Is she glad to see me? Was she worried I wouldn’t return?
Stehlen thought about the horrid wood carving, the vicious yellow eyes, the stained teeth bared in a perpetual snarl. No, Lebendig couldn’t be happy to see that. No one could love such a face. No one could love what lived under that skin. And yet here she was, waiting for Stehlen. Did she have some secret agenda? Could she be working for Morgen, yet another level of control and manipulation? Or did she simply await her own chance at vengeance? Stehlen killed her, after all.
Stehlen attempted a smile and Lebendig returned it with a glint of humour and, for the first time, Stehlen wished the woman was as talkative as Wichtig. The windbag’s endless spew of inanity might be annoying, but at least she always knew exactly what was on his mind. Lebendig could be thinking anything behind that mask. Was she nothing more than a superb actor, or did she truly love Stehlen?
Setting her swords aside, Lebendig stood. She reached out a tentative hand to lift Stehlen’s battered knuckles for inspection.
“A fight?” she asked, face unreadable.
“With a wall,” said Stehlen.
Lebendig nodded as if this were a perfectly reasonable answer. “It lost?”
“Of course.”
Lebendig didn’t mock Stehlen as Wichtig would have and didn’t ask if she killed each and every one of the tower’s inhabitants as Bedeckt would have. Stehlen loved her for it.
The Swordswoman pulled her to the cot. “Lie, down on your stomach,” she said. “You’re tense. You need a back rub and an orgasm.”
Later, as the two women lay naked and spooning, Lebendig’s muscular arm encircling Stehlen as if she’d protect her from all the hurts of the world, the petite Kleptic felt warm and safe. She’d find Wichtig in the morning and either rescue or kill him, depending on her mood.
She snuggled deeper into the big woman’s arms and slept the dreamless sleep of an innocent child.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
War isn’t insanity, it’s the base state for all reality. Plants war for sunlight. Animals war for food and water. Wolves battle to decide who leads the pack. All life is struggle.
Peace, now that is insanity.
—General Misserfolg, Selbsthass
Riding a flawlessly white stallion draped in crisp white livery and looking like a man in his early twenties, Morgen led his army, fifteen thousand men and women, south. He glanced at the offensive stain besmirching his own white robes. Nothing he did, no amount of scrubbing or cleaning or directed delusion would erase that smear. He even changed robes, but the new ones always had exactly the same discolouration. Nacht, that goat-sticking arsehole, fouled him with his delusions. Morgen rubbed the horse’s forehead where there had been a dark patch of hair. The animal hadn’t been quite perfect and he’d improved it, bending his will to the task to forever erase that imperfection.
If only people were so easily adjusted.
Why is that? Why can I make a tabletop perfect or erase a small patch of dark hair on a horse with the slightest desire, but people require convincing?
Clearly it was some underlying rule of reality, but not one he knew of. Had he discovered a new law? He’d have to look into this later, when he returned victorious from Gottlos.
The difference between people and tables was clear enough: Tables were inert. As inanimate objects, they required little convincing to change. The difference between horses and people was less apparent. Both were alive, both had their own desires. Horses might be trained, but they possessed a will of their own. And yet making his horse perfectly white was easy and changing the skin tone of even the most devout Geborene priest was not. Even after Morgen managed the feat, the woman returned to her natural skin tone once beyond his immediate sphere of influence. He’d been disappointed. The perfect, porcelain-skinned priestess gave him hope he could change all his followers, do away with their countless blemishes and imperfections.
Perhaps if I first convinced all Selbsthass that the woman’s skin was perfect, the alteration would have held. And therein lay the conundrum. People were so damned difficult to convince. And the older they were, the deeper they were mired in their assumptions and expectations. If only everyone could be like— Children.
That’s why Konig worked with children to build his god. After his Ascension, he learned from Konig and Failure that there had been many attempts at creating a god and that the others ended with the child either committing suicide or collapsing under the weight of their delusions. Why was Morgen different? Was I just the most easily convinced? What did that say about him? The first word to mind was gullible, but that was viewed as a weakness not far removed from stupidity. I’m not stupid. But the Theocrat, all the Geborene priests, Bedeckt, Wichtig, and Stehlen all lied to him and it wasn’t until the very end he saw their perfidy for what it was. Could he be gullible and not stupid? Did innocence and inexperience explain everything? I’m not stupid.