Swarm and Steel, page 30
With impossible weariness, Tod lifted his head to glance in Jateko’s direction. Finally, huffing annoyance, he turned, dragging the corpse behind him. The reins snapped before he completed his turn and Zerfall stifled the urge to swear and curse the gods. Tod, unaware or uncaring, returned to stand over the motionless Basamortuan.
Crawling to the priest’s side, she grabbed him by his shirt and tried to drag him. It was hopeless; the priest weighed several times more than her desiccated corpse. When she snarled in frustration one of her teeth shattered and she spat the fragments. Gripping the body again, she managed to drag it a hand’s span before one of her fingers snapped with a dusty crack. This time, raging at the sky above, she did curse the gods. She didn’t care that they weren’t listening and, even if they were, wouldn’t want her to succeed.
A dozen strides, an impossible distance for a dead girl to drag a fat priest.
She couldn’t do it, she’d never—
Zerfall remembered Jateko lying in the sand after he killed Abiega, too weak to move. He wanted to eat the warrior’s brain.
I can’t drag this to you, she’d said, meaning the entire corpse.
His brain is really heavy? he asked, either joking or mad from dehydration.
She laughed and swore, remembering her thoughts at the time: Why the hells am I trying to drag the entire damned corpse? Jateko wasn’t going to eat the arms and legs. He wouldn’t need the stomach or most of the guts. The bones were useless weight. She glanced at the horse, spotting the depleted water skin hanging at his side.
“Tod,” she said, “come here.”
It would take time and she’d make many, many trips, but she’d do it.
First, she drained the priest of blood, capturing it in a water skin, and fed that to Jateko. Then she cut free the heart and liver and kidney and fed him that too, stroking his throat to trigger the swallowing reflex. When he finished those, she split the skull and fed Jateko the brain.
She repeated this with each and every corpse until Jateko had eaten all twelve. It took days. Maybe weeks. She didn’t care.
Zerfall wouldn’t let him die.
She needed him.
JATEKO AWOKE TO A cacophonous mob of voices, laughing, crying, arguing, and screaming.
“Quiet, please,” he whispered. “I’m trying to sleep.”
They ignored him, gibbering and ranting. He shifted, trying to get comfortable. Out there, out beyond his eyelids, the world was getting brighter. Not bright like fire, but—
Fire.
Jateko’s eyes snapped open and he stared up into a sky dark with bruised clouds. The air felt heavy, damp against his skin. When he blinked, water trickled from his eyebrows and into his ears where it tickled.
The voices, as if sensing he was awake, grew in volume, scaling upward in pitch and frenzy. One screamed threats of violence and dire warnings of Morgen’s vengeance. Who Morgen was, Jateko had no idea. Another wailed for mommy, sobbing like a terrified little boy.
Fire. He’d been on fire. His flesh had melted, sloughing away like a snake sheds its skin. He glanced at his arms. They were whole. No, they were better than whole. They were round, thick and bulging with muscle. He’d dreamed of arms like this. He remembered the stench of his burning hair and the agony of his skin bubbling and reached a cautious hand up to touch his scalp. He was bald except for the faintest trace of stubble.
The voices ranted, smashing themselves against his thoughts, demanding attention.
“Shut up.”
Silence.
“You’re awake.”
He turned to see Zerfall sprawled in the grass beside him. She looked awful, worse than he remembered. One of the fingers on her remaining hand was broken and jutting at an odd angle. Clumps of hair had been torn free, the flesh on her scalp flaking to exposing the grey skull beneath. Her arms, always thin, showed bone where muscle and flesh had abraded away. Ribs showed through the tattered remnants of her shirt.
“Your foot,” he said stupidly.
Zerfall glanced at the ragged stump at the end of her right leg. “It came off,” she said, shrugging. “It’s gone. Something carried it away one night.”
“I had an idea for fixing it. Need some good leather and …” He trailed off. She needed more than minor repairs. She needed a new body. “There were two Hassebrand,” he said, changing the subject. “I killed one but … What happened? Why am I not dead?”
