Beyond Redemption

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Morgen followed. Had Konig lied? Why would . . . “Why would Konig lie?”

  “Every god needs a good backstory,” Wichtig said over his shoulder. “Don’t take it personally. It’s just that ‘born of the faith of the believers’ is better than ‘born of a tavern whore.’”

  Was this true? If this was a lie, what other lies did he believe? No, Konig wouldn’t lie to me. I am to be the Geborene god, I was born of their faith. The words rang hollow.

  “Let’s pay this Swordswoman a visit,” said Wichtig, as if their previous conversation was already forgotten. As if they’d discussed nothing of importance. “Is she attractive?”

  Morgen blinked up at the Swordsman. Why would Wichtig lie, what could he hope to gain? “Nicer than Stehlen,” he said, his thoughts jumbled and chaotic.

  Wichtig guffawed. “Everyone is nicer than Stehlen in every way imaginable. I’ve met donkeys with better personalities, tomcats with sturdier morals, billy goats who smell better, and horses who are a gentler ride.”

  “Gentler ride?”

  “Never mind.”

  Though the Schwarze Beerdigung was nowhere near what Wichtig would call a respectable establishment, it was indeed superior to the Ruchlos Arms. The tables, rough as they looked, were actually tables. The chairs were real chairs, and the bar looked like it had been made specifically to be a bar. The boy followed him in, walking as if in a daze. What the hells is wrong with him?

  In one corner a hefty woman sat with three well-armed men. The woman and her coterie of warriors ignored Wichtig’s entrance, but he knew they’d noticed his arrival. How could they not, he was impossible to miss. Such grace. Such poise. What had the brat said? Physical perfection. Such physical perfection. The very essence of the perfect warrior given flesh.

  Wichtig struck a heroic pose and grinned his best cocky grin at the table. While they pretended to ignore him and his perfect teeth, Wichtig took the opportunity to look them over.

  The men were nothing. Run-of-the-mill toughs, each displaying the sloped brows, bad teeth, and thick clublike fingers of the dull-witted. Add them together, thought Wichtig, and you still wouldn’t get one real destiny. Well armed and probably tolerably well versed in the use of their rather plain weapons, they still didn’t matter. Not like Wichtig.

  The woman was something else. A pair of beautiful matched swords hung at her waist in ornate leather sheaths, one dangling either side of the chair she straddled. Her hair, a pale orange bordering on strawberry, was hewn short and rough. The large helm sitting atop the table explained the bad hairstyle. Though Wichtig found her face flat and her chin thick and strong, he was interested to note she was also unscarred. An impressive feat, if she really was a contender and an active Swordsman. Swordswoman, Wichtig corrected. Her arms looked like tree trunks, and Wichtig could only guess at how her legs looked under the long mail skirt. He’d never had a really large, muscular woman before and wondered what sexual feats she’d be capable of.

  Wichtig leaned close to whisper to Morgen. “Listen carefully. If communication is manipulation, sex is all-out war.” He gestured toward the woman, ignoring the boy’s look of confusion. “And she looks like she’d be a good fight.”

  “She’s very good,” answered Morgen, misunderstanding. “But you don’t have to worry.”

  Wichtig feigned shocked outrage. “Me? Worry?”

  “You are the Greatest Swordsman in the World. You would win.”

  Would? What does that mean? Wichtig, pushing the thought aside, approached the table. A larger audience would have been nice, but the boy would suffice. Come to think of it, it might be more important he impress the boy than a crowd of lowly peasants.

  “Greetings and salutations, my good . . .” Hells, he should have asked the boy the woman’s name. “People.”

  The woman glanced dismissively at him and returned her attention to the tabletop. “Begone.”

  “Ah, a woman of few words. It matches your beauty.”

  She scratched at the tabletop with a blunt fingernail and sounded bored. “You’re pretty enough for both of us.”

  Nicely done! He hadn’t expected wit. “True. I am. Which is lucky. For you.”

  She glanced at the men at her table and they stood to face Wichtig. “Beauty doesn’t do well in Neidrig,” she said.

  “I had noticed, but was too polite to say anything.”

