Beyond Redemption

—AKIRA KUROSAWA

As the horizon swallowed the evening sun, the sky to the south looked unlike anything Asena had ever seen. Storm clouds spiraled in toward some central point like filthy water draining from a sink. Lightning struck at the ground, but equally bright flashes stabbed from the ground into the sky. It looked like the G.o.ds did battle with some earthbound Geisteskranken, and it appeared the Geisteskranken might win.

Asena stood atop a gra.s.sy hill with her gathered Tiergeist, watching the distant battle in silence. Even here, the winds blew fiercely, flattening the tall gra.s.s and snapping at what little clothing she wore. She could feel the rumbling thunder shake the ground, but heard nothing.

Such power should not go without witness. She sniffed at the damp air, tasting the tingling metallic tang of the faraway storm.

Konig had done her a horrible disservice and this troubled Asena more than the world"s lack of sound. He had often pushed her away—she understood his fear of allowing someone to become too close and accepted it—but he had never intentionally hurt her before.

Bär, ma.s.sive and hairy, waved a hand to get her attention. He looked so sullen and depressed it seemed to diminish his colossal size. Asena glanced up at him and lifted an eyebrow. He pointed at the storm and flared his nostrils. He smells it too.

Evil little Stich, baring his sharpened teeth, sniffed at the air. His eyes, too small and close together to convey any emotion other than vicious anger, looked from Asena to the storm.

She shook her head in answer to the unasked question. No, we will not go south. Konig ordered them to Neidrig and there they would go. Stich accepted this without comment and bent to claw at the dirt, his sharp nails digging for the insects and grubs he ate almost continually.
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Only Ma.s.se ignored the storm, looking southwest toward Neidrig, his long, slim tongue flickering to taste the air. Asena watched him with interest. He alone seemed unperturbed by the loss of hearing—perhaps because his had been fairly poor to begin with. Ma.s.se noticed her attention and blinked at her, his secondary eyelid—a thin, yellowish, nict.i.tating membrane—sliding across the eye to wet it.

"You taste something to the southwest?" Asena asked. She heard nothing but could feel her voice in her head.

Ma.s.se must have understood because he pointed toward Neidrig. He said something but she didn"t hear it and couldn"t read his nonexistent lips. His face, as ever, remained devoid of expression.

Frustrated, she twisted, and a lean gray wolf sat where the slim girl had been.

Asena barked in surprise—sound returned the moment she"d twisted. Konig had been wrong. His delusions had not been enough to change the fact that Therianthropes healed even the most grievous of wounds by twisting into their animal form. She wanted to twist back but hesitated. Would she once again lose her hearing when she became human? Then she smelled what Ma.s.se had scented and lost all fear.

Morgen.

Even at this distance the boy-G.o.d"s presence could not be ignored. She had been correct, Morgen was in Neidrig.

Bär, Stich, and Ma.s.se watched her with obvious interest. She showed her teeth in a victorious growl and again twisted. She rose to her feet in a lithe motion and listened to the crack of distant thunder.

Asena pointed to her ears. "I can hear again."

Bär understood first and twisted with an earth-shattering roar. As a grizzly bear, he was twice the size of the ma.s.sive man he had been. Over one thousand pounds of muscle and s.h.a.ggy brown fur stood bellowing at the sky, briefly drowning out the t.i.tanic storm that was smashing the horizon. Asena clapped her hands over her ears and backed away from Bär. Though he was normally peaceful and gentle, there was no telling how he would react to something like this. She twisted back into wolf form.

Ma.s.se twisted next, his body crumbling to become asps, anacondas, constrictors, mambas, coral snakes, and many breeds she didn"t recognize. A writhing ma.s.s of snakes covered the ground before her. Ma.s.se was never the same twice; the result of each twisting depended on his mood. This entwined pile of deadly snakes didn"t speak well of his state of mind.

