Beyond Redemption (48 page)

What I want to know is what happens when you are killed in the Afterdeath? Is there an Afterafterdeath? How long does this go on? Who dreamed this insanity?

—E
INSAM
G
ESCHICHTENERZÄHLER

A
crowd of thousands stood before Erbrechen. He looked them over appraisingly. This was no gathering of the weak unwashed. These were warriors, dangerous, each and every one.

“Well, well, well. This is handy indeed,” he said.

A short scrawny woman with yellowy eyes, a sickly complexion, and teeth that made him want to avert his gaze stepped forward. A cocky-looking dandy with a matched pair of swords peeking over his broad shoulders stood at her side, as perfectly beautiful as she was hideous.

The woman spat at Erbrechen's feet. “And how is this handy, you jiggling puddle of fat?”

Erbrechen smiled his best innocent and disarming smile.
“Why, to have you all waiting. Though I've caused my share of death, I never expected so many.”

“He thinks we're waiting for
him,
” the dandy said to the woman.

“It doesn't really matter who you're waiting for,” Erbrechen said gleefully. “You're here, and now so am I. You are mine. You are
all
mine. You love me, don't you.”

Stehlen killed the fat slug, spinning a knife into an eye socket, before he annoyed her further.

“Why did you kill him?” Wichtig asked. “He seemed nice.”

“Idiot. Bedeckt killed him.”

“So?”

“So I didn't want to listen to him prattling on about himself while we wait. It's bad enough I have to listen to your inane drivel.”

“Inane?”

“Ask Bedeckt what it means. And look how big the fat sow is. No way he . . . she . . . it can walk far. Someone would have had to carry it.”

Wichtig examined the fat slug. “What a corpulent corpse,” he said, dashing a smirk at Stehlen.

She rolled her eyes. “I watched you think that one up. Your face gets all scrunchy when you're concentrating.”

“Is he going to be long?” Wichtig asked, ignoring her.

She pointed downhill. “He's lying in the mud there.”

Wichtig glanced in the direction she pointed. “Just looks like a big pile of dirt.”

“It's him.”

“Shall we say hello?”

She turned and strode down the hill without answering and heard Wichtig follow behind.

“What are you going to do?” he called out. “Are you going to kill him?”

Truth be told, she wasn't sure.

Bedeckt lay in quiet peace. A soft breeze smelling of fresh clover caressed his skin. Nothing hurt, a blessed relief. The wind tickled the toes of his left foot. Damn. Where had he left his boot?

The left boot.
Shite
. The one with the money in it.

A boot nudged Bedeckt in the ribs.

“What is it with you and losing your boots?”

Wichtig's voice. No, couldn't be. Wichtig was—

Bedeckt cracked an eye open and looked up at Stehlen and Wichtig. The two stared down at him, Wichtig looking cocky as always, Stehlen . . . he wasn't sure what her expression was.

“You going to lie in the grass all day?” Stehlen asked.

“I expected a lot more people,” said Bedeckt, not moving.

“They're up the hill, waiting,” she answered, gesturing with a flick of fingers. “Seems you've got a bloody army gathered here.”

Bedeckt wiggled his toes. They felt fine, not at all like they'd been charred to the bone. “Morgen?” he asked.

“Nowhere to be seen,” answered Wichtig. “He's dead?” When Bedeckt nodded, he continued. “But I feel no compulsion. I had to come here, and here I am. But it's gone now. I feel . . . free.” Wichtig looked confused, as if this wasn't what he'd hoped for or expected. “I can go wherever I want,” finished the Swordsman.

“Morgen must have released you,” said Bedeckt.

“Could he do that?” asked Stehlen, her eyes lighting with hope.

Ignoring the question, Bedeckt sat up with a groan. His spine popped and cracked and his lower back ached. Somehow he'd thought he'd be starting again here, a young man at the very least. He glanced up at Stehlen; she watched him with intense yellowy eyes.

“Forget it,” said Bedeckt, pushing to his feet. “If I release you, you'll kill me for sure.”

“I might not.”

“Right,” scoffed Wichtig, who fell silent when Stehlen glared in his direction.

“Stehlen, go fetch me some boots and an ax from the army over there. Someone must have something that will fit.”

She spun away with a growl and he called, “Wait!”

Stehlen stood with her back to him, shoulders hunched. Bedeckt thought about what his father had said. Did she really love him? Had she really let him kill her? The possibility seemed crazy, but then it
was
Stehlen.

“I have something for you,” he said.

“My freedom?” she growled.

“Uh . . . no. Not yet. Maybe later, once I think you won't kill me the very second I free you.”
Why is this so damned awkward?
He felt like a damned teenager. Bedeckt drew the ragged and faded scarves from his pocket and held them out to her still-turned back. “These.”

She turned with a snarl and stopped. The anger disappeared from her eyes, replaced by a look Bedeckt had never expected to see there. Tears welled up and she brushed them roughly away with a stained sleeve. Gently she took the scarves from his hand, folded them lovingly, and hid them back inside her shirt.

