Thirst clogged Bedeckt’s throat, left him gagging road dust with every breath. The world swung like a thurible in the hands of a mad priest; a thurible crammed tight with rotting meat. Ghosts crowded the streets of whatever city he was in. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked familiar. Neidrig? No. Some of the buildings looked to be made of stone and weren’t in the process of slumping to the earth. He didn’t remember anything like that in Neidrig.
Stehlen, a rotting corpse, reeking of bile and spilled stomach acid, rode at his side, sneering hate at anything and everything. Her flesh had collapsed in, leaving her already bony frame little more than parchment flesh stretched tight over jutting joints. He saw her rotting teeth, stained yellow and brown, through thin membranes of tattered cheeks.
Wichtig was worse. He’d lost fingers and an ear. His flawless face, always ruggedly handsome, always ready with a cocky grin, was scarred deep with fresh wounds. He looked like he’d been sewn up by the world’s worst seamstress. He’d been savaged, torn and riven.
Missing two fingers from his left hand. Missing his left ear. A face of scarred ruin.
Gods, he looks like me.
Like Bedeckt perhaps forty years ago.
“You shite-sucking goat sticker,” said Stehlen. “You left us behind. You abandoned us.”
“You aren’t here,” said Bedeckt. “I’m not seeing this. Just hallucinations.”
“I’m going to kill you,” said Stehlen.
“I’m already dying.”
“I am the Greatest Swordsman in the World,” said Wichtig. For the first time ever, Bedeckt believed him. And yet the Swordsman sounded empty.
Bedeckt lay in the mud. In a panic, he struggled to look about, trying to find Kot. Where was the monster? The cudgel…Bedeckt waited for his brain to explode, showering the trees with worms of thought. Stehlen sat on one side, Wichtig the other.
The Kleptic spat into the fire, her saliva hissing and popping and stinking like rotting teeth. She no longer looked dead.
Fire?
“She’s hideous,” said Zukunft, sitting alone on the far side of the fire, huddled in a blanket. She stared wide-eyed at Bedeckt and his friends. Her mirror lay propped against her leg, facing Bedeckt. Within its surface he saw only fire.
“I am the Greatest Swordsman in the World,” said Wichtig, poking at the fire with a stick.
Bedeckt stared at Zukunft, the heat of the fire making her hazy and indistinct. She looks less real than Wichtig and Stehlen. “Where?” he asked.
“We found a town a few hours ago. You started screaming at everyone. We had to get out fast.”
“She’s lying,” said Stehlen. “She could have found you a healer in the city, at least someone to cut the rot away and cauterize the wound.” Stehlen spat at Zukunft and the girl flinched. “She wants you to die,” said the Kleptic.
“That’s not true,” said Zukunft, voice small as she huddled deeper into her blanket.
Unbrauchbar? Bedeckt had a dim memory of people and buildings. Something wasn’t right. “You can see them?” he asked, nodding at Stehlen and Wichtig.
Zukunft nodded.
“They’re really here?”
Zukunft shook her head. “No.”
“But—”
“You’re hallucinating,” she said. “Your delusions are manifesting.”
“That’s not possible,” whispered Bedeckt. “I’m sane.”
“That’s not possible,” mocked Stehlen in a whiny voice. “I’m sane.”
Bedeckt’s father rose from the fire, a giant of a man with a leather belt wrapped around one mighty fist, the heavy buckle hanging in dull promise. He lashed at Bedeckt over and over, opening fresh wounds, splitting skin and exposing the bone beneath. Bedeckt cowered, mewling like a little boy, hiding from his father’s wrath. His mother stood in the background, screaming and helpless. Turning his attention on Bedeckt’s mother, his father lashed out with the belt, opening her face. She collapsed and he stood over her, the belt rising and falling, splashing the room with blood.
Bedeckt, Stehlen, Wichtig, and Zukunft watched as a second Bedeckt, young and strong, marred only by those scars his father gave him, rose from the fire to strike down the giant. They watched as he held his mother, promised the beast would never hurt her again. They watched him drag his father into the yard behind their hut and bury him there among the vegetables. When his mother died from her wounds, they watched him walk away, never to return.
“Always running away,” said Stehlen. “Right from the beginning.”
Bedeckt stared into the fire. “You’re not real.”