Beyond Redemption

by Michael R. Fletcher

  Bedeckt stifled a cough and felt something bubble in his chest. He huddled deeper into the sodden brown Geborene robes, trying to find some last bastion of warmth, and followed Stehlen. His feet squelched with every step; his boots did little to keep the water out and apparently everything to keep it in.

  Ahead, Stehlen ducked from shadow to shadow. She said she’d memorized a map of the city and knew the best way to the palace, but this seemed to be the longest, most tortuous route possible. She kept shifting under her burgundy Geborene robes as if they chafed. Wichtig followed behind Bedeckt, mumbling about the rain and the stench of his robes. Fair enough, since the man did reek. An accomplishment considering the state of Bedeckt’s sinuses.

  “Bedeckt?” asked Wichtig.

  “Quiet.”

  “Do your robes smell like they’ve been stuffed up a hog’s arse for the last month?”

  “I can’t smell a thing over the stench coming from you,” answered Bedeckt. “Stehlen!”

  “What?”

  “We aren’t sneaking into this place, we’re walking in.”

  “I know!”

  “Then stop trying to hide in the damned shadows.” Bedeckt tried to adjust his robes so as to better conceal the massive ax poorly hidden within. It was hopeless. Only a blind and brain-dead idiot could miss it.

  Wichtig leaned past Bedeckt so he could glare at Stehlen’s back. Facing forward with her cowl up, she couldn’t possibly see him, but made a rude gesture over her shoulder anyway.

  Wichtig opened his mouth and Bedeckt said, “Shut up,” before the Swordsman could speak.

  “You sound tired,” said Stehlen.

  “I am tired. I’m tired of you two—”

  “My robes stink,” grumbled Wichtig

  “It’s not the robes,” Stehlen threw back.

  “Both of you—”

  “I’ll get you for this,” swore Wichtig.

  “—shut up.”

  The rain fell heavier and the three continued in silence, their boots soon soaked through in the gritty rivulets forming in the road. Bedeckt coughed and groaned at the stabbing pain in his chest.

  “You sound like you’re dying,” Stehlen said over her shoulder. “We should do this another day.”

  “I’m fine.” It was a lie. He felt like chilled death.

  “Better yet,” she said, “you should just let me do this. I’ll be back with the boy in an hour. You can wait in the comfort and warmth of the inn.”

  “I said I’m fine!” Bedeckt’s lower back tightened under his sodden robes. The cold leached the very strength from his bones. He coughed hard and something rattled deep in his lungs.

  Great timing, Bedeckt thought. Fall sick and die while pulling off one last job. It was Stehlen’s fault. He glared daggers at her back. If he didn’t have to worry about her sneaking off and trying to take the child by herself—and no doubt killing dozens of priests and waking up a whole hornet’s nest of problems—they could have done this on a much warmer night. One when it wasn’t raining. Crazy Kleptic will be the death of me.

  A break in the buildings on the south side of the street offered a clear view of the brewing storm. Though a strong wind blew from the west, the tempest seemed to be moving north.

  Bedeckt pointed at the southern sky with his half hand. “I’ve seen such storms before,” he said. “I can’t remember who I was working for. We were exterminating some nomadic tribe that had crossed the border uninvited. They had this nasty little shaman with one eye. He called a storm and swept away most of the army I was with; drowned the commanders. When he lost control, his own tribe was decimated.” Bedeckt remembered lightning-blasted corpses floating from horizon to horizon on what had been near-barren grasslands. He gestured southward again with his scarred hand. “Sky stinks of someone losing control.”

  They left the market behind and the cloud-shrouded evening sun dipped behind long rows of small but wealthy-looking houses.

  Wichtig poked Bedeckt in the kidneys from behind. “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t get my share of the winnings.”

  “What winnings?” Stehlen asked innocently before Bedeckt could answer.

  “For my damned fight. There was a lot of coin in the purse you stole.”

  That explains how the fight came about. At this point, Bedeckt was too cold and tired to care. His lungs rattled with every breath. His condition was deteriorating quickly.