“I fed you a dozen priests, hearts, livers, kidneys, and brains.” She smiled a ghastly grimace of receding gums and rotting teeth showing through tattered cheeks. “The last few were pretty ripe. We’ve been here a while.”
A dozen men and women, their thoughts and dreams, strengths and skills, now lived within him. He grinned, rolling his shoulders. “I feel good. Strong. I know things.”
Zerfall pushed herself into a sitting position but sat canted at an odd angle; she was falling apart. “Tell me,” she said.
“I know about the Geborene, and their god, Morgen. They made him, and yet they fear him. He seeks to make the world a better place, a sane place.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “He’s deranged.”
“I don’t think there are sane gods,” he answered. “The Geborene believe all the gods, no matter how old, are nothing more than Ascended mortals, powerful Geisteskranken who managed to convince enough people to believe in them before they reached their Pinnacle.”
“They might believe that, but they don’t know. Not for sure.”
“True. But half of my thoughts are of those who believe this. It’s difficult for me to believe otherwise.”
“They’re infecting you.”
“Changing me,” he corrected. “Infected has negative connotations. Were I perfect to begin with, it might be accurate.” He laughed, enjoying the feel of his broad chest. “I’m growing. Getting smarter, more educated. Maybe wiser.” He shrugged with a grin of straight teeth. “What is wisdom?” He held up his hands. His wrists were thick with muscle. “I feel amazing.”
“You look good. I barely recognize the skinny boy within.”
“I’m not him anymore.”
“Don’t abandon who you were,” she said, her voice soft. “I like him.”
Jateko took her hand, careful not to cause further damage. Frowning at the broken finger he bent it back into place. “I know who you are,” he said, glancing up to meet her empty sockets. “Who you were.”
She stared at him, unmoving.
“I don’t know everything about you,” he corrected, “just what the priests knew.” He stood, rising gracefully to his feet, and glanced down at her. She looks so small.
“Okay,” Zerfall said.
“One of the priests I ate knows quite a lot about you and the Täuschung. You’re Zerfall Seele. You are the founder of the Täuschung, a religion preaching that when all humanity is united in the heaven of Swarm we’ll be freed to be gods. The idea is that if everyone believes reality is some kind of paradise then it will change to become just that. If everyone believes we will become gods, we will.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to speak. “But the Geborene have been watching the Täuschung, they have spies among your sane priests and the true religion that hides beneath. The priest says the true Täuschung are sect of psychotics who believe reality is a prison—his words, not mine—and that if humanity suffers enough, for some long forgotten and unknown crime, we’ll be freed to become gods.”
She watched him, silent.
“He says either you or your sister hallucinated a hell called Swarm so perfectly it came to be. He calls it a Minimalist Hell.” Jateko frowned, listening. “He’s argued with his peers about this at length. He wants me to ask you a question.”
Empty sockets looked through him.
“He wonders if you’re a genius and knew that a hell of nothing would be the best torment, or if it was a stroke of luck, the result of a lack of imagination. Apparently,” said Jateko, “most hells are rather richly imagined with all manner of demons and tortures. Yours has none of that. And is all the scarier for it.”
“All people need to make hell is more people.”
Jateko nodded his understanding; a week ago he wouldn’t have been able to follow any of this. Now he saw things differently. Now he understood. “The priest calls it The Long Game. You see, adherents of other religions die, moving on to whatever Afterdeath they believe in. He says that souls spend time in whatever Afterdeath that person believed in, but eventually move on to something else. Most people believe they’re wiped clean, their memories and souls purged and redeemed, and reborn. No one knows. The one thing everyone agrees on is that something comes after the Afterdeath. But those who go to Swarm stay there. Forever. Their souls never move on.”
“I planned well,” said Zerfall. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“Think about it,” said Jateko. “The Täuschung never lose a worshipper, it can only grow. The old priest posits that eventually there will be more souls in Swarm than without. At that point, the scale will tip.”
Zerfall rotting brow crinkled, showing bone beneath.
