Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists

by Edited by Adrian Collins

  This realisation, and my inability to find fiction out there that met this need (not that it wasn’t out there) led to a starvation of the stories I hungered for. I stopped reading pretty much all together until one fateful day when I spotted David Gemmell’s Sword in the Storm in my mate’s small luggage he’d left at my parent’s house before flying back to the United States. In that book there is a defining series of scenes for the protagonist Connavar that not only goes against my personal moral compass, but drives his character harder in a different direction than I first expected. It’s a hell of a twist.

  Now, Gemmell is borderline grimdark at best, but that taste of the wrong side of Connavar and the realisation that he was still a person worth barracking for set me off in search of work more like that scene sequence. Give me darker; give me more evil; show me an antagonist who is more than just a dark lord. I found it in the meatgrinder world of Warhammer 40,000. I found it in Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes. Then in Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Thorns. Then in Peter Orullian’s A Length of Cherrywood. The list continues. These authors and many more created the foundation of my love of grimdark fiction, replaced all but a few on my favourites list, and drove me, eventually, to found Grimdark Magazine and to create this anthology through Kickstarter.

  The more I read characters like Glotka, Zoisa, Jorg, and Cersei the more I understood the villain’s perspective, and the more I started to relate that perspective to my life experience. Divorces, broken relationships, ruined friendships, the Western media’s obsession with making us hate people, the Australian government’s continuous duplicity, social media—it’s so easy to jump on a side and scream your anger into the face of somebody on the other side of the fence. It’s far, far harder to sit down and have a really good think about what led them to stand there, screaming right back at you.

  This, more so than many things I’ve experienced in 31 years of life, enforced upon me that evil, in all its forms, is a matter of perspective, as much as many of us may never accept this cold fact. To somebody—probably plenty of people—I am a villain. To me, you might be one. We are all a shade of grey, which is why I believe grimdark is so relatable. This is why I wanted to share these stories with you, and this is why I know you’ll enjoy some of the best authors in fantasy dropping you into the shoes of their antagonists, who make the world of fiction a more complex, interesting, and grim place. Enjoy.

  Adrian Collins

  January, 2017

  The Broken Dead

  - Manifest Delusions -

  Michael R. Fletcher

  While this reality is responsive to the madness and delusions of the Geisteskranken, the sane masses truly define it. If it's a hell we have only ourselves to blame.

  —Wissenschaftler, Natural Scientist

  You are nothing. You'll never be anything. I'm so disappointed.

  Anomie fled her home. Her father's words followed, echoing down the alley.

  She ran until she could no longer hear him. She ran until she could run no more. She ran until exhaustion dragged her down.

  When she woke curled in the doorway of a one-story home that looked to have been abandoned for decades, a young man stood over her, hands on hips. Long black hair hid his face in a curtain of shadow. His clothes too were black. A long knife, reaching to the middle of his thigh hung at his side in a well-worn scabbard. The pommel, polished bright, was a grinning death's head.

  A thief?

  But she clearly had nothing. She'd left home with nothing. She'd never have anything, never be anything.

  Anomie sat up, pushing aside the piled garbage littering the entrance to the run-down dwelling. Someone had eaten a lot of those sausages you can buy in the market for a few coppers and the remains of scores of leaf-wrapped meals littered the ground.

  Sausages. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. Her stomach burbled complaint. Thousands of rauch butts, smoked to the nub, blanketed the ground.

  A slim-fingered hand—artist's fingers, she thought—pulled long black hair back, tying it in a cue. Pale blue eyes, jagged shards of chipped ice, examined her.

  So cold.

  "The world has certainly shit on you." His voice was deep, melodic. He had the bur of an accent she didn't recognize.

  Was he from one of those villages tucked in the shadows of the Kälte Mountains? Her father always referred to that area as the festering arsehole of the world. There wasn't much in life that managed to earn a kind word from the old man.

