Aufschlag prayed Morgen would be safe.
He watched with sadness as the smallest false priest, dressed as a Bishop, killed the acolytes standing watch at the main gate. That had been unnecessary. But it was done and the boy was beyond Konig’s reach. At least for now.
CHAPTER 19
The power of faith is the fear of the unknown.
The power of love is the fear of dying alone.
—EXCERPT FROM “THE POWER OF FEAR” BY HALBER TOD
Gehirn Schlechtes stared into the empty bowl. Erbrechen’s organ stew, supposedly a source of sanity, was doing little for the hunger gnawing her innards. Something is wrong. She felt frail, paper-thin and dry like tinder. She needed to burn. Could this stew of souls really stave off the insanity and inevitable collapse caused by embracing one’s delusions? Gehirn’s doubt grew like worms, and she wondered if that doubt was a result of these gruesome meals. If belief was power, then surely doubt was its antithesis. What was doubt but a countering belief?
WHEN SHE STOOD in close proximity to Erbrechen, she thought of the man as beautiful, her friend and lover—even if he never touched her—and the center of everything important. When she strayed to the edges of the camp, however, words like “Slaver” crept into her mind. Standing there, watching Erbrechen from afar, she saw the man as a foul slug. A leech. And yet she could not leave. Always she returned to Erbrechen’s side and basked happily in the man’s attention and friendship.
You are wretched and weak, she told herself over and over. Worthless. Still, she could not walk away. If I lose Erbrechen I shall truly have nothing, truly be nothing. Was this love?
ERBRECHEN’S BAND MOVED ever closer to Selbsthass. The caravan traveled at a snail’s pace, Erbrechen refusing to suffer discomfort. At each farming community and town they stopped to gather supplies and new followers. Most towns fell without Gehirn’s help.
Day by day the distant storm clouds crept closer as Regen’s sanity frayed under the relentless strain. The scrawny shaman staggered as he walked, white with blood loss, his skin an anemic parchment stretched over gnarled bones and twitching sinew. Gehirn watched the man’s psyche decay with both detached interest and gnawing terror.
In the last day it had become necessary to shout to be heard over the ceaseless roar of thunder. The sky, lit bright with searing flashes of lightning, left Gehirn smelling of burned flesh. When Regen’s mind finally failed, the sun would return.
Why does Erbrechen not share the soul stew with the shaman?
Regen’s death would leave Gehirn vulnerable. Did Erbrechen not care? Was there some darker purpose? Gehirn considered sharing her own portion with the shaman, but doubt stopped her. What if she fed the stew to Regen and the shaman didn’t get better? What if the souls and organs of the sane didn’t offer succor to the ravaged sanity of those who embraced instability? Where would that leave Gehirn? More important, what would that mean to Erbrechen’s plans? The Hassebrand shied away from such thoughts and buried deep her doubts. She’d rather continue to believe the stew worked rather than see proof of its failure.
Today she rode the litter alongside her love and told herself, over and over, Erbrechen would never betray me. Unlike Konig, Erbrechen was a true friend. She watched Regen’s shambling shuffle. The shaman was a tool Erbrechen used to protect her.
“He doesn’t use me,” Gehirn whispered to herself. “He . . . likes me.” She wanted to utter the word “loves,” but her lips rebelled.
“Hmm?” asked Erbrechen. “I didn’t hear that.”
“Nothing.” He stared, green eyes deceptively sleepy, almost closed, until she added, “I was just talking to myself.”
Erbrechen looked away, gaze roving across his band of followers. “I do it all the time. There are so few people worth talking to.” He glanced at her. “Not like you.”
It was such an obvious ploy and yet her doubts suddenly seemed foolish. “I like talking to you too.”
Erbrechen offered an embarrassed smile at this. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Some people are born broken—delusional from their very first day—whereas for others it requires some kind of trigger or emotional trauma.” He licked his lips, a slow sensual swirl of bright pink tongue. “I’ve also heard that sometimes people can become delusional after suffering a blow to the head.”
