Lebendig stared at him from the floor, eyes wide with understanding. She curled about the agony in her stomach, desperate hands fumbling to keep her guts in.
Still sprawled in the dirt near the door, Bedeckt spasmed and screamed, waving clawed fingers as if to ward away something Wichtig couldn’t see. The pretty girl held on to him, begging and pleading. He showed no sign of hearing.
Wichtig caught three words, repeated over and over, in the madness gushing from Bedeckt: “I am sane.”
***
Wichtig killed Lebendig, ran her through and kicked her away like she was nothing.
Stehlen’s heart shivered apart, splintered like a diamond struck with a smith’s hammer. She felt gutted, empty. Wichtig might as well have slashed Stehlen’s belly open and dumped everything she was on the floor.
She killed the girl, put her knife through an eye and into the bitch’s brain. Then she gutted her for good measure. The girl toppled, torn by agony, writhing in her own viscera. Dead and not yet knowing it. Stehlen’s knife went with the girl, wedged in bone.
“Stehlen,” said Wichtig and she was on him, sword hissing as it parted air.
The Swordsman danced away, knocking aside her attacks like they were nothing. For the first time Stehlen understood what it was to face the Greatest Swordsman in the World.
She was death.
She killed with no thought but death.
She couldn’t touch him.
Wichtig was a god.
She didn’t care.
Throwing herself at him with mad abandon, she suffered wound after wound as he defended her every attack and repaid her with more damage.
He’s playing with you as he played with Lebendig.
She snarled fury and hacked and slashed and he batted her attacks away like she was a child and not the single most skilled killer in all the world.
“Kill me,” she screamed at him.
“I can’t,” he said, slashing a deep gash in her side. “Stop—”
She pressed the attack, forcing him to retreat. Still he carved her, mocking her inability to touch him.
Kill me. I’ve earned it. I have nothing left.
“Kill me!”
“I can’t!”
Stehlen drew another knife, keeping it from Wichtig’s sight.
Kill me or I’ll kill you.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Only fools worship gods.
There is nothing out there that man did not make.
—Anonymous
Bedeckt lost the world to madness. Sundered reality plagued his every breath, left him reeling and adrift. Lying near the door, Zukunft pressed against him cooing soothing sounds and sobbing into his chest, he heard the sounds of battle outside. Did his dead fight to protect him? Were they battling whatever remained of the Geborene Geisteskranken’s delusions? Why? Why would they do that?
Zukunft dripped blood on Bedeckt and he saw a tear in her scalp, parting that beautiful hair and staining it red. He didn’t know how or when she was hurt, didn’t even know how he got inside this run-down house. His memory was tattered gaps where he lost himself to the killing rage.
That rage was gone, dead and cold. Replaced with terror. He was dying.
Outside the world came apart, shattered by dementia. He heard the tornado roar of the dragon’s wings as it swept low to breathe chaos on his dead, warping them and leaving them twisted with the taint of its delusions. The beast flayed reality, peeled back the skin to expose the worm-ridden madness beneath.
Nothing survived its breath. No soul escaped this battle to return to the Afterdeath.
The dragon was killing Bedeckt’s dead, stealing any chance they might have of redemption.
He laughed, coughing blood. Redemption? He’d gone mad.
“No, I’m sane.”
Zukunft looked up at his words, her eyes pleading. “You’re not dead,” she said. “You haven’t left me.”
“No.” Not yet.
Again the dragon passed by outside, splashing Bedeckt’s dead with its breath.
Why do you care?
He killed them. All of them. Why did he care?
Ringing steel drew Bedeckt’s attention and over Zukunft’s back he saw Wichtig—covered head to toe in blood and limping—and Stehlen. They fought, desperately trying to kill each other. They were a blur of steel.
As he watched, he realized that while Stehlen fought to kill Wichtig, the Swordsman held back. He cut her, hurt her continually, but refused to land a killing blow.
Wichtig can kill Stehlen any time he wants.
The Swordsman had always been good, but now he was untouchable. He fought like each second made him better. Stehlen couldn’t so much as scratch him. Was he toying with her?
