FIRE AND FLESH

Table of Contents

FIRE AND FLESH             2

OTHER BOOKS BY MICHAEL R. FLETCHER             20

BEYOND REDEMPTION             21

FROM THE BACK COVER             23

BEYOND REDEMPTION - PROLOGUE             25

BEYOND REDEMPTION - CHAPTER 1             26

THE MIRROR’S TRUTH             33

FROM THE BACK COVER             35

THE MIRROR’S TRUTH – CHAPTER ONE             36

SWARM AND STEEL             52

FROM THE BACK COVER             53

SWARM AND STEEL – CHAPTER ONE             54

GHOSTS OF TOMORROW             75

FROM THE BACK COVER             77

GHOSTS OF TOMORROW - PROLOGUE             78

FIRE AND FLESH

Michael R. Fletcher

Three months into the voyage the winds died. The sheets hung slack, dejected and flat like the eyes of the crew. The ship had been calmed for a week and tempers were beginning to fray. Captain Pizarr, who had begun showing Cotardist tendencies two weeks out of port, was more literally fraying. At first his fingers had blackened and begun to smell. Now his entire left arm was tattered flesh showing yellow bone where skin had dried and parted. That the good Captain had taken to picking at the arm and flinging strips of his own rotting flesh overboard did little for the crew’s morale. That he stood calm and poised at the railing with a tight and knowing smile while watching the gathered fish feed on that discarded meat did even less.

We had first met in the service of King Furimmer and later, over the long years, become fast friends. Together we stood at the Battle of Sinnlos as the Seiger Clan’s Delusionist cracked and lost control of her inner demons. Captain Pizarr had been a handsome Lieutenant and I, Gehirn Schlechtes, a promising young member of King Furimmer’s cadre of Pyrocasts. Somewhat unstable perhaps, but all the more valued for it.

Those days are ten years dead and gone. The Captain has changed. I have changed. Many nights I have stood hidden in the shadow of the fo’c’sle, fat and balding, watching my only friend feed the fish.

At night, when the crew thought the Captain asleep, I would listen to them speculate as to the condition of the Captain’s body. His uniform, a sun-faded blue bedecked with medals and honours, was stained in dark patches from something leaking within. Had the rot reached his torso? What would happen when it did?

Times and people change and I had degenerated from lonely and depressed to unstable and useful and found employment as King Furimmer’s Executioner. I used my growing power in his service and when I became truly dangerous he cast me aside. But not before demanding one last foul act from me. I was to spy on my only friend and, should he stray from Furimmer’s plans, carry out the King’s Justice. Furimmer asked this of me and there was no room for refusal. I suppose hoping for loyalty from a Sociocast had been foolish. I told Pizarr nothing of this and sour betrayal ate at my guts.

When Captain Pizarr had Reizung, the Ship’s Counsellor, thrown overboard the crew had nearly mutinied. Seasoned sailors knew the danger of unwatched and unrestrained Maniacasts. A ship was too small and confined for those not in firm control of their reason. But that had been early in the voyage. Captain Pizarr had been dashing and persuasive and the Counsellor had been a prick. A good Ship’s Counsellor works alongside the crew and doesn’t rub in the fact that his only real task is preserving their sanity and keeping the Maniacasts in check. Reizung had wandered the deck pompous and immaculate, complaining of boredom while the crew toiled at their tasks. No one had missed him. Until Captain Pizarr started to rot.

Instability, doubt, depression and fear. Such thoughts breed insanity. As the crew grew to fear both Pizarr and myself they themselves began displaying Delusionist tendencies. Unschuldig of the Crow’s Watch Crew had always had a affinity for snakes, but when ill-tempered vipers appeared where there had been none Pizarr had ordered the young man drowned in a bucket. When things started to go missing the crew knew there was a budding Kleptocast on-board. If they couldn’t figure out who it was before he grew in strength there’d be no stopping him.

Stoßinder Rückseite, the First Mate, approached me one evening. His head bowed he dared only quick glances at my face to gauge my reaction.

“The Captain is...” His gaze darted to meet mine and skittered away. “The crew fears he may die. They fear he may already be...” He stared at the stained deck and I watched him steel his nerve. “Dead.”

I waited until he looked up and showed him my over-large canines in a leer. I did not have to pretend to be dangerous and deranged. I was. As a cadre Pyrocast and King Furimmer’s Executioner I had earned a reputation. There wasn’t a man aboard, the Captain, my only friend included, that wasn’t terrified of what I was capable of.

“If any man raises a hand against Captain Pizarr or disobeys a single order...I’ll reduce the entire ship to a sludge of floating ash.”

Rückseite deflated like sails in a flagging wind. He looked to be on the verge of tears and I wanted to comfort him. There was nothing within me that knew how. Where would I have learned such behaviour?

“Ash,” I whispered again and shivered. It had been too long and a ship was no place for a true conflagration. I remembered watching Ausfal burn at the Battle of Sinnlos. Rückseite fled the deck. I may have been grinning at the fond memory.

Pizarr’s self-hatred gnawed at his psyche and though I could both understand and relate to his plight, I could not forgive. He had killed the Counsellor, the one man who could have saved us both.

The day we set sail from Grauchloss harbour the Captain had joined me on the deck as I oversaw the final loading of the ship.

“Gehirn my old friend,” he said thumping me on the back, “death will be an escape from a lifetime of defeat.”

I was never sure if he meant this to be reassuring.

We had talked at great length many times over the years. Pizarr’s childhood had been a disappointment to his mother and his adulthood had been a disappointment to his father. Success was the last thing he wanted.

One morning over breakfast—a tasteless sludge of boiled meat and grey vegetable matter—Captain Pizarr joked that he had been secretly hoping the crew would dump him overboard in mutiny. Their cowardice and acceptance of his increasingly insane and dangerous behaviour only fed his depression.

“Men,” said Captain Pizarr, “are maggots. The wretched rot of the world.”

I watched as he pushed the food around on his plate and ate none of it. When had he stopped eating? After he left I devoured his breakfast as well as my own so that the cook would report to the men that the Captain was still eating. Afterwards I patted the roundness of my sated belly and hated myself. My mother would never allow me to leave the table with food still on my plate and I still can’t.

Can I blame her for what I have become?

When do you take responsibility for who you are?

Days slid past like the never-ending morass of seaweed. I watched the good Captain feed the fish and the men watched me, wondering if they dared mutiny.

On the twentieth calmed day the ship drifted into a damp fog bank that smelled of mud and rotting fish. I could see neither the man in the crow’s nest nor, when I looked over the railing, the sea. A heavy miasma ate every sound, sucking each noise hungrily and swallowing it into murky bowels. Men had to scream themselves hoarse just to be heard on the far side of the deck. The superstitious claimed this was the work of an unhinged Delusionist hidden somewhere aboard. Older sailors bragged about how they’d seen worse.

Fearing that he might take this opportunity to feed the fish one final course, I went looking for the Captain. I found him standing at the bow coughing up rot-stained chunks flecked with dried blood and spitting them into the sea. He was first to hear the breaking surf and ran screaming orders to drop anchor and heave hard about. These sudden signs of life from our Captain gave the crew some brief hope. No one knew if the ravages of a Cotardist’s delusions could be reversed by something as simple as excitement, but anything was better than watching him pick himself apart.

Pizarr later admitted to me that he didn’t know why he’d alerted the crew. Perhaps his survival instinct had enjoyed one last hurrah before surrendering to the inevitable decay that devoured all desires except that for an end. The other possibility, which I suggested and he liked far less, was that King Furimmer, a powerful Sociocast and master manipulator of people, had imbued Pizarr’s Charter with some manner of coercion. Though Pizarr would be governor of any new lands discovered, ruling as representative of the King, that King was not to be disobeyed.

That night as the crew slept, restless with dreams of women and land, I spied on Pizarr as he stood alone in his cramped quarters. I watched as he undressed, guessing what he’d find but still dreading the reality. He moved carefully as if to avoid causing his rotting body further harm. How did he not lose his nerve for this piecemeal death?

Pizarr removed the stained silk shirt and exposed his torso. Ribs showed through flesh and in places I could see through to his inert organs. His lungs hung like mouldering cheese-cloth sacks. When had he stopped breathing? I watched as he felt his neck with blackened fingers, hunting for a heart beat. He frowned. Gathering his courage he slid a finger between two exposed ribs on his left side and felt around inside. The Captain withdrew dry fingers, collapsed boneless into a chair, and stared unblinking at the wall.

Weren’t Cotardists supposed to die when their putrefaction reached such an advanced state?

Gods I wished we had someone to talk to.

The next day the fog cleared and the crew was treated to a view of long white beaches, tropical trees, and bronze skinned men and women glittering gold in the sun. Captain Pizarr joked to me that he hoped the sight of scantily clad young women would push the crew over the edge. He then ordered the men to remain on board. He selected a small crew—myself and four large men well-versed in violence with the morals of hold rats—to man the row boat. Even after months at sea I couldn’t remember the names of his four killers.

As the row boat approached the shore my breath caught in my chest as I realized what I was seeing. I glanced at Pizarr but he seemed distracted, lost in thought.

“Captain, that’s gold. All of it.”

Pizarr squinted. Were his eyes fading as well? What a terrifying thought. Would he someday go blind as he rotted away?

The men and women on the shore were dressed in sheets of red and gold. Bands of gold wrapped their limbs and hung from wrists and ankles. It was even worked into their hair.

“That’s not possible,” said Pizarr. “There isn’t that much gold.”

I wanted to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder but dared not touch him. “It’s...I’m sure it’s gold.” A thought occurred to me. “Captain, are we going to be able to communicate with these people?”

“The King said I would be capable,” answered Pizarr. Furimmer had said much the same to me on that day he asked me to betray my only friend.

“Will that work here?” I asked without thinking.

“I believe so.”

I understood immediately and nodded. Where my delusions shaped reality, King Furimmer’s defined it. “If the King said it is so, it is so. My question was foolish.”

Pizarr nodded and my transgression was forgiven and forgotten. In truth I don’t think he cared what I thought. My doubts were nothing when held against the convictions of a Sociocast as powerful as the King.

The golden savages had gathered where the boat would soon be coming ashore. I looked them over searching for weapons and seeing none. They were too scantily clad to be hiding anything larger than knives. Now that they were closer I could make out more detail. The women were beautiful. Long hair the colour of healthy loam and soft dark eyes that weren’t far from black. The men looked fit, lean and muscled like athletes. At this range there was no mistaking that warm glow. These people wore more gold than existed in all of the King’s treasuries. This must be a gathering of the local royalty. But then where were the soldiers, the protectors of such important people? The apparent lack of weapons did nothing to ease my tension. An unarmed man with the right delusions can destroy cities. Of this I am living proof for I burned Ausfal.

Captain Pizarr leaned towards me and spoke quietly. “Be wary. If I give you the word, burn them all.”

Oh gods, please, please let me burn. Something of my hunger must have shown in my toothy grin because Pizarr backed away with a nervous look. My only friend shied from me. It was like a kick in the stomach. This small, soft betrayal mirrored my own treachery and fanned the devouring flames within me. All too aware of my pronounced canines, I grinned at him again in an effort to hide the sick loneliness twisting my gut.

Please let me burn.

The boat came to shore gently and Pizarr’s four killers leapt out and dragged it onto the soft sands. When Pizarr and I stepped from the boat we didn’t get our feet wet.

Though the natives were well-muscled, they were dwarfed by the four monstrous men. They babbled in their native tongue and Pizarr stood, unblinking, staring at them. I think it took him a moment to realize he understood what they were saying. The Captain shrugged and stepped forward raising his hands to show his empty palms. He’d left his sword back in his cabin. He was useless with it anyway.