  Finally she looked up and gestured at the largely empty room. “This is pointless. There is no crowd to impress. Continue on this path and you will die.”

  Wichtig backed away from the table, though only far enough to allow him an unhindered draw of his weapons. “I seek only to impress the boy. After these three”—he nodded at the standing warriors—“would you mind terribly if I killed you?”

  She ignored the question and glanced past Wichtig at Morgen with a flicker of concealed curiosity. “The boy? Who is he?”

  “Oh, nobody,” Wichtig drawled. “But he is going to be a god. So, if you don’t mind . . .”

  Wichtig killed the three men with three swift and precise strikes. The last one managed a look of wide-eyed surprise before dying.

  Wichtig grimaced. “I must be slowing in my old age. Normally I can kill twice as many before one manages to react.” A bald-faced lie, but he delivered it with perfect sincerity. It sounded good, like it was truth.

  The woman remained sitting, but her hands fell to the pommels of her sheathed swords. She looked up at Wichtig as if noticing him for the first time. “Do you seek to defeat me, or merely kill me?”

  “Why, both!” Wichtig bowed with a flourish and a wink. “I’ll await you on the street. A few mortal witnesses wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Are you really going to be a god?” Lebendig Durchdachter asked the boy.

  “Yes,” he answered, and she believed him. She had no choice. “And Wichtig is the Greatest Swordsman in the World.” She knew this was true too and followed the man’s slim hips with her gaze as he wove between tables on his way toward the front door. She remained sitting, watching as the strange boy followed the Swordsman. The faith of all the people of Neidrig paled before the force of the child’s belief in his friend. If she followed them out, it was only a matter of time before she lay dying in the street.

  Her old Blade Master had always said things like “enter every fight knowing today is a good day to die.” The man, like all men, was an idiot. Today is a shite day to die.

  Lebendig Durchdachter stood and dropped a few coins on the table to cover the cost of her drinks. Gods be damned if she would cover the cost of her dead companions’, whom she stepped over on the way to the bar.

  She gestured to the innkeeper and dropped a few more coins atop the bar. “When the man comes back in, this will buy him a few drinks.”

  The innkeep nodded as he accepted the coins but couldn’t meet her eyes. “So you’re going to face him?”

  “Hells no. I’m going out the back. The drinks are to distract him long enough that I can get away.”

  He finally made eye contact. “I always knew you were a good deal smarter than my other patrons.”

  Morgen followed Wichtig through the foul and narrow streets. The Swordsman, long legs striding quickly, grumbled and cursed under his breath.

  He must have lied to make me doubt Konig, thought Morgen. Except he couldn’t quite believe that. Wichtig had sounded more like he’d simply found Morgen’s beliefs funny. But belief defines reality. If he and all of Selbsthass believed strongly enough that he’d been born of pure faith, would that make it true?

  “I can’t believe she ran!” Wichtig called over his shoulder. “What a waste of a day!”

  Morgen had known the woman would flee. Should he have told Wichtig? Did Wichtig not understand?

  Handsome, dashing, and heroic Wichtig might be, but Morgen suspected the Swordsman might not be particularly smart. He decided to explain, just in case.

  “It was better you didn’t kill her.”

  “Oh, shut up,” snappe
d Wichtig.

  “You just became the Greatest Swordsman in this turd bucket without a fight.” He thought about the three men Wichtig had so casually slain. “Without a real fight,” he corrected.

  Wichtig ignored Morgen’s attempt at humor and continued stalking, head down, through the street. Morgen tried again.

  “Word will spread. You are so good even the great Lebendig Durchdachter is afraid to face you. This is better than an actual kill.” Wichtig continued to ignore him. “People enjoy seeing imperfection in others. They feel better about themselves. This explains why you love and hate Bedeckt. You see how vastly flawed he is and know you could do better.”

  “Of course I do better.”

  “Could do—”

  “Which part of ‘shut up’ didn’t you understand?” Wichtig growled.

  An emaciated black cat riddled with open sores and a recently torn ear dashed across the street in front of Wichtig, a blur of motion. Wichtig was faster. His foot connected dead center with the thin body and sent it spinning into a nearby wall. Morgen heard its spine snap with the kick and the pock of its skull cracking as it hit the brick wall. The cat dropped and lay motionless.