Bedeckt saw the answer in Wichtig’s face, the haunted look of a man riven of choices.
No. Wichtig won’t kill her. Eventually, Stehlen would kill him. He’d hesitate, and she was a thousand times too dangerous not to take advantage.
When she’s done, she’ll kill Zukunft. She’d see the girl hunched over Bedeckt, crying, and think this was something it wasn’t. Jealously would guide her hand.
“This isn’t real,” said Bedeckt. I’m lying on that tavern floor.
The end was near. He felt it, lurking like a shadow.
Even if Zukunft somehow survived Stehlen, whatever was outside would kill her. The dragon. Those wraiths tearing people’s souls apart.
“Not real.”
Zukunft would die and her Reflection, Vergangene, would rise up to take her place.
“No, this is madness.”
Bedeckt brought the girl from the Afterdeath. She was here, caught in this insanity because he led her here. He used her, dragged her along her so he could keep using her and he always knew it would likely end in her death. And she followed. She followed him, hating and cursing him and always looking to him like he was her hope, her salvation and damnation. Looking at him like he was the perfect man to turn his back and abandon her to her delusions. She wanted him to save her and she wanted him to desert her.
He would be the last man to let her down, to betray her.
“Go to hell,” Bedeckt told her and she cried into his chest.
Beyond the log walls of the farmhouse, reality came apart like an unravelling blanket, tugged and torn by rampant delusion. Bedeckt’s madness did war with the insanity of the Geborene Geisteskranken.
My madness. My delusions.
“No. I am sane.”
Bedeckt’s mind frayed.
The list. The damned list. Saving people was not on the list. Abandoning friends was not on the list. The list—
Why are you here? Are you trying to save Morgen? Why did you try and save that child and his family from those Täuschung priests? Why didn’t you rut Zukunft when she first offered herself? She’s no child. She’s a woman. Why do you keep trying to save her?
Everything Bedeckt believed about himself was wrong. The list was a lie, something to hide behind. He was a coward. His life was a lie.
Cowardice isn’t on the list.
Bedeckt laughed, the cracked sound of a breaking mind.
He had but one truth left to cling to: Sanity.
“I am sane,” he said into Zukunft’s hair as his dead, torn from the Afterdeath, warred with a Therianthrope dragon. And lost.
Zukunft lifted her head, her green eyes meeting his with a bruised look. “I’m so scared,” she said, voice so soft he barely heard her through what remained of his ears. “Don’t let them have me. I was wrong. I don’t want to die.”
Glancing beyond Zukunft, he saw Stehlen draw a knife, keeping it hidden behind her body so Wichtig couldn’t see it.
In a moment, she’d gut the Swordsman or bury the blade in what little brain he had. Wichtig might be the Greatest Swordsman in the World, but Stehlen was the perfect killer. In this, no one could match her.
Bedeckt struggled to rise, his hands slipping in his own blood. He drew breath, lungs, filling w
ith blood, shuddering from the effort.
If she killed Wichtig, she’d never forgive herself. She’d see it afterwards, realize he let her win, allowed her to kill him. Bedeckt wanted to laugh. Stehlen and forgiveness in the same thought. Madness. He coughed blood.
Unable to form words, Bedeckt loosed an incomprehensible roar at Stehlen and Wichtig, hoping to break their deadly fixation.
***
Stehlen manoeuvred her body, keeping the knife from Wichtig’s sight. She bled from so many shallow wounds she felt like she’d bathed in blood. The inside of this farmhouse reeked of carnage, stunk like an abattoir.
Bedeckt roared like an angry bull moose and Wichtig glanced over Stehlen’s shoulder, distracted. She ignored everything except the kill. Her knife moved, spinning in nimble fingers and stabbing upward beneath the Swordsman’s field of vision. She’d drive the blade through his chin and into his brain.
Then she saw Lebendig, curled on the floor in an expanding pool of her own viscera. The Swordswoman clutched the carving of Wichtig in bloody fingers. She held a knife in her other hand, poised and ready to stab it into the carving.
