Beyond Redemption

When faced with a Gefahrgeist, set aside your emotions. Your emotions will be turned against you. Even the Gefahrgeist"s most heartfelt apology is manipulation.

Unlike other Geisteskranken, Gefahrgeist often wear the mask of sanity. This makes them dangerous. This makes them successful.

—WAHRHEIT ERTRINKT, PHILOSOPHER

Gehirn awoke to agony and darkness. Her cracked skin wept rivulets of molten fire. She deserved this torture and basked in the all-encompa.s.sing pain. The philosophers were wrong: the Afterdeath wasn"t a chance at redemption, it was retribution. Punishment.

"I am beyond redemption." Her tongue felt like baked leather.

"Yes, but I am unwilling to let you go." Gehirn heard the wet intake of labored breath. "I need."

She recognized the voice and with recognition came understanding. There would be no forgiveness, no release, and no redemption. A single tear leaked from an empty eye socket and burned like boiling oil as it followed the cracked lines of her blistered face.

"You will heal and be as a shiny new toy. I must become a G.o.d and you must help me." The smack of fat, glistening lips in antic.i.p.ation. "You must."

Gehirn asked the only question she could. "Why?"

"Because everyone must love me. Everyone." Gehirn listened to several wheezing breaths. "If everyone loves me—utterly and absolutely—none will ever betray me. And if I never again need, never again rely on the love and support of others, I can never be hurt." She heard Erbrechen"s breath catch. "You love me, don"t you?"

What was love? Was it being a prisoner, helpless to the desires and expectations of another? The Ha.s.sebrand thought of her father and decided yes, this is what love must be. "Yes, I do love you." And it was true, she did love the fat Slaver. "I have no choice." She forced the words out.

"If you had a choice, would you still love me?" Erbrechen asked timidly, his voice quivering with desperation.

She was drowning in his need, crushed by the pressure. "Yes." And now this too was truth.

"Sleep. You must heal and the sun is still high."

Gehirn didn"t sleep so much as lose consciousness.

WHEN THE Ha.s.sEBRAND opened raw, newly healed eyes, she found Erbrechen standing over her, knees wobbling from the strain. Thick clouds, remnants of Regen"s storm, occluded the moon.

"See? I said you"d be like new." Erbrechen"s face creased in the measuring look of a hungry baby. "I am reality." He said it like he was somehow responsible for her healing; as if without him, she would be nothing.

"Yes," agreed Gehirn dumbly, staring at her hands. Her fingers bore no calluses and the palms had lost most of their deep-set lines. Though she had never been hairy, she was now completely hairless. She ran a hand across the smooth expanse of bald skull. No hair, no eyebrows; how surprised I must look now. Her arms were surprisingly thin, as if her body had burned away much of its excess weight in healing her. Had she finally lost her baby fat? Did she now for the first time look like a grown woman? Her stomach growled.

"I am so hungry," said Gehirn.

Erbrechen grimaced petulantly. "You"re hungry? Imagine how I feel."

"Sorry."

"Not even a charred bone to gnaw."

Gehirn didn"t know what to say. Thousands of lives burned to cinder in an instant of uncontrolled rage and self-hatred. "Sorry."

The Slaver snorted. "I realize you want to be my best friend, but do you have to be my only friend?"

"You did say, "Burn them all.""

"Oh, so now it"s my fault?"

"No. Of course not."

"Right." Erbrechen looked satisfied. "Don"t let it happen again."

"And if you again ask me to burn them all?" Gehirn asked.

Small teeth peeked from between chubby lips. "Burn them all. Obviously."

"Obviously," Gehirn agreed.

For the first time since awakening she took a moment to look about. Gone were the hordes of Erbrechen"s friends. The surrounding field was ankle-deep in sodden ash. Here and there, surprisingly white fragments of bone poked from the heaped gray slag. Nothing moved and no birds sang. Only a charred husk remained of the litter. Beside Erbrechen lay a long sheet of thick gold cloth streaked with filth. Gehirn recognized it as one of the streaming banners from the litter.