  Brushing the worst of the dirt from her clothes, Anomie asked, "Do you live here?"

  The blue eyes never left her. It was like nothing else mattered, like he thought there was nothing else worth looking at. He drank her with his eyes, devoured her. She prepared herself for the cruel words that would surely follow, held ready for the dismissal she knew would come.

  "Are you hungry?" he asked.

  That voice is dark chocolate. She nodded.

  Blue eyes crushed her. She couldn't breathe under that regard. Anomie found herself desperately wanting to see some hint of acceptance there, anything other than disgust.

  He held out a hand, artist's fingers asking her to take them. She hesitated, then reached up to accept the proffered help. It was warm. He pulled her to her feet.

  "Come," he said. Releasing her hand, he turned and walked away as if he knew beyond any doubt she would follow.

  With the weight of those blue eyes gone she felt guttered. She was nothing; her father was right. Anomie wanted those eyes again, needed to feel their attention on her skin. Crushed was better than empty.

  She didn't want to be alone. Had never been alone. Didn't know how to be alone.

  If I go with him I'll never be alone again. She knew it to be true.

  Anomie followed, jogging to catch up.

  "My name is Matthäus," he said when she walked at his side. He glanced at her as if looking for a reaction. "Matthäus Sommer."

  She'd never heard of him but thought maybe she should have. Not wanting to seem ignorant or uneducated, she nodded in appreciation, widening her eyes as if impressed.

  "I'm Anomie," she said, ignoring her last name. It was her father's and she hated it.

  You are nothing. You'll never be anything. I'm so disappointed.

  * * *

  Wearing nothing but a sword on her hip, Anomie lay on the floor in an unused sub-basement of the Geborene Damonen church in Selbsthass. The Schatten Morder—her cadre of Cotardist assassins—lay littered about her. Years of dust covered them, gathered in the hollowed cavity of her gutted corpse.

  "Konig demands your presence."

  A priest stood over her. She had no recollection of his arrival, no idea how long he'd been standing there, talking.

  The Theocrat of Selbsthass and High Priest of the Geborene Damonen, Konig was the centre of her world, her purpose. His will alone kept her from dissolution and she was torn between her need to serve and her desire for an end. She felt like she'd been close this time. Just a few more years and maybe she would finally have faded to nothing.

  But this priest, wrapped in soft skin and sweat, wearing his life like an insult, was not Konig. His need didn't matter. His wants didn't matter.

  "Why?" she asked, not bothering to rise. The word was a whisper. She hadn't drawn breath in years and her lungs hung slack and empty.

  "Someone stole Morgen."

  Morgen. The god-child had been kind to her once. He'd touched her like she didn't disgust him and said her loneliness made him sad. Anomie sat up.

  "Konig wants you to find the thieves," said the priest.

  Konig only ever called on her for one purpose: Death.

  Anomie stood and her Schatten Morder, the five corpses scattered about the floor, stood too. All bore swords, but none wore more than shreds of long rotted clothing. None wore armour—such contrivances are for those who fear death. In those rare times when the Theocrat called them into service, they always saw violence. When the
y became too damaged to continue, Anomie left them where they fell. Someday her own body would suffer enough damage to render her incapable of movement and she too would fall. She didn't fear that moment.

  The Schatten Morder gathered around Anomie, feeding off her need. She didn't know their names, didn't care. They knew she wanted to belong, to matter, and they would follow her until she achieved that or they would witness her failure. If they had a preference, they never spoke of it.

  "Take me to Konig," she said.

  "Dress first," commanded the priest.

  She glanced down, saw the rotten ruin of her body. Her lungs hung loose within the bone cage of her ribs. Twisted muscle showed through parchment skin. Dust rained off her with every move. Her breasts hung deflated.

  Anomie pinned the priest to the wall with bone arms and choked the life from him. She held him there until the last tremor of life left his body.

  I'll find Konig on my own.

  She dropped the dead priest to the ground and took the stairs up into the land of the living. Konig needed her.