“When the majority of people believe in Swarm, it will become reality. The only reality.” He chuckled, nodding in admiration. “It’s an amazing plan, really. The Long Game indeed. The Täuschung may well define our future.”
“Unless I stop them.”
“Unless we stop them,” he corrected. “I understand now. I didn’t before. I was only following you. This is awful and evil. It can’t be allowed. We have to end it. Free the souls trapped there.”
She nodded but looked away.
“If belief really can shape reality on that scale,” he added, “we have to kill the Täuschung god. To do that we have to kill the religion. Completely. With no followers the god should die, starve.” Why isn’t she happy? I can really help her now. I won’t be a burden.
“What if I changed my mind?” she asked. “What if I decided I wanted to return to Geld and reclaim my religion, take it back from my … sister?”
Why the pause? Jateko blinked at her, unable to answer.
You know what you’d do, said Abiega. You’d follow her and help her. You’d do anything for her, whatever she needs.
But that’s not what she wants to hear, said Gogoko. She wants him to say he will stop her.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jateko, as much to the voices within as to Zerfall. “I know you don’t want that. I know you want to end the Täuschung.”
Empty sockets examined him. “We need to keep moving,” she said when he began fidgeting.
Glancing about, he spotted Tod loitering nearby looking depressed and bored. Lifting Zerfall, he carried her to the horse. What the hell was he going to do about her missing foot? He couldn’t even repair the knee as the tents of the Geborene priests had all burned. She weighed nothing, a dry husk of humanity. Tears stung his eyes.
Lifting her onto Tod’s back he swung up behind her and felt the beast’s spine sag under his weight. “I have an idea.”
“Yes?”
He was pleased to see an eyebrow lift in curiosity, a small hint of life. “That bank note you showed me, it names you as the account holder.” He understood so much more about hiria ero society now.
She perked up, sitting straighter. “So?”
Jateko prodded Tod forward with a nudge of his knee, pointing the horse west toward Geld. Tod’s hips ground and clicked with every step, his stride jolting and awkward.
Just make it to Geld, prayed Jateko. If Tod failed, he’d carry Zerfall. He didn’t care how far it was or what stood in their way.
“We’re going to empty their accounts,” he said. “Somewhere, someone can bring you back to life. Someone must have such a delusion. We’ll find them. Since the Täuschung murdered you,” he shrugged, “they can fund our search.”
She seemed to be holding her breath, though he knew that made no sense. “Likely a pointless quest,” she said, sounding uncertain, scared.
“I don’t care. This Geborene priest keeps babbling about a Responsive Reality. Well it can damned well bend to my will. I want you to live, and I don’t care how many Geisteskranken I have to devour to make it happen.”
“The Hassebrand,” she said. “Can you start fires?”
Jateko polled the souls within. “She isn’t here. The other Hassebrand must have carried her away.”
“So we still don’t know if eating them gives you their power.”
“I believe it will,” he said with iron finality.
“I awoke in Geld with an empty scabbard and have been thinking about Blutblüte, my missing sword, ever since.” She laughed, a humourless sob of pain. “And now, even if I get it back, I can’t use it.” Her voice grew tight and she spoke through clenched teeth.
Jateko wanted to tell her she could still stand, that he’d repair her foot somehow, that even with only one hand she could be deadly, but it would have been a lie. Her body was fragile and falling apart fast.
“I dreamed of ending the Täuschung,” she said. “I dreamed of undoing the evil I created.”
“We will.”
“I’m useless. I am a broken corpse. I can barely stand, much less fight.”
“I can,” said Jateko. I’ll kill all who get in your way.
He held her from behind. She felt tiny and fragile, hollow like a bird.
“Geld is less than a day away,” he whispered into her rotting ear. This city-state was, according to the priests now residing within him, the largest and wealthiest of all city-states. It was a centre of commerce, home to a dozen religions from the Wahnvor Stellung to the Geborene to the peaceful public face of the Täuschung—and the sick truth it hid—and every insane sect in between. They’d find their answers there. He’d bring Zerfall back to life. He’d smash her religion, kill the priests, and do whatever else she wanted done.