"You covered me," she said, nodding toward the cloth. "You protected me from the sun."

"Of course. You are my only friend." Erbrechen leered and grunted as he collapsed into a sitting position. "I"m going to need more friends. Keep burning them all and I"ll think you the jealous type."

Gehirn could only nod.

Erbrechen reached toward her with a soft and heavy hand, grimaced, and allowed it to drop back to his lap with a damp slap. "This little setback will slow us substantially. I can barely walk. You"re going to have to help me." He stared at the Ha.s.sebrand, tiny eyes peering through fat cheeks. "I need you. Now more than ever."

Desperate need gripped Gehirn like a fist. "I will carry you to the next town."

"Agreed!" Erbrechen suddenly frowned, gesturing at the sea of ash. "You knew those walking corpses."

"Schatten Mörder. Cotardist a.s.sa.s.sins. Servants of Konig Furimmer. I think they came to kill—"

"Me. It makes sense. Somehow your old friend learned of my plans and seeks to stop me."

"I don"t think—"

Erbrechen waved Gehirn to silence. "Konig is a small man with small plans." He giggled at his accidental rhyme. "He underestimates me much as he underestimates you. To think some walking corpses could be a threat to us." He snorted. "Had you not burned them, I surely would have won them over."

Gehirn wanted to doubt the Slaver, but couldn"t.

Clambering to her feet, Gehirn was surprised how easy moving was now that she"d lost the bulk of her excess weight. The field really was as barren of life as she"d first thought. "Is it just the two of us? Did I burn them all?"

Erbrechen, still sitting in the sodden ash, smacked at it with a distracted hand and stared north toward Selbstha.s.s. He ignored her question. "I miss my friends. I miss their belief in me." He looked up at Gehirn. "Are there many towns between here and Selbstha.s.s?"

"A few small towns, no real cities." A thought dawned, and it bothered her. "If Konig knew we were coming, he would have sent more than Cotardist a.s.sa.s.sins. He could have sent an army of Geisteskranken against us. Dysmorphics, Mehrere, Therianthrope, and all manner of Phobics. He could have crushed us."

"I am not so easily crushed," joked Erbrechen, patting his belly.

"The Schatten Mörder could have come in under cover of darkness and killed both of us."

Erbrechen"s eyes widened with comical fear. "No. I have a destiny."

"They were looking for something. Or someone." Gehirn looked down at Erbrechen and knew a moment of disgust quickly suffocated by the Slaver"s pathetic need. "Konig sent them to find someone."

"Someone?" Erbrechen sniffed at his filthy hands. "The boy?"

"Morgen," Gehirn whispered.

"Yes, the boy. Of course! The people you chased, they made it back to Selbstha.s.s and took Konig"s baby G.o.d. I told you we moved too slowly!"

Gehirn accepted this as the new truth. Between Regen"s storm-covered sky and Erbrechen"s viselike grip on her mind, she"d lost all grasp of time. "How long have we traveled together?"

Erbrechen"s shrug set his b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggling.

"How long?" The Ha.s.sebrand almost managed anger.

"A week? Maybe less. Your insistence on burning everything hasn"t exactly sped us along."

"G.o.ds. A week?" She had no idea it had been so long. The three she"d pursued had more than enough time to reach Selbstha.s.s, steal the child, and escape. She remembered the lithe, ugly woman with the violent streak. A shiver of pleasure crept up Gehirn"s spine at the thought of finding her. Is this what real love feels like? She thought it might be. Pushing her feelings aside, Gehirn focused on what really mattered: Morgen. He could be anywhere by now. But where?

She turned to the Slaver. "If Anomie and her a.s.sa.s.sins sought Morgen, he isn"t in Selbstha.s.s. We"re going in the wrong direction."

Erbrechen punched the mud with a chubby fist. "We"ve lost him? Where would they go?"

Gehirn felt the cool night air on her sweat-soaked skin. "They left a lot of corpses in Gottlos, so I don"t think they"d return there."

Tears of infantile frustration streaked Erbrechen"s soot-smeared face. "Where, then?" He blinked up at Gehirn. "Where would they take him?"