  Stehlen glanced over her shoulder and Bedeckt saw little of her face but the yellow of her toothy grin. “You fought so poorly at the beginning we put it all on Zweiter Stelle. How could we know you were just toying with him?”

  “You’re lying—”

  “Bedeckt was going to offer Zweiter your place if he killed you.”

  “Horse turds. Bedeckt, you weren’t going to—”

  Bedeckt’s sneeze interrupted Wichtig. “Shut up. Both of you. We’re at the temple.”

  Stehlen stopped so suddenly that Bedeckt walked into her and Wichtig ran into him from behind. Stehlen ignored them, staring up at the massive temple gates. “Unholy pigsticking hells,” she whispered.

  Bedeckt raised a hand to swat at her but stopped short as he caught sight of what had stopped her so suddenly. He’d known Selbsthass was a theocracy. He’d known Selbsthass City was the center of the Theocracy. Though he’d known this temple was in all probability the center of government, he’d still been expecting something . . . different. Could his memory of this ancient castle be so wrong? The keep he remembered at least looked like it had been built by mortal hands. He thought back to the stark difference between Selbsthass and Gottlos at the border and, though he prayed he was wrong, thought he understood: the temple had been twisted by the beliefs of man. The Geborene faith was far more powerful than he’d imagined.

  The Geborene temple, seen through the walled gate, looked like a massive castle growing out of the base of a far larger pyramid. Each side stretched into the darkness. Every line, every stone, every crenellation spoke one word with overwhelming confidence: strength. Strength of faith, strength of will.

  Bedeckt groaned in pain when Wichtig again poked him in the back. “I’ve had turds with more grace than this place,” said the Swordsman. “Arseholes.”

  Bedeckt pushed Stehlen, dressed as she was as the highest-ranked priest of the group, forward. If they stood gawking, someone was bound to notice. She grunted and spat at the rain-slicked wall but stepped tentatively ahead.

  Up ahead Bedeckt saw several robed figures huddled in a roofed area by the castle gates. Darkness rendered everything monochromatic. “Try not to kill anyone,” he hissed at Stehlen’s back. Hopefully she’d outrank anyone at the gates and they’d pass unchallenged.

  Stehlen stalked forward, head bowed, arms huddled tight to her body against the wind and rain, pretending to ignore the priests at the gate. She fingered the weighted throwing knives tucked in her sleeves. If the priests challenged her she’d kill them before they could raise the alarm. The gathered priests, all in gray robes, looked soft and dejected and wholly unprepared for battle. She thought about killing them just to annoy Bedeckt, but hearing the old man rattle and wheeze with every breath, decided against it. He was suffering enough.

  Was there some way she could convince Bedeckt to let her and the World’s Biggest Moron get the kid on their own? No, Bedeckt will never trust the moron with something this important. An unexpected emotion tightened her chest. Concern? No, can’t be.

  She stole a quick glance over her shoulder but needn’t have bothered. Bedeckt was watching the ground as he shuffled after her. Each step seemingly an act of will, his breath came in short ragged gasps. Her stomach twisted into a clenched knot. Did I eat something bad? She didn’t think so. What was that awful feeling?

  Stehlen looked over Bedeckt’s hunched form to Wichtig behind him. The Swordsman frowned and gave her a confused look. If they stopped now it would definitely draw the attention of the priests at the gate. Though the bur
gundy robes gave her rank, she doubted she could convince anyone she was a high-ranked priest. She didn’t even know what rank she was supposed to be.

  Shite on a stick! This was exactly the kind of underhanded lying Wichtig excelled at. Unfortunately, dressed as an acolyte, he could hardly give orders. Perhaps she should have made Wichtig the ranking priest. Too late now.

  The priests manning the gate didn’t even acknowledge them as they passed.

  The three crossed the open courtyard—which looked suspiciously to Stehlen like a cleared killing ground—to the entrance of the main keep.

  She let out a sigh of relief and whispered, “You sound like shite,” over her shoulder.

  “Keep mov—” Bedeckt was interrupted by another fit of bubbling coughing.

