Beyond Redemption (26 page)

In a mad world, only the mad are sane.

—A
KIRA
K
UROSAWA

A
s the horizon swallowed the evening sun, the sky to the south looked unlike anything Asena had ever seen. Storm clouds spiraled in toward some central point like filthy water draining from a sink. Lightning struck at the ground, but equally bright flashes stabbed from the ground into the sky. It looked like the gods did battle with some earthbound Geisteskranken, and it appeared the Geisteskranken might win.

Asena stood atop a grassy hill with her gathered Tiergeist, watching the distant battle in silence. Even here, the winds blew fiercely, flattening the tall grass and snapping at what little clothing she wore. She could feel the rumbling thunder shake the ground, but heard nothing.

Such power should not go without witness. She sniffed at the damp air, tasting the tingling metallic tang of the faraway storm.

Konig had done her a horrible disservice and this troubled
Asena more than the world's lack of sound. He had often pushed her away—she understood his fear of allowing someone to become too close and accepted it—but he had never intentionally hurt her before.

Bär, massive and hairy, waved a hand to get her attention. He looked so sullen and depressed it seemed to diminish his colossal size. Asena glanced up at him and lifted an eyebrow. He pointed at the storm and flared his nostrils.
He smells it too.

Evil little Stich, baring his sharpened teeth, sniffed at the air. His eyes, too small and close together to convey any emotion other than vicious anger, looked from Asena to the storm.

She shook her head in answer to the unasked question.
No, we will not go south
. Konig ordered them to Neidrig and there they would go. Stich accepted this without comment and bent to claw at the dirt, his sharp nails digging for the insects and grubs he ate almost continually.

Only Masse ignored the storm, looking southwest toward Neidrig, his long, slim tongue flickering to taste the air. Asena watched him with interest. He alone seemed unperturbed by the loss of hearing—perhaps because his had been fairly poor to begin with. Masse noticed her attention and blinked at her, his secondary eyelid—a thin, yellowish, nictitating membrane—sliding across the eye to wet it.

“You taste something to the southwest?” Asena asked. She heard nothing but could feel her voice in her head.

Masse must have understood because he pointed toward Neidrig. He said something but she didn't hear it and couldn't read his nonexistent lips. His face, as ever, remained devoid of expression.

Frustrated, she
twisted,
and a lean gray wolf sat where the slim girl had been.

Asena barked in surprise—sound returned the moment she'd
twisted
. Konig had been wrong. His delusions had not been enough to change the fact that Therianthropes healed even the
most grievous of wounds by twisting into their animal form. She wanted to twist back but hesitated. Would she once again lose her hearing when she became human? Then she smelled what Masse had scented and lost all fear.

Morgen.

Even at this distance the boy-god's presence could not be ignored. She had been correct, Morgen was in Neidrig.

Bär, Stich, and Masse watched her with obvious interest. She showed her teeth in a victorious growl and again
twisted
. She rose to her feet in a lithe motion and listened to the crack of distant thunder.

Asena pointed to her ears. “I can hear again.”

Bär understood first and
twisted
with an earth-shattering roar. As a grizzly bear, he was twice the size of the massive man he had been. Over one thousand pounds of muscle and shaggy brown fur stood bellowing at the sky, briefly drowning out the titanic storm that was smashing the horizon. Asena clapped her hands over her ears and backed away from Bär. Though he was normally peaceful and gentle, there was no telling how he would react to something like this. She
twisted
back into wolf form.

Masse
twisted
next, his body crumbling to become asps, anacondas, constrictors, mambas, coral snakes, and many breeds she didn't recognize. A writhing mass of snakes covered the ground before her. Masse was never the same twice; the result of each twisting depended on his mood. This entwined pile of deadly snakes didn't speak well of his state of mind.

Stich, not the quickest-witted of the group,
twisted
last and fell apart like a tower of cards in the wind. As a man, Stich was quick to anger and even faster to lash out at whatever offended him. As a few thousand scorpions, he was psychotic rage personified. Just seeing him, glistening black, climbing all over himself, sent shivers of revulsion down Asena's spine.

A massive bear, a gray wolf, a nest of snakes, and a mound of
scorpions coruscating like oil stared southwest toward Neidrig. All sensed Morgen, the god-child, in some manner. All but Asena ignored the storm to the south. With her incredibly heightened sense of smell, she caught the scent of something familiar. Burning flesh. A lot of burning flesh. The wolf turned her nose to the storm. Gehirn Schlechtes—the vile Hassebrand who stared at her with such undisguised longing—was at the heart of the storm.

Asena growled and
twisted
back to human form.

“We have to talk,” she said.

When all four regained their human shapes, they once again sat around the fire.

Stich bared sharpened teeth. “Why we hear? Konig say we no hear no more.”