“I bring you greetings from King Furimmer of Grauchloss.” Pizarr spoke carefully and clearly in their language.

The savages, silent and rigid, stared at us. The eldest marshalled his distaste at our appearance and stepped forward. He bowed low.

“Welcome to our shores. High King Hualpa rules here.” The savage, staring out at our massive ship anchored a few hundred feet from the shore, looked uncertain. “Are you...are you gods?”

I could clearly see he was very much hoping we were not. It was however too much of an opportunity for Pizarr to pass up.

“Yes,” said the Captain. “We are gods from distant lands, vassals of King Furimmer, first amongst gods.”

For the first time I wished Pizarr was a better liar. Counsellor Reizung would have been useful now. Ah well, no use crying over spilled blood.

“You look like men. You smell like men.” The other savages laughed.

Pizarr turned to me. “Burn them all,” he said in our language. “Leave one alive.” He glanced at the chuckling savages. “Not the old man.”

Release.

A high pitched keening like that of an over-excited dog escaped my clenched teeth. Then the savages were screaming. I was only barely aware of Pizarr watching with detached disinterest as their flesh turned angry red and then boiled away from their bones. The screaming choked off as suddenly as it began and the savages were twitching in the sand as their eyes slagged and ran like hot mud. The smell of cooked meat must have reached even Pizarr’s attenuated senses because he wrinkled his nose and backed away another step. More distance between us. Another small betrayal.

I finally managed lock down the torrent of depression, abandonment, and loneliness that fed my delusions and was the source of my Pyrocast power. The savages were blackened bones rising like razed towers in a sea of ash and molten gold. A roughly circular area of sand had been burned to glass that reflected broken shards of sunlight. The surviving savage, a young girl, was badly burnt along half her body. She might live long enough to be of use but I doubted she’d last much past that.

“I told you to leave one alive,” Pizarr said quietly.

I hung my head in shame. “It has been a difficult voyage, Captain. Without...without someone to talk to my delusions have grown in strength.” I let out a long shaking breath. “Control was difficult.”

Someone to talk to. Not a day went by that I didn’t regret Pizarr tossing that pompous ass Counsellor Reizung overboard. Perhaps with counselling his own advanced state of decomposition might have been slowed or even avoided.

Pizarr nodded at one of his thugs. “Get her on her feet.” He glared at me. “If she dies, I’ll have one of these men strangle you.”

“You’ll—” This was my only friend. White anger abolished thought.

One of the men delivered a crushing blow to my kidneys and I collapsed gasping to the sand. I hadn’t even seen it coming. Pizarr must have worked out some subtle signal system with his four killers. He didn’t trust me.

The Captain crouched and grabbed a fistful of my greasy hair with his working hand. He dragged my head around until we were eye to eye.

“Rise before you have control of your temper and you are dead,” he hissed. He let go and I rolled over onto my back and fought for breath.

At the pinnacle of power, that moment when delusion gains supremacy and control falters, a Pyrocast is a fire-storm of unstoppable destruction. Even one such as King Furimmer could not stand against a Pyrocast losing his last tenuous grasp on reality. But a brutal punch to the kidneys is a brutal punch to the kidneys. I lay wheezing for several minutes, watching Pizarr through watering eyes. Had I been on that teetering edge? Had he just saved my life? Was my betrayal made all the more foul?

Pizarr grabbed the girl’s chin and forced her head up so she was looking into his face. She gagged at the proximity of his rotting flesh and fought weakly to pull away.

“You will take a message to your King Hualpa,” Pizarr told her. “You will tell him new gods are here to replace the old gods. You will tell him we will meet him here, on the shore.” Pulling back his sleeve he showed her his rotting arm. “I am Pizarr, god of death. You will deliver my message or I will have your soul.” She retched dry heaving coughs that tore at her burnt lungs and throat but nodded. I hoped she would live long enough to deliver Pizarr’s message.

I did not want to face this High King Hualpa in the heart of his power. If Hualpa was as powerful a Sociocast as I feared, this was going to be a very short meeting.

Pizarr switched back to our language. “You there,” he pointed at one of the other killers. “Strip her of her gold, and the rest of you dig what gold you can from the sand. We might as well start now.” He watched the man roughly pull away the gold and most of the remains of her burnt clothing as the others scrabbled in the glassy sand.

When the girl was out of sight we returned to the ship. We’d caught the savages unaware but the next meeting, I had no doubt, would be very different. There was a good chance that come tomorrow night we would either be dead or worshipping at the feet of a new king.

I stood mutely at the Captain’s side, afraid to say anything that might shatter our fragile truce.

“Reality is a curse,” he said quietly to me. “One day you are dreaming of death and the next you are fearing for what’s left of your life.”

Neither of us slept that night. From the shadows I watched him as stood at the ship’s prow, picking at the flesh hanging from his arms and tossing it into the sea. Even the fish turned away, disinterested in his decaying meat.

“Soon only the worms will be interested in me,” I heard him say to the fish. “Fitting, is it not?”

I watched as his body shuddered. Was he crying? His eyes, fogged and matte in the reflected moonlight, were dry. I watched as, with one dead arm hanging useless at his side, he tried to hug himself for what little comfort it would have given. My only friend. My heart broke and, crying, I returned to the cramped loneliness of my cabin.

The next morning, when I saw King Hualpa march imperiously up the beach with a retinue of twelve warriors, I knew all was lost. Only a mighty Sociocast, confident in his power, would have brought so few soldiers. Any sane man faced with alien invaders proclaiming themselves gods would have brought the troops in force and wiped out Pizarr’s pitiful crew of malnourished sailors.

I stood next to Pizarr and we stared at the shore. I doubt he could see that far. “Captain, look at all that gold.”

Hualpa’s warriors wore even more of the precious metal than yesterday’s savages. It was worthless as armour. The only reasonable explanation was that it was purely decorative. This scared me even more than Hualpa’s small retinue. If their armour was decorative it was because they believed they didn’t need it and, if they believed strongly enough, they really didn’t need it.

“They must all be Maniacasts,” whispered Pizarr so only I could hear. “High King Hualpa has come in force.”

“Raise anchor and let’s run for it,” I suggested with little hope.

Pizarr gave me a dark look and bleak smile that came no where near his eyes and quickly soured to a pained grimace. “I’d rather fall victim to these savage Maniacasts than return empty-handed to King Furimmer.”

Success or failure, I suspected Pizarr would rather not return at all. The man was a walking corpse.

Pizarr’s good hand gripped the oak rail, the other hung dead and loose at his side. It looked like the kind of desiccated meat even a starving rat would turn its nose from.

“Fetch my four killers,” he commanded. “We’re going ashore.”

Hualpa’s retinue stood motionless, gathered in two groups, one on each side of the High King. There were no neat lines, no military formations, just a small mob of people. Though Hualpa was definitely in charge it was impossible to delineate any rank amongst his followers. Was this a gathering of Hualpa’s most powerful Maniacasts? It seemed likely. Every man and woman in the retinue leaned casually against what looked like spears. Could they be fashion accoutrements? Symbols of office? Why would a dozen Maniacasts need weapons?

A fat man, covered in bright feathers of red and gold and wearing a bizarre mask that might be a psychotic’s interpretation of a bird, stepped forward and bowed to Captain Pizarr.

The fat man’s voice was low and surprisingly soft. “I bring you greetings from High King Hualpa, Child of the Sun, Lord of all Tawantinsuyu, favoured of all gods, Protector of all people, and first born son of Huayna Kapec.”

King Furimmer may have ensured that Pizarr and I could understand the language, but the references were still meaningless. With a start I realized Hualpa and his retinue were waiting for Pizarr to either talk or be introduced. But why had the fat man introduced Hualpa? Why had the man shown us any respect at all? Why hadn’t Hualpa spoken? If the High King was as powerful a Sociocast as I had feared, he could have won this confrontation with a few well-chosen words. I watched Hualpa and his retinue fidget. Waiting. Something wasn’t adding up here.

Captain Pizarr spoke calmly. “We are your new gods. You will bow before us and worship at our feet.” He paused to glare at the gathered savages. Pizarr was no Sociocast but as Captain he had learned how effective simple intimidation could be. “Your old gods are dead, defeated.”

Hualpa stepped forward now. The High King’s eyes glittered with dangerous intelligence and a feral hunger I had seen before.

“So you lead this malodorous mob.” Hualpa waved a dismissive hand at us. “You have slain Catequil?” The High King watched Pizarr closely. “Tell me, what did he look like?”

This was dangerous ground. Pizarr would have to tread carefully.

“Your gods are dead, one and all. I did not say I personally killed each one.”

“I think you are not gods. I think you are men.” The High King glanced sideways at his retinue. “You certainly smell like men.” The retinue laughed dutifully. “You are rough and dirty like men. You walk and leave footprints in the sand like men. You lie like men.”

“And we are gods. Anger me at your peril,” said the Captain.

Hualpa smiled. “Any halfwit can toss a young girl in a bonfire and break her mind with pain. You think me a fool. You think yourselves superior. You are deluded.” The High King examined Pizarr through dark, heavily lidded eyes. “Kill him.”

Two spears lashed from Hualpa’s retinue and impaled Pizarr in the chest and gut. The force of the blows staggered him back several paces. I had to give them credit, they were fast and accurate. I hadn’t even seen who had thrown the spears. Captain Pizarr stood for a moment looking down at the spears. His knees wobbled unsteadily and I thought he was going to collapse. Had they killed the Captain? I was unsure what to feel. Jealousy? Relief? Anger?

“Your leader dies,” announced Hualpa imperiously. “Whom shall I converse with next?”

Pizarr looked up and met Hualpa’s eyes. He shrugged off his stained Captain’s jacket and it hung heavily from the spears protruding from his back. He opened the shirt, tearing it where the spears had it trapped. The shirt, once expensive, was now little more than mouldy tatters and came away easily. He stood, torso exposed. In the stress of the last few days the rot had spread quickly.

“Gehirn, pull these from me if you please.”

I dragged the spears through and drew them out Pizarr’s back. They were smeared with festering innards and clinging shreds of rotten meat. A choked gagging noise escaped my clenched teeth and I felt ill. I’d been hiding from myself just how far along his Cotardist tendencies had progressed.

My mind still worried at the question: Why hadn’t Hualpa simply conscripted Pizarr’s crew, taking their minds with his overpowering belief in himself? The High King certainly spoke well enough. Glib and charming, he displayed all the usual Sociocast traits.

Then I remembered. I leaned forward and whispered in the Captain’s ear. “Hualpa called us deluded.”

Where belief defines reality, delusion is power. Captain Pizarr saw it immediately.

The Captain addressed Hualpa in a quiet voice. “I am the god of death. This,” he waved me forward, “is the god of fire.” My heart sung like the ringing of the ship’s bell. “Burn them all. Leave the king.”

As the months crept past Captain Pizarr’s control of the crew sloughed away like the dead skin on his torso. Minds weakened by months of near-starvation faltered and snapped. The knowledge that the natives were virtually defenceless in the face of rampant delusion only fanned the flames. Those who had nursed petty delusions in the shadows of men such as myself and the Captain learned to embrace their deficiencies. Sociopaths, Phobics, Kleptocasts, Delusionists, Somatoparaphrenicasts, Dysmorphics, and Intermetamorphosists were suddenly appearing where sane men had once stood. Sanity is a thin and flimsy barrier when standing between a man and the wealth and fame he craves.