Looking down at this pathetic worm, Gehirn felt the fire of rage build in her heart. Burn the slug now. Burn him before he defiles Morgen, everything pure and beautiful in this s.h.i.te world.

Erbrechen squeaked. He"d seen something of Gehirn"s thoughts. "No. I need you. I love you. You love me. I need you." Beady eyes almost disappeared into tearstained cheeks.

The desire died, asphyxiated by Erbrechen"s desperate need for worship. The Ha.s.sebrand"s shoulders slumped in defeat. G.o.ds, I"m trapped here forever. He"ll never let me free.

"Of course I love you." Gehirn"s gut soured with the truth of it.

"You were going to . . ." Erbrechen blinked up at her, his eyes red, looking as if his heart had just broken. "You said you"d love me even if you didn"t have to."

It wasn"t a question and so she just stared down at him.

"Oh," he said, eyes hardening. "I see." He shook his head in disappointment. "Never mind that . . . for now. Where would they take the boy?" Erbrechen demanded, his good humor gone.

"Somewhere Konig and the Geborene Damonen have little influence." Gehirn pictured a map of the area. She pointed west. "Neidrig."

"Are there towns between here and Neidrig?" Erbrechen asked.

"A few small farming communities."

Erbrechen grumbled with disappointment. "I need more friends. Are there many people in Neidrig?" The Slaver licked his lips with hungry antic.i.p.ation.

"All the worst kinds. Geisteskranken, Swordsmen, and thieves. It will be dangerous."

"It will be fun. They will want to be my friends." Erbrechen smiled wetly at Gehirn, his small eyes glinting hard and cold. "Don"t you agree?"

Of course she did.

THEY TRAVELED BY night, Erbrechen leaning heavily against Gehirn"s much-thinned frame.
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I"ve waited how long for him to touch me and now all I feel is revulsion. And self-hatred. Knowledge wasn"t power, it was punishment. How much happier she"d been in her ignorance. She saw now that her time serving Konig had been the best years of her miserable life.

The Slaver complained continually of the effort and inconvenience of walking but refused to stop and rest. He didn"t want to face the first village without Gehirn, who would spend the daylight hours cowering under the remnants of the thick banner they carried. He pressed on, taking as much advantage of the night as he was of Gehirn"s strength.

Unaccustomed to having so few people around, Erbrechen kept up a continual flow of chatter.

Silence, Gehirn realized, scares the h.e.l.ls out of him. It was as if the Slaver feared that those around him would see or understand some failing of his if only they had a moment of peace. In a sense, it was true—when she thought she was dead, a part of her mind had broken free from the power of his delusion.

Slaver. When had she started thinking of Erbrechen as the Slaver all the time? It had been impossible before, particularly when standing this close. Had the man"s hold on her weakened? Had losing his followers lessened his power?

Aufschlag could answer that. Day by day her respect for the self-important little grease bucket grew.

Erbrechen babbled on about the first thing he"d eat when they found civilization.

Gehirn interrupted him. "A town."

"And just in time. My knees feel like jelly and my feet hurt. It will be nice to sleep on a bed. Perhaps share the bed with a few new friends. Oh yes, the sun will rise soon. We"ll find you some nice bas.e.m.e.nt to cower in. You"ll like that."

"Yes," said Gehirn, pushing Erbrechen to move faster.

"I love you," Erbrechen reminded Gehirn. "And you love me." He wheezed at the pace the Ha.s.sebrand set but didn"t complain.

The village was a sleepy farm community of perhaps thirty people who had yet to rouse themselves from bed when the two staggered into town. The roosters hadn"t called the rising sun and a few dozen chickens wandered between houses in a lethargic hunt for dew worms. Even the town"s dog population watched their approach with soporific disinterest. The few people awake at this early hour gathered to stare as Erbrechen and Gehirn stood swaddled in ash-soaked shreds of gold banner.

Never before had Erbrechen felt such utter exhaustion. He was too tired for pretty speeches. Instead he lifted his hands to the sky and screamed "Mine!" at the top of his lungs. As more people heard the commotion and joined the gathering crowd, he screamed again.

