Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists

by Edited by Adrian Collins

  Matthäus died before he completed his poem, betrayed. Murdered.

  "You will slay Morgen," Konig commanded, interrupting Anomie's thoughts and finally giving her purpose. "Bring about his Ascension."

  Anomie's past was never far away. There was no forgetting her crime. No forgiving.

  "Anomie," continued Konig. "Take your Schatten Morder south, to Unbrauchbar in Gottlos."

  Then he deafened both her and Asena with his delusions. He said it was to protect her from the influence of other Gefahrgeist who might bend her to their purpose, but she knew Acceptance manipulated him into doing it to distance Konig from Asena.

  Anomie bowed and led her Schatten Morder from the room. There was no need to command her cadre of corpses, they always followed. Who they were—who they had been in life—she had no idea. Sad pathetic souls. Anomie understood all too well.

  She would lead her Cotardist assassins south as Konig commanded. They would find those who had stolen Morgen and help the boy Ascend before his kidnappers' filth contaminated the Geborene godling.

  He offered to cure me. She remembered Morgen hugging her and asking if she'd like to truly live once again. He'd promised he could make her whole, return her to the bright circus of life. She'd been terrified. I don't deserve life. Not after what she'd done. I'm nothing. I'll never be anything.

  Morgen looked disappointed when she begged him to leave her as she was.

  And now I'll repay his kindness with death.

  It wouldn't be the first time.

  It wouldn't be the last.

  * * *

  Years slid by, Anomie and Matthäus sleeping on their sagging sofa. Sometimes they'd rut, grunting and clawing like animals, but more often than not he'd take hours to pleasure her with his tongue and fingers never once hinting at having needs of his own. Matthäus always decided, always controlled. When dark moods took him he wouldn't touch her for months, barely seemed to notice her existence. But he always came out of it, always returned to her with his blue diamond eyes. Months of neglect would wash away in a moment of bright need. Matthäus' wants defined their relationship, defined her world. Even though she knew she didn't deserve it, she'd never been so happy. Sometimes she almost forgot her father.

  It was the hottest summer in memory and she and Matthäus walked their usual route. The market moved at a much slowed pace. A warm breeze passed through Anomie’s thin shirt. Her flowing skirt often caught the wind and showed her legs. Men stared at her as she passed, eyes hungry. Matthäus didn't notice or didn't care; she loved his utter confidence. Still dressed all in black, somehow he wasn't sweating, though his hair wilted and the long cue hung limp down his back. The grinning death’s head knife hung at its place on his hip.

  "Aren't you hot?" she asked.

  "I'm fine." After a week of happiness and sex twice a day his mood was once again turning to black.

  She realized she'd never seen him without his shirt in public. He even hesitated to completely undress when they entwined on the sofa.

  "You have a great body," she said. "Remember that art gallery where you showed me those nightmare paintings that were never the same twice? There was an exhibit depicting the perfect human form. You're like that. You have nothing to be ashamed—"

  He silenced her with a glance. When he spoke his eyes were cold, his words tight and bitten. "I was a fat child. Everyone made fun of me. It scarred me. Forever. No matter what I look like on the outside, I will always be that fat child on the inside."

  She pulled him into a hug, feeling the hard muscularity of him against her softness. He didn't react, didn't return the embrace.

  I've hurt him.

  * * *

  First they visited Lager Glocke, Matthäus' friend and dealer, to buy auslösekugeln mushrooms. Matthäus had become convinced that an altered state was required to write truly great poetry. Sanity, he told her one night, was an impediment. 'Look at Halber Tod,' he'd said. 'Look at all the great poets. Not a sane one in the bunch.' He'd grinned at her then, eyes bright. 'I'll be the first great sane poet.'

  On Matthäus' insistence she'd tried the auslösekugeln but found the taste awful and the hallucinations worse. She'd puked so hard she thought she'd die and then dreamed she was made of clay and that unseen hands were shaping her to their purpose.

