“Wichtig was a manipulative fool.”
“True,” agreed the albtraum, poking again at the fire. “He tried to use you. But only to better himself. Yes, he was a fool for hoping you might find something worth liking in him when he saw nothing. He loathed himself and clothed it in bravado. All he ever wanted was to impress you, hear a kind word. He got nothing. He and Stehlen await you in the next life.”
“I’ll deal with them when I get there.”
“No doubt. You’ll probably, having learned nothing, kill them both. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Ah, I can be redeemed?” Bedeckt asked sarcastically. “My soul can be saved so I may frolic among fields of virgins in the next life?”
“Morgen saved your life. You owe him.”
“Shite on my debts.”
Again the albtraum ignored his words. “The worst of what trauma humanity has to offer awaits Morgen. If the Slaver has his way, the child will Ascend in such a damaged state he will absolutely worship the one who caused him so much pain. And the beliefs of gods are powerful things.”
“I don’t care. I’m done.”
“Save the child and—”
“Redeem myself?” Bedeckt barked a harsh laugh and found himself sitting alone in the dark, the fire long since gone out.
He sat blinking at the ashes. What had Morgen said about heading east? Bedeckt couldn’t remember.
“Shite and hellfires.”
Redemption. What a laughable concept. When he looked back over his life, he couldn’t see where he had first stepped off the righteous path. More important, had he even ever laid a single foot on that path?
Was this destiny? Was he doomed to a hellish Afterdeath of slain friends and lovers.
“She wasn’t a lover,” he said aloud, his words hollow with doubt.
Somewhere far off to the east he heard the screams of a child.
“Not my problem. I go west.”
The screams went on, unending agony.
“Who cares if the child dies and becomes the plaything of some foul Slaver? Who cares if he Ascends to be a twisted new god?”
The scream cut off suddenly, leaving Bedeckt sitting in silence. He sat, listening.
Nothing.
Bedeckt pushed himself to his feet with a groan, his knees and back popping.
“My arse was getting damp anyway.”
After setting Stehlen and Wichtig’s horses free and sending them west with a slap on the hindquarters, he turned to Launisch. He spent half an hour removing the saddle and tack and brushing the destrier’s black coat until it was silky and smooth.
“You’ve been a good horse, the best.”
Launisch snorted as if to say, Tell me something I didn’t know.
“You can’t come with me this time. I think it will end badly.”
Launisch stared at him.
“I’m serious.”
The massive war-horse looked over Bedeckt’s shoulder to the east, turned, and headed west. Bedeckt watched it for several minutes. Expecting an emotional good-bye from his war-horse had probably been foolish.
Bedeckt collected his ax. Everything else he left behind.
He walked east.
When Konig finally made his way to the great courtyard, he found Trepidation waiting with a dozen massive Dysmorphics. Gods damn it, he’d wanted the Doppel to gather all of the overly muscled morons. If he was to leave the safety of Selbsthass, he would do so with an army at his back.
He approached quickly, intending to berate the Doppel. As he closed the distance he found himself staring up into the square-jawed face of a Dysmorphic. Gods, they were huge. Even the man’s neck—if indeed it was a man, Konig couldn’t be sure—bulged with muscle. He felt a surge of fear and turned away from the giant, avoiding eye contact.
Wait. I have no fear of these muscled fools. He glanced at the Doppel; Trepidation looked unusually smug.
“What’s going on here?” demanded Konig, his quivering voice undercutting the authority.
“It is as I said,” announced Trepidation loudly, as if orating to all in the courtyard.
Konig’s gaze darted about the open area. All the highest-ranking priests were in attendance. Why had so many people gathered here? Everyone watched, waiting.
Something was wrong. They stared at him with loathing. But why? They loved him! He was the High Priest! He’d made them their very own god!
“Where are the horses? I told you to get all this ready. We have to ride . . .”
No one moved.
“He pretends,” said the Doppel. “But he can’t hide the fear in his eyes.”
Konig backed away and then caught himself. He squared his shoulders and tried to stand tall, but all stared at him. They hated him.