Nothing and no one—not Geisteskranken nor gods—could stop him.
THE SETTING SUN DISAPPEARED behind a wall of slate iron clouds reaching toward them like the grasping tendrils of some deep-sea monster. Fat bellied drops of rain fell and Zerfall seemed to cave in upon herself, shrinking against him. The remnants of her once thick black hair hung about fallen shoulders in depressed and sodden strands. She stunk of damp decay.
Tod shuffled ever onward, ignoring the rain. His coat, chafed to the bone and flaking away in frayed sheets, hung in tangled snakes, brushing his knees. The grind pop click of his rear hips grew in volume and Jateko felt like he was being kicked in the butt by an angry mule.
With a crack of thunder and a blinding slash of lightning the sky split like a gutted fish, dumping its icy load in a torrential downpour. Jateko stared into the sky, mouth open. He’d never seen so much water in all his life. Did this happen all the time?
Jateko stared over her shoulder, frowning at the strange, oddly geometric shape of the horizon. He blinked water from his eyes and hunched his shoulders against the frigid water trickling down his spine. “Geldangelegenheiten. I see the city.”
If she heard, she showed no sign.
“Zerfall,” he said, nudging her shoulder, “I see the city.”
“I see them,” she said. “I see her. She’s me, but not me.” The stench of rot rode on her breath. “They know I’m not dead.” She wheezed something that might have been a laugh. “Not properly dead. Aas is coming to kill me. Again.”
Jateko, holding Zerfall, urged the dead horse forward with a nudge of his knees.
Click pop grrrrrrind thump! It felt like riding a wagon mounted on square wheels.
“He won’t hurt you again,” he promised.
EIGHTEEN
Truth to the fools.
Lies to the wise.
Useful to the Gefahrgeist.
—“Religion”, by Versklaver Denker, Gefahrgeist Philosopher
WHEN THE DOOR TO Hölle’s apartments swung open, Aas found himself facing two women. He laughed and the shield of disgusting thoughts he built around himself fell away, forgotten. {I’m such an idiot. Of course she’s not dead.}
Aas bowed low. “Hölle, we must talk.” He scowled at Pharisäer. “Without her.” {She plots against you.}
“I know,” said Hölle. “I know what she is. I always have. I merely allowed her to think she had the upper hand.” She looked exhausted, her skin grey and faded, cheeks gaunt. She hadn’t bathed or cared for herself in weeks.
“Of course,” said Aas. {Who does she think she’s fooling?}
“Only herself,” said Pharisäer, sounding unconcerned. “But you—” She grinned bright teeth. “You will die for what you did to me.”
Aas saw Hölle’s jaw clench in anger. {They’re going to kill me and I can’t shut up. I have to get out of here before I think something truly damning.} He glanced at Hölle’s breasts, desperate to blanket his thoughts with puerile garbage. {Gods, they’re gorgeous. How soft they must be. I want to shove my face—}
“No,” said Hölle. “I need him.”
Pharisäer laughed, a scornful and angry bark. “He can’t kill me. What use is he to you?”
“You,” said Hölle, “are not the only person I want dead.”
Pharisäer’s angry grin transformed, became sweet and innocent. “Come now, that hurts. Can’t we all get along? You know I only want what’s best for the Täuschung.”
“She lies,” said Aas. {She cares nothing for your life’s work.}
“I know,” said Hölle. “Pharisäer, leave us.”
“It’s not safe. You can’t trust him.”
{She can’t trust me?} “I would never hurt you,” he said to Hölle. {Unless you wanted me to. Unless—}
“I think he might be the only person I can trust,” said Hölle. “Pharisäer, leave now.”
“Or what?” Pharisäer demanded, hands on hips.
“Did it hurt when he killed you?” Hölle asked sweetly. “Yes, I see in your eyes it did. Leave, or I’ll have him hurt you again.”