  Next they visited the claustrophobic smoke shop, where everyone knew Matthäus's name, and bought a box of rauch. Finally, with what little money they had left, they stopped at the market to purchase a meal.

  After finishing their meal, they returned home.

  That night he didn't touch her, seemed barely aware of her existence. When she went to bed Matthäus stayed up smoking and writing and eating auslösekugeln. Her dreams danced and flickered, writhing in response to his drug-induced hallucinations.

  He woke her in the early hours of the morning when the world felt thin and unreal, like the gods still slept and had yet to fully realize their creation. Matthäus' face was gaunt and pale, his blue eyes bright and ringed dark with exhaustion.

  "I know what I have to do," he said, grinning with feverish intensity.

  His hair had come undone and she brushed it back from his eyes. She loved these moments when he got excited about a new project. He'd tell her all about it, talking aloud as he thought through the details. She'd listen, her entire being focussed on his words, euphoric he chose to share this part of himself with her. He hadn't yet completed any of his projects. The scrawled sheets of three half-finished novels littered the floor. Countless poems were tucked into every nook and cranny, written and forgotten. He'd sketched pictures with char, painted with oils, and done one piece in his own blood. She stole glances when he was asleep and was amazed at his talent. His work was brilliant, detailed and flawless. In the last year he'd learned to play the lute and three different wind instruments she didn't know the names of. He mastered them all, played and sang and brought tears to her eyes. When whatever drew him to music withered and died, he sold the lute to buy rauch and lost two of the flutes. One he kept and would bring out every now and then, when the auslösekugeln took him away, to play haunting three-note songs.

  Anomie was awed by his talent, his ability to master anything he turned his mind to. Someday he would find the right medium to express the incredible depth of his soul. Someday all the world would see his genius and he'd be happy and famous and she'd be there beside him.

  Where she was nothing he was everything.

  "I'm going to hallucinate a poem," Matthäus said, staring at nothing as he envisioned his masterpiece. "It will be about life and death. It will be about the one struggle we all face, the one struggle shared by all humanity." He dug a crumpled rauch from a pocket and lit it off a nearby candle. After inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs he passed it to her. Tendrils of smoke leaked from his mouth and nose as he talked, oily snakes dancing to his words, hinting at deeper meaning, and fading to nothing. "We live. We die. But we all want to leave our mark. We all want to be remembered after we are gone."

  Anomie blinked and said nothing. She'd never given it much thought. No one will remember me. Did she even want to be remembered? She didn't think so.

  You are nothing. You'll never be anything. I'm so disappointed.

  "I've been practising," he explained, holding up a nugget of auslösekugeln that looked suspiciously like a dried rat turd.

  Anomie remembered the story he'd written about how eating cat faeces turned people into gods but no one was willing to do it so doomed mortals they remained. It had been the funniest thing she'd ever read. She'd been sad when he dropped it, unfinished.

  "I can shape the hallucinations," Matthäus said

  He sees things I can’t even imagine.

  "I need to be better. I need finer control," He added. Blue eyes locked on her, saw her. "I need you," he said, leaning in to kiss her. He tasted of smoke and sausages. "I can't do this without you." He rushed to explain, his words tumbling out. "We are our rel
ationships, the people around us. We are sparks thrown from a dry pine fire, fast and fading and then gone. We are those we leave behind. We are those who leave us behind." He took her hand in his, kissing it and breathing hot on her knuckles. "Together we will hallucinate my poem, for one cannot capture all that is life and death alone. I need you."

  And that was it. He needed her.

  No matter how much she hated the taste of the mushrooms and feared the hallucinations, she could not let him down.

  "Of course," she said. "Anything."

  Matthäus fed her auslösekugeln. He was her world. Later, after she'd finished vomiting, they made love surrounded by their shared hallucinations. The world twisted to their writhing embrace, exploded into spears of brilliant light with her orgasms.

  That night she once again dreamed she was clay.

  * * *

  Anomie led her Schatten Morder south toward Gottlos, a mud and rock shite-stain of a city-state ruled—as were all city-states—by a Gefahrgeist. How sane could the sane really be when they always turned to such self-centred bastards for leadership?