  They passed into the massive interior of the temple. Flanking the entrance to the main hall, carved granite pillars easily twenty feet in diameter depicted events she could only assume were important to the Geborene Damonen. Luxurious wall hangings and life-size paintings adorned the walls. Haunting stained-glass windows showed dark monochromatic scenes in the dim light.

  Stehlen sneered at the gross waste of time and effort. Wichtig no doubt appreciated the artistic merits of such towering totems, but then again, he was an idiot.

  Bedeckt still stared at the floor, apparently unaware of their surroundings. Breathing and walking were clearly taking most of his concentration.

  Stehlen glanced up at the arched ceiling, soaring forty feet over their heads, and stopped. Bedeckt slowed to a halt and stared at her in confusion. She pointed up. “Who?”

  He looked up for a long moment. “It’s a fresco of Zuerst Geborene—the church’s founder—facing the gods he defied.”

  “Oh,” annoyed at having wasted her time asking. He’s probably going to follow that with more old-man philosophy.

  “All religions,” he muttered, “even those without gods, seek to awe the common man.”

  And there it is. “Oh,” she said again.

  Bedeckt coughed noisily and spat a thick wad of brown-and-red phlegm at the floor. “The boy will be upstairs somewhere.”

  Stehlen shook her head, spattering water everywhere. “No, he’ll be downstairs, in the basement. They’ll want to protect and hide him.”

  “Not everyone thinks like a thief,” admonished Wichtig. “They’ll want the boy where they can display him to the masses for best effect. He’ll be on the top floor.”

  Bedeckt disagreed. “High Priest What’s-his-name—”

  “Konig,” supplied Wichtig. “High Priest Konig Furimmer.”

  “Whatever. This High Priest must be a Gefahrgeist of some strength. He’ll have the top floor to himself. His self-importance won’t allow anyone else to be stationed above him.”

  Stehlen opened her mouth to argue when Bedeckt suddenly gestured toward the far end of the hall. She turned and saw a priest in brown robes.

  “Stehlen,” hissed Bedeckt. “Wave the priest over here. Find out where this gods-damned kid is.”

  Stehlen did her best to gesture imperiously at the priest and stood impatiently waiting for the young man to hurry the length of the hall.

  The priest bowed low before her. “Yes, Bishop?”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Where is the kid?” blurted Stehlen.

  The priest looked up, startled. “Kid, Your Worship?”

  “Yes, gods damn it! The kid. The . . . little . . . god-brat in training.”

  The priest, confused, met Stehlen’s eyes and stammered, “B-beg pardon, Your Worship?”

  Stick it. Stehlen hit him in the sternum and had a knife at his throat before the young man could blink.

  “A decent thief would be better at lying,” said Wichtig smugly. “But you’re not a thief, you’re the just smallest thug I’ve ever seen.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “No finesse.”

  Stehlen kept the knife at the priest’s throat, waiting for him to stop gagging on each breath. “Yeah? Where’s your money?” she asked Wichtig over her shoulder.

  Wichtig’s smugness faded as he felt for his money purse.

  Stehlen ignored him, pressing the knife until a thin line of blood appeared on the priest’s neck. “Tell me where the kid is.”

  The priest’s brief look of defiance crumbled before Stehlen’s feral leer. Nothing in her eyes betrayed reluctance to murder.

  “Morgen’s chambers are in the basement. South wing.”

  “Don’t—” started Wichtig as Stehlen slid the knife into the priest’s throat. “. . . kill him.” He shot her an annoyed look as she shoved the body away to bleed out on the floor. “He’s lying.”

  “I told you he was in the basement.”

  “Obviously he lied.”

  “No, it’s obvious you’re lying. You can’t stand being wrong.”

  “If you knew anything about people other than how to cut their throats . . .” Wichtig turned to Bedeckt. “You saw it, right?”

  Bedeckt coughed, a bubbling sound deep in his chest. “I was watching for more priests.”

  Stehlen snorted derisively.

  “Look,” growled Wichtig, gesturing at Stehlen. “You know how to steal things and cut throats, and Bedeckt is a master of coming up with stupid long-winded plans no one can follow. I know people.”

  “You know how to use people,” sneered Stehlen.

