The Mirror's Truth: A Novel of Manifest Delusions

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Stehlen and Lebendig, concealed in a copse of stunted trees on the Gottlos side of the bridge, sat astride their horses watching Wichtig ride south upon his sway-backed mare.

  Lebendig nodded at the third horse—an ill-tempered and proud white stallion—they had taken from the garrison stables. “That was his?”

  “Yes.”

  The stallion’s saddlebags were crammed with stolen wealth.

  “Why is Wichtig wearing a bed sheet?”

  “I threw all the clothes in the midden pit.”

  “Funny.” Lebendig watched the Swordsman ride from view. Even from here they could see he wobbled unsteadily in the saddle. “Why didn’t you kill him?”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “Dangerous idiot.”

  Stehlen shrugged. “I took everything he had. Eventually he’ll figure out it was me. He’ll know, once again, I have beaten him.”

  “Why do you care what he thinks?”

  The question froze Stehlen, caused her nostrils to flare with anger. She spat.

  “You left him a sword,” said Lebendig.

  “Only one.” The other she wore strapped across her back.

  “Stehlen?”

  Stehlen turned to face the Swordswoman, saw concern in her eyes. “Hm?”

  “If we’re going to travel together, we need to talk about the why.”

  Stehlen’s heart froze and her jaw ached. She closed her eyes for a few heart beats before opening them and asking, “Why we’re together?”

  The Swordswoman’s eyes softened Stehlen’s heart. “We know that. I mean why we are travelling at all. Where are we going? Why are we going there? What are we going to do when we arrive?”

  “I’m a Kleptic.”

  “So thievery will probably be involved.” Lebendig flashed a smile so fast Stehlen almost missed it. “I already knew that.” She nodded in the direction Wichtig had ridden. “Why are we following him.”

  Is that jealousy? Could Lebendig be jealous of Stehlen’s past with Wichtig? Stehlen wanted to reach out and touch the Swordswoman, to crush any doubts the woman may have. She couldn’t. Her hand never moved. Her mouth refused to open. Speak. You have to say something. Don’t let her think you don’t care.

  “I’m going to kill him,” said Stehlen.

  Lebendig gave the tiniest hint of a shrug and Stehlen had no idea what it meant. Was it disbelief or acceptance?

  “But first we follow,” said Lebendig. “He’s leading us somewhere?”

  “Yes.”

  The Swordswoman pursed her lips, nodded curt approval. “What’s the plan?”

  Stehlen laughed, a nasal snort of derision. “I can’t tell you the plan because I don’t have one. I’m going to follow Wichtig to Bedeckt because I know the idiot will lead me right to the old bastard. When I find them, I want them together.”

  “Why together?”

  “Don’t know. I’ll decide that when the time comes. I’m intentionally not making a decision.” Stehlen swallowed and pushed on. She never told anyone any of this and it felt odd to share such a deep part of who she was. Wichtig would have mocked and Bedeckt would have looked at her like she was mad. “Decisions are pointless because you never know when you’ll need to change your mind and if you’ve already decided something, you’ll make a liar of yourself.”

  “But you’re a Kleptic,” said Lebendig. “I thought lying—”

  “Taking has nothing to do with lying. I never lie. Or I always lie. I don’t know. I can’t decide. And if I don’t decide, I’m not lying.” Stehlen drew a slow breath and let it out in a sigh. Contemplation left her uncomfortable, reminded her of Bedeckt and his continuous spew of old-man philosophy. Self-examination is pointless shite. “I don’t think I’m a very good liar,” she admitted, “and yet, when I tell the truth, people don’t believe me. What’s the point?” She watched the Swordswoman, gauging her reaction, waiting for disgust or disbelief. She saw neither, just calm acceptance.

  “So there’s no connection between Kleptics and lying?”

  Stehlen grimaced. “I lied about that.” When Lebendig laughed, she added “But mostly I’m lying to myself.”

  The Swordswoman nodded, accepting. “He’s out of sight. Shall we follow?”

  Stehlen dug her heels in and her horse set off with a disappointed grunt, twitching its ears away from her glare.