{Please, please, please!}
“Fine,” snapped Pharisäer.
“Aas,” said Hölle. “You have displeased me. I will give you one chance to make this right.” She let the threat hang.
Crawling to the priest’s side, she grabbed him by his shirt and tried to drag him. It was hopeless; the priest weighed several times more than her desiccated corpse. When she snarled in frustration one of her teeth shattered and she spat the fragments. Gripping the body again, she managed to drag it a hand’s span before one of her fingers snapped with a dusty crack. This time, raging at the sky above, she did curse the gods. She didn’t care that they weren’t listening and, even if they were, wouldn’t want her to succeed.
A dozen strides, an impossible distance for a dead girl to drag a fat priest.
She couldn’t do it, she’d never—
Zerfall remembered Jateko lying in the sand after he killed Abiega, too weak to move. He wanted to eat the warrior’s brain.
I can’t drag this to you, she’d said, meaning the entire corpse.
His brain is really heavy? he asked, either joking or mad from dehydration.
She laughed and swore, remembering her thoughts at the time: Why the hells am I trying to drag the entire damned corpse? Jateko wasn’t going to eat the arms and legs. He wouldn’t need the stomach or most of the guts. The bones were useless weight. She glanced at the horse, spotting the depleted water skin hanging at his side.
“Tod,” she said, “come here.”
It would take time and she’d make many, many trips, but she’d do it.
First, she drained the priest of blood, capturing it in a water skin, and fed that to Jateko. Then she cut free the heart and liver and kidney and fed him that too, stroking his throat to trigger the swallowing reflex. When he finished those, she split the skull and fed Jateko the brain.
She repeated this with each and every corpse until Jateko had eaten all twelve. It took days. Maybe weeks. She didn’t care.
Zerfall wouldn’t let him die.
She needed him.
JATEKO AWOKE TO A cacophonous mob of voices, laughing, crying, arguing, and screaming.
“Quiet, please,” he whispered. “I’m trying to sleep.”
They ignored him, gibbering and ranting. He shifted, trying to get comfortable. Out there, out beyond his eyelids, the world was getting brighter. Not bright like fire, but—
Fire.
Jateko’s eyes snapped open and he stared up into a sky dark with bruised clouds. The air felt heavy, damp against his skin. When he blinked, water trickled from his eyebrows and into his ears where it tickled.
The voices, as if sensing he was awake, grew in volume, scaling upward in pitch and frenzy. One screamed threats of violence and dire warnings of Morgen’s vengeance. Who Morgen was, Jateko had no idea. Another wailed for mommy, sobbing like a terrified little boy.
Fire. He’d been on fire. His flesh had melted, sloughing away like a snake sheds its skin. He glanced at his arms. They were whole. No, they were better than whole. They were round, thick and bulging with muscle. He’d dreamed of arms like this. He remembered the stench of his burning hair and the agony of his skin bubbling and reached a cautious hand up to touch his scalp. He was bald except for the faintest trace of stubble.
The voices ranted, smashing themselves against his thoughts, demanding attention.
“Shut up.”
Silence.
“You’re awake.”
He turned to see Zerfall sprawled in the grass beside him. She looked awful, worse than he remembered. One of the fingers on her remaining hand was broken and jutting at an odd angle. Clumps of hair had been torn free, the flesh on her scalp flaking to exposing the grey skull beneath. Her arms, always thin, showed bone where muscle and flesh had abraded away. Ribs showed through the tattered remnants of her shirt.
“Your foot,” he said stupidly.
Zerfall glanced at the ragged stump at the end of her right leg. “It came off,” she said, shrugging. “It’s gone. Something carried it away one night.”
“I had an idea for fixing it. Need some good leather and …” He trailed off. She needed more than minor repairs. She needed a new body. “There were two Hassebrand,” he said, changing the subject. “I killed one but … What happened? Why am I not dead?”
“I fed you a dozen priests, hearts, livers, kidneys, and brains.” She smiled a ghastly grimace of receding gums and rotting teeth showing through tattered cheeks. “The last few were pretty ripe. We’ve been here a while.”