She knew where this would lead, saw the vicarious hunger in Erbrechen’s eyes. Her jaw tightened and her knuckles popped loudly as her hands clenched into fists. “I heard much the same from Aufschlag,” she said, doing her best to sound casual. Please, no.
Erbrechen nodded as if he knew exactly who Aufschlag was and asked, “Were you born a Hassebrand?”
“No.” Please don’t ask. Please, please don’t ask.
“Was it physical trauma?” he asked, leaning in close, as if trying to breathe in her despair.
He knows the answer and asks anyway. Only a self-centered bastard—Gefahrgeist. He’s a Gefahrgeist, she reminded herself. He doesn’t care how much this hurts me. He doesn’t care—
“I ask,” he added, “because I care.”
He loves me! The memories bubbled up like rising bile. “Daddy . . . My father loved me very much. So much that my mother hated me. She was very jealous.” Or disgusted.
She told him everything. She told him how her father used to touch her and then hold his hands over the fire to burn clean his sins, and how he later did the same to her own small hands. She remembered screaming until her throat tore. She told him how her mother grew distant, eventually refusing to acknowledge Gehirn even existed. She told him of the day she reached puberty and the first fire she lit with nothing but thought.
“You and your father?” Erbrechen’s face puckered with disgust. “You knew what you did was wrong,” he said, and for an instant she wanted to incinerate the fat slug for giving voice to her self-loathing. One look from his sea-green eyes crushed the desire.
“From that day on,” she continued, “no matter how long Father held my hands in the fire, they would not blister or burn. I asked if this meant I was free of sin.” She laughed, a humorless grunt. “He shook his head and shoved my hands deeper into the coals.”
Then, as she blossomed into a young woman, her father turned his back on her, disgusted with who and what she had become.
“They threw me out when I was fourteen,” she finished. Tears streamed down her face, stinging her lips with their salt. “I returned a few years later and they asked why I’d left. They pretended nothing had ever happened. Then, when Mommy left the room, Daddy touched me.” She ground her teeth, her jaw aching, until the air around her rippled with heat. “I burned him.”
“You’re lucky,” said Erbrechen. When she stared at him in mute shock, he added, “At least somebody loved you. Even if just for a while.” He shook his head, gnawing at his lower lip. “I was left in the gutter seconds after my birth.” He reached a fat hand toward her thigh but stopped short of touching her. “For years I thought the couple that found me were my family, even though I was never allowed to call them Mother or Father. They only kept me until I was worth selling.” Erbrechen’s petite nose wrinkled, disappearing between round cheeks. “Foully betrayed twice before I was even four years old. But they underestimated me. No one understood just how smart I am. I learned. No one would ever betray me again.”
Erbrechen wove a tale of life on the streets, raised by a succession of pimps and whores, the daily struggle to survive and find food. He told her of the long years when he was sold and traded, little more than a commodity, soft flesh with value. Always watching, always listening. Always learning.
“We are driven by desire masquerading as need,” he said. “Understand a person’s needs and you can bend them to anything.”
As he talked she found herself shaking with the force of her sobs. His was a life robbed of all hope before he even knew what hope was. Her own suffering paled in comparison. How could she have thought her petty wounds
worth sharing?
Gods, he has suffered so much. How can he sit beside me, telling his story with such aplomb?
“And one day a client—a wealthy old man—told me he loved me. He said he’d do anything for me.” Erbrechen laughed, clapping happily. “The next day, at my request, he had my pimp drowned in a bucket of goat piss.” He sighed, smiling wistfully at the memory. The smile died. “But what he called love was just need. He didn’t love me. No one ever loves me. They need and need and need, always demanding. Never love.” He glanced at her again as if checking that she still listened. “It wasn’t long before I realized that in small groups I could twist just about anyone’s needs. But in the city, surrounded by the witless masses, my power was limited. The next time I left the city with my love and his retinue, I made sure we never returned. They were my first friends and followed me for years.” He shrugged one shoulder and his left breast jiggled. “Friends come and go. I wonder if any of them are still with me.” He gave a cursory glance to his followers, but he barely seemed to be looking.