  Lebendig clucked to her own horse and quickly caught up to ride alongside Stehlen. “Try not to lie about anything important,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Stehlen, unsure if she lied.

  “When we find Bedeckt, what then?”

  Stehlen thought about her promise not to lie. At least not about the important things. This was important, at least to Stehlen.

  “Bedeckt saved me once. The World’s Greatest Moron and I were attacked by albtraum as we slept. Bedeckt saved us both. He didn’t have to. I wouldn’t have. I owe him.”

  “So you feel you owe him—”

  “And then he killed me to save Morgen, the Geborene godling.”

  “So you owe him for—”

  “I don’t know.” Stehlen’s jaw felt like it would explode. Hissing, she spat again, a thin stream of yellow phlegm. “Bedeckt… He is—was—my…” She stole a glance at Lebendig. “My friend. I want to kill him, but Morgen wants him dead so I want to ruin whatever his plans are. I’m torn. How do I get what I want?”

  “What do you want?”

  “How the hells would I know?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Madness, defined and limited by unbreakable laws, is clearly not madness at all. Our reality is the result of careful thought and planning. This world was built, designed. This is our prison. Until we are cleansed, until we have suffered for our forgotten sins, we shall remain chained. The Täuschung shall free humanity to once again take our place among the gods.

  —Zerfall, Founder of the Täuschung

  The rising sun warming their backs, Erdbehüter and Ungeist stood atop a long sloping hill looking down upon a sleepy farming community of a dozen homesteads. The Geborene priests’ white robes, first stained red with blood, were now smeared black and brown. No hint of white remained. With the rising of the sun, the sky opened and vomited a torrent of rain upon them, leaving both soaked through. Water fell like it was a hammer, and Erdbehüter a nail it wanted pounded into the Gottlos muck. Was the Earth Spirit angry? Or was this cleansing rain a message: Scrape free the infection.

  Even miserable and staggering with exhaustion, Ungeist still had the energy to ogle her through her filthy and sodden robes. She ignored him.

  A corral built of logs, suffering decades of damp-rot, held a dozen goats and sheep prisoner. Erdbehüter resisted the urge to command the earth to tear down the obstruction. Fences were a sin against the Earth Spirit. All creatures were meant to roam free.

  And what was that you built around Selbsthass for your god?

  That was different. Morgen did the Earth Spirit’s bidding.

  He builds cities. He made you wear clothes. He wages war. Animals don’t war.

  Why did she think Morgen served the Earth Spirit?

  Because he told you. She remembered him explaining how they worked to the same purpose, how they both strove for a perfect world. It all made sense at the time. Now, however, it was difficult equating Morgen’s spotless cities to the earth and mud of nature.

  I made him a gods-damned wall! What the hells was she been thinking? A wall! And now she—

  “It would have been faster to pass through Unbrauchbar,” complained Ungeist, interrupting her thoughts.

  Erdbehüter blinked at the priest, trying to recall what she was thinking about. It had something to do with Morgen and what she was doing out here—

  “We could have slept in a real bed,” he added, wiping water from his eyes.

  “A bed?” She wasn’t sure what she was angrier about, the assumption she’d share anything with him, or that she’d be enticed by the trappings of civilization. Civil
ization, that was it! I was thinking about cities and walls and—

  “We could have shared a bath.”

  Hair plastered to her skull and caked in mud, Erdbehüter felt cleaner than she had in months. Dirt washed away the stink of civilization, reminded her what she was: an animal.

  Ungeist did that thing where he pretended to look into her, as if he knew her thoughts and hungers.

  “There are over one thousand souls in Unbrauchbar,” she said, ignoring his attempt to seduce her with his eyes. The thought of rolling him in the muck and rain appealed, but this was neither the time nor place. “Most of them sane. They would have nullified your delusions, left you powerless. What if we ran into trouble? King Schmutzig must have spies there by now. He knows war is coming.”

  “My delusions?” Ungeist pulled his attention from her tits. “And yours?”

  “I am sane. I do the Earth Spirit’s bidding.”