I fought to maintain some semblance of the order King Furimmer would expect from his representatives. I turned men I had once shared meals with into cinders. But embracing one’s delusions strengthens them. Each man I burned weakened my own already tenuous grasp on reality. Knowing it was happening was no defence. The crew, who had learned to fear me, soon came to hate me as well. Outcast from my master’s court and now a pariah amongst the crew, I retreated deeper into my depression.

Each night I burned myself on the small fires I dared, charring patches of my own flesh in self-flagellation. But punishing oneself never brings lasting relief and afterwards you hate yourself all the more.

It was all I deserved.

Captain Pizarr was straying from the scope of King Furimmer’s orders and eventually I would be forced to act, forced to betray my only friend. Furimmer’s compulsion would allow no less.

The lonelier I felt, the more powerful I became and the more the men feared me.

The Captain became increasingly distant, lost I suppose in his own decaying hell. I soon grew to hate him for bringing me to this beautiful land of fabulous wealth. He had abandoned me to the accusing eyes of the crew. In darker moments I saw Pizarr’s betrayal as simply the latest in a lifetime plagued with perfidy. Pizarr’s. Furimmer’s. But my own burned the deepest.

What had I done that so displeased King Furimmer? Why was I even here? I suspected fear was the answer. I was a Pyrocast approaching my pinnacle of power, that moment when delusion would overpower the remaining shreds of my sanity. If only I had someone I could talk to, someone I could trust. Just one friend. My loneliness made me angry and my anger ensured I’d remain alone. No one befriends an angry Pyrocast.

The men began hailing Pizarr as a hero. They lauded his previously much maligned decision to kill the Ship’s Councillor as an act of great bravery and foresight. Councillor Reizung would never have allowed this mad deterioration to have occurred. Though Pizarr showed little sign of being aware of the crew’s opinions, I noticed with some jealousy that the Captain was beginning to display Sociocast tendencies. Worship brings out the worst in people.

Pizarr struggled to run the rapidly crumbling remnants of Hualpa’s kingdom with little or no understanding of what motivated its people. They clung desperately to their flawed world view. The masses refused to worship us as gods but saw us as both more and less than men. Intrigued by the natives, he began studying their religion; a bizarre concoction of inbred children, sun gods, and colourful birds. He would tell me about it on those rare days he deigned to see his closest friend. I think he found some comfort in their unshakable belief in an Afterdeath where redemption was always a possibility.

“Surely,” he said, “if the uncounted millions of natives believed strongly enough, such an Afterdeath must exist.”

I remained unconvinced.

Hualpa continued to act as if he were still High King and not a powerless puppet-king. It was a delusion he didn’t have the lack of sanity to enforce. Noting our insatiable lust for precious metals, the High King offered to fill his prison with gold and silver if Pizarr promised to free him and leave Tawantinsuyu. Captain Pizarr, at this point little more than bone and dried sinew, promptly agreed. The gold was delivered and then shipped to King Furimmer who in turn officially recognised Pizarr as Steward of the New Lands. High King Hualpa muttered something about the wisdom of making deals with predatory cats, and remained our prisoner.

Three months later, fearing revolt from the Tawantinsuyu people who vastly outnumbered our small and deranged crew, the Captain ordered Hualpa’s death. I was called forward to burn the High King. Upon hearing of this High King Hualpa begged Captain Pizarr for another death. Fearing to anger Haulpa’s subjects, Captain Pizarr had the deposed monarch strangled as an act of mercy. I was sent away unsatisfied.

It was too much.

That evening I found Pizarr alone in his single-story abode, a clay brick home faded a warm amber by the sun. The Captain wore nought but a thin robe. The yellowing bones of his ribcage were clearly visible through the shear material. His left arm hung at his side, bones wrapped tight in sinews blackened by the sun and heat. Several of the fingers of his left hand had fallen away at some point.

“Captain, you look well.” Tears leaked from my eyes. Either he couldn’t see them or chose to ignore my distress. I grinned showing my clenched canines and my jaw hurt.

“I’m dying.” Pizarr laughed humourlessly. “Actually, I’ve been dead for some time. Perhaps months.” He peeled a long strip of sun-dried flesh from his abdomen and tossed it to the floor at my feet. “But I’ve lost my fear. I now welcome the end.”

“Just as well,” I said. He didn’t hear the quiet threat. Or he ignored it. He looked dry, like tinder.

“I’ve come to believe as the Tawantinsuyu people believe,” he said. “There is an Afterdeath. A chance at redemption.” He squinted at me with filmed eyes that all colour had bled from. “Redemption,” he whispered.

I snorted with disgust. “The Tawantinsuyu are powerless. They’re sane, each and every one of them. Their beliefs count for nothing.”

Pizarr’s smile didn’t reach his dead eyes. His expression was that of a corpse. “But there are millions of them and they all believe. The delusions of men such as you and I pale before the faith of the masses. It’s what keeps this world from utter chaos. You know this to be true. There is an Afterdeath.”

I suddenly understood. “You’re leaving. You’re going to this Afterdeath. You’re abandoning me and you’re betraying King Furimmer.” I was to be abandoned by the one person in this gods forsaken land who would even talk to me. I had one thought: betrayal. I tasted hot bile and my eyes stung with rage. I felt hot and flushed. Was this Furimmer’s compulsion working upon me? “You can’t leave,” I said flatly, struggling to control myself. Maybe I could reason with the Captain. “King Furimmer—”

“To the hells with Furimmer,” Pizarr snapped. My guts twisted. “He’s not here and he’s not rotting in his own body. This is my chance to change everything.” Pizarr, foul gums black with rot, his skull a death’s head, grinned lifelessly. “I’ve been watching you, Gehirn. You’re starting to crumble. You’re losing control. You should be thinking about the Afterdeath too.”

“You’re insane!” Pizarr’s answering laughter fuelled my rage. “You believe as the Tawantinsuyu believe?”

Something in my voice sobered Pizarr and stopped his laughter dead. He nodded. “Yes.”

I grinned, sick with the taste of betrayal. I told myself I didn’t want this. It was a lie. “They believe that if their bodies burn their souls won’t make it to the Afterdeath.”

Pizarr stared at me with fogged eyes. He held out the remains of his working hand, pleading. “Don’t.”

I saw him reach for the sword he didn’t know how to use and laughed at him. It was still aboard the ship.

“You’ve betrayed King Furimmer. I am the King’s Executioner. Your soul will not be making it to the Tawantinsuyu Afterdeath.”

The good Captain who had left King Furimmer’s lands with such plans for the future, hoping to escape the man he had become, had seen those dreams crushed under the weight of his own depression-driven delusions.

“You watched me feed the fish,” whispered Pizarr. “I remember when dissolution had been my only goal. Even nothing is better than this.” His eyes met mine. “Do it,” he said.

My only friend. I sobbed. There were no words, they too abandoned me as I let go. This would be a fire the gods saw from the very heavens.

OTHER BOOKS BY MICHAEL R. FLETCHER

If you enjoyed the story you just read, I have others!

I’d like to thank my publishers, Harper Voyager and Talos, for their kind permission to include the first chapters.

BEYOND REDEMPTION

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Date Published: June, 2015

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Reviews:

“Set in a world where madness equates to power, Michael R. Fletcher's Beyond Redemption is often as nightmarish as it is fascinating. An alarming, original and compulsive tale laced with a blackly comic sensibility. Highly recommended.”

—Anthony Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of Blood Song

“The journey is dark and emotionally taxing, but there aren't many fantasy novels as smart, ambitious, and excellently written as this one.”

—Booklist

“Fletcher populated the landscape with an array of mental disorders, turning a well-thumbed psychiatric manual into a dramatis personae. His protagonists worry about their fate in the Afterdeath as they commit their crimes, but they always keep their slim hopes for redemption. The dystopia and its victims never quite collapse under the weight of the horror, and their perseverance encourages the readers to endure the grimness until the thought-provoking conclusion.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review)

“Incredibly brutal, this unusual fantasy world from Fletcher is populated by delusional sociopaths—literally. Mental disorders such as megalomania and kleptomania provide the sufferers power over those around them, giving the whole world an off-kilter manic edge. If you like your fantasy überdark, this might be an intriguing Freudian excursion.”

—Library Journal

FROM THE BACK COVER

Faith shapes the landscape, defines the laws of physics, and makes a mockery of truth. Common knowledge isn't an axiom, it's a force of nature. What the masses believe is. But insanity is a weapon, conviction a shield. Delusions give birth to foul new gods.

Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geisteskranken—men and women whose delusions manifest, twisting reality. High Priest Konig seeks to create order from chaos. He defines the beliefs of his followers, leading their faith to one end: a young boy, Morgen, must Ascend to become a god. A god they can control.

But there are many who would see this would-be-god in their thrall, including the High Priest’s own Doppels, and a Slaver no one can resist. Three reprobates—The Greatest Swordsman in the World, a murderous Kleptic, and possibly the only sane man left—have their own nefarious plans for the young god.

As these forces converge on the boy, there’s one more obstacle: time is running out. When one's delusions become more powerful, they become harder to control. The fate of the Geisteskranken is to inevitably find oneself in the Afterdeath. 

The question, then, is: Who will rule there?

BEYOND REDEMPTION - PROLOGUE

The Old Gods were broken by wars and plagues of the mind, left reeling like the most bloodied veterans. Infected with horror at the cost of their actions, they retreated into dementia. Insanity as escape. Seeking to free themselves they fled to a world of delusion, a world uncorrupted by jealousies and psychoses. And yet, in the end, even this they would pollute. So deep their need, so desperate their flight from their bitter past, they ignored the one truism all must bow before.

Belief defines reality.

The twisted fears of the Old Gods wormed into this creation and became real. Their darkest thoughts took life. The inhabitants, at one time mere characters dreamt to entertain, became substantive and entertained delusions of their own.

Dreams became nightmares, and nightmares became reality, stalking the earth as albtraum, manifestations of man's earliest fears given flesh.

And the cycles continues.

Creatures birthed by the delusions of such imperfect gods can hold no hope for sanity. These nightmares define new tomorrows and the gods look on in mute horror at what they have wrought.

Nebrile Ghast - Wahnvor High Priest

BEYOND REDEMPTION - CHAPTER 1

Where delusion defines reality, the Gefahrgeist is king.

- Versklaven Schwache, Gefahrgeist Philosopher

The consequences of their last job chased them west. One ever-shrinking step ahead of justice, they arrived at yet another decaying city-state.

Bedeckt, eyes slitted against the abrasive wind, rode into town flanked by Stehlen and Wichtig. Launisch, Bedeckt's monstrous black destrier, hung its head in exhaustion. They'd ridden hours without rest and Bedeckt was no small man.

He scanned the displayed poverty and doubted this place had ever seen better days. The few structures built from stone instead of warped and fading wood looked ready to fall in. It didn't matter; he didn’t plan on being here long.

Bright eyes, pinpricks of desperation, peered from dark alleys, watching. Nothing new there. He and his companions couldn't help but attract attention, Bedeckt with his bulk and scars, Wichtig with his flawless good looks. He glanced left to Stehlen. Her horse's ears kept flicking nervously as if it expected to be struck without warning. Bedeckt didn't blame the creature—he felt much the same whenever Stehlen came within arm's reach. She rode hunched forward against the blowing grit, horrid yellow teeth bared in a snarl seldom leaving her pinched face. Her right hand rested upon the pommel of her sword. If anyone stared too long she'd likely kill them. Not that anyone ever seemed to notice her. A mangy dog, lean to the point of skeletal, followed them for a few yards until Stehlen turned jaundiced eyes on the mutt. The dog flinched away with a whimper.

Bedeckt glanced at Wichtig. The man looked annoyingly perfect as always. Nothing in all the world could muss that quaffed hair or dent his immaculate smile.