He sounds so sad, so alone. Gehirn wanted to embrace Erbrechen—to offer some small comfort—but remembered his unwillingness to touch her. He is afraid to love me, she realized. Could he fear rejection?
Gehirn mopped tears with an already sodden sleeve. She understood rejection. He’s telling me this because he loves me. He bares everything and dares everything. She could never be so brave.
How could I ever have doubted his love? She hung her head, ashamed she could be so self-centered, ashamed at needing more from her love.
Hours later she remembered what she’d been thinking about before Erbrechen had interrupted her thoughts. Had it been an intentional distraction?
Doubt grew in dark and fertile soil.
ERBRECHEN, UNWILLING TO let his friends, who now numbered in the thousands, stray from his influence, used no scouts. As such, when they arrived, en masse, at Verteidigung, they found the gates closed and the walls manned. The city and surrounding farmlands, having been pounded by Regen’s storm long in advance of their arrival, looked to be in a state of advanced ruin. Much of the land had been burned, blasted by lightning, pelted by fist-sized hail, and then flooded. Gehirn noted a distinct lack of corpses. Odd. With this much destruction she expected at least some.
Erbrechen sent one of his new friends—a pompous woman who had not yet lost the fat of her previous life—forward to demand the surrender of Verteidigung. The soldiers on the wall pincushioned her with a dozen crossbow bolts and she toppled into the mud.
Erbrechen shook his head, tutted, and turned sad green eyes on Gehirn. “I don’t know why they bother. They will have to apologize.”
Then, when the woman climbed awkwardly to her feet, turned, and walked back toward Erbrechen’s litter, he offered a soft “Oh.” He frowned at the approaching woman. “She is dead, right?”
“Yes,” answered Gehirn, still sitting beside Erbrechen. “I suspect Verteidigung has a powerful Phobic with a deep fear of death and the dead.”
“You don’t say. Burn her.”
Gehirn felt a feral grin stretch her face as she let loose some small shred of the doubt and depression that she held tight to her heart. The woman and a hundred paces of ground around her burst into flames. The damp earth quickly guttered, but the woman burned on, a pillar of fire shuffling ever closer. Even at this range she smelled delicious.
Erbrechen cleared his throat gently. “She’s still coming,” he said with a slight tremor.
A sob was wrenched from Gehirn’s soul as she relaxed her weakening grip on reality. Perhaps, in his fear, Erbrechen’s control slipped for a moment, because in that instant, Gehirn understood she was naught but the Slaver’s toy. At best a favored toy, but certainly nothing more. Erbrechen would use her and cast her aside. Her fate would be no different from Regen’s. She was helpless.
He devours my need like he sucks back that stew. Just another soul sliding into a fat belly that will never fill.
But she still had her fire . . .
The flames enshrouding the woman flickered, brightened, and became a blinding white beacon. The skeletal image of the woman remained written on the stunned retinas of all witnesses for several seconds. She was dust and ash, a stain in the wind.
Gehirn screamed, clenched fists held tight against her chest like a child cowering before an enraged adult. Pressure built inside her skull, seeking escape. My eyes, she thought, will boil.
Sanity, the antithesis to power. To embrace one was to abandon the other. Betrayed and yet trapped and helpless, Gehirn cradled her hurts like a young girl holding a wounded bird. She knew Erbrechen used her but this knowledge did nothing to free her from the Slaver’s clutches. She both loved and hated—loathed and worshiped—the obscene slug.
Knowledge didn’t set her free; it more clearly displayed the true depth of her prison.
Gehirn screamed, throat raw and burning.
Stone walls glowed red and ran like mud. The city gates fell apart, little more than kindling now.
Within the city Gehirn saw the dead rise, climbing unsteadily to their feet and looking about in uncomprehending horror. The corpses, united in purpose, stalked the burning ruin, staggered through the open gates, and launched themselves at Erbrechen’s mob. The dead burned, but kept coming.
Erbrechen wailed as his litter lurched chaotically. His power kept those close from fleeing but they couldn’t move fast enough while bearing the weight of the litter, his corpulent body, and Gehirn.