  He tilted his head back, opening his mouth to collect water before spitting it out and saying, “Can you ask the Earth Spirit to let up on the rain?”

  “Earth Spirit. The sky is dead to me.”

  Ungeist shook his head, grunting a low laugh. “Earth spirit. Sure. Totally sane.”

  Erdbehüter showed teeth in a feral snarl. “Careful. Just because the world’s insane manifest their madness doesn’t mean everyone who can change reality is crazy.”

  He rolled his eyes. This was no new argument. He was incapable of seeing the difference between insanity and serving the Earth Spirit. “Fine,” he said, gesturing toward the village. “I’m starving. We’ll purchase food and new clothes here.”

  They never found their supplies after Drache ate their horses. Half-starved, Ungeist looked like a wild animal, unshaven, hair a matted tangle. The dragon hadn’t dropped below the cloud cover in two days, didn’t even land to sleep.

  “You have money?” Erdbehüter asked, knowing the answer.

  Ungeist growled something under his breath about flying cunts.

  She turned away, examining the log farmsteads, the rolling hills and rocky soil struggling to push out whatever the farmers grew. How many trees did they slay to make this horror? “This used to be grasslands once.”

  Ungeist grunted his apathy.

  “The Faulig forest stretched all the way down to the Flussrand River. Everything south of that was the GrasMeer.”

  “Stupid horse stickers,” said Ungeist, knowing she was from the GrasMeer tribes and their reverence for horses.

  She ignored the jab. Aside from a muscular body, he had little else to offer. Odd that it took so long for her to see it. A decade or more her senior, he seemed so wise when they first met. Age and wisdom and intelligence are unrelated, she decided.

  “Where are we?” Ungeist asked.

  “Look at the rocky soil. See the endless mud? See how the plants all look half dead? Note the decrepit state of those houses. Even the goats look depressed.”

  “Gottlos.”

  “Gottlos,” she agreed.

  He flashed a smile of strong teeth in her direction and she remembered a bit of what she saw in him. As animals go, he’s a fine specimen. She resisted the urge to press her fingers into the hardness of his chest. I’ll make him come to me.

  Ungeist set off down the long slope, stride purposeful. Every step squelched in the mud and his footprints filled instantly with murky water.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Bringing the word of the Geborene to the unbelievers.”

  His fists clenched and unclenched and the set of his shoulders changed. He stood taller, straighter. He moved with iron purpose. She knew that look. He used to walk like that all the time, but the last year bent him. Morgen and Konig—or his Reflection—made hard use of their Exorcist. Executioner might be a better title. He might not yet be broken, but he slid a little closer to the point of snapping each day.

  It’s the Pinnacle. He’s losing control. Morgen worked all his Geisteskranken priests hard, drove them to the edge and then—wait, hadn’t she been thinking about Morgen earlier? Walls. Spending his cadres of Geisteskranken. I made him a gods-damned wall, encircled the entire city! And it was easy.

  After the Earth Spirit gave birth to her, pushed her from the soil womb of the GrasMeer, she’d been weak. For the next year she was capable of little more than calling pebbles to life. She practised and grew in power, but it wasn’t until Morgen asked her to build the wall of Selbsthass that she truly understood her power.

  Asked? He asked, but she didn’t remember having a choice.

  The wall. Civilization. Did Morgen truly work to the same purpose as—

  “Are you coming?” Ungeist called over his shoulder.

  Erdbehüter followed, annoyed at having let him take the lead but knowing she was safer behind him. Sensing her anger, the earth shifted beneath her feet, ready to do her bidding. If he turned his madness in her direction, mud and stone would rise up in her defence. It was so easy now.

  A shadow passed by far above the clouds, momentarily darkening an already gloomy day. The down-draft from Drache’s colossal wings staggered the two Geborene. She flattened the surrounding plant life and made waves in puddles of dark filth water as she swept past. Erdbehüter divided her attention between watching Ungeist and searching the clouds in case the dragon decided to drop something.

  Ungeist marched to the closest farmstead and pounded on the door, rattling it on its hempen hinges. Why was the fool knocking? Strange how some aspects of civilization were so hard to shake.

