a civilized person for once.

  Stehlen, checking that her sword and knives sat loose in their sheaths, strode down the hall. She figured the laundry room would be somewhere near the back of the temple. Heavy walls constructed of fieldstones were entirely undecorated and the stone floor had been worn smooth by generations of shuffling feet. After minutes of wandering at random she realized she’d completely lost her sense of direction. She stopped, listened intently, and then followed the muted sound of soft snoring to its source.

  The sleeping priest couldn’t have been much over nineteen. Fair-haired and only beginning to show a scruff of facial hair, he was boyishly attractive. Had she more time and less specific instructions from Bedeckt, she might have tried to seduce him in the dark. Instead she clamped a hand over his mouth and pressed the blade of her knife against his throat. He awoke with a muffled squeak and froze in terror.

  Stehlen leaned forward to hiss in the young man’s ear. “Tell me where the laundry room is.”

  “Mnmmnph,” he said though her hand.

  “Smartarse. Just point.”

  He pointed, and when she glanced to see where he was pointing, she felt him tense. She reacted without thought, driving the knife up through his chin and into his brain.

  Stehlen wiped the blade off on the bedsheets. “See,” she whispered to the corpse, “if you think quickly you don’t need a plan.” She took a quick look around the room and helped herself to a few knickknacks and what little coin she found. Damned priests are always destitute.

  In the hall she ran into two more priests and killed them both. Their opened throats made for an impressive mess.

  Just have to think and react quickly. No problem.

  In the kitchen she found two women scrubbing pots and preparing the next day’s meals. With a weary shrug she killed them too.

  She found the laundry room littered with dirty robes and even dirtier underclothes. The majority of the robes were plain spun brown, but she found a few much rougher-looking sets of gray robes, and one set in expensively finished burgundy. It didn’t take much to figure out the ranking system. Burgundy on top, gray on the bottom. Whoever owned the burgundy robes must have been pretty small, but they looked like they’d fit her comfortably. Stehlen laughed at the thought of outranking Bedeckt and the World’s Greatest Blithering Idiot. She took a moment to sniff out the largest and least offensive brown robes for Bedeckt—not that the thoughtless bastard would appreciate her efforts—and a set of gray robes reeking of sour sweat and pig shite for Wichtig.

  Then she contemplated her escape. She could stumble around the unlit backyard with an armload of dirty laundry and hope she didn’t fall into the temple’s midden pit or simply walk out the front door. The choice was easy.

  On the way out she killed another priest and then stopped at the main entrance when she heard yelling from within the temple. Someone had found one of the corpses. With a disgusted grunt she dropped the robes on the floor and headed back into the temple.

  How many damned priests can there be?

  Fifteen, apparently.

  STEHLEN DUMPED THE robes in her room and met up with Wichtig—unfortunately still alive—and Bedeckt in the bar.

  Bedeckt waited until she had a pint in front of her before speaking. He had a strange set of manners; he’d cut throats without flinching and for little or no reason, but business always came after you had your pint.

  “Is it done?” Bedeckt asked. His skin hung slack and pale. He looked like he’d been dead a week.

  “You look like shite,” she said.

  “Is it done?”

  Fine, be like that. “Yes.” She flared her nostrils at Wichtig.

  “Good,” said Bedeckt.

  “You smell worse than usual,” said Wichtig, sniffing at her. “And that’s saying something.”

  “Borrow clothes from the laundry room, chances are they’re dirty.”

  “There wasn’t a pile of clean clothes?”

  “No.”

  “We know how much you like the smell of sweaty old men.”

  “Please.” Bedeckt shot Wichtig a warning glance, which the Swordsman pretended to ignore. “Everything went smoothly? No problems? No complications?”

  “No. No complications. Smooth as silk.” She stared into her pint mug. The old fart feared complications more than death.

  Bedeckt sighed tiredly and asked, “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Not much.”

  “And?”

  “Ran into a priest in the hall. Had to kill him.”

  Wichtig’s smile grew and she wanted to put her fist in it. Bedeckt, however, on the scent of something, worried at it like starving dog.

  “You hid the body, right?”

  “Of course!” Stehlen did her best to sound offended.

  “No one will find anything until tomorrow at the earliest, right?”

  “Yeah. Might even have a couple of days.”

  “Okay, one dead priest is not too bad.”

  Stehlen stared into her pint mug again.

  Bedeckt groaned. “Shite. What?”

  “Killed a scullery maid as well.”

  “A maid? Why?”

  “Maybe a couple.”

  “A couple?”

  Stehlen glared into the mug. Why won’t he just drop it? “Maybe four. Everything went as planned.”

  Wichtig guffawed. “The plan was to kill four maids and a priest and steal dirty laundry? See what happens when the two of you try and get anything done without consulting me first? You’re both hopeless.”

  “Might have been more than one priest,” Stehlen admitted grudgingly.

  Bedeckt’s eyes widened and he paused to take a long pull from his pint. He carefully replaced the mug on the table and signaled the barkeep for another. “Exactly how many people did you kill tonight?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

&
nbsp; “Exactly how many.”

  “Couldn’t possibly keep count. Too busy. Shite,” swore Stehlen, “how many people you kill today?”

  “None.”

  “Well, how about that day back in—”

  “Fine, forget it. We’d best leave.”

  Bedeckt made to rise from the table but Stehlen stopped him with a hand on his arm. He looked awful. Sitting awhile longer might not fix anything, but it couldn’t hurt. He looked like he was about to fall over anyway.

  “No rush,” she said. “Might have days.”

  Bedeckt stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Days?”

  What doesn’t he understand? “Yeah. Killed everyone in the temple. Dozen or so priests. Half-dozen maids and cooks. Couple stableboys.”

  “Damn, I’m impressed, girl.” Wichtig laughed, showing annoyingly straight white teeth. “Great plan. This way, if everything goes badly, we can turn you in for the reward and still make a handy profit.”

  Stehlen shot him a sour look. She’d have to remember to keep his robes somewhere stinky—maybe she could use them as a horse blanket—until it was time for him to wear them.

  Bedeckt accepted the pint from the barkeep, finished it, and ordered another before the man turned from the table. “I told you to steal some priest’s robes and make sure they wouldn’t be missed. I told you to keep it quiet.”

  “The robes won’t be missed,” said Stehlen.

  “Because dead people don’t need spare robes,” quipped Wichtig.

  “Kept it quiet too,” pointed out Stehlen.

  “Quiet like a graveyard,” added the Swordsman.

  “Did it to throw them off our trail,” she extemporized. “If I’d just stolen robes, they might figure out why. In all the chaos, they won’t even notice the missing robes.”

  “Dead people don’t notice much,” added Wichtig, looking thoughtful.

  Bedeckt grimaced. “You’re both insane. All I wanted was for you to steal some robes.”

  Wichtig gave Stehlen an appraising glance. “She makes sense to me.”