A dozen men and women, their thoughts and dreams, strengths and skills, now lived within him. He grinned, rolling his shoulders. “I feel good. Strong. I know things.”
Zerfall pushed herself into a sitting position but sat canted at an odd angle; she was falling apart. “Tell me,” she said.
“I know about the Geborene, and their god, Morgen. They made him, and yet they fear him. He seeks to make the world a better place, a sane place.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “He’s deranged.”
“I don’t think there are sane gods,” he answered. “The Geborene believe all the gods, no matter how old, are nothing more than Ascended mortals, powerful Geisteskranken who managed to convince enough people to believe in them before they reached their Pinnacle.”
“They might believe that, but they don’t know. Not for sure.”
“True. But half of my thoughts are of those who believe this. It’s difficult for me to believe otherwise.”
“They’re infecting you.”
“Changing me,” he corrected. “Infected has negative connotations. Were I perfect to begin with, it might be accurate.” He laughed, enjoying the feel of his broad chest. “I’m growing. Getting smarter, more educated. Maybe wiser.” He shrugged with a grin of straight teeth. “What is wisdom?” He held up his hands. His wrists were thick with muscle. “I feel amazing.”
“You look good. I barely recognize the skinny boy within.”
“I’m not him anymore.”
“Don’t abandon who you were,” she said, her voice soft. “I like him.”
Jateko took her hand, careful not to cause further damage. Frowning at the broken finger he bent it back into place. “I know who you are,” he said, glancing up to meet her empty sockets. “Who you were.”
She stared at him, unmoving.
“I don’t know everything about you,” he corrected, “just what the priests knew.” He stood, rising gracefully to his feet, and glanced down at her. She looks so small.
“Okay,” Zerfall said.
“One of the priests I ate knows quite a lot about you and the Täuschung. You’re Zerfall Seele. You are the founder of the Täuschung, a religion preaching that when all humanity is united in the heaven of Swarm we’ll be freed to be gods. The idea is that if everyone believes reality is some kind of paradise then it will change to become just that. If everyone believes we will become gods, we will.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to speak. “But the Geborene have been watching the Täuschung, they have spies among your sane priests and the true religion that hides beneath. The priest says the true Täuschung are sect of psychotics who believe reality is a prison—his words, not mine—and that if humanity suffers enough, for some long forgotten and unknown crime, we’ll be freed to become gods.”
She watched him, silent.
“He says either you or your sister hallucinated a hell called Swarm so perfectly it came to be. He calls it a Minimalist Hell.” Jateko frowned, listening. “He’s argued with his peers about this at length. He wants me to ask you a question.”
Empty sockets looked through him.
“He wonders if you’re a genius and knew that a hell of nothing would be the best torment, or if it was a stroke of luck, the result of a lack of imagination. Apparently,” said Jateko, “most hells are rather richly imagined with all manner of demons and tortures. Yours has none of that. And is all the scarier for it.”
“All people need to make hell is more people.”
Jateko nodded his understanding; a week ago he wouldn’t have been able to follow any of this. Now he saw things differently. Now he understood. “The priest calls it The Long Game. You see, adherents of other religions die, moving on to whatever Afterdeath they believe in. He says that souls spend time in whatever Afterdeath that person believed in, but eventually move on to something else. Most people believe they’re wiped clean, their memories and souls purged and redeemed, and reborn. No one knows. The one thing everyone agrees on is that something comes after the Afterdeath. But those who go to Swarm stay there. Forever. Their souls never move on.”
“I planned well,” said Zerfall. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“Think about it,” said Jateko. “The Täuschung never lose a worshipper, it can only grow. The old priest posits that eventually there will be more souls in Swarm than without. At that point, the scale will tip.”
Zerfall rotting brow crinkled, showing bone beneath.
“When the majority of people believe in Swarm, it will become reality. The only reality.” He chuckled, nodding in admiration. “It’s an amazing plan, really. The Long Game indeed. The Täuschung may well define our future.”