  A colossal storm raped the sky, tore the world with madness, and she walked through the downpour without fear or doubt. This, she knew, was the doing of a Geisteskranken riding the ragged edge of sanity, about to topple over the Pinnacle, that moment when their delusions snuffed the last weak flame of sanity.

  The world of the dead, already drained of life and colour, had become quiet as the grave since Konig deafened her. The Schatten Morder followed her with no need of commands or orders. She never spoke to them, never had in all the years they'd haunted her each and every step. Ahead she saw a dishevelled camp, hundreds of emaciated bodies cavorting, filthy and uncaring, in the muck and rain. They hadn't bothered to set tents. In the centre of the camp she saw a litter and a grotesquely fat slug of a man sitting on it. She watched as he gestured and the mob bent to his desire. They were helpless, mindless fish in the ocean current of his mad will. She watched them drag down one of their own and beat her to death, breaking her apart with axes and tossing the chunks into a massive cauldron.

  Slaver-type Gefahrgeist, she thought. Anomie had heard of people whose desperate need for worship bent those around them to their will, stole freedom from everyone they came in contact with. She hated herself for doubting Konig's reasons for deafening her. Without his wise forethought she would have immediately fallen under the slug's influence. The Theocrat deserved better.

  Lightning lit the world bright with fury and though she couldn't hear the answering thunder, she felt it in her bones.

  She drew her sword and strode into the camp, mud clinging to the bones of her bare feet. The Schatten Morder followed, weapons drawn. The mob split before them, inviting them in, drawing them toward their master. A scrawny mud-covered savage—a lost soul stolen from the GrasMeer tribes by the look of him—stepped from the crowd. He grinned sparse teeth, brown drool, and utter insanity. His eyes mirrored the storm and she knew this wretch was the cause of the fury savaging the skies above. She killed him, cut him down and stepped over his emaciated corpse.

  The world tore.

  The hellish madness corrupting the sky unleashed its full power. The man she'd killed may have caused the storm, but he'd also been controlling it. His death set it free.

  Anomie didn't care.

  In a howling frenzy the mob threw themselves at her and she killed them. These mindless drones, lost to the will of the Slaver, were nothing. They had no weapons to speak of and few wore more than sodden sheets for clothing. The Schatten Morder followed Anomie. Waves of living flesh came at them and they left behind rotting meat. For those who could achieve the Afterdeath, annihilation was a gift. Anomie and her Schatten Morder had many gifts to give. Moving ever closer to the Slaver at the centre of the camp, they climbed mountains of dead and more flocked to receive their alms.

  Morgen will be here. She knew it. She'd bring him death as Konig commanded. She'd free the boy to Ascend as the Geborene god he was meant to be.

  A familiar figure, fat and tall, rose up to stand beside the Slaver. Bright canine teeth glinted in the flashing strobe of lightning. Anomie knew that bulk, knew those bright teeth.

  Gehirn, Konig's pet Hassebrand.

  Rippling waves of heat pulsed off the big woman. The hair and clothing of those unfortunate wretches within a half dozen strides burst into flames. Mouth stretched in a scream Anomie couldn't hear, Gehirn lit the world afire.

  All those years Anomie lay in the basement of the Geborene church, Konig had been sending Gehirn scampering about the world. He always calls her before using me. Seeing the woman out here, knowing she was under the influence of the Slaver, Anomie understood now why Konig had finally made use of her. He only called on me because Gehirn is beyond his reach.

  Anomie hated Gehirn almost as much as she hated Asena, that fawning bitch of a Therianthrope.

  I'll kill her.

  With a gesture Gehirn burned a path between herself and the Schatten Morder turning hundreds of enslaved souls to ash.

  She wants to die.

  Anomie burned. Fire ate the flesh from her bones and still she continued forward.

  “You will slay Morgen,” Konig had commanded. “Bring about his Ascension.”

  The Theocrat's will drove Anomie forward. Only in service did she find purpose. She was nothing. Konig was everything. She would not fail him as she had failed Matthäus.