Stehlen knew, saw it in a sliver of time as her hand brought the knife toward Wichtig’s exposed throat: Lebendig had been awake. She saw Stehlen hide the carvings in her pack.
I could never hide anything from her.
And now Lebendig would kill Wichtig.
Stehlen spun the knife, whisking it past Wichtig’s jaw, severing the lobe of his right ear.
The knife left Stehlen’s hand, spinning in the most beautiful arc, and buried itself in the Swordswoman’s throat.
Stehlen’s lover gurgled and twitched. Her eyes met Stehlen’s as she dropped the knife held in her fist and raised that hand to touch the hilt of the knife in her throat. Pale eyes dimmed.
Fire lit Stehlen’s guts and chest. She burbled a laughing cough of blood. She tasted steel. Glancing down she saw Wichtig’s sword, buried to the hilt in her belly. The blade angled up, the tip jutted out the back of her neck. She followed the hand holding the sword up the strong arm to the muscled chest. How many nights had she lain awake thinking about that chest? Even scarred, even bleeding and wounded, he was beautiful. She followed the chest to the broad shoulders and up to meet those flat grey eyes.
But they weren’t flat. She saw anguish there. Understanding she never would have expected to see in Wichtig. She tried to tell him he was a shite killer and that he’d never match her but the words wouldn’t come. She tried to tell him he had Bedeckt’s cat turd face. She tried to spit on him. Couldn’t.
Wichtig blinked, freeing tears. He reached an arm around her waist, holding her close as he drew his sword from her.
How many times have I wanted him to stick me?
“No,” said Wichtig. “I…I didn’t mean to…”
Stehlen leaned her head against his shoulder, let him take her weight. He held her, sobbing into the matted mess of her hair.
She drew another knife and held it, tip touching Wichtig’s belly below his navel. She heard his breath catch.
That’s right. I win. I always win.
And still he didn’t release her, made no attempt to defend himself.
Idiot.
Her legs didn’t work. If Wichtig let go, she’d drop like a stone. He held her tight, his half-hand rising to stroke her hair and getting caught in the tangled chaos.
Not much left.
What she had she pulled together. One last effort. It cost her everything.
“I’ll be waiting,” she whispered into his ear.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
How many good dreams can you remember? How many nightmares? How often have you seen a crowd gather around to witness an act of friendship? How many times have you seen a mob around the scene of a terrible tragedy?
We forget kindness and cling to horror.
This is our reality.
—Vorstellung - Natural Philosopher
Bedeckt watched in horror as Wichtig killed Stehlen, saw regret blossom on the Swordsman’s face the moment he understood what he had done. It was a terrible look on a man whose empathy never went beyond empty words. It was like seeing that instant in a boy’s life when tragedy makes him a man.
The battle outside forgotten, Bedeckt watched as Wichtig held Stehlen. Saw her draw another hidden knife and hold it to his belly. Saw her decide not to kill the Swordsman. Watched as she whispered something in his ear and went limp.
Wichtig held her for a while longer, stroking the rat’s nest of her hair, before lowering her to the ground. Tears ran from hollow eyes as he knelt over her, blinking as if he struggled to find some way of undoing what he’d done. But there was no undoing murder.
I’ll never see her again. Somehow, Bedeckt knew it was true. All the years they spent together he treated her like shite. Even after that night of drunken rutting in an alley, he brushed her off, kept her at arm’s length. She told him she loved him and he pretended not to hear.
Coward.
Bedeckt’s horse fell screaming through the roof.
It landed like an explosion, like someone forced wine into a skin until it burst. Blood and bone and horse guts adorned everything, hung like festive ornaments from every edge and corner. Ropey curtains of intestine laced the air.
Bedeckt blinked, salty horse blood stinging his eyes, and looked up. Most of the roof and much of one wall was gone, smashed to kindling. Far above, flaming clouds roiled in the sky like bubbling oil. For a moment, all was blotted out as the dragon swooped past, wings spread wide. Once again he heard the sounds of battle. Framed by the remaining walls, he saw his dead fighting a losing war against the Exorcised inner demons of six thousand Gottlos infantry.