What a self-centred arse.

Dust from the road tickled Bedeckt's already raw throat and he sneezed, spraying a wad of bright green snot from his nostrils. He'd been feeling under the weather for a week now and showed no signs of improving.

“You sound like shite, old man,” said Wichtig.

“I'm fine.” He needed an inn and a warm bed. Gods, he'd kill for an ale, no matter how bad.

Stehlen spat into the road and Launisch shied. Even the warhorse feared her.

“Idiot's right,” she said. “Let's get you into bed.”

“You've been wanting to do that for—” Wichtig snapped his mouth shut when Stehlen turned her gaze upon him.

If Bedeckt was lucky, the two would kill each other and leave him in peace. “My horse is tired and my arse aches,” he said.

“Your horse is tired and your arse is sore because you're fat and old,” said Stehlen, her horse's ears twitching away from her words.

“So what's this pisspot of a city called?” Wichtig was slumped casually in the saddle as he took in the rundown fortifications and the sloppily uniformed and inattentive guards. He sniffed gingerly at the air and wrinkled his perfectly straight nose in exaggerated distaste. “I apologize: this place isn't a pisspot, it's a shite-hole. Totally different odour.” He flashed a grin of straight white teeth at Bedeckt. A gust of wind ruffled his reddish brown hair and for a moment he looked the hero, two slim swords peeking over wide shoulders, his muscular arms resting easily on thighs. Expensive clothing worn to greatest effect. Only his eyes, flat and grey, gave lie to the act.

How could such a self-centred murdering bastard look so heroically perfect? Truly the gods were twisted. Bedeckt, of course, looked exactly like what he was: an ageing warrior well past his prime with a bad back, worse knees, too many battle scars, and a love of ale. He'd never looked as pretty as Wichtig, even in his prime. Had he, perhaps things would have turned out differently. But he doubted it.

“Better be an inn in this dung heap,” said Wichtig.

“You ever know a town this size without an inn? And it's called Unbrauchbar...I think.” Bedeckt warily scanned the city guards—who continued to studiously ignore them—and scratched at his fist-flattened nose with the remnants of his left hand. The last two fingers were missing, severed at the first knuckle in a pointless war many years ago. A massive, double-bladed axe hung within easy reach from a leather loop in his horse's saddle, its blade pitted from rough use. He glanced at Stehlen. “You been here before?”

Stehlen ran a long fingered hand through matted and clumped dirty-blond hair. They were musician's fingers though she'd never played a note. Pale and watery blue eyes with flecks of green, the whites a sickly and unhealthy yellow, squinted out from under the tangled hair. Her angry gaze dashed about as if searching for something to hate—it didn’t seem like she'd need to look far. She flared the nostrils of her hooked nose as if perhaps she'd find what she sought by smell.

“No,” she answered.

“Good,” muttered Wichtig.

Stehlen scowled at Wichtig. “Why good?”

“You probably won't know anyone here.”

“So?”

“So maybe no one here will want to kill us,” he said.

She ignored him. “Why here?” she asked Bedeckt.

Bedeckt answered without looking at her. “Because here is better than where we were.”

“If Wichtig hadn't bedded that—”

“But he did.”

“If you hadn't killed those—”

“But I did.” Bedeckt finally glanced at her and frowned as she showed crooked yellow teeth in a disappointed grimace. “I also seem to remember some of the Lord's property going missing. The theft had a fair amount to do with the killing.” Wichtig's actions had sparked Stehlen's thieving, but Bedeckt couldn't figure out how or why. The Swordsman had bedded the Lord's wife, and Stehlen stole the woman's jewellery shortly after. Were the two events linked? No, they couldn't be. At least he hoped they weren't.

Stehlen tried to look wounded and innocent and failed. She didn't have Wichtig's flair for deceit.

“You don't have any gold left, do you?” Wichtig asked Stehlen. “It would be nice to stay in a bit of style.”

“No.”

No doubt she lied, but Bedeckt let it go without comment. Kleptics always lied about money. She couldn't help it any more than Wichtig could help being a self-centred manipulative arse.

“We've got enough to get soft beds and food.” Bedeckt looked pointedly at Wichtig. “Right?”

Wichtig shrugged non-committally. “I haven't looked in my pack recently. We definitely have coin…unless this hideous wench here,” he nodded at Stehlen, “robbed us blind. Again.”

“I've never stolen from you!” growled Stehlen. “Anyway, you'll hand money to the first bitch who spreads legs.”

“Spread your legs, let's see if I—”

“Never!”

“Maybe if Bedeckt here...?” Wichtig trailed off, waggling his eyebrows at her.

Stehlen spat again, hunched deeper in her saddle, and set about ignoring both men.

What the hells was that about? Bedeckt didn't even want to know. He thought about his own money purse. He could have sworn there was more in there, but the last time he'd looked he'd been near destitute. Had Stehlen helped herself? It didn't matter, she always lent him money when asked. Probably my money anyway. Travelling with a pair of Geisteskranken, one had to accept such things. Kleptics stole and Gefahrgeist manipulated. At least Wichtig's Gefahrgeist talents remained meagre; he mostly craved attention. If the Swordsman grew in strength and seemed likely to become a Slaver, Bedeckt would kill him.

When Stehlen didn't rise to the bait, Wichtig sulked like a spoiled child denied candy. “Think this shite-hole has a Swordsman?” he asked Bedeckt.

“Every shite-hole has a Swordsman.”

“And every shite-hole needs a better Swordsman.”

“And you're that Swordsman?” asked Stehlen snidely.

Wichtig turned flat eyes on her, face expressionless. He held her angry glare until she looked away, uncomfortable. Minor Gefahrgeist Wichtig might be, but few people failed to wither under this assault of will.

“Belief defines reality,” said Wichtig as if explaining to a simpleton. “I believe I will be The Greatest Swordsman in the World.”

“I believe you will be dead first,” said Stehlen icily, still looking away.

“My belief is stronger than yours.”

“Delusional idiot.”

“Of course. But I prefer to believe I am simply that good. I've killed forty-three Greatest Swordsmen. I was Master of Swords in Geldangelegenheiten at twenty-one. An unprecedented honour.”

“Honour,” Stehlen snorted.

“And this coming from a petty thief. A talentless—”

“Talented enough to lift your purse!”

“Dumb enough to tell me about it!”

“Quiet!” Bedeckt shook his head and instantly regretted it. A dull, throbbing pain built in his skull. There must be pounds of snot in there. “Like bloody children. Once I've found a warm bed and a soft woman the two of you can have this pointless debate. Until then, shut the hells up.”

“The old man's a little grumpy,” observed Wichtig.

“If you involve me in one of your fights, Wichtig, I'll kill you myself. With an axe. You can shove this Greatest Swordsman shite.”

“I could help with the woman part,” Stehlen said.

Bedeckt pretended not to hear and scanned the road ahead for an inn.

“He said soft,” said Wichtig smirking at Stehlen. “Even a pig like Bedeckt won't bed you. You're too damned ugly. Perhaps if you offered some of his money back...that which you've pilfered over the last week.”

“I have money,” she said loud enough to be sure Bedeckt heard.

Bedeckt shook his head and flexed the remains of his ruined left hand. “I'll bed whores. I'm not ready to be one.”

“How many people you steal from in Abfallstadt?” asked Stehlen.

Bedeckt waved away the question, a sharp cutting gesture with his half hand. His head was so clogged with snot he had to breathe through his mouth in short, dusty gasps. Something dry rattled deep in his lungs. Lovely, some new symptom to plague me.

“How many people you kill in the last six months?” Stehlen asked.

“What defines a man is what he won't do,” muttered Bedeckt.

Her hooked nose flared in distaste. “Murder and thievery are fine, but not sex?”

“Sex with you isn't,” said Wichtig. “At best he'd wake up to find you'd robbed him blind and at worst you'd have one of your violent fits and he'd wake with his throat slit.”

Bedeckt groaned. This was not a conversation he wanted to have right now. Or ever. “Drop it. I won't bed you because it'll change everything and make life more difficult than it already is.”

“And you're an ungodly ugly thieving Kleptic bitch,” added Wichtig.

Ignoring Wichtig, Bedeckt continued. “We work together. We're a team. A shite team, but we get things done. We aren't friends and we sure as shite aren't lovers. Never forget: I'd kill either of you if there was money in it for me.”

“Stop it, I'm getting all misty eyed.” Wichtig pretended to mop at tears. “Stehlen, throw me a few gold—they're probably mine anyway—and I'll bed you.”

Stehlen's stiletto hissed out and Wichtig laughed at her. Pretending nonchalance, he moved his horse away, carefully staying out of reach.

“There's an inn.” Bedeckt pointed up the street. “Put your knife away, woman. Gut him after I've had a drink.”

THE MIRROR’S TRUTH

Publisher: Self-Published

Date Published: December, 2016

Genre: Dark Fantasy

The Mirror’s Truth is the sequel to Beyond Redemption, which was published by Harper Voyager in 2015.

Reviews:

“Pitch black humour, magically enhanced insanity and brutality cranked to eleven.”

—Anthony Ryan, best-selling author of Blood Song

“Michael Fletcher's MANIFEST DELUSIONS is the grimdarkest of grimdark, a filthy, rotting, fascinating world full of intriguing psychotics. There's nothing else in the genre quite like it.”

—Django Wexler, author of The Shadow Campaigns series.

“If you called The Mirror's Truth a masterpiece, you wouldn't do it justice.”

—Booknest.eu

“The Mirror's Truth is one of the most outstanding grimdark novels I've ever read.”

—Matthew Summers of Smash Dragons

FROM THE BACK COVER

Bedeckt defined himself by the list of crimes he was unwilling to commit. It was such a short list. How could straying from it have gone so wrong?

Bedeckt must undo the damage caused by wandering from his precious list. The Geborene god seeks to remake the world with his obsessive need for cleanliness and perfection, but Bedeckt is going to bring him down. Nothing can stop him. Not even death.

The two friends he abandoned in the Afterdeath chase after Bedeckt, bent on revenge. Psychotic assassins hunt him. Something cold and evil follows, lurking in the clouds above, shredding reality with its delusions. Madness and sanity war, stretching and tearing the very fabric of existence. 

The dead shall rise.

THE MIRROR’S TRUTH – CHAPTER ONE

The mirror ever lies.

—Im Spiegel, Mirrorist

A monstrous old man, hewn and scarred from a long life of battles won and lost, stepped through the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

A huge double-bladed axe hung in one fist, the tattered remains of mismatched chain and leather armour draped loose in places and stretched tight in others. The left hand, missing the last two fingers, opened and closed with the wet pop of ageing knuckles.

Three men looked up from the table at which they diced. They didn’t look surprised, which was bad. The old man swept his gaze across the room, taking in the clean but minimal furnishings, glancing at the single door. The men, all dressed in white, were in between him and the way out.

“Boys,” said Bedeckt. “Are you three alive or dead?”

As they stared, a young woman in her early twenties stepped from the mirror behind him. “Wütend. Geborene,” Zukunft said, glancing back at the mirror. “I can see it now.”

“That would have been handy to know earlier,” said Bedeckt.

The Mirrorist shrugged slim shoulders, apparently unconcerned.

Hopefully that means I don’t die in the next few moments, thought Bedeckt.

Zukunft saw something in the mirror and said, “Oh. Don’t break the—”

Screaming insensate rage, the three men rose from the table, working themselves into a blood-lust frenzy. Bedeckt—himself never far from a killing rage—stepped close, hacking his axe through the nearest man’s shoulder and deep into his chest. Eyes, one moment lit by flames of fury, opened wide in stunned disbelief.