“I am Konig!” Konig screamed, his voice cracking. “I am the High Priest!”
“It is as I said,” Trepidation repeated. “He will come and pretend at being me. This weak sham. This desperate ploy. But look at him shake with fear. All can see his trepidation. I named him well.”
“No!” Konig backed away. “I am Konig. He”—he thrust a finger at the smirking Doppel—“is Trepidation!”
Trepidation shook his head sadly. “Do any here see an ounce of fear in me?”
For a moment all eyes turned to the Doppel, and Konig sagged with relief, but in a flash they returned to him. Trepidation stood tall, fearless.
Konig’s heart quailed. “No . . . I’m the real me.” His voice shook, weak and pleading.
A hugely muscled hand landed on his shoulder from behind and forced him to his knees. He looked up, saw the massive face glaring down at him, and squeaked pitifully.
No. Not like this. He was Konig. Wasn’t he? Gods, he was so scared. He couldn’t think straight. This wasn’t right. Konig knew no fear. Trepidation was his fear manifest. If he felt fear . . . either he was Trepidation or the Doppel was dead.
Why don’t they love me? He’d done so much for his people. He needed their love. He’d earned it. They owed him worship!
Trepidation drew a mirror from within his robes and held it up for Konig to see. The mirror reflected the room, but none of the people within it.
Konig stared up at himself standing tall and fearless. “Who?”
And he stared down at himself. “I am who you would be. Konig Furimmer, High Priest of the Geborene Damonen, Theocrat of Selbsthass. You are but a pale reflection.” With the last word he winked at himself.
Reflection? Had a reflection somehow escaped a mirror? Impossible! Trepidation and Acceptance destroyed the mirrors!
Except Acceptance had kept one for himself. Had Trepidation done the same? Of course he had.
He gestured down at himself, and the weight of the hand lifted from his shoulder. Konig’s relief was flashing brief. A fist closed about his bald skull with crushing force and lifted him off his feet. He hung dangling like a child’s doll.
“He has become too dangerous,” he said.
No, wait. He hadn’t said it, the other had, the impostor. Gods, he was so scared, so confused.
“And yet I have use for him. He must serve.” He stood before himself, mirror raised and held just before his face. The mirror reflected naught but an empty room. “Push him in,” Konig commanded the Dysmorphic.
Konig’s face pressed hard against cold glass, the narrow rim of the mirror crushing an ear.
It’s too small! I can’t fit in here!
Slowly the surface of the mirror gave way beneath his cheek, sucking at him like thick, cold mud. His skull groaned from the pressure.
You’re killing me!
The surface of the mirror collapsed and he tumbled into an empty room, landing badly. His skull throbbed with pain and each breath shot stabs of agony through his chest; he’d broken something inside. He stared about the empty room. Where had everyone gone?
Turning, he saw the room ended suddenly at a wall of glass. Beyond that wall, the people, Dysmorphics, priests, and acolytes, stood gathe
red, staring at him. They were huge, giants. The view through the window was spinning alarmingly and Konig found himself staring up at himself.
“What shall I call you?” the Konig beyond the wall asked.
Konig screamed, hurling himself bodily against the glass, pounding at it with his fists until the finger he’d broken beating Acceptance broke a second time.
The Konig beyond grinned, eyes wide and insane. “They can’t hear you,” he whispered. “No one can hear you.”
Konig collapsed to the floor of his empty room. His prison.
“I think I shall call you Failure,” he said, tucking the small mirror into his robes. He said more, but with his voice muffled by the thick crimson robes of the Theocrat, Failure couldn’t hear him.
No, that isn’t me. I’m in here.
Sprawled on the floor, cradling broken ribs, Failure giggled and wept.
You may be free, but now I am the reflection. I see what you cannot.
The giggle broke into crazed laughter and then choked off into sobs of pain.
Konig’s freedom would be short-lived, Failure knew.
Morgen will return.
CHAPTER 43
Those who live without a great fire in their soul live in darkness.