"Mine!"

He screamed until he was hoa.r.s.e. He screamed until he had thirty-some-odd new friends, and then retired to the most luxurious house the village had to offer. He wanted to send Gehirn to the bas.e.m.e.nt but didn"t dare let the Ha.s.sebrand stray far from his influence. Instead he had his new friends shutter the bedroom windows and draw tight the curtains. Later, once they brought him several huge platters of food, he asked them to build him a new tented litter. d.a.m.ned if I"ll walk a step further than I have to. Finally he summoned the town"s mayor, whose room this had once been, to attend him.

"I want the town ready to move at sundown."

The mayor, still wearing the nightclothes he had been sleeping in, stood with his mouth hanging open. "The town? Ready to move?"

G.o.ds, I"m surrounded by idiots. "Yes. I want everyone packed and ready to go. Gather all the horses and livestock you can. We will be moving quickly, so don"t pack nonessentials like clothing."

"No clothes?"

This fool will be the first in the pot. "You don"t have to travel naked," explained Erbrechen impatiently. "Just don"t bring extra clothes. Pack lots of food." He studied the idiot mayor. "And make sure the seat on my new litter is well padded and comfortable."

"Of course." The mayor spun smartly and marched from the room, no doubt excited to be in charge of such arrangements.

Erbrechen glanced to where Gehirn sat huddled under a thick blanket, ignoring him. His chest tightened.

She said she loved me, that she"d love me even if she had a choice.

She lied.

G.o.ds, I"m so alone.

He bared his teeth at the Ha.s.sebrand"s back. He didn"t need her. He"d show her; she was nothing to him. Her betrayal didn"t hurt. She"s disgusting, he told himself, and this became truth. Erbrechen shivered at the memory of touching the woman. Tall and strong, she was the opposite of everything appealing. Never again.

When the sun fell below the horizon Gehirn and Erbrechen found the townsfolk gathered outside, awaiting them. Gehirn wore clothes she"d scavenged from the mayor"s wardrobe while Erbrechen simply draped crisp new sheets across his copious torso. A makeshift litter, hastily constructed of wood torn from the closest houses, sat in the town center. Mounted atop it was a huge sofa heaped with cushions, all within a billowing tent.

"It lacks the cla.s.s, style, and size of my previous ride," announced Erbrechen, "but I am well enough pleased."

With help from several of the town"s larger men, he clambered to the sofa and collapsed into it with a contented sigh. Gehirn joined him on the litter and sat at his feet.

The Slaver waved at two young girls, a pair of blond sisters, to join him. Their parents beamed with pride at the honor. Only Gehirn averted her gaze, though she couldn"t quite manage the disgust she strove for. All emotion had drained from her soul. She felt nothing Erbrechen did not first ask her to feel.

"Oh, come now," chided Erbrechen as a dozen strong men hoisted the new litter into the air. "Don"t look so glum, my friend. There will be plenty to burn soon enough."

In an attempt to inspire his followers to set a hard pace, Erbrechen declared the last few people to make it into camp each night would be fodder for his stew. Not only would this keep him well fed, he confided to Gehirn, but also force his flock to stay close.

Gehirn understood: The closer they were, the stronger Erbrechen"s grip on their minds. The stronger his grip, the more they believed in him and the stronger he became.

Late in the evening Erbrechen"s new friends dragged down an elderly couple who lagged behind and butchered them for the Slaver"s stew.

"I should have done this years ago," Erbrechen joked to Gehirn. "I could have been a G.o.d already. It"s good we found the mayor, he"s very good at planning. I doubt you could have got an entire town packed and moving so efficiently." He tutted happily. "It"s good to have useful friends."

Is he trying to make me jealous? Sadly, it worked. She longed to go in search of the mayor and raze him to ash. It would have been nothing. A flicker of will, and hot dusty embers scattering in the wind like dancing fireflies. But Erbrechen wouldn"t let her stray from the litter.