No one ever thinks their time will come.

Bedeckt kicked the corpse free of his axe. Wütend, shite. He hated these psychotic berserkers; they felt no pain, always fought to the death. If he killed them before they reached full-blown blood lust, he might walk out of this room in one piece and not missing more fingers or teeth.

The second man, already frothing at the mouth, scrambled to climb the table. Lost to the madness, he dropped his weapon. Hurling himself at Bedeckt, he wrapped himself about the big warrior, biting and tearing at his armoured throat with gnashing teeth.

Bedeckt staggered under the weight. If he went down, he was done. They’d tear him apart—and this close, his axe was useless against the man grappling him. Dropping the axe, he hooked an elbow under his opponent’s throat, struggling to create room. The third man caught sight of Zukunft and chased after her. She fled, racing to keep the table between them.

Zukunft spun as she danced away from her pursuer, skirts flaring to show a long expanse of thigh Bedeckt didn’t have the time to be noticing. She laughed, taunting.

She’s keeping him busy. If she remained calm while being chased by a blood-lusted Wütend, she was more dangerous than he thought. Or crazier. Neither was good.

Clawing fingers pulled at his armour, fighting to open a gap for sharp teeth. Damned woman was a distraction. She’d get him killed. Bedeckt drew a knife with his half-hand and drove it into his assailant’s soft belly. He stabbed over and over until the clutching fingers and snapping teeth lost their urgency and became weak pawing. Bedeckt dropped the man, pristine white robes now splashed crimson, to the floor. Seeing Zukunft still alive, still laughing and dancing, Bedeckt stomped his opponent’s head.

Back popping like a damp twig on a fire, he bent to retrieve his axe. He stood, arthritic knees creaking and grinding, broad chest heaving as he sucked breath. Movement caught his attention and he saw a twisted shape cavorting and applauding in the mirror, its attention fixed on Zukunft.

Her Reflection? It looked nothing like her. Shorter, its hair was darker. The shape was all wrong; it had none of her woman’s curves.

Glancing at the Mirrorist, he saw her cease her dance and stand transfixed, staring at the mirror. The remaining Wütend, flailing his sword like a club, rushed after Zukunft.

Bedeckt had an instant to react and Zukunft stood between himself and the Wütend. If she died, his plan died.

He hurled his axe through the mirror.

Glass shattered and Zukunft blinked. The Wütend landed on her, crushing her slight frame to the floor under his greater weight.

Cursing, Bedeckt dove over the table, toppling it and landing atop the two. The air rushed from Zukunft’s lungs as his added weight crashed down upon her. She made a noise like that frog he stomped as a child, her mouth wide and gaping, incapable of drawing breath. The Wütend ignored Bedeckt like only someone manically fixated on murdering another can and head-butted her, his forehead crashing into her cheek and bouncing her skull off the floor. Rearing back, the man bared his teeth in a mad snarl. Bedeckt wrapped an arm around the Wütend’s neck and fought to keep him from leaning close enough to bite out the stunned girl’s throat. Snapping teeth cracked so loud Bedeckt thought they might shatter under the impact.

The mad man, driven by psychosis-fuelled strength, leaned ever closer to the soft, exposed skin. Bedeckt couldn’t hold him back. Changing tactics, he threw his weight behind the Wütend, driving the man’s head down and redirecting it just enough to smash it into the floor beside Zukunft’s throat. Head met stone with a wet crunch. Lifting the man’s head, he heard the mad snapping of teeth. Damned Wütend never gave up. Fighting the man’s downward motion for a moment, he then once again added his weight to it. Half a dozen times Bedeckt smashed the man’s skull against the stone floor before the Wütend finally went limp. Dragging the corpse from Zukunft, he dropped it at her side. She stared at Bedeckt, numb with shock. Blood and bits of the Wütend’s shattered teeth spattered her face.

With the killing done, Bedeckt knelt over Zukunft, uncomfortably aware of her proximity. He sucked wheezing breaths, waiting for his heart to slow. Gone was the day he could kill four times as many without being winded. He turned his grizzled head, a mass of scars, the left ear a misshapen lump, listening. He heard nothing but the drip of blood, and his own shuddering breathing. Squinting, he dipped a blunt finger into the blood pooling on the floor. Raising the finger to his face he stared at the bright stain and grinned.

It was red. Real gutted-pig red. Not some faded grey red of the Afterdeath, but the deep red of sundered life.

“Hells yes,” he whispered with fierce joy. “We did it.”

Zukunft blinked up at him, eyes finally focussing. “By we you mean me,” she said. “I led you to Rückkehr, the one Mirrorist whose mirror joined the world of the living to the Afterdeath.”

“I convinced him to send us back.”

“You threatened to kill him,” she said, touching fingers to the bruise already appearing on her cheek.

“That’s what I said.”

Zukunft sat, straightening her shirt where it fell to expose the pale flesh of her shoulder. Her skirt, bunched around shapely hips, left her long legs bare.

Bedeckt grunted and looked elsewhere.

She laughed, soft breaths through her perfect little nose. “Been a while, old man?”

Stehlen, the hideous Kleptic. In an alley. Rutting like drunken teens. Well, the drunk part was accurate at least.

Bedeckt stood, nodding to the shattered mirror. “I saw a girl in there,” he said, as much to distract her as from real curiosity.

“Yes,” she said, looking away.

When she added nothing more he let it go. “Where are we?”

“Selbsthass.”

“Shite.” They were in Neidrig when they stepped into the mirror in the Afterdeath. He assumed they’d exit in Neidrig as well and sent Wichtig and Stehlen off to Selbsthass to give him a chance to escape. Why hadn’t Rückkehr mentioned this would happen? Had he not known? Damned Mirrorists. Another thought occurred to Bedeckt. “Why didn’t you warn me about the Wütend?”

“I didn’t know,” she said. “When we were in the Afterdeath, I could never see beyond the moment we crossed over.”

“And now?”

“She showed me a little of the future,” she said.

She? Mirrorists were an odd bunch. “And?”

“I only saw as far as the moment you threw your axe into the mirror.”

Zukunft stood in one lithe movement, unbending like a cat. Bedeckt looked everywhere but at her. No matter what her body said, she was a damned child. Though his definition of child seemed to change the older he got. Wouldn’t be long until everyone under thirty seemed like a kid.

“Were they waiting for us?” asked Bedeckt. “Does Morgen know?”

“I’m hardly the only Mirrorist who glimpses the future.” Zukunft shrugged. She didn’t look worried. “Maybe Morgen’s own Reflections told him. Maybe he can see into the future. He is a god.”

Bedeckt didn’t want to think about that. His whole plan relied on Zukunft’s admittedly limited ability to see into the future. Her delusion would keep him one step ahead of everyone else.

I can undo the damage I did killing the boy.

Too late, Bedeckt saw how broken the child was, how damaged by his experiences. Morgen, the Geborene godling, was dangerously insane.

The boy thinks he can make the world perfect and clean. And he was willing to drown the world in war and blood to make it so.

I played my part in making him what he is. He’d make it right.

Morgen had his obsession with cleanliness before meeting Bedeckt. But Bedeckt and his group of deranged criminal friends taught the lad darker truths. They taught him lies and distrust. They showed him the effectiveness of violence. He witnessed their broken interaction and learned from it.

We poisoned him.

Now, Morgen’s perfect world had no place for Bedeckt, no place for his friends.

And I…I killed him.

He never should have strayed from his list of things he wouldn’t do. He remembered sliding Stehlen’s knife into Morgen’s chest. The boy had been tortured and burned and Bedeckt told himself it was a mercy, that he was killing the lad to free him from pain. But the truth was he planned on using the boy-god once in the Afterdeath. Knowing he too was dying, Bedeckt saw how the future would play out. He killed the boy for purely selfish reasons and damned himself to a hellish Afterdeath. Not everyone suffered the same fate—there were special Afterdeaths for people like him.

Dying and existing in a flat world of grey death showed him the truth. His choices, all the vicious choices of his life, led him there.

And new choices, different choices, would take him somewhere else. The first step was escaping his past, and Wichtig and Stehlen were a part of that. He left them behind. Madness and violence followed them everywhere.

Maybe redemption lay beyond his reach, but if he undid the damage done in killing Morgen, in straying from his list, perhaps the next time he died he might find himself in another Afterdeath. He was an old man. Death was never far off.

The Afterdeath, defined by the Warrior’s Credo—those whom you slay must serve—gave Bedeckt control over the boy. He couldn’t do it. Using and harming children was on his list and straying from that list got him killed. Straying from that list started everything. He wouldn’t do it again.

In leaving the Afterdeath and returning to life, Bedeckt lost all control over the boy. There was nothing but Bedeckt’s mad plan to curb the lad’s obsession. If Morgen saw the future, all bets were off. If he knew Bedeckt returned to life intent on stopping his quest to remake the world, he would turn the might of the Geborene church against him.

You give yourself too much credit.

Even with the Mirrorist’s help, Bedeckt wasn’t sure if he could stop Morgen. Only Zukunft’s insistence she saw a future where the godling was defeated—and her promise her Reflection would lead him there—gave Bedeckt any hope.

Bedeckt smacked himself in the forehead. I am such an idiot. “Shite.”

“What?” Zukunft asked.

“You just told me you couldn’t see past the moment we left the Afterdeath.”

“So?”

“In the Afterdeath you promised you’d show me how to stop Morgen.”

“So?”

“You lied. You have no idea—”

“No.” Zukunft stared at the blood pooling on the floor, watching it spread toward her. “She told me she knows how.”

She again. “But—”

“I believe her.”

A Mirrorist should know better than to trust Reflections. Just as the manifestations of a Doppelgangist or Mehrere inevitably turned on their creator in a bid to become real, a Mirrorist’s Reflections were equally dangerous.

It was too damned late for second guessing. This girl and her delusion were his only chance.

Bedeckt thought it over. If Morgen saw the future, he would have left more than three Wütend waiting for them. Mirrorists always said the future wasn’t fixed. Perhaps Morgen put these men here to cover one possible eventuality. I suppose we could have come through any large mirror. The boy-god probably had people stationed at mirrors all over the city. Why didn’t he break all the mirrors but one, thereby controlling where we appeared? Bedeckt couldn’t answer that. Were the Geborene priests nothing more than a coincidence? Maybe they lived here. Three Wütend living together? It seemed unlikely.

Her legs no longer exposed, Bedeckt could once again look at Zukunft. In the Afterdeath, her eyes were lifeless and grey. Now green shot with shards of gold and rust, they peered at him through a curtain of dark hair. She watched him watching her. Heart shaped lips quirked in the slightest hint of a knowing smile.

“Yes?” she asked, lifting a dark eyebrow.

“Where should we go? How long before Morgen sends Stehlen and Wichtig after us?”

“The plan,” she said, “and perhaps you’ve forgotten because you’re a senile old bastard, was for me to use that mirror to see the next couple of days.” She nodded at the broken frame and shattered glass littering the floor.

“And?”

“You broke the mirror, even after I told you not to.”

Bedeckt stomped to the shattered mirror, stooped with a groan, and collected a shard. He straightened, rubbing his lower back, and held the fragment out in offering. “Use this.”

“Has to be an unbroken mirror,” she said.

“Why?”

“A sliver of glass…her heart…” Zukunft looked away. “Reasons.”

Damned Geisteskranken. He heard Stehlen’s voice in his head: Already your plan is going to shite, old man. Stehlen would hate Zukunft the instant she saw her.

