Bedeckt snorted at the thought and Zukunft flashed him a smile of full lips and green eyes. He ignored her, pretended he hadn’t seen the smile.
Not once in all the decades since had he felt an ounce of guilt over his first kill. If anything, Bedeckt decided he should be grateful. That first kill taught him how easy it was. It taught him violence wasn’t the final refuge of the stupid, but rather the final refuge of a man unwilling to lose. People who backed down from fights lost. They were taken advantage of, beaten and robbed. They were weak, victims.
Bedeckt was never going to be a victim again. He proved it to his father. He proved it to himself.
She’s using your damned list to manipulate you. Doesn’t that make you a victim?
“What are you thinking?” Zukunft asked.
“I was wondering how long it would be before you asked what I was thinking.”
She laughed his words away and eased her horse closer. “Have you made a decision? Where are we going?”
“I need more information. Can you look into your mirror while you ride?”
Zukunft nodded.
“When do we meet with Wichtig and Stehlen?”
Pulling the mirror from its place in her saddlebags, she unwrapped it and stared into the surface. After an annoyingly long wait she said, “I don’t know.”
“In the Afterdeath, you told me you saw the future.”
“Not quite true, but close enough.”
“So?”
“I can’t see everything everywhere all the time,” she said. “I only see what she shows me.”
“She?” Bedeckt tried again.
Zukunft ignored the question. “And what she shows is changing. Becoming more focussed.” Her brow furrowed in frustration. “She used to show me more. She’d show almost anywhere I wanted. Now…” She glanced at him, eyes measuring. “She shows me you.”
He didn’t want to know what that meant. Damned Geisteskranken never made sense. She’d probably become infatuated with him as some kind of father figure and that infatuation manifested as a limit to her Mirrorist powers. He shuddered at the thought of what that said of her real father.
“Can you see us meeting Wichtig and Stehlen?”
“No. I know if we go after the boy, they’ll get ahead of us.”
“And if we don’t?”
“They’ll be behind us.”
Bedeckt growled in frustration. Fine, he’d play along with her mad delusions. “If I rescue this boy, will she,” he nodded at the mirror in Zukunft’s hands, “show me what I need?”
Zukunft shrugged. “Eventually.”
He imagined Stehlen’s look of disgust. She’d spit and say, That plan didn’t take long to go to shite.
Bedeckt thought back to his brief time with Zukunft in the Afterdeath. Back then her visions of the future were detailed and exact. She showed him exactly what he needed to escape death. And now she was near useless. Weren’t Geisteskranken supposed to become more powerful as their delusions grew in strength? Did this lessening of her power mean her mind was somehow healing, and if so, why? Was it her time with him? Ridiculous. Being with me isn’t good for anyone’s mental health. Or was something subtler, more insidious, happening? Had his presence perhaps triggered some catastrophic collapse, a final mad rush toward the Pinnacle in some manner he didn’t understand?
Remembering Morgen saying he never saw his own future in his Reflections, Bedeckt asked, “Can you see yourself in there?”
“Never.”
Bedeckt sighed. Perhaps if he rescued this damned boy, whoever Zukunft thought was in the mirror would be more willing to help.
“What do you think we should do?” he asked, curious.
“We have to at least try.”
He didn’t bother to ask why. She’d have some platitude about how the attempt mattered more than the success. What utter shite. Any attempt ending in failure was nothing more than a failure. He imagined Stehlen’s mocking voice: Nice grumpy old man philosophy, old man.
Bedeckt grunted. Just give her what she wants and then we can get back to the plan. “Which way is the boy?”
She gave him a smile sadder than he expected. “East. We’ll find him tomorrow.”
“We’re going east, Arsehole,” said Bedeckt.
“Pardon?”
“Talking to my horse.”
Bedeckt wheeled Arsehole around. Zukunft followed, clucking and nudging her horse forward until she again rode alongside Bedeckt.
“I thought I might change my horse’s name,” she said.
“Too late,” said Bedeckt.
The sun fell and clouds scudded in from every direction. The temperature dropped as Bedeckt called a halt and announced they’d make camp.
“Fetch wood for the fire while I—”
“No no no,” Zukunft said, retreating as if threatened. “Wriggly things live in fallen trees,” she said, as if it explained everything.
Bedeckt shrugged and fetched wood. When he returned, he dumped the wood at Zukunft’s feet and massaged his lower back. “Can you ready this for a fire?”
“It’s dirty.” She showed him dainty hands, wiggling clean fingers at him as if he’d care.
“Can you lay out the camp as I light the fire?” he asked.
“Of course. How does one lay out a camp?”
“Look for rocks and hard lumpy things and move them from wherever the sleeping rolls will go.”