  Wichtig continued down the winding filth-strewn street as if unaware of what he had done. As if it were a small violence beneath notice.

  Morgen approached the cat and stared down at the forlorn body. Only the faintest spark of life remained in the broken creature. Do cats have an Afterdeath? If not, were there no cats in the Afterdeath? It seemed a strange and sad thought, to imagine a place without the effortless companionship of animals. Did the Afterdeath require a belief in the Afterdeath, or was it just there? Did people who didn’t believe still awaken in the beyond, or was this the end for them? Morgen thought about the cat’s short and brutal life and pointless death at the whim of an annoyed . . . child.

  And that’s what Wichtig is, Morgen realized: a bratty child enraged at having something he desired moved beyond his grasp. Wichtig wanted to kill the Swordswoman and sulked because he’d been denied the chance.

  When Morgen was younger, Aufschlag had gently chided him for such behavior and he had long outgrown such childishness. Why hadn’t Wichtig? Had no one thought to teach the Swordsman how grown-ups were supposed to act? Was this a fault of Wichtig’s, or did the blame lay elsewhere, perhaps with his parents and friends? Does no one care enough to teach him how a man should behave?

  He nudged the cat’s lifeless body with a toe. “Was your life as meaningless as your death?”

  The cat’s dwindling soul offered no reply other than its stubborn unwillingness to flee the shattered body.

  How much pointless violence and death could a god witness before acting?

  Morgen’s world narrowed to a pinpoint of focus. Sounds dulled and the street became a mottled blur. The cat became his universe. Could he do this, could he bring this tenuous soul back from beyond? How much faith did the people of Selbsthass have in him? Did they believe him capable of returning the dead to life?

  His limits had never been tested. Aufschlag forbade it. But why?

  I need to know my limits. If just to crush the growing doubts.

  He forced his will upon the cat’s cooling flesh. The bent little body twitched. I knew it! His followers’ faith was a deep well he had barely tapped.

  The cat yowled piteously as, spine still bent at an unnatural angle, it pulled itself to its feet. It staggered in a circle, blinking furiously in confusion. The cat collapsed to the ground and lay mewling.

  Morgen turned to find a crowd gathered around him. Wichtig stood at the forefront of the mob with a look of both measured contemplation and fear.

  “It worked,” said Morgen. “I brought the cat back. Let’s go back to the men you killed in the Schwarze Beerdigung. I can bring them back too.”

  Though Wichtig had eyes only for the boy, the rest of the crowd stared past Morgen at the yowling cat as it again dragged itself in tight circles.

  The boy opened his mouth to speak and Wichtig panicked. He had to silence the child. With one step forward he clipped Morgen’s chin with a fast punch. The boy collapsed to the filthy street.

  Some people just aren’t built to take a punch. It was a damn good thing he didn’t have Bedeckt’s qualms about hitting children. The old goat would have stood watching Morgen shoot his mouth off until everyone in the crowd knew this was the kidnapped Geborene godling. The fact that Bedeckt never would have allowed this to happen—and had specifically told Wichtig to stay out of trouble—was irrelevant.

  The crowd made angry and threatening noises at Wichtig’s callous treatment of the child. He turned to face them.

  “Oh, what? You’ve never hit someone before?” he asked the gathered people. Poor and dirty, they looked a motley assortment of unimportant souls.

  A fat woman in a stained apron stepped forward and waved a rolling pin at him. “What kind of man hits a defenseless child?”

  He saw a quick way to end this. Wichtig drew his sword and stabbed the fat woman through the heart. He flicked the blade free of blood and returned it to its sheath before she realized she was dead.

  “I think I answered your question,” he mused. “Any other questions, or would you all like to piss off now?”

  A moment later Wichtig stood alone in the street with an unconscious boy, the corpse of an old woman, and a mewling cat-corpse still staggering in circles.

  “Gods damn it all!”

  Do I have to do everything myself? Wichtig stepped over the boy and stomped on the cat’s head.

  Scooping up the boy, he headed toward the Ruchlos Arms. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the cat, skull crushed, drag itself into an alley.

