Soon, Failure would conscript three of Morgen’s most powerful Geisteskranken, expropriate their will with his Gefahrgeist power. He’d own them. Erdbehüter and Ungeist were Wahnists, though manifesting very different delusions. Erdbehüter hated humanity, saw people as cockroaches infesting a perfect world. She thought she spoke for the earth, believed she could bring stone to life so it might crush its infestation. Ungeist was the self-proclaimed Geborene Exorcist and believed that within each person lay a core of evil, a demonic spirit. His delusions freed that demon, called them forth that they might claw their way from their fleshy prisons. It was a bloody process. Drache, a Therianthrope, was pure madness, cold and reptilian.
Konig paced the room, right hand on his chin, the other cupping the elbow of his right arm. The fool pretends to think and plan. Failure knew it was an act. His Reflection, escaped from its mirror, was helpless. He’d laugh were it not living his life while he remained stuck in his mirror like the shallowest Reflection. It was torture, being so close to life and yet unable to touch it.
I will be free.
Failure pressed his hands against the glass of the mirror, staring out at the massive world beyond his prison. His Reflection and his wayward godling would be brought to heel. Selbsthass and the Geborene Damonen would once again be his.
The ghost of a smile touched his lips and died a shrivelling death.
With Gehirn sent away to Geldangelegenheiten to consecrate Morgen’s new church, the three most powerful Geisteskranken in all Selbsthass would soon belong to Failure. He’d use them to kill this Bedeckt character. Morgen and Nacht might harbour doubts as to whether killing Bedeckt would gain someone control over the godling, but Failure had none. And his beliefs defined reality. Being imprisoned in a mirror did nothing for his sanity. His delusions manifest.
I will be free. I will be real.
Konig eyed him for a moment as if he knew his thoughts, and then hurried from the room. The man was pitiful, he had nothing of what made Failure great. If this new Konig was a Gefahrgeist, his powers were beneath notice.
Failure considered Bedeckt. What could some broken old man do to a god? Nacht’s crap about Bedeckt having a way of stopping Morgen must be a distraction. And Morgen, the fool, fell for it.
Failure might be trapped in a mirror, but he could still turn his Gefahrgeist power against those beyond his prison. He’d enslave Erdbehüter, Ungeist, and Drache, and have them kill Bedeckt. When they returned, he’d command Morgen through them. Perhaps he could even order the god to free him from this mirror. Once free, he’d have no need of intermediaries.
He contemplated his god. Morgen might be powerful, but he was still a na?ve child.
I made him. He is mine.
***
From a tiny shard of broken mirror wedged tight in the corner where it was unlikely to be found or accidentally tidied, Nacht watched Konig and Failure argue. He exaggerated when he told Morgen some of the Geborene worshipped him. A few did, seeing him as an aspect of their god, but they were neither a large nor powerful group. They were, however, useful when it came to planting such spying devices.
As a Reflection, he could only go where there were reflective surfaces to peer from, and they assumed that if they didn’t see him in the brass mirror, he wasn’t there. He’d tried stepping from a mirror, but doing so was like diving into an ocean. Unable to breathe beyond his reflected world, he drowned in reality. Someday that would change. Someday he would be the real Geborene god and not just an Ascended Reflection.
But first Morgen must fall.
And for that to happen, Nacht needed to get him out of Selbsthass, the centre of his power.
It would be no great feat to trick the godling into leading his army to Gottlos in pursuit of the old man. It was what he wanted to do anyway. Why else spend so much time playing with those stupid toy soldiers? Morgen would march his army south. Fifteen thousand soldiers and thousands of horses, all eating and shitting and living, would lay waste to his beautiful and flawless rolling hills.
I’ll show him the horrors of war. I’ll show him violence and death and filth. The Geborene god would be unable to see any of this as a fault in his obsessions and would embrace them all the more fiercely, desperate to fix the perceived flaws of nature. And therein lay Nacht’s escape, his victory. Obsession was madness, and embracing one’s madness led to the Pinnacle. Morgen thought himself a true god, above and beyond the laws governing reality. He wasn’t. He was a tortured and broken little boy, obsessed with cleanliness, order, and perfection.
Nacht ignored the dark voice reminding him he too was a broken little boy.
I’ll make him more powerful than he’s ever dreamed, and the more desperately he reaches for perfection, the farther he’ll fall. Nacht grinned at the arguing Konigs. When Morgen had seen enough carnage and devastation he would turn to his Reflection. Unable to face the harsh truths of war, he’ll give me his army. He’ll ask me to do his dirty work.
Convincing Morgen that Bedeckt must die was easier than Nacht expected, and the hint that he couldn’t trust his own priests guaranteed his choice of assassins. Nacht would avoid Stehlen, she was far too unpredictable, but Wichtig would be easy to bend to his purposes.
Bedeckt. What the hells was the old man up to?
The Mirrorist Bedeckt travelled with somehow blocked Nacht. He saw little beyond a ruined farmhouse a few days in the future. To hide the future from him spoke volumes for the strength of her delusions. Blind as he was to the details, Nacht felt sure this path led to Morgen’s fall.