CHAPTER NINE
Before the Menschheit Letzte Imperium there were thousands of gods. Every copse of trees had its own Ascended spirit jealously guarding its patch. Every pond held some mad demigod. It was a world of numen. When the Menschheit Letzte Imperium united mankind under one rule there was but one religion, the Wahnvorstellung. With the fall of the Imperium that religion changed and fragmented over the ensuing millennia. Three thousand years ago we had twenty gods and now we have hundreds. And the number is growing.
How can this not signify our descent?
—Geschichts Verdreher - Historian/Philosopher
Stehlen sat in the Leichtes Haus, holding hands with Lebendig. Morgen disappeared and she knew immediately she was alive. She felt different, like somehow death removed many of life’s pressures. What was the point of worrying when you were already dead? Looking back, she couldn’t decide what really changed. When dead she still needed money and food. She still felt the night’s cold and the warmth of her lover. Sure everything may have been a bit faded, a little grey, but she couldn’t find much separating death from life.
She glanced about the tavern. The dead—her dead—were gone. This Leichtes Haus was populated by happy people in bright and clean clothes. And too much sticking white. Stehlen felt drab and filthy in comparison, grey and grotty. She wanted to kill them, splash the tavern in her colours, the screaming sanguine of chaos and bloody violence.
Really? What are you going to do, rush out and buy some bright clothing? That was the kind of mindless self-absorbed shite Wichtig did.
Lebendig gave her hand a squeeze and Stehlen flashed a quick smile. Her lover’s skin felt warmer than it had in the Afterdeath.
Stehlen’s smile died when she noted Lebendig’s look of confused uncertainty. Wanting to ask what was wrong but unable to frame the question in a way that didn’t sound desperately pathetic, Stehlen remained quiet.
What are you afraid of? If anyone says anything, I’ll gut them on the spot. Escaping the Afterdeath changed nothing. Anyone mocking her happiness—anyone poking at her choices—would die. Painfully.
Stehlen squeezed Lebendig’s hand in reassurance. The big woman was death with her swords and yet retained a softness Stehlen would forever love and never understand.
Lebendig offered a distracted smile of her own.
“I don’t see the World’s Greatest Moron anywhere,” said Stehlen, hoping this would move them back to safer ground. She flared her nostrils, tasting the air. The Afterdeath may have been a pale imitation of life, leached of colour and flavour, but life stank. “I thought we’d find him chatting up a barmaid.”
“Morgen said time was different here,” pointed out Lebendig.
Stehlen nodded. “I wonder how much of a head start he has.” She and Lebendig sat with Morgen moments after Wichtig’s departure.
A pretty barmaid with blue eyes appeared at their table and Stehlen hated her. “Can I—”
“Piss off,” said Stehlen.
“Wait,” said Lebendig, reaching out to catch the girl’s arm.
The barmaid, having no other option, stopped. “Yes?”
“Was there a man here recently?” Lebendig asked. “You’d remember him, he’s prettier even than you.” She released the barmaid’s arm.
The girl blushed and Stehlen wanted to drain the blood from her rendering such pretty blushing impossible.
“He was here yesterday,” said the barmaid. “Sitting right where you are.”
Lebendig withdrew a coin from her pouch and rolled it deftly across the knuckles of her thick fingers. “Did he say anything?” she asked, catching the coin between thumb and forefinger and holding it aloft.
The girl nodded, eyes locked on the coin. “Said he was the Greatest Swordsman in the World.”
“Oh that shite again,” snarled Stehlen. The idiot would never give up his quest. Not even death would stop the fool.
“He said he was going to Gottlos,” the barmaid added, turning her pert nose up at Stehlen. “He said he was going to hunt down the man who killed his friend.”
“Killed his—” Stehlen laughed, a dank nasal honk. “Let me guess, he’s chasing an old man with lots of scars and maybe half an ear. If he hasn’t lost that too.”
The girl nodded, licking her lips and eyeing the coin. “He left without paying and his meal and drinks came out of my pay.”
“Typical,” snorted Stehlen.
Lebendig merely watched the barmaid, waiting.
The girl frowned a pretty frown not even wrinkling her forehead as she desperately searched her memory. “He went after Kurz Ehrfürchtig, the Greatest Swordsman in—”