  Bedeckt and Stehlen returned to find Wichtig sitting in the Ruchlos Arms’ main room, staring into an empty pint mug with a rare look of thoughtful contemplation. Morgen was nowhere to be seen.

  Not good. Bedeckt waved at the barkeep to bring pints.

  Stehlen took a seat on the bench across from the Swordsman so she could watch the door. He didn’t seem to notice her. “Gods, look at him,” she said to Bedeckt. “He’s had his first thought.” She poked Bedeckt hard in the ribs. “That or he’s eaten some of your cat turd.”

  Bedeckt, gingerly lowering himself to the bench beside Stehlen, didn’t like it. Anything penetrating Wichtig’s self-aggrandizing narcissism was worth worrying about. A thoughtful Wichtig could convince himself of any number of stupidities.

  “Where’s the boy?” Bedeckt asked.

  Wichtig looked up, his eyes hooded. “Upstairs.”

  Stehlen snorted. “The idiot is hiding something. Let me guess: the boy is dead.”

  Wichtig shot her an angry look. “He’s fine.”

  Bedeckt lifted an eyebrow. “But . . .”

  “I had to hit the little bastard.” Wichtig raised a hand to ward off further questions. “I had to—he was about to tell everyone who he was!”

  “Everyone?” Stehlen glanced pointedly around the inn at the three other patrons, all deep into their cups. “How awful!”

  “You took the boy out.” Bedeckt wasn’t asking.

  Wichtig shrugged. It wasn’t a denial.

  Bedeckt leaned forward and the bench groaned in protest. “You went out looking for Swordsmen and you took the boy.”

  “Should I have left him here alone?” Wichtig asked sarcastically.

  “You should have both stayed here!” Bedeckt roared into Wichtig’s face. “I told you to stay out of trouble!”

  “You aren’t my father. Yours isn’t the only game afoot, old man.”

  “Your father?” Morgen had said Wichtig looked to him as a father figure. Could the boy have the right of it? No, surely not. The very idea served only to feed his anger. “Moron! I should kill you!”

  Wichtig slid from the bench in one smooth motion and stood, looking down upon Bedeckt with flat gray eyes. “Try it, old man. I am the World’s Greatest Swordsman. The boy knows it, and you know what that means.”
<
br />   Bedeckt sat, looking up at the young Swordsman. Morgen had said Bedeckt would die alone, that Wichtig would not be there.

  “You’ll be dead before you draw those pretty swords,” said Stehlen from behind Wichtig. She sounded all too calm.

  How the hells did she get there? Bedeckt sighed tiredly. I’m too old for this.

  Perhaps Wichtig wouldn’t be present at Bedeckt’s death because he himself was already dead. Was this fate, or could it be avoided?

  “The boy is unhurt?” Bedeckt asked, trying for fatherly concern mixed with casual curiosity. “No real harm was done?”

  The question and tone distracted Wichtig. “He’s fine. It wasn’t my fault.”

  Nothing was ever Wichtig’s fault. “Then it’s no big deal,” Bedeckt said.

  Stehlen spat in snarling frustration. “I’m going for a walk. If one of you kills the other, I’ll kill whoever is still alive.” She marched from the room.

  Wichtig, eyes wide and innocent, watched her leave before returning to his seat. “Gods help anyone who bumps into her on the street.”

  Bedeckt nodded in nonchalant agreement but his chest felt tight. The boy had planted dangerous thoughts in Bedeckt’s mind. What if he’d done the same for Wichtig? The Swordsman might be a minor Gefahrgeist, but he was easily swayed and manipulated himself. Did Morgen act with intent, or was he unaware of the consequence of his words?

  Maybe stealing a would-be god hadn’t been the best idea. Had he embroiled them in something deeper than planned? Swallowing his fear and doubt along with the last of his pint, he waved at the barkeep for more ale.

  Finally, keeping his voice carefully disinterested, Bedeckt asked, “What did the boy say?”

  “He told the crowd he could bring back the dead. Damned lucky I was there to stop him.”

  “Damned lucky,” agreed Bedeckt, choking back the sarcasm.

  The crowd? Bedeckt took a long drink to buy time to think.

  “You found the Swordsman you sought? Was it a good fight?”