“Unless I stop them.”
“Unless we stop them,” he corrected. “I understand now. I didn’t before. I was only following you. This is awful and evil. It can’t be allowed. We have to end it. Free the souls trapped there.”
She nodded but looked away.
“If belief really can shape reality on that scale,” he added, “we have to kill the Täuschung god. To do that we have to kill the religion. Completely. With no followers the god should die, starve.” Why isn’t she happy? I can really help her now. I won’t be a burden.
“What if I changed my mind?” she asked. “What if I decided I wanted to return to Geld and reclaim my religion, take it back from my … sister?”
Why the pause? Jateko blinked at her, unable to answer.
You know what you’d do, said Abiega. You’d follow her and help her. You’d do anything for her, whatever she needs.
But that’s not what she wants to hear, said Gogoko. She wants him to say he will stop her.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jateko, as much to the voices within as to Zerfall. “I know you don’t want that. I know you want to end the Täuschung.”
Empty sockets examined him. “We need to keep moving,” she said when he began fidgeting.
Glancing about, he spotted Tod loitering nearby looking depressed and bored. Lifting Zerfall, he carried her to the horse. What the hell was he going to do about her missing foot? He couldn’t even repair the knee as the tents of the Geborene priests had all burned. She weighed nothing, a dry husk of humanity. Tears stung his eyes.
Lifting her onto Tod’s back he swung up behind her and felt the beast’s spine sag under his weight. “I have an idea.”
“Yes?”
He was pleased to see an eyebrow lift in curiosity, a small hint of life. “That bank note you showed me, it names you as the account holder.” He understood so much more about hiria ero society now.
She perked up, sitting straighter. “So?”
Jateko prodded Tod forward with a nudge of his knee, pointing the horse west toward Geld. Tod’s hips ground and clicked with every step, his stride jolting and awkward.
Just make it to Geld, prayed Jateko. If Tod failed, he’d carry Zerfall. He didn’t care how far it was or what stood in their way.
“We’re going to empty their accounts,” he said. “Somewhere, someone can bring you back to life. Someone must have such a delusion. We’ll find them. Since the Täuschung murdered you,” he shrugged, “they can fund our search.”
She seemed to be holding her breath, though he knew that made no sense. “Likely a pointless quest,” she said, sounding uncertain, scared.
“I don’t care. This Geborene priest keeps babbling about a Responsive Reality. Well it can damned well bend to my will. I want you to live, and I don’t care how many Geisteskranken I have to devour to make it happen.”
“The Hassebrand,” she said. “Can you start fires?”
Jateko polled the souls within. “She isn’t here. The other Hassebrand must have carried her away.”
“So we still don’t know if eating them gives you their power.”
“I believe it will,” he said with iron finality.
“I awoke in Geld with an empty scabbard and have been thinking about Blutblüte, my missing sword, ever since.” She laughed, a humourless sob of pain. “And now, even if I get it back, I can’t use it.” Her voice grew tight and she spoke through clenched teeth.
Jateko wanted to tell her she could still stand, that he’d repair her foot somehow, that even with only one hand she could be deadly, but it would have been a lie. Her body was fragile and falling apart fast.
“I dreamed of ending the Täuschung,” she said. “I dreamed of undoing the evil I created.”
“We will.”
“I’m useless. I am a broken corpse. I can barely stand, much less fight.”
“I can,” said Jateko. I’ll kill all who get in your way.
He held her from behind. She felt tiny and fragile, hollow like a bird.
“Geld is less than a day away,” he whispered into her rotting ear. This city-state was, according to the priests now residing within him, the largest and wealthiest of all city-states. It was a centre of commerce, home to a dozen religions from the Wahnvor Stellung to the Geborene to the peaceful public face of the Täuschung—and the sick truth it hid—and every insane sect in between. They’d find their answers there. He’d bring Zerfall back to life. He’d smash her religion, kill the priests, and do whatever else she wanted done.