Stich, not the quickest-witted of the group, twisted last and fell apart like a tower of cards in the wind. As a man, Stich was quick to anger and even faster to lash out at whatever offended him. As a few thousand scorpions, he was psychotic rage personified. Just seeing him, glistening black, climbing all over himself, sent shivers of revulsion down Asena"s spine.

A ma.s.sive bear, a gray wolf, a nest of snakes, and a mound of scorpions coruscating like oil stared southwest toward Neidrig. All sensed Morgen, the G.o.d-child, in some manner. All but Asena ignored the storm to the south. With her incredibly heightened sense of smell, she caught the scent of something familiar. Burning flesh. A lot of burning flesh. The wolf turned her nose to the storm. Gehirn Schlechtes—the vile Ha.s.sebrand who stared at her with such undisguised longing—was at the heart of the storm.

Asena growled and twisted back to human form.

"We have to talk," she said.

When all four regained their human shapes, they once again sat around the fire.

Stich bared sharpened teeth. "Why we hear? Konig say we no hear no more."

Bär grunted agreement but said nothing.

Asena squatted on her haunches like a dog. "Konig is far away and we are together. The beliefs of a tightly knit pack count for more than those of a distant man. Proximity and numbers."

Ma.s.se spoke what was on all their minds. "Konig defines reality."

Bär grunted again. All three looked to Asena.

"There are two possibilities," she said carefully. "Either Konig is not as powerful as we believe, or something else is at work here. Some other power influences us."

Ma.s.se blinked milky nict.i.tating membranes and said, "Konig"s power is beyond doubting."

"Who greater than Konig?" Stich asked.

"Morgen," Bär grunted, his voice impossibly deep.

"Why," Asena asked, "would Morgen return our hearing?"

Bär gave her a strange look but remained quiet.

"Deafness would make it harder to find him," Ma.s.se suggested.

"No," said Asena. "Bär and I could have tracked him by scent alone. We would have found him easily enough."

"Talking," said Bär.

"Without hearing, we could not talk like this," agreed Asena.

Stich"s small eyes blinked in confusion. "Morgen want us talk?"

"Perhaps there are things he wants us to discuss," suggested Asena.

"Such as?" Ma.s.se asked.

"Such as what we are doing here," Asena answered.

"Konig send us help Morgen Ascend," Stich said to prove he understood what was going on.

"Konig has sent us to kill Morgen," Asena corrected.

"Same thing!" Stich snapped angrily.

"No doubt Konig knows best," agreed Asena to calm Stich. "But what if Morgen isn"t ready?" She looked from Stich to Ma.s.se, and finally at Bär, who seemingly ignored them. "Yet," she amended softly.

"If Morgen will Ascend to be a G.o.d," mused Ma.s.se, "he could be . . . must be more powerful than Konig. He could return our hearing no matter what Konig believes. Did he do this so we could decide to defy Konig?"

"Why he not want Ascend?" demanded Stich. "He Geborene G.o.d."

Asena didn"t want this getting out of hand. She merely meant to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of her fellow Tiergeist. She didn"t know if they should kill Morgen or not. She didn"t think she could kill the boy, but had no doubt Stich was more than willing.

"Let"s not get ahead of ourselves," said Asena. "First we have to find Morgen. We should talk to him, not just kill him and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done." She watched Bär, but he said nothing.

"Killing a would-be G.o.d when he doesn"t want to be killed might be bad," agreed Ma.s.se. "I for one do not want any G.o.ds angry with me."

Asena prattled on and Stich lost the thread of the conversation. She was so hard to follow sometimes. With Asena, nothing was ever simple.

Konig was Theocrat. High Priest. It didn"t matter his G.o.d did not yet exist, though such thoughts were confusing; it mattered only that he would exist. If Morgen was to be a G.o.d and the only way to become a G.o.d was to die, the boy would have to die. Why else Konig send us? Why did everyone try to make this simple task seem difficult?

Find boy. Kill boy. Kill those who stole boy. What could be easier?

Stich shivered with excitement and almost twisted at the thought of the screaming mayhem to come. I help Morgen Ascend.