Erdbehüter, a lithe girl with the long pitch-black hair and equally dark eyes of the GrasMeer tribes, twitched, gaze darting to the walls. “Worked stone is dead,” she said. “We killed it. Murder. The earth wants its revenge.” Where Morgen found this crazy girl Failure had no idea. She hadn’t been with the Geborene more than a year before the godling put her delusions to work building the wall surrounding the city. He must have subsumed her will to convince her to do something so clearly against her beliefs. I didn’t think he had it in him. The work broke her mind, shattered an already fragile sanity.
Ungeist and Drache stood behind Erdbehüter. Failure had told Konig to bring them before the mirror one at a time. Ungeist, short and wiry with a receding hairline and limp brown hair brushed forward in a pathetic attempt to hide his growing forehead, stood like he was trying to be taller. Failure would have towered over the man when he was real. Shorter people were so much easier to intimidate. Drache stood a pace behind Ungeist, a matronly looking woman, soft and greying at the edges. The only thing surprising about her was how incredibly normal she looked. She could have been a librarian or someone’s mother. Except of course she didn’t have a nurturing bone in her body. She probably ate her young.
Failure returned his attention to Erdbehüter. “And the earth shall have it,” he said, beckoning the Wahnist closer. She was one of those Geisteskranken who thought herself sane. She truly believed she did the earth’s bidding.
She leaned in close, petite nose wrinkled as if confused by what she saw. “The mirror reflects a different room.” She glanced over her shoulder before returning her attention to Failure. “It shows the Great Hall.”
Failure’s mirror forever reflected the room in which he’d been when imprisoned. The doors behind him lead nowhere, walking through them returned him to the hall. There was no escape.
“Morgen has a very important task for you,” said Failure.
When she made eye contact he locked her there, his Gefahrgeist will subsuming hers. This girl sacrificed much of her sanity to build the walls of Selbsthass. She’d do anything for her god, give her life in an instant. That was her pivot point, the fulcrum by which he would bend her to his will. As long as she believed she served her god, she would be malleable to Failure’s manipulations. And as the most loyal of the three, she was perfect. Loyalty is naught but emotion. And emotion was weakness.
“Anything,” she said, staring into Failure’s flat grey eyes, unable to pull away.
As always, partial truths were best. “A man killed our god. He must be slain before he can make use of his power over Morgen.”
Her eyes widened. “But Morgen is a god.”
“Even gods are bound by laws.”
“Even gods,” she said.
Failure gloried in his power. It felt good to once again influence the world beyond his prison. He’d bend these insane wretches to his will, send them to kill the man who murdered the Geborene god. If Morgen’s friends found and killed the man first, these three would hunt whoever survived. With Drache flying overhead, nothing could escape them.
When Failure finished with all three, reduced them to tears of gratitude at the chance to serve their god, he added one last command.
“Gottlos seeks to war against us.” He glanced at each in turn, making sure he had their attention. “Morgen leads the army south. You must get ahead of him, be his advanced guard. You must teach Gottlos to fear the Geborene.” Failure locked eyes with Erdbehüter. He used their own insane beliefs to bind them. “All the world shall bow before our god, man and tree and rock. You know this to be true.” And she did. She had no choice. “The infection shall resist. You shall be the Geborene Voice of Earth and Stone. Crush the unbelievers.” He turned to Ungeist, drawing his attention and spearing the man with his Gefahrgeist-driven need for worship. By distracting them with how much they desperately wanted to serve their god—how desperately they needed Morgen’s approval—Failure would bend them to his will. “They worship the old gods, those who abandoned us. You shall be The Geborene Exorcist. They are evil. Set free their inner demons.”
Failure turned his attention to Drache. She looked like nothing, a middle-aged woman who might have been a mother or even a grandmother if not for the madness staining her eyes. Erdbehüter was the most important of the three. She would keep them together, keep them united in purpose. Her loyalty to Morgen allowed no less. But Drache was the most dangerous. When twisted into her dragon form, her breath shredded reality, left seething chaos. Nothing survived her rage. Her victim’s souls, ravaged by Drache’s madness, were torn asunder. Nothing remaining to escape to the Afterdeath.