“This is yours too,” said Bedeckt, lifting the knife he still clutched in his hand.

She took it without a word and it too disappeared into her clothing. “I'll go get your damned boots and ax,” she said.

Stehlen spat on his bare foot, spun, and marched away, spine straight. Wichtig and Bedeckt watched her leave, exchanging confused glances.

“Where are you going now?” Bedeckt asked.

“No idea,” said Wichtig. “Got quite the little army of my own, though nothing like what you and Stehlen have between you.”

“In a straight fight I might give your lot the edge,” said Bedeckt. “You've got a lot of excellent Swordsmen.” Wichtig preened and Bedeckt let him have his moment. “Mine are mostly people I killed from behind in the dark or during drunken brawls. A sorry-looking lot.”

“Greatest Swordsman in the Afterdeath,” mused Wichtig. “Not quite the same ring, but it'll do.”

“And that pursuit turned out well,” said Bedeckt before he could stop himself. “Sorry. You're not going to start over? Not going to try something different?”

Wichtig snorted derisively. “And do what? Farm?”

“You were a pretty good poet,” said Bedeckt.

“No. I am who I am.”

“Good. I need the old Wichtig. I need the Greatest Swordsman in This or Any Other World.”

“You have a plan?” Wichtig asked, showing perfect teeth in a wide grin. “A little something up your sleeve?”

“Better.” Bedeckt met Wichtig's grin with his own. “I killed a god.”

The mirror ever lies.

—A
UF DER
L
AUER
, M
IRRORIST

F
lesh, savaged by fire and made anew by Morgen's Ascension, remembered the agony. With each breath he felt the cold steel of Stehlen's knife as Bedeckt slid it between his ribs to pierce his heart. And the filth followed him. His hands would never be clean again. He'd spilled blood. He'd lied and murdered. He was contaminated, corrupted.

Morgen screamed and his reflections laughed and pranced and frolicked in his misery, for they too had Ascended alongside him. This, he realized, had always been their plan. They hadn't served him or shown glimpses of the future as a means of guidance. No, they'd led him by the nose to this moment. They'd manipulated his every choice.

Why hadn't Aufschlag or Konig told him not to trust the reflections? Surely they had known. How different would things
have been if someone had been willing to educate him, just a little?

Morgen's reflections, each an aspect of the boy's shattered mind, bowed mockingly and fled into the world to pursue whatever capricious distractions they sought.

I'll never be the god the Geborene wanted.

Yet even that had been a lie. If the Geborene had wanted a good god, a pure god, then that is what he should have been; their beliefs should have defined him. But he wasn't. He was a
free
god. He could do whatever he wanted, play with lives, snuff souls on a whim, or send all Selbsthass marching to war. And they would, they'd obey his every command. For he, Morgen, a tortured little boy, was their god.

Morgen looked down upon Selbsthass City, watching the bustle of people going about their business. This seemingly omniscient view reminded him of playing with the toy soldiers and peasants in his model city. He remembered the bloodless battle between the two groups and joking with Konig that the peasants were revolting. At the time he'd thought Konig hadn't found it funny. Now he knew Konig simply hadn't understood it as a joke. As a god, he saw things differently, understood Konig's Doppels and reflections for what they were: manifestations of self-loathing, cowardice, and fear.

What kind of god could such a man make?

Morgen knew the answer: a broken god.

Morgen rose higher still. Far to the east he saw the jagged ridges of the Kälte Mountains and knew that beyond them lay the eternal wastes of the Basamortuan desert, the easternmost edge of the world. He could sense other gods, distant and vague. Some were relatively young, no more than a few millennia old, while others were ancient beyond reckoning. All, he realized, were Ascended mortals.

Where are the old gods?
He sensed nothing of the creatures whose delusions were supposed to have created this twisted reality and birthed mankind.
Have they abandoned us, sickened by all we are?
It seemed possible. Likely, even.

Or are they just another layer of lies?

It didn't matter, he decided. They were gone or had never been.

Morgen turned his back on such thoughts and moved east, thinking to see for himself the vast wealth of Geldangelegenheiten, and stopped; the borders of man, defined by politics, war, and faith—all three manifestations of delusion—meant even more to gods. Morgen could not leave Selbsthass.

Beyond this city-state, no one believed in him.

Even my omniscience is a lie.

That, Morgen decided, would have to change.

He returned to Selbsthass City—the center of his power—this time focusing on the twisted castle the Geborene called home. For a time he watched, his skin burning, his heart shuddering with stabbing pain, as his priests scuttled about their business. In the tallest tower the new Konig, once a reflection and now basking in its illusory freedom, planned how he would use his new god.

Morgen laughed, a scornful sob of bitter pain. Konig—each and every aspect and manifestation—thought far too small. Their dreams were the dreams of pitiful, terrified men. The days of being used by such fools were done.

Manifesting in Konig's personal chambers, Morgen crushed the man to the thick carpeting with a savage and gleeful will. In a hand mirror on Konig's massive oaken desk, he saw Failure applauding joyfully. That joy wouldn't last.