  Her Schatten Morder followed.

  * * *

  Matthäus bought Anomie a meal of sausage wrapped in perilla leaves, scrounging through his pockets to come up with the few coppers. Judging from the bored expression of the old woman working the stand this was a common occurrence. When he realized he didn't have enough to buy himself one as well he shrugged like it was nothing. Anomie offered him half of hers and he shook his head.

  "I write better when I haven't eaten," he said. "Hunger sharpens the mind. Comfort is a distraction, happiness a lie."

  She knew his words to be truth. Life had shown her nothing else.

  They returned to the abandoned house where he had first found her sleeping. Neither said a word and she felt comfortable in the silence. Matthäus walked through the discarded leaves and countless rotting remains of sausages like he didn't see them. Though he didn't invite her in she knew he expected her to follow and she did.

  Why not? What else did she have?

  The wood floor creaked and groaned with every step. The walls looked to have once been painted gold. Someone had splashed watery black paint over the top. They'd been sloppy. Threadbare sheets had been crudely nailed over all the windows. Many appeared to be in the process of falling down and hung from bent nails. She could imagine her father's reaction to this place. She knew all too well his look of disgust.

  Matthäus removed the scabbarded long knife from his belt, dropped it on a table, and collapsed onto a stained and sagging sofa. Anomie stood, uncertain. He drew two crumpled rauch from an inner pocket, put the tapered ends in his mouth, and lit both, drawing the smoke deep. Blue eyes locked on her. Strands of black hair had worked free of the cue and cut his face in sharp lines. He grinned, exhaling an oily cloud, and offered Anomie one of the rauch. He'd already lit it; she couldn't decline.

  She drew fire into her lungs and the world softened, became a little more distant.

  Matthäus' gaze flicked toward the sofa beside him and Anomie knew she was supposed to sit. She sat, tucking her legs under her. He watched, drinking her with those sharp shards of ice. Fear and excitement warred within Anomie. She knew that look, knew what it meant. She'd seen it on enough boys to understand.

  He'll lean forward now. Put a hand on my thigh—

  Matthäus sat back, inhaling smoke and letting it leak out his nostrils in dark curls. He regarded her through that stained lace curtain.

  "Is this your house?" she asked. "Do you own it?"

  "Own." The word wasn't an answer but rather a gentle mockery of her question. "Tell me how you came to be on my front step," he said.

  They talked late into the night. Matthäus listened like no one had ever listened before, blue eyes seldom blinking. He never interrupted, never made those empty noises people make to show they are paying attention while waiting to speak. He smoked, inhaling her words. His expression never changed and he showed no hint of judgement as she spoke of her father and their estrangement. He just listened.

  He's soaking it up. Memorizing.

  Each time a rauch died he dropped the wet and crumpled wedge of tobacco, still smoking, into an empty wine bottle. It was already two thirds full.

  So he can afford rauch but not food? Anomie hated the thought. That was her father: Always judging. Always disappointed.

  As dawn lit the mottled sheets draping the windows, he leaned forward as if to offer her another rauch and instead pulled her into a smoky kiss. His tongue, hot and tasting of tobacco, explored hers. His hands roved her body, gentle and firm, devouring her shape.

  He undressed her over the course of an hour, touching and tasting everything she was. After more orgasms than she thought possible, they curled together and slept. He hadn't undressed, had made no attempt at pleasing himself. Her pleasure was everything.

  She'd never been the centre of such attention.

  * * *

  Anomie stood in Konig's chambers, awaiting the Theocrat's attention. Trepidation and Abandonment, two of the High Priest's three Doppels—hated aspects of his splintered personality that manifested as reality—paced the room, mirroring his poses. Their bald heads gleamed in the light. The third, Acceptance, lurked in the background, beaten and bruised, teeth shattered, face scarred.

  Made a play for power, did you? Clearly he'd lost. Doppels always turned on those whose delusions birthed them.