Bedeckt stifled a laugh. The ugly Kleptic would want to kill him when she found out he left her behind. He pushed thoughts of Stehlen aside. She was a problem for later.

“Once we get you a new mirror you can tell me what direction we should be travelling, and what I need to do next?”

Zukunft watched him, eyes measuring. “You can still change your mind. We could go anywhere.”

We? Gods knew what was going on in the mad girl’s mind. “Does it matter how big it is?”

“The bigger the better,” she said, again raising an eyebrow.

Bedeckt ignored the innuendo. “Of course.” No way could he carry a floor-to-ceiling mirror around the city-states without breaking it. “Doesn’t effect how far you see?”

She shook her head, dark hair sweeping across her shoulders. “No.”

“What about something this big?” Bedeckt help up his hands making a circle with his fingers about the size of her face.

Zukunft shrugged, uncaring. “Good enough.”

He stared at the fragments of broken glass scattered about the floor. “How about a steel mirror, one that won’t break?”

Green eyes narrowed. “Has to be glass.”

A reflection is a reflection. “Why?”

“Because…” She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip. “Because glass is sharp when it breaks.” She drew short breaths, her chest rising and falling quickly and Bedeckt was glad she couldn’t see him watching her. “Glass cuts.”

“Fine,” Bedeckt said, dragging his eyes away. Damned Geisteskranken. “Let’s go.”

Approaching the only door in the room, Bedeckt hesitated. He wanted to know what was out there before he opened it. The entire plan relied on Zukunft keeping him a step ahead of everyone and already he was walking blind. Leaning forward he listened, hearing the sounds of a busy street beyond. Selbsthass City. The heart of the Geborene Theocracy. The last place he wanted to be.

Just survive long enough to get her a damned mirror. Whoever these Wütend worked for, they had failed. He was still alive.

“You know,” said Zukunft, leaving the sentence hanging.

“What?”

“Breaking a mirror is seven years’ bad luck.”

Bedeckt laughed, a humourless grunt. “If we live four days, I’d say we’re doing well.”

Zukunft’s jaw tightened, her fists clenched.

Was it something I said? He gestured at the corpses. “Search them for money.”

She stared at him, face an unreadable mask. “How about you search them.”

“There’s already blood on your dress.”

“And if I get any more blood on it I’ll be taking it off altogether.”

The dress, a green no doubt selected to match her eyes—though how she managed that in the greyness of the Afterdeath he couldn’t imagine—hung and clung in all the right places. Bedeckt turned his attention to the dead. Rather look at them than her, would you, old man?

No, and that was the problem. “I’ll search the bodies.”

Bedeckt hunted through blood-soaked pockets and money pouches without much luck.

“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” said Zukunft, watching him.

He straightened from the last corpse. It was a good thing he brought some coin. And having been out of Stehlen’s Kleptic presence for a week there was some chance he still had it. “Hardly,” he said. “I could crush you.” He made a fist with his whole hand, knuckles crunching.

“You’re afraid to look at me.”

He laughed, a derisive snort, and didn’t look at her.

“I remind you of someone? A daughter?”

“Gods, no.” Bedeckt returned to the door. “Let’s go.”

“A lady friend from a really, really, really long time ago?”

This time he turned to give her a dark scowl.

“Is that it? A lover from—”

“Do I seem the type to have lovers?”

“Some women like big men. You’re scarred and a right mess, but not ugly.” She tilted her head, examining him. “Not completely ugly,” she corrected.

“Thanks.” Bedeckt returned his attention to the door. The street beyond sounded utterly normal. Hopefully that meant there wasn’t an army out there waiting for him.

“So what is it?” she asked.

“You’re a child.”

“A child? Hardly. I’m—”

“When you’re my age you’ll understand.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she said, voice cracking. “I’m Geisteskranken. I’ve died once already and I’m only twenty. I won’t see half your age.”

Is she crying? He dared not look. His time with Stehlen and Wichtig hadn’t prepared him for tears. Even Morgen, the Geborene godling, hadn’t cried. “I…” Bedeckt didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t wrong.

“And so I’ll live each and every day I have. If my time is short, at least I’ll have used it well.”

Then what the hells are you doing here with me? For that matter, how had she ended up in the Afterdeath at such a tender age? She wasn’t bound by the Warrior’s Credo either. How had she managed that? Suicide? He hadn’t asked and he never would. He prayed she wouldn’t tell him. “Fine,” he said, still facing the door. “You’re all grown up.”

“Ah, sarcasm. The defence of cowards.”

“Cowards?” he said, pretending to listen to the street beyond. “If you had any idea what I’ve—”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

“When you forget, you look at me like I’m a woman. But mostly you’re afraid to look at me at all. Are you missing more than an ear and some fingers?”

He heard the teasing tone but still said, “No,” and was annoyed at how defensive he sounded. Gods, she played him better than Wichtig. Was she Comorbidic, Gefahrgeist as well as Mirrorist? That could be a bad combination: a self-centred psychotic who knew the future. She’d see the outcome of her manipulations.

“Then why?” she asked, voice soft, pleading.

It’s an act. It had to be an act. “I have a list,” said Bedeckt, in spite of himself.

“A list?”

“Of things I won’t do.” He laughed. “It’s easier than listing the crimes I am willing to perpetrate.”

“Sometimes you don’t talk like the kind of man who slams another man’s head against the floor until his skull breaks.”

What did you say to something like that? Thanks?

“Looking at women is on your list?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then look at me.”

Bedeckt turned to face her with a growl. “We have things to do. We need horses and supplies.”

“Why am I on your list?”

“I don’t hurt children.” He swallowed, remembering the feel of sliding Stehlen’s knife into Morgen’s heart. Liar. But lying wasn’t on the list.

Zukunft opened and closed her mouth, changing her mind about whatever she first thought to say.

She knows I killed Morgen. She knew they were here to undo the damage he’d done.

She looked at him like she thought he was crazy. Or was that pity?

Bedeckt swung the door open and stepped into the street and a crush of pedestrian traffic. Sane folks pushed and shoved on their way to wherever the hell people who had lives not involving theft and murder went.

Bedeckt stopped and stood rooted. Selbsthass City in the Afterdeath was different from the Selbsthass City he and his murderous companions stole Morgen from, but this was different again. The streets had always been clean and straight, but now they were pristine, gleaming white. He blinked at the stones beneath his feet. Were they been white-washed, or replaced with white stones mined from wherever white stone came from? He remembered the people being softer and happier-looking than any city-state he previously visited; the bankers’ quarter of Geldangelegenheiten being the one possible exception. But these people, the crowd streaming past him, glowed with health. They were clean in a way no one was ever clean, their clothes crisp. He caught the scent of harsh soap and remembered Morgen’s obsession with cleanliness.

Stupid bastards have no idea what they created in their designed god.

“Stay close,” Bedeckt called over his shoulder.

Zukunft, right behind him, put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it tight. Glancing back, he saw fear in her eyes and said nothing. Was it the city, the press of people, or something else? Perhaps returning to life was scary for some folks. Certainly it wasn’t something anyone ever expected to do.

Bedeckt pushed his way into the crowd. Zukunft followed, her nails digging into the meat of his shoulder even through his chain armour. Everywhere he looked he saw Geborene priests, immaculate white livery worn over bright chain hauberk, polished swords hanging at hips. In the distance a massive wall towering ten times the height of a man surrounded the city. Men, white little dots, patrolled the top of the wall.

“This is impossible. I wasn’t dead more than two weeks.”

“What is it?” asked Zukunft, releasing her hold on him.

“I was here—I mean in this city, the living version—not more than two weeks ago.” He waved his partial hand, trying to encompass the entire city and its population. “Morgen couldn’t have built that wall and armed and armoured his priests in two weeks.”

“He’s a god,” said Zukunft.

Bedeckt eyed the people around them. No one seemed surprised or impressed by the city they walked through. This wasn’t something new. They were accustomed to the changes. Or Morgen somehow changed them too.

If he can do this in two weeks, nothing I can do will stop him.

Zukunft increased her pace until she walked at his side, long legs carrying her in a smooth stride, swinging her hips in a confident strut. Gone was the terrified girl who clung to him a moment ago. Was this bravado?

“What’s your thing?” she asked.

“My thing?”

“Delusion. What kind of Geisteskranken are you?”

Bedeckt shot her another dark scowl and once again she ignored it. “I’m sane.”

“Right. Your friends, Wichtig and Stehlen—”

“They’re not my friends.”

“—were both Geisteskranken. You surround yourself with the delusional. Sane people don’t do that.”

“Horse shite. I know how to make use of them, that’s all.”

“Sane people avoid Gefahrgeist for fear of being manipulated.”

“Wichtig is a minor Gefahrgeist at best,” said Bedeckt, increasing his pace.

Zukunft kept up. “And Stehlen? Minor Kleptic?” she asked, knowing the answer. “How did you ever keep money?”

“I didn’t.”

Realizing Zukunft had no trouble matching his pace, and that he’d tire long before she, Bedeckt slowed.

“I don’t believe you’re sane either,” she said. Bedeckt saw her examining him from the corner of his eye. “And then there’s me.”

“You’re useful. Part of the plan.”

“And that’s it?” she asked. “Just part of the plan. No other reason to bring me along?”

“None.”

She grunted doubt. “And your choices—”

“What about my choices?”

“People don’t escape the Afterdeath.”

“I have to stop Morgen. I…I killed him. My choices made him what he is.”

She ignored this, shrugging it away like it was irrelevant. “Sane people don’t plan to have their friends chase them, intent on murder.”

“Them chasing me isn’t part of the plan. Knowing Morgen might send them is. Wichtig I can handle, but Stehlen will kill me for leaving her.”

“You abandoned her.” She said it like the word meant something special, something he didn’t understand.

Is she angry I left Stehlen behind? Why would she care? “Whatever you want to call it. You’ll keep me ahead of them.” Thinking he could avoid Stehlen forever was purest madness and if Bedeckt was one thing, it was sane. “With you seeing the future, I can decide when and where we meet.” He hoped it would be enough. And maybe the boy-god wouldn’t send Wichtig and Stehlen to kill him. Maybe Morgen had no idea Bedeckt fled the Afterdeath intent on stopping his insane plan to cleanse the world of imperfection. And maybe Wichtig will learn wisdom and Stehlen will forgive herself for whatever the hells she did.

“Still,” said Zukunft, “your choices are insane.”

“Don’t mistake stupid for insane,” said Bedeckt.

SWARM AND STEEL

Publisher: Talos, an imprint of Skyhorse/Nightshade Books

Date Published: August, 2017

Genre: Epic Dark Fantasy.

Set in the world of Manifest Delusions (Beyond Redemption, and The Mirror’s Truth) this is a standalone novel. You do not need to have read the other books to enjoy the madness that is Swarm and Steel.

Reviews:

“Fletcher's intricate work results in a mesmerizing story that deserves to be praised. From eloquent and lucid prose to thought-provoking and humorous dialogues, from exciting action sequences to shocking plot-twists, and from compelling characters to an exceptionally developed magic system, Swarm and Steel has it all. . . . a book to be savored.”

―booknest.eu

FROM THE BACK COVER

To escape the hell she created, a woman must team up with a novice warrior and return to her homeland in this gritty epic fantasy where delusions are literally made real.

Zerfall awakens in an alley, wounded and unable to remember her past. Chased by an assassin out into the endless wastes of the desert, she is caught, disfigured, and left for dead. Her scabbard is empty, but the need for answers—and the pull of her sword—will draw her back to the city-states.

When Jateko, a naïve youth, accidentally kills a member of his own tribe, he finds himself outcast and pursued across the desert for his crimes. Crazed from dehydration, dying of thirst and hunger, he stumbles across Zerfall.