  Kill Morgen. Free the boy to be a god. She couldn't see him, but he must be here.

  She raised her sword in challenge, and it glowed cherry red and then ran like thick mud to coat her fist in a sheen of molten steel.

  Damned Hassebrand. I'll beat Gehirn to death with it.

  Fire was nothing to the dead.

  Anomie felt nothing.

  * * *

  For months Anomie basked in Matthäus' burning need. Finally, he knew what he was meant to do. Finally, he'd found his grand purpose. His hallucinated poem would shake the world. Talentless frauds like Halber Tod, those pathetic wretches who relied on insanity for inspiration, would be forgotten, outshone by a new light.

  Many nights they went hungry, auslösekugeln, rauch, and cheap wine their only sustenance. In spite of the gnawing hunger she'd never been happier. Matthäus' eyes shone bright with purpose. He was driven, wound tight like a hangman's noose choking all doubt from life. And she would play a part in his poem. She'd stand beside him as he changed the world. It was better than she deserved.

  If only father could see me now.

  You are nothing. You'll never be anything. I'm so disappointed.

  Last night they'd each eaten a fistful of auslösekugeln and twisted the world within their abandoned home with their hallucinations. She'd puked blood. Now, in the shivering light of the morning, the evening was a blur of chaos. Her skull ached and groaned, brain gibbering at what it had unleashed. But she remembered impossible depths of emotion and understanding, the world and all reality making complete sense for the first time. Everything had been perfect and she'd belonged. That feeling was gone, drowned in the agonizing crash that always followed an evening of rampant hallucinations. Today she was nothing.

  Matthäus stood over the sofa where Anomie lay, squinting against the light stabbing through the filthy sheets nailed over the windows. His black hair hung loose, falling past his shoulders in tangled knots. Blue eyes, ragged splinters of consuming purpose, swallowed her. He held a half-empty bottle of wine in his fist. That death's head long knife hung at his hip.

  He's going out?

  He'd stayed up after exhaustion took her and she'd collapsed into dreams of clay. She'd been moulded by the angry hands of a child, shaped into something useful and then dashed against the wall. She'd been crafted specifically to be destroyed.

  "I'm ready," he said, taking a long pull from the bottle. "Today is the day." His eyes never left her. "You'll be there with me, right? I can't do this without you. I need you."


  Need.

  Of course she'd be there.

  "What happened last night?" she asked. "I can't remember."

  "Everything fell into place. The entire poem. I can do it. But it has to be today while I still have the entire thing in my head." He lit two rauch, passed her one and dragged smoke deep into his lungs. "We have to go now. It has to be now. Now."

  "Okay," she said, rising. She wobbled, her legs unsteady, knees like damp clay.

  Matthäus pulled her into a smoky kiss and she felt stronger. For him she could do this. For him she would do anything.

  He held out his hand, palm open. A half-dozen tough nuggets of auslösekugeln lay there. "Eat these. All of them."

  Her stomach threatened rebellion and she hesitated.

  "I've already eaten twice this," he said. "I need you to eat them."

  Stuffing the lot into her mouth she chewed hard and fast, swallowing while they were still fibrous.

  * * *

  Anomie leaned against Matthäus as he led her to the market. It was later than she'd thought. The stalls were already open and doing brisk business. Beggars, mummers, and buskers worked the corners. Matthäus sneered at them. The one time he'd brought his lute to the market he'd made enough to keep them in sausages and rauch for weeks. He never returned a second time, said it cheapened his art.

  Matthäus led her to the heart of the market, searching out the busiest intersection. Standing in the centre, forcing people to pass around them, he stood straight, eyes closed. The auslösekugeln rendered the morning sun harsh and white. Translucent images danced in her peripheral vision, gone every time she twitched to look.

  Market-goers shot them annoyed looks, the eyes of the men lingering on Anomie. Fear and doubt sank into her, water on cracked earth. She didn't like it, wasn't comfortable being the centre of attention.