Konig blubbered incoherently, begging and pleading and desperate to please.

“You are nothing to me,” said Morgen, and Konig nodded,
agreeing. “I have many of you to chose from. You will be useful or I will snuff you from existence.”

That too was a lie; he could not cause a soul to cease to exist. Limits and rules defined his power. The dead moved on. Where they went next might depend on their beliefs, or who killed them, but they always moved on. It was law.

I am a god!
Morgen raged.
How can I be so limited?

Pushing aside these thoughts, he returned his attention to Konig. “I am the culmination of all you have wrought, everything the Geborene have worked for. I have Ascended and I am your god.”

Morgen again screamed as flames danced across his flesh and the memory of icy steel sought his heart.

Konig, blood trickling from his ears, pressed his face to the floor as if he sought to disappear into the carpeting. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” he wailed, his voice muffled. The pathetic wretch had soiled himself.

How could I ever have looked up to this man? How could I have loved him?

“I will not be limited,” said Morgen, forcing cold calm.

Konig merely nodded dumbly.

“If I am to remake this world, I must be everywhere. I must be worshiped everywhere.”

“We will spread the word,” Konig said, cringing.

Morgen ignored the filthy mortal's words. “The Geborene will infiltrate every city-state. We shall bring holy war to all who resist.”
This time the war will not be clean and bloodless.
“I shall scour this world. It shall be clean, immaculate. Forever.”

“The old gods—”

“Stick the old gods.”

Konig's eyes widened comically at Morgen's coarse language. “The Wahnvor Stellung will resist us.”

“We shall eradicate them
and
their gods.” Morgen drove Konig
against the floor until he heard the man's ribs groan in protest. “There will be only one god.”

“One . . . god . . .” gasped Konig.

“Geborene temples in every city. Each shall be a pinnacle of purity.” He grinned madly at Konig's prostrate form, basking in the man's terror, savoring the taste of his abject worship. “White. I want spotless, white pyramids. Everywhere.”

“Purity” was all Konig managed to force from his compressed lungs.

Morgen released the man and listened to the shuddering intake of breath. “We are no longer a Theocracy.”

“We . . . we aren't?” Konig stared at him, eyes brimming with tears, though whether from gratitude or awe or sadness Morgen couldn't tell.

Morgen gestured at Failure, the previous Konig, watching from within the mirror. “I promised you I'd bring back the days of empire. Unlike you—” He bared his teeth as another searing stab of agony sought his heart. “Unlike
all
of you, I keep my promises. No mere
Theocrat
rules here. I do. This is a nation ruled by a god. This is the Holy Empire of Selbsthass.”

Once again Konig nodded dumbly.

“Make it happen,” Morgen commanded, and fled the corrupt stench of the soiled man's apartments.

GHOSTS OF TORMENT
savaged Morgen's flesh. He remembered Erbrechen's followers beating him, snapping his fingers like green twigs. He was drowning in filth, mud clogging his eyes closed, suffocating his broken nose. Gods, he wanted to torture that foul slug. But when Morgen reached out he sensed nothing of the Slaver. Even in the Afterdeath nothing remained of the man. Was it just that Erbrechen didn't believe in Morgen and thus the boy-god had no power over him, or had something else happened to the grotesque man?

How can a god be so limited?

Was he defined by the beliefs of his worshipers? Could he free himself of these rules simply by changing what people believed, or did something else, something greater even than he, enforce these laws? And if so, where was it? He sensed other gods, but nothing with the power to so utterly and unequivocally define reality.

Morgen cloaked himself in false flesh and walked Selbsthass City. They believed in him now, but soon they would worship with absolute conviction. His Geborene would hunt and crush all hints of doubt and dissent. Then, once he owned these grimy little souls, he would send them to war, march them like toy soldiers.

But he needed more than soldiers, he'd learned that much from Konig. He needed assassins and spies.

Morgen reached out for Asena and her Tiergeist and found them wandering the Afterdeath, still a pack, bound by the young Therianthrope's need. Anomie and her Schatten Mörder he found too. They believed in him, each and every one of them.

The assassins answered his call.

He wasn't finished, for he needed dangerously insane people willing to do dangerously insane things. He needed raw savage power, someone willing to burn the world for the one they loved.

There was one person who even at the end, her sanity incinerating, had sought to protect him with her final act. She loved Morgen as she had loved no other.

Morgen searched the Afterdeath for Gehirn and found her, a small child no older than himself, a delicate girl who just wanted to be loved, desperately seeking redemption.

“I'm sorry,” he told her, reaching a hand toward the girl. “I need you.”

Morgen watched as Gehirn aged before his eyes, growing in height and weight, her long red hair singeing and blowing away
like ash in the wind. When she nodded and took his proffered hand, his heart shattered. He knew what this would cost her.

I've done a terrible thing.

He brought his assassins and his Hassebrand back to Selbsthass.

And then he felt the pull, the need to return to the Afterdeath. A man there demanded Morgen's presence, and he had no choice but to answer.

Even gods are bound by rules.