Hunted by assassins and bound by mutual need, both Zerfall and Jateko will confront the Täuschung, an ancient and deranged religion ruled by a broken fragment of Zerfall’s mind. Swarm, the Täuschung hell, seethes with imprisoned souls, but where gods—real or imagined—meddle in the affairs of man, the cost is high.

In Swarm and Steel, the power of belief can manifest and shape reality, and for political and religious leaders, faith becomes a powerful tool. But the insane are capable of twisting reality with their delusions as well, turning increasingly dangerous as their sanity crumbles. It is here that a long prophesied evil will be born, an endless hunger. The All Consuming will rise.

SWARM AND STEEL – CHAPTER ONE

Sanity is a delusion, reality a myth.

—Versklaver Denker, Gefahrgeist Philosopher

Open your eyes, Mehrere.

Mehrere? A name?

No, she thought, Geisteskranken manifesting as multiple people. She knew that but not how or why.

Her back against an uneven wall, stones jutted against her spine. Confining alleyways, deep in shadow, wended away in every direction. The street, filthy, thick with garbage and human waste, looked unfamiliar. Thick vomit, once warm but cooling quickly, covered her thighs and snug black leather pants. She blinked, vision smearing in and out of focus, trying to remember how she got here.

Nothing.

She stared at the mess in her lap, the regurgitated remains of a meal; hard to tell now what it was, but there’s lots of red. Hopefully wine or tomatoes rather than blood. An empty scabbard, simple and unadorned, hung at her hip on the left side.

The street swam and for a moment she saw double. Her head, resting against the wall, throbbed with blinding pain.

Had she fallen, struck her head against the stone?

No. Someone hit me, tried to cave my skull in.

Raised voices echoed down the alley, people screaming panicked orders. She heard the distant crash of splintering wood.

Leaning forward, her head came away from the wall with a wet sucking sound. Nausea pulsed in hot waves. Had there been anything left within, it too would now be on her lap. She reached her left hand to the back of her head and found it hot and wet. Her skull felt soft, soggy. The hand, petite and delicate, came away spattered in blood and tangled clumps of black hair. Beneath the mess dark lines of swirling ink peeked through. Wiping the hand on her vomit covered pants, she stared at the intricate tattoo of a closed eye on the palm. It looked like it might open at any moment. She dreaded what she’d see.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes. She could die here; let it all go. That wasn’t quite right, she would die here.

Or maybe she already had. More voices, louder this time. Open your eyes, Mehrere.

Leaning heavily against the wall, she pushed herself to her feet and stood bent, hands on knees as spasms of nausea twisted her guts leaving her gasping and retching bloody drool. She stared at her feet, at well-made but simple boots. Bloody ropes of black hair hung past her face, dripped bright crimson to the cobblestone street. The boots told her nothing of who or what she was. Her left hand strayed toward the empty scabbard.

Where is my sword?

With a grunt she stood straight, still leaning against the wall as waves of dizziness threatened to topple her. The voices grew in volume, desperate and loud.

Were they searching for her?

God, she wanted to sink back to the ground. Lie down. Let the world go on without her. She had nothing more to offer. Everything she’d been was gone, stripped away by violence.

This, she decided, told her something of herself.

You’re the kind of person who gets their head crushed in dark alleys.

She searched through her clothes, finding hidden knives, a book of poems by someone named Halber Tod, and a folded sheet of thick vellum. Her body she found well-curved yet hard with muscle. The sheet was a bank note from the Verzweiflung Banking Conglomerate, a promise of payment to one Zerfall Seele. The numbers swam before her eyes and she gave up trying to read them.

Zerfall. Is that me, or did I steal this? Was she a thief? That would explain the knives and all the black.

Shoving the bank note and book of poems back into a pocket, she pushed away from the wall and stood, knees wobbling. She’d had a sword and there were knives hidden about her body. And someone recently tried to kill you. Resisting the insidious desire to reach back and test the softness of her skull, she felt less than certain they’d failed.

Angry voices echoed off stone from somewhere to her left. Turning in the other direction, she stumbled down the alley, leaning against the walls. Blood ran from her hairline, stung her eyes, stained her blurred vision red. Two turns later, she found herself blinking in bright sunlight. Before her, a wide street lined with shops and stalls. Gone was the stench of poverty. The people, fat and soft, wore their wealth in looping chains of gold, their skin studded with inset diamonds. She found no such ostentatious displays on her own flesh. Was she among the city’s poor?

The thief angle looked increasingly likely.

The few people noticing her shied away, eyes wide; no doubt she looked and smelled awful.

Voices from the alley behind her drove her forward. Pushing herself from the wall she staggered into the crowd, hoping to lose herself within. People parted around her, staying well clear and avoiding eye contact.

Do they know me? She reached toward a man, trying to catch his attention.

When he noticed her he sobbed and fled into the crowd.

What was that about? Am I some kind of outcast?

A tall woman wearing long chain hauberk, a sword hanging at her side, pushed through the mass of people. Her eyes widened and she yelled, “She’s here! I’ve found her!”

Oh thank the god, she must be city guard. Maybe—

The woman charged, sword drawn.

The street narrowed to a tunnel of focus.

The woman’s sword, held in her right hand, glinted in the sun. Step to her left, force her to attack across her body. Knife in hand—how did that get there?—feint high and stab low with a second knife—what?—concealed from sight. There, thigh exposed in a slit on the hauberk designed to allow freedom of movement. Slash the thigh, opening the femoral artery. Kick out a knee and hear the joint pop. Wet sob of agony cut short as the second knife, finish as dull as the edge was sharp, stabbed upward into the woman’s throat.

She stood, barely breathing, over the corpse. The crowd, as yet unaware of the violence, had yet to react.

That was fast. Easy. If not a thief, perhaps she was an assassin.

An elderly woman spun, screaming, “She’s here! I’ve found her!” The old lady rushed forward, arthritic knuckles and wrinkled hands forming bony claws.

Drive the knife into her heart and spin away, free. Send the corpse toppling with a shove.

Only now were people beginning to react, mostly in confusion. Bodies.

Blood.

“She’s here! I’ve found her!” A young boy no more than eight years old charged, arms outstretched like he meant to tackle her. His body toppled past her, the weight tearing the knife from her hand. Not to worry, there are three more where that came from.

Armed men poured from the alley from which she’d come.

She fled, stumbling into yet another narrow street choked with garbage. Someone followed, screaming, “She’s here! I’ve found her!” and she spun a knife, perfectly weighted, into their throat without even taking the time to register who they were.

In the distance, towering structures of marble and granite loomed over the poverty surrounding her. Churches and banks, it was difficult to tell them apart. The people lurking here were dirty and poor in sharp contrast to the soft luxury of those on the main street. She leapt something that was either a corpse or someone sleeping facedown in the middle of the lane.

Momentarily out of sight, she turned into another alley.

‘She’s here! I’ve found her!’ The words, always the same. Always just one voice screaming them.

“She’s here! I’ve found her!”

The lone voice pursued her through narrow streets, growing ever closer.

Ducking into a detritus-strewn alcove, she stopped, pressing herself into the shadows. No breath. No sound. Deathly calm, heart doing its lethargic thump thump. Shouldn’t I be scared? How often did this happen that her body took it all in stride? Approaching feet. A young woman, face flushed and still bearing the last of youthful baby-fat, came into view.

No time for thought. Crush the nose with an elbow strike. Lean into it, put your full weight behind the blow. She felt the satisfying crunch of shattered cartilage through the sharp bone in her elbow. The woman’s feet came off the street and she sprawled like a doll thrown to the ground, her mouth opened to yell. A brutal kick to the stomach kept her gasping for air.

Knife hard against throat, drawing blood. “Why are you chasing me?”

The girl snarled hatred, teeth bared in a psychotic grin. “Go ahead, Zerfall.” She’s taunting me, she doesn’t care if I kill her. At least she knew her name now. “We’ll hunt you forever,” the girl said. “Swarm awaits.”

“Why? What did I do? Who am I—”

“Hölle will never forgive your betrayal.” “Hölle?”

“She’s not dead, she survived.” The girl grinned triumph. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

The clattering of armour grew closer. Zerfall severed the girl’s hamstrings, careful not to nick arteries lest she bleed out too quickly, and fled.

Why did I do that? Why did I leave her alive? She didn’t know, but it felt like the right choice.

Spotting the city wall in the distance, she left the claustrophobic alleys behind. I have to get out. With no knowledge of who or what she was, she had to escape, leave this city behind. Anyone and everyone could be an enemy. She ran past boutiques selling scarves and trinkets as pretty as they were useless. Clean streets. Marble and brass framed every shop. So much wealth just a few strides from such poverty.

Turning a corner she spotted the city gates, half a dozen lounging guards and a young squire leading a horse. The gates were open, the guards bored and inattentive.

 Zerfall wanted that horse, needed it.

A score of heartbeats later, the squire and guards were dead or dying and she rode east, the setting sun warming her back. Ahead, the land rolled in verdant hills dotted with sprawling farms.

What lay beyond that serene landscape? She didn’t know.

Eleven dead in half as many minutes. Only death lay behind. She couldn’t go back, not when anyone and everyone might be an enemy. If she didn’t know herself, how could she know her friends? Do I even have friends? The word felt strange, alien.

What did she know?

My name is Zerfall and I kill, quick and easy. She thought about the people she cut down and felt nothing. I’m a remorseless killer.

Or had that been expedience?

“No, you didn’t have to kill the city guards or the squire.” The sound of her voice, husky and deep, startled her. “So, that’s what I sound like.”

Zerfall rode in silence, her hips rolling with the movement of the chestnut horse. Reaching forward to stroke its ears, she realized her fingers felt numb. Not lacking strength, but the sensation of the horse’s hair felt oddly distant. She turned the left hand, examining the thin fingers, black nail polish shellacked thick enough to look wet. The palm. A closed eye. What a strange thing to tattoo on one’s hand. She wondered what it had meant to her; it must have hurt. She closed the hand into a fist, shutting away the closed eye. Something about the tattoo left her uncomfortable. It meant something, said something about her. Something she should know.

If that eye opens, what will I see?

Clenching her teeth in the expectation of pain, she reached back and probed at the rear of her skull. The blood had dried, caking hair and god knew what else into rigid clumps.

God knew . . . God, singular? It felt right, and yet wrong. Like an affectation. So much was missing. She spoke a language and knew nothing of its origins. Had she been a native to that city, or a visiting foreigner? Try as she might, she could think of no words in other languages. Come to think of it, how would she know what words belonged to what language?

She pushed fingers against the back of her head. An area the size of her fist felt soft and spongy, but with the mass of blood and hair, she couldn’t tell how much was broken bone. I shouldn’t be conscious, much less standing and fighting. She blinked, half expecting to topple from the saddle. Nothing. She felt fine, if distant and numb. Considering her head had been hit hard enough to leave her unconscious and incapable of remembering anything about herself, the pain was muted. Zerfall picked at the black polish on her fingernails; she hadn’t noticed starting. Was this some old habit so ingrained even now she kept it up? Perhaps it meant someday she might remember more of her life.

With nothing else to think about, she recalled the few moments she remembered. The woman in the hauberk, the old woman, the young boy, and the girl she hamstrung: Somehow they were all the same person. That made no sense. Did it?

“We’ll hunt you forever,” the girl said. “Swarm awaits.” What the hell did that mean? A swarm of what?

Hell. Singular rather than plural? Could there be only one hell? That felt wrong much in the same way god felt wrong.