Nothing and no one—not Geisteskranken nor gods—could stop him.
THE SETTING SUN DISAPPEARED behind a wall of slate iron clouds reaching toward them like the grasping tendrils of some deep-sea monster. Fat bellied drops of rain fell and Zerfall seemed to cave in upon herself, shrinking against him. The remnants of her once thick black hair hung about fallen shoulders in depressed and sodden strands. She stunk of damp decay.
Tod shuffled ever onward, ignoring the rain. His coat, chafed to the bone and flaking away in frayed sheets, hung in tangled snakes, brushing his knees. The grind pop click of his rear hips grew in volume and Jateko felt like he was being kicked in the butt by an angry mule.
With a crack of thunder and a blinding slash of lightning the sky split like a gutted fish, dumping its icy load in a torrential downpour. Jateko stared into the sky, mouth open. He’d never seen so much water in all his life. Did this happen all the time?
Jateko stared over her shoulder, frowning at the strange, oddly geometric shape of the horizon. He blinked water from his eyes and hunched his shoulders against the frigid water trickling down his spine. “Geldangelegenheiten. I see the city.”
If she heard, she showed no sign.
“Zerfall,” he said, nudging her shoulder, “I see the city.”
“I see them,” she said. “I see her. She’s me, but not me.” The stench of rot rode on her breath. “They know I’m not dead.” She wheezed something that might have been a laugh. “Not properly dead. Aas is coming to kill me. Again.”
Jateko, holding Zerfall, urged the dead horse forward with a nudge of his knees.
Click pop grrrrrrind thump! It felt like riding a wagon mounted on square wheels.
“He won’t hurt you again,” he promised.
EIGHTEEN
Truth to the fools.
Lies to the wise.
Useful to the Gefahrgeist.
—“Religion”, by Versklaver Denker, Gefahrgeist Philosopher
WHEN THE DOOR TO Hölle’s apartments swung open, Aas found himself facing two women. He laughed and the shield of disgusting thoughts he built around himself fell away, forgotten. {I’m such an idiot. Of course she’s not dead.}
Aas bowed low. “Hölle, we must talk.” He scowled at Pharisäer. “Without her.” {She plots against you.}
“I know,” said Hölle. “I know what she is. I always have. I merely allowed her to think she had the upper hand.” She looked exhausted, her skin grey and faded, cheeks gaunt. She hadn’t bathed or cared for herself in weeks.
“Of course,” said Aas. {Who does she think she’s fooling?}
“Only herself,” said Pharisäer, sounding unconcerned. “But you—” She grinned bright teeth. “You will die for what you did to me.”
Aas saw Hölle’s jaw clench in anger. {They’re going to kill me and I can’t shut up. I have to get out of here before I think something truly damning.} He glanced at Hölle’s breasts, desperate to blanket his thoughts with puerile garbage. {Gods, they’re gorgeous. How soft they must be. I want to shove my face—}
“No,” said Hölle. “I need him.”
Pharisäer laughed, a scornful and angry bark. “He can’t kill me. What use is he to you?”
“You,” said Hölle, “are not the only person I want dead.”
Pharisäer’s angry grin transformed, became sweet and innocent. “Come now, that hurts. Can’t we all get along? You know I only want what’s best for the Täuschung.”
“She lies,” said Aas. {She cares nothing for your life’s work.}
“I know,” said Hölle. “Pharisäer, leave us.”
“It’s not safe. You can’t trust him.”
{She can’t trust me?} “I would never hurt you,” he said to Hölle. {Unless you wanted me to. Unless—}
“I think he might be the only person I can trust,” said Hölle. “Pharisäer, leave now.”
“Or what?” Pharisäer demanded, hands on hips.
“Did it hurt when he killed you?” Hölle asked sweetly. “Yes, I see in your eyes it did. Leave, or I’ll have him hurt you again.”
{Please, please, please!}
“Fine,” snapped Pharisäer.
“Aas,” said Hölle. “You have displeased me. I will give you one chance to make this right.” She let the threat hang.