—BRENNENDE SEELE, HASSEBRAND
Morgen lay curled in mud hot enough to raise blisters. The sun had gone down and night had fallen. He hadn’t seen it happen. The camp flowed around him as if he weren’t there, as if he were beneath notice. And maybe he was. Mud and blood caked his mottled skin, formed crusts in his hair. He could open only one eye, and then only enough to peer through a thin, throbbing slit. His face was aflame in pain, and when he tried to reach a hand up to touch his bent nose, he found he couldn’t. His arms hung like insensate lumps of dead flesh. They refused to obey his commands.
Are they broken?
With a whimper he tilted his head enough to look the length of his body. The one arm he saw was bent the wrong way at the elbow. Farther down he saw his fingers splayed at impossible angles. When he drew breath something grated deep inside his chest and he felt a stabbing pain in his guts.
They’ve broken me.
But why had they stopped?
It didn’t matter; he was beyond grateful for the respite. Even if everything hurt, at least no new pain was being added, no new indignity heaped upon his shattered frame.
Erbrechen’s face filled Morgen’s view. He looked worried.
“You’re still alive, thank the gods! I thought those idiots killed you. I can stop them. Do you want me to stop them?”
Morgen coughed out sharp fragments of teeth. “Pluh,” he said. Please. No more. Anything.
Erbrechen touched his face gently. “Poor boy. Poor, poor boy.”
“Pluh.”
“Poor, poor boy. I’ll protect you. You want my protection?”
Morgen tried to nod but nothing worked. “Pluh.”
“What? You want me to protect you?”
“Yush,” he sobbed. “Pluh!”
“They’ll hurt you again if I let them.”
Morgen cringed. “Nuh muh. Pluh.”
“No one here loves you more than I do,” purred Erbrechen. “You know this, right?”
Morgen tried to speak but a spasm of coughing interrupted him. When it passed, he saw he’d coughed blood into the mud.
“Gehirn wants to burn you with fire. Only I can stop her. You don’t want to be burned alive, do you?”
Burned. Fire. Those two words punched holes in Morgen’s scrambled thoughts, punctured the fog of agony. He’d seen fire. There had to be fire.
Nothing else mattered.
“Fuh,” he said, desperately trying to make his mouth and jaw work.
“Fire?” asked Erbrechen. “Fire is scary. Painful.”
The fat bastard went on, but Morgen wasn’t listening. He didn’t know what to do. Gehirn terrified him, but he’d seen fire. The reflections had been right about everything. There had to be fire. He knew what he needed to do but shied away from it. There would be no going back.
“Fire,” he whispered.
Erbrechen leaned in to better hear. His earlobe swung fat and greasy, filling Morgen’s vision.
Morgen, remembering Stehlen, spat a bloody glob of phlegm into the Slaver’s ear.
Erbrechen turned to look at him, a long streamer of thick red drool swinging from his earlobe. “Oh, child. That was a mistake. A terrible mistake.” He glanced at two men who appeared out of the darkness. “He’s not ready yet. Beat him some more.” The men nodded happily, rapturous to be given the chance to serve. “If you kill him, you’ll suffer beyond anything.”
No! This isn’t right! Erbrechen threatened fire! There’s supposed to be fire! Not more—
Someone kicked him in the face and his vision shattered apart like a broken mirror. White agony. Blows fell upon his body from everywhere. There must have been more men he hadn’t seen.
Where is the fire? The reflections showed me fire.
Oh gods. Had they lied?
Bedeckt came as close to the camp as he dared. He stood watching, hidden in the trees, covered by the dark of night. The camp followers were uniformly filthy. At a quick guess, he estimated thousands occupied this camp. Most milled about aimlessly or rutted in the mud or fought over something he couldn’t see. Many weren’t even wearing boots and most wore no more than a few strips of ratty clothing.
He’d seen this before, a long, long time ago. This was what happened when people fell under the influence of a powerful Slaver-type Gefahrgeist; they lost all sense of self. These people were barely capable of feeding themselves, much less bathing or grooming. If it went on long enough, most would starve to death unless the Slaver thought to remind them to eat. And how rarely did Gefahrgeist think of others?
