To hells with gods. Even if they did as he asked, they’d try and use him. After all, who couldn’t find use for the World’s Greatest Swordsman?
Wichtig, enjoying the way Zukunft’s blood soaked shirt and skirt clung seductively to her many curves, offered a blood spattered hand. She took it without hesitation.
“I am Wichtig Lügner, the Greatest Swordsman in the World.”
She stared at him, searching. “I believe you.” She laughed, eyes dancing.
“Actually, said Wichtig, “I lied.”
“You’re not the Greatest Swordsman in the World?”
“No. I’m the Greatest Swordsman in the city-states.”
“That is the world,” she said, confused. “The Basamortuan’s don’t have Swordsmen, and there is nothing else.”
“I think there is. I think there is something beyond the mountains.”
“But everyone knows this is all the world. Belief defines reality.”
“What if there are people on the other side of the mountains who know differently?”
Zukunft nodded, looking contemplative. “Imagine what they might believe. Imagine what their reality might be like. What if they think the sky is green or all believe people are basically good?”
If he suspected she was mad before, now he was sure. He decided to let it pass. There’d be plenty chances to make fun of her naivety later. “Would you like to come with me?” The words were out before he realized what he was saying.
Why are you asking her this? You know you walk out of those mountains alone. If she comes, she dies. Or decides to stay with whatever she finds over there.
“Are you like Bedeckt?” she asked. “Can I trust you?”
Wichtig gave her his best cocky grin and knew it was a good one. Maybe his best ever. “That, my dear, would be a terrible mistake.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
If you agree to live by the laws of a city-state, you are a slave to whoever makes and enforces those laws.
If you live by religious commandments, you are a slave to the god and priests of that religion.
If you follow the precepts of a philosophy, you are a slave to that philosophy.
If you live by or allow your life or thoughts to be defined by any precept, rule, law, axiom, dogma, or commandment, you are a slave.
People spew on about how evil slavery is all the while happily enslaving themselves in a half-dozen different directions. Slavery is man’s natural state. And where there are slaves, there must be masters.
—Sklavenh?ndler, Gefargeist
Morgen watched the scout ride hard, horse pounding across barren hills of rock and mud, back to the Geborene camp. She kept flashing nervous looks over her shoulder, but he saw nothing giving chase. Dragging her mount to a sliding halt, she dismounted before the beast came to a complete stop and knelt before her god. She pressed her forehead to the dirt before his pristine white shoes. Glancing down, Morgen’s eyes were once again dragged to the stain Nacht left on his chest. Why do my people never mention it? Were they afraid? Did they fear what it meant, or did they fear his reaction? Maybe they think it’s intentional. What if his priests thought it was some subtle message, perhaps that perfection was unattainable, even for Morgen?
And then there was his hands. Where previously they were caked in flecks of dried blood, now that red ran fresh, dripping from his fingertips. Everyone pretended not to notice.
“Rise,” he told the scout. “Report.”
She rocked back and rose, eyes averted, still focussed on his shoes. “I found the Gottlos army. They’re dead. All of them.”
Dead? His first thought was Stehlen. “How many?” Morgen asked.
“Between five and seven thousand.”
Surely even Stehlen couldn’t kill that many. But seven thousand dead didn’t send a scout scampering back like that. “There’s more,” he said.
She nodded. “Geisteskranken. Delusions did war. I saw demonic wraiths battling an army of corpses—not the Gottlos dead, different dead. And stones…I…I’ve seen this before.”
Demonic wraiths? The dead? “What about stones?”
“They were moving and screaming and crushing people.”
Erdbehüter. Her control slipped once as she completed the towering wall surrounding Selbsthass. Several huge boulders ran amok, wailing torment and causing terrible devastation. Dozens of priests and labourers died before she once again brought the stones under control. You burned through her sanity too quickly. You broke her. Responsibility weighed on his shoulders, threatened to bend him. I had to. He needed that wall to secure Selbsthass, to keep out the filthy and undesirable. Being a god meant making hard choices. The world was flawed and insane, and if he must make some sacrifices to achieve perfection, then so be it.
Squaring his shoulders, Morgen frowned down at the scout. What the hells was Erdbehüter doing here? He told Konig to send her out of Selbsthass on a make-work project. He was terrified of the damage and mess she’d cause when she finally reached the Pinnacle. Could this be someone else, another Geisteskranken with a similar delusion? It seemed damned unlikely.