  A farmer opened the door, blinking in the early morning light, half-starved and thinner even than Ungeist. He showed none of the Geisteskranken’s muscle. The man looked the Geborene priest up and down, clearly struggling to make sense of what he saw. Spotting Erdbehüter his eyes widened in understanding.

  “Can’t spare much,” the farmer said. “But there’s some broth and potatoes from last night. I’ll ask my wife to—”

  “I see such darkness in your soul,” said Ungeist.

  “What?”

  “You’ve done terrible things.”

  The farmer shifted uncomfortably. “Well…”

  “There’s a demon in you.”

  Erdbehüter felt the earth heave beneath her feet. This town was an affront to the Earth Spirit. The pitiful goats and sheep imprisoned in their corral begged to be freed, she saw it in their eyes. She couldn’t speak with animals, but the Earth Spirit told her of their need. The ground in front of her rose and parted as a stone the size of a grown hog rose to the surface. Too big to easily move, the antecedents of this village’s residents buried it, shutting it away from the sun for centuries. No structure would stand before its rage.

  “I shall exorcize you,” Ungeist told the farmer. “I’ll free your inner demons.”

  Drache’s shadow swept over the town and Erdbehüter remembered Konig’s last words: ‘You must leave utter ruin in your path.’ Or was it his Reflection? It should matter but didn’t.

  Why am I here?

  Konig said she did Morgen’s bidding, but she hadn’t seen her god since making his wall.

  The wall.

  Civilization.

  As with Morgen’s requests, she had no choice but to obey Konig’s commands.

  The farmer screamed as something clawed its way free of his chest in a bloody explosion. Drache sank through the clouds, banking and approaching, massive jaw hinged wide. Seething chaos, soul twisting madness belched from that cavernous maw, shredded the fabric of reality.

  Throughout the sleepy town rocks and boulders pushed from the earth, screaming their anger. She’d crush these crude shacks. Every structure—every trapping of civilization—would go back to the mud.

  It was easy.

  It was so easy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  During the Menschheit Letzte Imperium, all the world worshipped a single god. From the Gezackt Mountains to the Basamortuan desert, every single soul bowed before the god of the Wahnvorstellung,
a deity named simply, God. Think about it. Every man, woman, and child believed in this one god. Though the Wahnvor Stellung still reigns as the single largest religion, it is a fragmented ruin of what it once was, sundered by a thousand schisms.

  What happened to God? Was he diminished by the collapse of the Imperium and the resulting schism within his church? Did he himself splinter to become the many gods the Wahnvor now worship?

  Or has he given up on us?

  —Geschichts Verdreher - Historian/Philosopher

  Bedeckt woke stiff and gripped in a fist of agony. His guts were on fire and sweat streamed in rivers down the crags of his features, soaking his shirt. Thin fluid, stained pink and yellow leaked from under the leather straps wrapping his gut. He caught wafts of decay, thick and sour, the tell-tale scent of an infected wound. He’d smelled it a thousand time before, but never on himself. It was an awful stench, the precursor to a terrible death. Men took days—sometimes weeks—to die from gut wounds.

  I’ll end it myself before it gets that bad. If, that is, he had the strength.

  Once again, Zukunft helped him into the saddle. She watched with guarded eyes, measuring.

  She’s waiting for you to fall dead, old man.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “I saw you looking at my arse,” she said, with no hint of humour. “Horse rutting swine.”

  So one of those days then.

  Bedeckt dragged Arsehole’s reins, turning the beast south west.

  “Wait,” said Zukunft. “Let me check your wound.”

  “I’m fine.” He dug his heels in, and Arsehole grunted in complaint but started forward at a slow walk.

  “You’re not fine,” Zukunft said as she mounted her own horse and followed. “You’re sweating and you’re pale.”

  “Rough night,” he said.

  They rode through the day, Bedeckt blinking sweat from his eyes and flinching at the shapes and shadows dancing in his peripheral vision. When he turned, there was never anything there. His chest squeezed tight, crushing his lungs, and he breathed in shallow gasps. Zukunft watched but remained quiet.