  The thick carpeting beneath her feet might as well have been mud. The many luxurious draperies adorning the walls were a thousand shades of grey. The world of the dead was devoid of warmth.

  Aufschlag, the Geborene Chief Scientist and pompous twat, stared into the cavity of her torso, squinting at where her lungs hung deflated. He looked like he wanted to ask her a question. When she turned toward him, pinned him with the empty sockets of her eyes, he flinched away from her attention. The fat man was a coward and a fool, clung to his sad life with the desperation of a drowning rat. Aufschlag thought he and Konig were friends and Anomie couldn't understand the scientist's wilful ignorance. Gefahrgeist didn't have friends, they had people they used. Apparently that wasn't enough for Aufschlag.

  When Konig finally noticed her she drew breath and said, "We are summoned." Her voice was thin and dry, lungs whistling as air leaked out the many small tears.

  "I have—"

  "It has been years since you have summoned us." He doesn't care. You're nothing. You'll never be anything.

  Konig scowled at her, annoyed at being interrupted. "I have not had need—"

  "We are worthless." Anomie's lungs deflated as she talked, turning her last words into a dusty wheeze. "Cursed immortal dead. Hated."

  "I don't hate you," he said.

  She drew breath. "We rot unheeded and unneeded. We fall away to dust. We are nothing and yet denied the nothing we desire."

  Konig stood before her, placing his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to meet his flat grey eyes. "You are worthless," he said, "but you serve something greater than yourself. I am your purpose. Your service defines you. Without service you will be denied even a moment of value, the slightest taste of intent with direction. You serve because in those rare moments you find yourself valued."

  She knew he was a powerful Gefahrgeist, dedicated entirely to his own needs, but was incapable of caring. Konig's wants defined reality. His words made new truths. She didn't care that he would use her and forget her the moment she'd completed her task. To be needed now, if just for a short time, was enough. It was more than she deserved.

  "We will serve," she whispered.

  Konig's Captain of the Guard ushered Asena and her coterie of Therianthrope assassins into the room and Anomie spat hatred at the pretty little bitch. Konig clearly preferred the lithe shape-shifter over Anomie's rotting corpse. After briefly bickering with the wolf-girl, Anomie lost interest; she couldn't compete with such vibrant life. I am worthless. Only the knowledge that Konig had use for her kep
t her from crumbling to the ground.

  Anomie watched Konig argue with himself, his own Doppels manipulating him, seeking advantage so they might one day bring him down. She watched the Theocrat realize Aufschlag had betrayed him. The scientist had helped three rogues steal Morgen, the Geborene godchild. A thrill of excitement coursed through her when she thought she'd be called upon to kill the scientist, but then Konig murdered Aufschlag, stabbing him in the chest.

  Disappointed, she bowed her head and sank into despair.

  Life swirled around her, noisy and hurried like bad theatre. She remembered the few plays Matthäus had taken her to see, how he mocked each one, pointing out the flaws in the writing, the plot holes and poor pacing. His own play, he said, would be better. It was going to be huge, epic in scale. There would be scores of scene changes, a cast of hundreds. I'll reduce the audience to tears with every death, he had told her. I'll be remembered as the greatest playwright of all time.

  At some point Matthäus decided playwrights were pathetic drunkards and focussed on his poetry. His epic play, a stack of hand written papers relegated to the floor when his poetry needed more room, reached to Anomie's knees. She never read it; he wouldn't let her.

  One night, several months after he’d found her sleeping in his doorway, while they curled together on the stained and stinking sofa, chewing auslösekugeln mushrooms, watching shadows dance to their shared hallucinations and talking about how much he hated Halber Tod, the famous Cotardist poet, he saw his path. He dedicated himself to the one poem that would make him famous. People would talk about his poem a thousand years after his death. She'd held him tight, happy to be close to such brilliance, glowing in the knowledge that while she might not matter, she could be a small part of something that did.