Bär grunted agreement but said nothing.

Asena squatted on her haunches like a dog. “Konig is far away and we are together. The beliefs of a tightly knit pack count for more than those of a distant man. Proximity and numbers.”

Masse spoke what was on all their minds. “Konig defines reality.”

Bär grunted again. All three looked to Asena.

“There are two possibilities,” she said carefully. “Either Konig is not as powerful as we believe, or something else is at work here. Some other power influences us.”

Masse blinked milky nictitating membranes and said, “Konig's power is beyond doubting.”

“Who greater than Konig?” Stich asked.

“Morgen,” Bär grunted, his voice impossibly deep.

“Why,” Asena asked, “would Morgen return our hearing?”

Bär gave her a strange look but remained quiet.

“Deafness would make it harder to find him,” Masse suggested.

“No,” said Asena. “Bär and I could have tracked him by scent alone. We would have found him easily enough.”

“Talking,” said Bär.

“Without hearing, we could not talk like this,” agreed Asena.

Stich's small eyes blinked in confusion. “Morgen want us talk?”

“Perhaps there are things he wants us to discuss,” suggested Asena.

“Such as?” Masse asked.

“Such as what we are doing here,” Asena answered.

“Konig send us help Morgen Ascend,” Stich said to prove he understood what was going on.

“Konig has sent us to
kill
Morgen,” Asena corrected.

“Same thing!” Stich snapped angrily.

“No doubt Konig knows best,” agreed Asena to calm Stich. “But what if Morgen isn't ready?” She looked from Stich to Masse, and finally at Bär, who seemingly ignored them. “Yet,” she amended softly.

“If Morgen will Ascend to be a god,” mused Masse, “he could be . . .
must
be more powerful than Konig. He could return our hearing no matter what Konig believes. Did he do this so we could decide to defy Konig?”

“Why he not want Ascend?” demanded Stich. “He Geborene god.”

Asena didn't want this getting out of hand. She merely meant to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of her fellow Tiergeist. She didn't know if they should kill Morgen or not. She didn't think
she
could kill the boy, but had no doubt Stich was more than willing.

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” said Asena. “First we have to find Morgen. We should talk to him, not just kill him and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done.” She watched Bär, but he said nothing.

“Killing a would-be god when he doesn't want to be killed might be bad,” agreed Masse. “I for one do not want any gods angry with me.”

Asena prattled on and Stich lost the thread of the conversation. She was so hard to follow sometimes. With Asena, nothing was ever simple.

Konig was Theocrat. High Priest. It didn't matter his god did not yet exist, though such thoughts were confusing; it mattered only that he
would
exist. If Morgen was to be a god and the only way to become a god was to die, the boy would have to die.
Why else Konig send us?
Why did everyone try to make this simple task seem difficult?

Find boy. Kill boy. Kill those who stole boy. What could be easier?

Stich shivered with excitement and almost
twisted
at the thought of the screaming mayhem to come.
I help Morgen Ascend.

Damn this cursed sanity. How is being a helpless prisoner of reality sane?

—G
EISTIG
G
ESUND

N
eidrig. The place
was
a shite-hole. Wichtig had seen a good number of shite-holes, but this one was prizewinning. If forty thousand people called this shite pit home, twenty thousand were thieves and ten thousand murderers. Five thousand, he figured, belonged to the many and varied breeds of hucksters and con artists. Roughly three thousand lived on the streets, sleeping in urine-soaked alleys, and a thousand were just too dumb to leave. The rest would be Swordsmen looking to carve names for themselves in these mean streets. This was just the kind of place a real Swordsman would come from. There would be none of the soft hands and soft teachings of the hoity-toity big-city sword schools. These men and women learned to kill the old-fashioned way.

Wichtig's elite training as a palace guard in Geldangelegenheiten
he deemed a minor and unimportant detail. Years of relentless practice, vicious and bloody tournaments with the other guards—considered by many to be among the best trained Swordsmen in the world—and the fact that he had risen to the position of First Guard meant nothing in the face of destiny. Hard work hadn't made him great: destiny had. And now destiny brought him here.

There must be a reason.

Stehlen found them a room in one of the city's many inns, and the innkeep asked no questions as they lugged Bedeckt's unconscious and blood-spattered form through the tavern and up the stairs. Even the few patrons didn't seem particularly interested and instead focused on their drinks.

After they'd dumped Bedeckt on sturdiest of the cots, Wichtig glanced around the cramped room. “Did you manage to find the worst room in Neidrig on your first try?”

Stehlen ignored him, fussing over Bedeckt.

Wichtig squinted and made a show of examining the floor. “There are more things living in the corners of this room than in the rest of the city.”

Still ignoring him, she peeled a strip of blood-soaked fabric from Bedeckt's body.