  “You have to understand them to use them.”

  Bedeckt waved them to silence. “Let’s move before someone finds us here with this corpse. Stehlen, drag it into the shadows. We go up.”

  Wichtig reached out to pat Stehlen’s back condescendingly but stopped when she glared at him. Instead he blew her a kiss and said, “See, Bedeckt knows to trust my opinion. You could learn something here.”

  Bedeckt, wheezing, set off toward the stairs at the far end of the hall. His lungs felt like they’d been filled with cold snot. “No one knows more about lying than you do,” he growled over his shoulder, and heard Stehlen’s answering chuckle. Unfortunately, the one person Wichtig lied to best was Wichtig. Such was always the problem with Gefahrgeist. If enough people believed their shite, they began to believe it too. Continually putting Wichtig down might limit his power, but it might also stop the smallest successes from swelling his already huge ego.

  When they caught up with him, Bedeckt turned to Stehlen. “Why didn’t you ask the priest how many guards the kid has?”

  “Will we turn around and go home if there are a lot of guards?” she asked sweetly. “No.”

  This late in the evening the halls were largely devoid of priestly activity and the three wandered lost for the best part of an hour. The few people they ran into looked well fed, unsuspecting, soft, and unquestioning. Still, Stehlen killed two more priests before they found someone who knew where the boy was. Luckily her damp burgundy robes did a fine job of hiding bloodstains.

  They followed a steep set of curving stairs upward. If they hadn’t gotten turned around somewhere, the child’s room should be at the top. Bedeckt coughed and spat a thick wad of dark phlegm at the offending stairs. Everything looked too new for such an ancient building. Usually the steps of such a castle would be worn shallow from centuries of shuffling feet, but the corner of each was crisp and sharp.

  Was this the future, religion uniting, directing, and manipulating humanity’s faith, turning individuals into fragments of the larger hive? Where one religion led, others would follow. Bedeckt saw no way a man-made god could be any better than one coming to be in the old way. Whatever the old way was. At least the old gods seemed largely uninterested in messing directly with man or his works. Sure, they embroiled men in the occasional holy war, but most of the world’s great tragedies could be laid squarely at humanity’s feet.

  A god subject to the whims and will of a populace in thrall to a self-serving Gefahrgeist—like there was any other kind of Gefahrgeist—would not be so distant. A thought lingered in the back of his mind: it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Gebo
rene didn’t get their god-to-be back after Bedeckt had collected the ransom money. Bedeckt lost his train of thought as his chest tightened and once again he had to focus solely on breathing. If the child isn’t at the top of these stairs, I’m returning to the inn and staying in bed for a week.

  Stehlen in the lead, the three crested a long flight of stairs leading to the top of one of the church’s shorter towers.

  Bedeckt wheezed and coughed up more dark and salty phlegm. “Pigsticking stairs,” he gasped. When he glanced up he saw Stehlen and Wichtig marching purposefully away. He looked to the end of the long stone hall. Two women stood at guard in matching chain hauberks with longswords hung at their right hip. Both women were lefties, which Bedeckt found a little odd. The two guards watched, heads cocked slightly to the left, as Stehlen and Wichtig approached. Bedeckt opened his mouth to hiss a warning and was racked by another fit of coughing.

  No matter how much Stehlen swaggered, she felt like a thief in stolen priest’s robes, blaspheming in the eyes of everything holy and sacrosanct. Some memories of childhood she could never leave behind. She swore under her breath, preparing to face down the guards. Both Bedeckt and Wichtig had harassed her for her inability to get past any hindrance without leaving a few bodies behind. I’ll show them subtlety.

  “Step aside,” she commanded imperiously. “We are here to see the—”

  “You are forbidden in this hall. Leave now.”

  Stehlen frowned at the two guards. They looked almost identical in their matching armor. What she could see of their faces looked similar as well. Identical eyes peered from beneath iron helms.

  “Do you know who I am?” Stehlen demanded of the guard who had spoken.

  “Gods, you’re terrible at this,” muttered Wichtig. Stehlen heard Bedeckt’s retching cough back at the top of the stairs.