The Slaver pushed a hard pace. Unwilling as he was to stop for longer than was required for Gehirn to start a fire and cook a few sad souls, the caravan traveled through the night. When the sun rose, Gehirn crawled onto the rear of the litter and hid under heaped blankets. It was intolerably hot, and even so concealed from the sun, her flesh smoked. After the sun fell she arose, raw and sunburned red, and Erbrechen joked about how tasty she smelled, cooking under the blankets.

Each night she crawled forth, pink and raw, to once again sit at the front of the litter.

The caravan pushed toward Neidrig.

Each night the fire came a little easier and she found it more difficult to stem the torrent of self-hatred and disgust fueling the spark.

No one noticed that she refused to partake of the offered foods. Instead she gathered trampled seeds and bits of root each time the caravan stopped. Someone, she suspected, sought to poison her. Since Erbrechen loved—or at least needed—her, the mayor became her prime suspect. She watched the self-important fool with growing distrust.

On the night Neidrig came into view, the mayor approached Gehirn with a bowl of stew.

"You haven"t been eating," he said, holding the bowl forward in offering. "I told Erbrechen and he told me to feed you."

Gehirn glanced up at the Slaver sleeping atop his litter. One of his two pet girls had gone missing yesterday and the remaining sister slept curled under a heavy arm.

She turned to face the mayor. "You"d like that, wouldn"t you?"

The man smiled.

Is he mocking me? I"ll burn—

"You should eat. Erbrechen says so."

"Erbrechen sleeps."

"Still." The mayor held the bowl higher, waving its meaty smell under her nose.

Gehirn looked again to Erbrechen. The Slaver snored with his labored breathing. If he gets any fatter he"ll simply die in his sleep. The thought gave Gehirn some small sliver of pleasure. She returned her attention to the mayor.

"You show your hand too soon. You cannot replace me." Gehirn gestured to Erbrechen. "He needs me. You?" She hissed like oil dancing across a hot skillet. "Merely useful."

"He loves all of us," said the mayor.

The Ha.s.sebrand incinerated the pompous mayor and watched soft ashes dance on the breeze.

If Erbrechen noticed the mayor"s absence when he awoke, he made no mention of it.

Neidrig loomed close and the Slaver was vibrating like aspic in an earthquake. Small eyes peered greedily with the rapt concentration of a hungry baby seeing food almost within reach of its fat, grasping fingers.

Erbrechen scowled at Gehirn. "We should have been approaching this city with an army of ten thousand. You"ve really put me in a difficult and dangerous position."

"The Cotardists—"

"Do not let me down again. I need you to be strong. I need you to be in control."

But strength and control were mutually exclusive. Gehirn"s power came from her very lack of control. Every G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned fool in all the world knows this!

She opened her mouth to argue but instead nodded mutely. Erbrechen was right, Gehirn had let him down. Good intentions meant nothing.

Erbrechen watched the Ha.s.sebrand mumbling quietly to herself. Though the sun had not yet risen, smoke oozed from the neck and sleeves of the woman"s robes. Erbrechen salivated at the smell of cooking human flesh while dreading the moment she finally cracked.

Only Erbrechen"s need held the crumbling woman together. He desperately hoped he would find the child before Gehirn"s fragile mind burned itself in a ma.s.sive and all-consuming conflagration.

She"d lied to him. How could she, after all he"d done for her? He"d shared his stew, let her ride on his litter. He"d offered her love, given her the chance to be part of something truly astounding, and she repaid him with lies!

His chest hurt with the pain of betrayal. His heart felt like it was being clawed apart.

And yet he couldn"t let go.

Erbrechen rubbed at his face and stared at chubby fingers when they came away damp.

She only loves me because she has to.

She"d burn him in an instant; he"d seen it in those cold blue eyes.

She"s dangerous, so very, very dangerous.

Perhaps that was the appeal.

He watched the Ha.s.sebrand through slitted eyes, desperately wanting her love and disgusted with his need. He should send her away but knew he wouldn"t. She hated him in a way none of his other friends were even capable of, and that he could not abide.

She will love me. All must love me!