“This is hardly the time for that,” joked Wichtig. “It isn't fair to take advantage of him while he's unconscious.”

Again Stehlen failed to react.

Well, she's no fun.

Disappointed, Wichtig turned to Morgen. The boy stared at his own hands, eyes wide with disgust. Wichtig glanced at them; just a little blood. Nothing to get worked up over.

“What's wrong?”

“Filthy,” Morgen said, blinking back tears.

Wichtig pointed to a shallow bowl of water on the floor. “You can clean them in there.”

The boy was there in an instant, kneeling before the bowl, scrubbing furiously. He kept whispering something to himself but Wichtig couldn't hear it.
Strange kid.

Wichtig paced the confines of the room, darting glances over Stehlen's shoulder to check on Bedeckt. Though Morgen had somehow closed the old goat's wounds, the sheets soon soaked through with blood. If not for the slow rise and fall of the man's chest, Wichtig would have thought him dead. Bedeckt's flesh looked like a patchwork of scars, some old and white, others still ragged and raw.

Stehlen sat at Bedeckt's side, gently rinsing blood from the haggard face and whispering soft words.
Downright creepy, that is
.

Morgen finally stopped scrubbing his hands, crawled onto the cleanest of the cots, curled into a tight ball, and promptly fell asleep. The boy slept with his hands clutched together as if protecting them from the world beyond.

Yep, strange kid
. Morgen couldn't have been more different from Fluch, the son Wichtig hadn't seen since walking out on his wife in Traurig. Fluch lived to play in the dirt. If the boy was clean for more than a few minutes in a row, his parents proclaimed it a miracle. The memory of his son felt like a fist crushing his heart.

Later, when he had achieved his destiny, he would return to his wife and show her. Show her he had been destined for great things. Show her he wasn't lazy, terrified of success, and all the other hurtful shite she'd said. Men with destinies had difficult choices to make. The thought that he hadn't discovered his destiny until years after leaving his wife niggled, and he shoved it aside. Someday he would return for Fluch and his son would be proud.

Wichtig turned from Morgen and searched the room for a distraction. Four small and dingy cots, home to gods know how many forms of small and biting life. A single window with flimsy
and warped storm shutters looking like they'd fall to dust in a light wind. The floor hadn't been swept in a hundred generations. If Neidrig was a shite-hole, the Ruchlos Arms was the fly-covered turd floating in the piss water of that hole.

“Was this really the best inn we could find?” Wichtig asked Stehlen.

Stehlen finally glanced up from her ministrations and gave him a pinched and sallow frown. She flared nostrils and snarled, “It's quiet and the innkeeper didn't ask about us carrying in our unconscious and blood-soaked friend.”

“An innocent question,” said Wichtig, feigning hurt. “A simple yes or no would suffice. I'm going to take a look around town.”

“Get killed.”

Wichtig bowed with a mocking flourish. “Anything for you, my love. I shall seek death until I find it.”

“Good,” she snapped.

Wichtig checked the hang of his swords and struck a dashing pose. Stehlen ignored him.
Just as well, the ill-tempered wench has no fashion sense at all.

“Is the stinky old goat going to live?” Wichtig asked, holding the pose in case she looked.

Stehlen gently wiped dried blood from Bedeckt's shattered face. He might not be bleeding, but half his head looked like someone had tried to chop it down with an ax.

“He'll live,” she muttered.

Surrendering his perfect pose, Wichtig moved to the door, which hung on a single rusted hinge. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “if you'd wash your hair, you might actually look half decent.”

The thought planted, he ducked from the room. Stehlen was rarely influenced by his Gefahrgeist powers, but she had her weaknesses. And the thought of Bedeckt awakening to a bathed and caring Stehlen was too just funny. It would probably scare the old man to death.

WICHTIG STOOD ON
the decaying front stoop of the inn, looking up and down the street. Most of the crowd ignored him, but a few shot speculative glances in his direction, trying to fit him into the local food chain. Was he predator or prey?

If the city of Neidrig was a shite-hole and the Ruchlos Arms a floating turd, the people were the flies circling the choicer turds. Wichtig's ever-present cocky façade faded. Without Bedeckt around to tell him to stay out of trouble, there didn't seem to be much point in getting into any. He turned back into the inn and found an empty table. The beautiful matched swords he placed on the table before him in open challenge: Come, they're worth a fortune. Try and take them from me.

When the barmaid—a heavy woman with an arse larger than his horse's—brought him a beer, he caught her wrist. “Why is it when I look for trouble, I have no problem finding it, but if I wait for trouble to come to me, it never does?”

She blinked in dull confusion, her acne-pocked face florid. “Maybe you're waiting in the wrong place.”

“Aha! A woman of beauty
and
wisdom.”