“You aren’t going to get anything done from here,” he whispered to himself.
Well then, maybe you should just leave.
Bedeckt stood motionless. He saw nothing of the boy, but then the camp was the size of a small city, albeit one consisting solely of vagrants.
“Well, if you aren’t going to get anything done from here, why not do it from somewhere farther away and much safer?”
Gods, he hated Slavers. Few things terrified him more than losing oneself in the self-aggrandizing delusions of another.
Walk away. Put this scene behind you.
He stripped off his shirt, tossing it aside. Won’t be needing that again. The air felt cold on his bare chest.
Go back and find Launisch. With a few days riding he could be in Folgen Sienie.
Bedeckt reached into the mud and dug up a great fistful. He smeared it across his body and into his hair.
To hells with the boy and everyone who wants to use him. This was none of Bedeckt’s problem.
He looked at his boots. Die with your boots on. Damned if he would take them off. When he figured he looked as much like one of the Slaver’s pitiful drudges as he cared to, he scooped up his massive ax, slung it over his shoulder, and set off into camp. The ax would make him stand out in this crowd, but no way was he going anywhere without it.
Boots and ax. He needed nothing more.
He marched through the camp, pushing his way through mobs drunk on worshiping their Slaver master. The air grew warmer the farther into the camp he got. Something or someone near the center of the camp was heating the atmosphere for acres around and he immediately knew what was causing it. Shite.
Slavers might be frightening, but Hassebrands were downright dangerous.
When people saw him coming, they scattered out of his way like a flock of startled chickens. Most, however, were too lost to notice him. These he shoved rudely through. Few paid him any attention, but those who did stared unabashedly. As he pushed forward the air grew thick with heat, and soon he was sweating profusely.
Ahead he saw a huge litter, and sitting upon it a gelatinous mountain of a human. He couldn’t tell from here if it was male or female; fat hid everything
. A dozen men and women sat or stood near the litter, many muttering to themselves, picking at their flesh, or twitching at things unseen. The Slaver had gathered a cadre of Geisteskranken about him, and gods knew what delusions and powers they possessed. No way he could kill them all.
A young woman with shards of mirror glued to her flesh glanced at Bedeckt, eyes widening in apparent recognition. She looked to the Slaver, opening her mouth as if about to speak, and then stopped. Turning, the mirrored woman hurried away as if attempting to surreptitiously flee for her life.
What the hells was that about? Had the Mirrorist woman seen something in the reflections?
Sitting cross-legged in the filth was a tall woman with a glistening bald skull. The air around her shimmered. Every now and then the woman’s fists clenched and a wave of blistering heat swept off her. This then was the Hassebrand. Four men stood nearby, thin and hungry-looking. They were nothing, drudges of the Slaver. Dangerous only if they got in the way.
Bedeckt stopped. Slaver or Hassebrand? With a camp of followers like this, the Slaver must be at the peak of his power. The Slaver could take him with a single word.
He glanced at the sitting Hassebrand. This was a woman beyond the pinnacle, well into a swift descent to madness. She might last days, but it could just as easily be minutes.
Who should he kill first?
The Hassebrand.
“So, boy,” said the Slaver, gesturing a massive arm at a pile of dirt. Fat swung underneath the arm like billowing curtains. “Do you wish for more? They’re itching for more, you know. They keep asking if they can beat you further.”
From the pile of gathered filth Bedeckt heard a soft moan. A single glistening eye cracked open and stared directly at him. His mind fit the pieces together. There, bent at an impossible angle, a child’s arm. Those weren’t branches sticking from the mud, they were splayed fingers.
Morgen.
They’d broken the boy. Tortured the purest soul Bedeckt had ever met. They had crushed him to the filth, sullying more than just the boy’s faith, but his very being. Bedeckt couldn’t help thinking—knowing what he did about Morgen—that he knew what bothered the god-to-be more.
Beyond Redemption Page 40