Levering herself to her feet to better see, Gehirn watched the approaching dead. They can have me. Death had to be better than this.
Erbrechen screamed at Gehirn, “Stop them! Burn them! Burn them all!”
Gehirn was a slave—to both Erbrechen and the fire. She heard the former’s command and obeyed the latter’s desire.
The city burned.
The fields burned.
The dead burned.
The world became a roaring tornado of ash and smoke.
Fire spread.
Gehirn screamed and laughed and sobbed and cackled.
Cyclonic pillars of ash, once human life, spun in the growing storm winds.
Burn the world.
Erbrechen’s litter lurched and collapsed to the ground, crushing those unfortunate enough to be trapped below. The Hassebrand somehow remained standing. Erbrechen shouted himself hoarse commanding Gehirn to stop, but the damned woman was beyond all thought, lost to the pure sexual joy of fire.
Dawning terror broke over Erbrechen as he realized his soul stew had no effect on his pet Hassebrand. Sharing it had been a waste.
Using muscles unused in years, he dragged himself closer to Gehirn. When he got close enough he slammed the wailing woman in the back of the knees with a massive arm. Gehirn dropped like a stone, and Erbrechen, levering himself up with one shaking gelatinous arm, pummeled her face until the Hassebrand lost consciousness.
After, as Erbrechen’s surviving followers busied themselves collecting supplies and rounding up those who had not burned in the city, he sat staring at the unconscious woman. She seemed at peace, the bright canines hidden. Rounder and much older than he liked, she still had something about her he found fascinating.
She’s dangerous.
True, but there was something more. She not only loved him—as all must—she wanted to love him. Somehow that set her apart. He reached a hand toward her face and stopped just shy of touching her. Could she love him for who he really was?
No, she loves your need of love. Nothing more. She loved because—like the others—she had no choice. No one knew just how lonely it was to live at the center.
Erbrechen withdrew his hand to dab at his cheek. Was that a tear? He snorted. Self-pity ill becomes you.
Still, it would be nice to have someone at his side, someone who truly loved him. Maybe I could love her in return. I could try.
CHAPTER 20
Getting rid of a truth makes us wiser than getting hold of a delusion.
—NICHT LUDWIG BORNE
Aufschlag arrived at the private chambers of Schwacher Sucher nervous and sweating heavily. He pressed flat the oily fringe of hair surrounding his bald dome and struggled to find composure. His heart thudded heavily in his chest, and the knife, tucked into the tightly cinched belt that kept him from looking any more like a tent than he already did, pressed into his back. Should he loosen the belt a notch? What if the knife fell out? A few calming breaths did nothing for his pounding heart. Could he go through with his plan? Even more important, would he?
“Yes,” he whispered.
A thought stayed Aufschlag’s hand partway into reaching up to knock on the oak door. What if the Geborene Mirrorist foresaw this? Konig often complained of the young Mirrorist’s limitations, but Konig complained about everyone’s faults. Nothing was ever good enough for the Geborene High Priest. Though the many corpses of Viele Sindein, Morgen’s Mehrere bodyguard, had yet to be discovered, it was entirely possible Schwacher knew everything.
What if Konig waits within, already aware of my betrayal?
No. If Konig had advance knowledge of Aufschlag’s plans, he would never have allowed Morgen to be stolen.
Aufschlag knocked gently and heard the immediate answer.
“Enter.”
Once inside, he stood facing Schwacher, who, in turn, stood staring at him. The Mirrorist, who looked to be still in his teens, displayed none of the self-mutilation common to the breed. After much research Aufschlag had postulated that the more grotesque the mutilation, the greater the Mirrorist’s power.
Theory, Aufschlag suddenly thought, is all fine and good until it’s faced with real life. His gaze darted about the room, seeking the mirrors he knew must be present. He saw none. The room was spare, undecorated, and showing nothing of the young Mirrorist’s personality. The small fireplace looked scrubbed and clean, with no hint it had ever been used. Aufschlag stared at the fireplace. Did the Mirrorist freeze in the winter, or was this the sign of some obsessive disorder? For some reason the cleanliness of the fireplace reminded him of Morgen.
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