She huffed annoyance. “There are plenty of places in town where your type—”

“You don't know my type,” Wichtig said softly. “There was a barmaid at the last inn we stayed at.” He met the fat woman's red eyes with a sad smile. “I loved her.” It wasn't true, but it felt like it could be. If he talked a bit more it might become true. “I loved her and my companion—the skinny murderous bitch with the bad teeth—cut her down. Killed her. I never got to tell her . . .”

Wichtig wove a tale of deception and danger and forbidden love until the barmaid's eyes filled with tears.

When he finished, she left to fetch him a free pint;
the least she could do,
he thought.

His Gefahrgeist powers grew. Shame she wasn't better looking.
Still, the memory of his wife and son still hung about like a bad smell and killed his desire for female companionship.

Gods, I'm bored.

Working his charms, Wichtig drank and ate for free for the rest of the evening. Though the swords sat on the table before him and he feigned a level of drunkenness far beyond what he felt, no one bothered him.

Bedeckt awoke to the feel of a cool damp cloth caressing his face. It felt nice and he lay still with his eyes closed, enjoying the sensation. He was reluctant to cause the end of such a rare moment. He took a deep breath and was surprised when it didn't hurt and his lungs didn't make that rattling, bubbling noise they had for the last month. He drew air through his nose—he couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to do that—and caught the sweet scent of roses and soap.

Where am I?

He had no idea and it didn't matter.

“You'll be okay,” said a soft voice. “I'll take care of you.”

Stehlen? Bedeckt cracked an eye open and found himself staring up Stehlen's narrow nostrils. When he focused beyond her nose, his other eye shot open in surprise. “Did you wash your hair?”

Her face, one moment soft and caring, became pinched and paranoid. “Why?”

“That would have been my next question,” Bedeckt said without thought.

“Why?” This time with anger.

“Gods, I don't know.” Bedeckt glanced around the room, desperate to look anywhere but at her. “Where the hells am I?”

“Neidrig. You almost died. Morgen saved you.” She made a strange, scrunched face. “I've been . . . caring for you,” she said tentatively.

Caring for me? Sticking gods, what the hells happened?
“My head feels like a few hundred angry giants stomped on it.”

“It looks worse.” Stehlen smiled and dabbed at his forehead with a bloody shred of cloth. He knocked her hand aside with a growl and her smile died instantly. Nostrils flared, and for an instant he thought she would stab him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “My head hurts.”

Stehlen's faltering smile returned. “Do you like my hair?”

Bedeckt took the coward's way out and lost consciousness.

WHEN HE AWOKE
a second time he could hear Stehlen's nasal snoring and Morgen stood over him with a curious expression.

“Why didn't you want your fingers back?” the boy demanded. “I could heal all your scars. You won't be ugly anymore. Well . . . less ugly.”

Ah, the brutal honesty of children
. “I am my scars.”

“Removing scars won't change your past.”

“It will make it easier to forget.”

“You think you're the actions that caused the scars?”

Bedeckt nodded without saying anything.

“You're wrong,” said Morgen, examining his pristine fingernails and rubbing at something Bedeckt couldn't see. “We are our beliefs.”

“Only the beliefs of the insane define reality.”

“I am not crazy.”

Bedeckt watched the boy's eyes.

“I am going to be a god. My power comes from the faith of the Geborene. They believe I can do these things, and so I can.”

“Being told your entire life you are going to become a god is probably not healthy.”

The boy bit his lip, frowned, and adjusted Bedeckt's blanket—changing nothing—nodded, and again checked his hands. “Your friend is not the Greatest Swordsman in the World because he
thinks he is. He is the greatest because enough other people believe it.”

Bedeckt stifled a laugh. “First, Wichtig is not the Greatest Swordsman in the World. Second—”

“Yes, he is.”

Bedeckt rolled his eyes at the naïveté of the child. “Second, Wichtig is not my friend. The only person Wichtig likes is Wichtig.”

“Wrong,” said Morgen with absolute certainty. “He is the only person he hates.”

Bedeckt blinked in surprise. The boy might be right. “It doesn't matter. Wichtig is Gefahrgeist. He cares only for himself. His power is the manipulation of people's beliefs toward his own ends.”

“But . . .” Morgen's eyed widened. “Konig is Gefahrgeist too.”

“Yes, but far more powerful than Wichtig.”

“You are saying his power is manipulation and stems from the fact he doesn't care about other people? Konig cares about me. Doesn't he?”

Bedeckt didn't want to hurt the child, but at the same time anything messing with a Gefahrgeist arsehole's long-term plans couldn't be all bad. If Konig came through with the ransom money and they returned the boy to the Geborene Damonen, Bedeckt liked the idea of planting some questions in the child's mind.
He needs to know he can't trust people.