Stehlen dead. Wichtig learning regret.
“What the hells was that?” asked Wichtig, staring into the sky.
“Arsehole,” said Bedeckt. When the Swordsman shot him a hurt and confused look he added, “That was my horse’s name.”
“Good name,” said Wichtig.
Bedeckt laughed, his chest shaking, and Zukunft stared at him like he’d lost his mind.
“It’s not real,” he said, meaning it as comfort. She didn’t look comforted. “I’m dying.” He saw she didn’t understand. “I’m still back in that tavern. On the floor. Some mad priest’s sword in my belly. I’m dying.”
“No,” she said. “You’re here. With me.”
“I can’t be. If I’m here, I’m mad.” The words poured out of him. “If I’m here I’m hallucinating, I’m insane. If I’m here, he’s here,” he gestured at Wichtig, “and she’s dead,” he pointed a blunt finger at Stehlen’s corpse. “If I’m here, my delusions pulled my dead from the Afterdeath to haunt me.” He sobbed. “If I’m here they’re all dying again, fighting to protect me and I don’t know why. They’re throwing away any chance they have at redemption for me. Why? Why would they do that?” Bedeckt grabbed Zukunft’s slim shoulders, dragging her closer. “I can’t be here. I’m sane.”
Through the gaping hole in the wall, Bedeckt watched the dragon swoop low over the raging war and breathe chaos on all, demon and dead alike.
The sky bled.
The earth screamed its torment.
I’m done. I’m dying.
Each breath was more difficult than the last.
Bedeckt’s guts were infected with rot, right to the core of him. He felt it like fire.
“You’re here,” said Zukunft. “With me.”
No. I can’t be.
Through the gaping hole in the wall, Bedeckt saw a man dressed in filthy white robes. Exorcised demons surrounded the Geborene. The mad priest saw Zukunft and his eyes lit with holy fire.
Not real.
Vergangene crawled from her mirror and stood behind Zukunft. Beyond her, Bedeckt watched the approaching priest, picking his way through the mud and shattered bodies.
“This is the end,” Vergangene said. “This is it. This is what I have planned and manipulated and worked for.”
> She’d lied to him, tricked him. Nothing here would stop Morgen, undo the damage Bedeckt did the boy.
Why didn’t she look happy?
“This isn’t real,” said Bedeckt. “You aren’t real. None of you are real. I am sane.”
Wichtig stood over Stehlen’s corpse, sword hanging loose in his hand. He released the weapon, letting it fall to the ground.
Wichtig would never drop his sword. To drop a sword was to surrender. Wichtig would never surrender his quest to be the Greatest Swordsman in the World. Bedeckt watched Wichtig stand, unarmed, sobbing into his hands.
“This isn’t real. I am sane.”
Vergangene laughed, mocking, as the priest arrived and stood beyond the fallen wall. The Geborene bowed his head in prayer and Zukunft screamed, writhing on the floor. Her flesh bulged and rippled as something within fought to claw its way free.
She’ll die now. Her Reflection will win.
There was nothing he could do. He was dying, his guts run through with steel and left to rot. He was helpless.
A broken old man.
Gritting his teeth, Bedeckt stood. He moved to stand between Zukunft and Vergangene. The Geborene priest, on the far side of the Reflection, stuttered to a stop.
“You can’t have her,” Bedeckt told them.
“You can’t stop him,” Vergangene said.
Him.
Not us?
Not me?
“This is all wrong,” said Bedeckt.
The fire in the sky raged on, the dragon swooping in low passes to incinerate souls and then disappearing back into the flaming clouds. The dead, moving and still, littered the ground in uncountable thousands. An army of Exorcised demons stood behind the Geborene priest, awaiting his command. Waiting for him to topple over the Pinnacle.
This was too much. There was no winning here, no way out.
Did I hallucinate all of this?
Bedeckt didn’t know.
The Mirror's Truth: A Novel of Manifest Delusions Page 40