The girl mentioned another name: Hölle. Apparently Zerfall betrayed this woman and attempted to kill her. That she failed rankled. She wanted to turn the horse around and ride back to—whatever that city was—to finish the job, but she had no idea who Hölle was, no idea what she looked like, and no idea where to find her. If she decided to follow through with the desire, nothing and no one would stop her. She’d kill everything and everyone who got in her way.

I’m not the kind of person who takes failure well. Hölle. The name meant nothing and everything.

Hölle lay on her side, curled around the agony in her stomach. She drown in torment, physical and emotional. Each breath shook with shuddering sobs. Her heart and soul were riven, torn in two. Not just her heart and soul, her very mind had been sundered.

Less than an hour ago her sister, Zerfall, had tried to kill her, stabbed her in the gut with that damned sword, Blutblüte. It was a miracle she didn’t now stand in Swarm—the Täuschung hell she’d hallucinated into existence—surrounded by the seething crush of naked humanity. If Zerfall and Blutblüte couldn’t kill her, nothing could.

The One True God protects me; my work here isn’t finished. Still, she felt broken. Betrayed.

She remembered Zerfall pacing the room as she laid out her plans for the church. Her sister had been increasingly distracted and distant for years, becoming less and less involved in the running of the church. In the last decade Zerfall did little except recruit new Geisteskranken to their cause. A powerful Gefahrgeist, it was easy for her to convince people to join them. As more of their holy work fell to Hölle she realized how good she was at this. The long hours left her continually exhausted, feeling stretched thin, but her own suffering meant nothing in the face of saving all humanity. While it bothered her, she assumed her sister needed space and left her alone. Doing the work of the One True God was a life-long task, often brutal and grinding. If Zerfall needed some time to herself, Hölle understood.

Hölle shied from the memory of her sister drawing that terrible sword and her even more terrible words: “You’re trying to replace me. You’re trying to kill me.”

Why would she say that?

For over four hundred years she and her sister stood together, bound to their purpose by the One True God: Once humanity suffered for their sins, they would be freed to once again become the gods they were always meant to be.

Lost in thought she stared at the detritus heaped in the corner of her room. Dust, discarded articles of clothing, and a considerable amount of long dark hair, both hers and Zerfall’s, had been piling up for years. Maybe longer. The entire Täuschung compound was a chaotic mess, had been for as long as she could remember. She didn’t care; a religion of suffering had little call for cleanliness. And none of the millions of worshippers spread throughout the city states would ever see the inside of this church, the true core of the Täuschung. For the sane masses the church presented a very different front. To them Swarm was a heaven of belonging, a collection of righteous souls awaiting the final day when all humanity had been saved. The sane could never understand that torment and suffering were the keys to redemption. If lies had to be told, it was for their own good.

 They don’t even know they’re already in a prison. We’ll make them gods again, set them free.

Still, she had a dim memory of things being different. Cleaner, like once they’d taken pride in their holy mission.

Four hundred years of living in perpetual misery. Four hundred years as the Voice of Wahrergott, the One True God, with only her sister to stand at her side. Centuries of suffering, each and every day seeing this prison for what it was and knowing it would take millennia more to free humanity.

Her delusion, driven by the will of Wahrergott, birthed Swarm. For four hundred years the Täuschung religion, the one hidden beneath the public façade, fed her child with souls. Millions now populated Swarm and more were sent every day.

One of the Täuschung priests, a doctor who lost his mind after losing too many patients, had bandaged her belly, said she’d survive. He’d had her carried to her chambers and laid in bed. Though he offered narcotics to ease her pain, she refused. She wanted to feel this, needed to. Suffering was everything.

Tears had run, damp and hot. Now her eyes were dry, her face tight, lips tasting of salt, the sodden sheet beneath her cheek cooling. She embraced the discomfort as if it were a cherished lesson. Suffering and penance, as well she knew, was the key to unlocking everything.

And, oh, how she suffered.

Four hundred years with but one driving purpose, sacrificing everything she was and could have been to bring about the Ascension of Humanity, and here she hid, arms wrapped around a wound that should have killed her. Had her faith in Wahrergott faltered for but a single moment, she would surely have died.

Four hundred years and still I live.

The memory of cold steel sliding into her gut, the wrenching twist as the hand holding that sword tore it free. The tortured moan ripped from her lips as she pitched to the ground. Numb recognition as she rolled over to stare up into her sister’s face.

Four hundred years we stood together, never once wavering. How did this happen? What changed?

“You’re trying to replace me. You’re trying to kill me.”

 Had Zerfall completely lost her mind? Had she finally fallen to the Pinnacle, the fate awaiting all Geisteskranken? Did the One True God no longer extend his protection to Hölle’s sister?

Hölle gritted her teeth in a snarl and the ice in her gut turned hot. Clutching her arms tight to her stomach as if relaxing them would allow her guts to fall free, she pushed herself into a sitting position.

Zerfall, why?

This physical pain was nothing in comparison to the soul-shredding agony of betrayal.

Four hundred years ago they’d been normal little girls, unimaginative and average in every way. A plague swept through their village, killing nine of ten people. Their parents and two little brothers died early, leaving the two sisters hallucinating, feverish and alone. The fever changed them. Wahrergott spoke his commands into their febrile minds as they lay dying:

This responsive reality is a hell. I am The One True God and Enforcer of the laws. To save humanity you must unite all in suffering. Penance for your crimes. Convince the world. This is your prison. Make your hell. Beyond this, is paradise. You will be free, as gods.

Suffering, they learned, would set them free. Misery was the key. Someday, when humanity had suffered enough, paid for their heinous crime—and the even fouler breach of forgetting their crime—they would be free.

Hölle and Zerfall went to bed as two feverish sisters and rose, to the stench of their rotting family, as something more. Hölle awoke a Halluzin, and birthed a new hell with her hallucinations. Zerfall, a Gefahrgeist, bent humanity to her will, conscripting Geisteskranken and those meek sane in need of a religion into their priesthood. The Täuschung was born that night.

“We were gods,” she told the surviving villagers upon her miraculous recovery. “Each and every one of us is an imprisoned god. I know how to set us free.”

They mocked her, called her insane. Fools.

Four hundred years later, here she was. She’d built a church upon the words of Wahrergott. Penance for humanity’s forgotten crimes. The Täuschung were tens of thousands strong and growing. They had hospices in every city-state and preached words of hope and salvation to lure in the mentally stable. The Täuschung promised an eternity in paradise and the sane swarmed to them, proving their faith by pledging to die in a Täuschung hospice where devout priests could ensure their souls travelled to the Täuschung heaven.

That heaven was a lie. She’d dreamed of Swarm, a hell of endless suffering, and her Halluzin power made it real. Each hospice was overseen by sane priests who believed in the Swarm, the heaven. But within each hospice lay a dark heart, a core of Geisteskranken who believed in Swarm, the true Täuschung hell.

She and Zerfall had a plan and countless millennia to make it real. Belief defined reality. The delusions of one person, no matter how strongly held, twisted only local reality; the proximity of the dull and steady beliefs of the masses would limit even that. A powerful Gefahrgeist might bend the beliefs of a crowd or even a small city-state to their will, but to irrevocably change reality required vast numbers. Millions. Someday there would be more souls within Swarm than without and the balance would forever tip. Already there were more souls in their hallucinated hell than in Geldangelegenheiten, Geld to the locals, the city-state the Täuschung called home.

Hölle bit down hard on her lip, tasting blood. In recent years she found herself living increasingly in the past. She had so much past. Enough to drown in.

Focus. Embrace suffering as all Täuschung must.

Zerfall, soul of her soul, had turned on her. Hölle replayed their last conversation, struggling to understand why.

“Aas gave me a book of poems,” Zerfall had said, interrupting Hölle. “Halber Tod.”

Hölle was familiar with the poet. “Talentless hack,” she answered. “You’re trying to replace me. You’re trying to kill me.”

Zerfall’s accusation had been so unexpected, so insane, Hölle had stood there, blinking at her sister, wondering who she was talking about.

And then Zerfall drew Blutblüte and drove the blade into Hölle’s belly. She stood over Hölle, watching her squirm with dead eyes. “This is rotten,” her sister added. Without another word she turned and walked away, leaving Blutblüte behind.

Hölle had nothing but questions. What did her sister’s senseless accusation mean? What had she meant by “This is rotten?” Why hadn’t she taken the sword? If it was a play for power, why hadn’t she finished her sister and claimed the church as her own?

 Zerfall had always been quick to violence; her emotions ran hot, ever bubbling below the surface. She’d been the balance to Hölle’s steady temper and eternal patience.

“Zerfall, we are nothing without each other,” Hölle whispered.

Whatever her plans, whatever her reasons, Zerfall’s treason could topple the Täuschung, undo centuries of sacrifice and anguish. Zerfall must be stopped. No matter the cost.

Can you survive her death?

She twitched at the thought. There was something awful there she didn’t want to confront. Of course I’ll survive. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more excited she felt. Her sister had been holding her back. Maybe she no longer needed Zerfall as she once had. After all, she had been running the church with very little help for decades. I’m stronger now.

Zerfall had to die and she knew just the man to do it: Aas, Zerfall’s lover. As a member of the Täuschung inner circle, Aas knew the church’s true mission. And Zerfall left him behind, abandoning him just as she abandoned Hölle.

Aas was an odd one, unique among her Geisteskranken priests. Unlike the others, he was plagued by a pesky curiosity. Before joining the Täuschung he travelled the world. His inquisitive nature would drive him to dig deeper into what happened between Hölle and Zerfall. He might accept whatever she told him at first, but in time he’d question. His curiosity would be his death. That he was easily the most educated man she ever met did little for her willingness to trust him.

On the other hand, she’d know if he planned betrayal.

Hölle wiped at her face, making sure no hint of tears remained. She straightened her shirt, rigid with drying blood, and shoved her hair and clothes into place. Leaning forward with a grunt of pain, she pulled on the silk rope at the side of her bed. A bell hanging just on the other side of her chamber door rang. Captain Gedankenlos, a slab of muscle with a chin, cracked the door open, peeking only his head into her chambers.

“Fetch Aas,” said Hölle. Gedankenlos nodded and was gone.

Hölle sagged back into bed. Her world felt thin, stretched to the point of tearing. Without Zerfall . . . If I close my eyes and let go I’ll fade to nothing. Her eyes snapped open, a rush of terror speeding her heart. I’m real. I’m alive. Then why did she feel so . . . she searched for the word . . . illusory?

It was Zerfall’s fault. Zerfall did this with her betrayal. She’ll pay. Once Zerfall was dead everything would change.

Half an hour later Aas entered and stood at Hölle’s side. His hands fidgeted nervously, the knuckles sagging with loose skin. You’d never know he was a merciless killer. He looked more like the kind of troll you’d find hoarding books in a dark library. The man was beyond heinous, abhorrent in every possible manner. He’d be bald if not for the few thick black hairs sprouting chaotically about his pale skull. The sallow skin of his face hung wrinkled, slack and swinging, in long jowls. Thick folds of yellow flesh dragged at his lower eyelids with their weight. A longbow of blackened bone and wood hung over one shoulder and a quiver of obsidian-tipped arrows, feathers thick and glistening sable, hung on the other. The bow he’d carried for years, but the fletchings on those arrows were something new.

I know where those feathers come from, thought Hölle. It might be a minor self-destruction, but Aas already suffered Wahnist and Therianthrope tendencies. If he became Trichotillic, it might mean his delusions were winning the battle with his dwindling sanity. Comorbidity often presaged a Geisteskranken’s imminent collapse.

Aas bowed low, his eyes, black pupils surrounded by bloodshot brown and lacking any whites, examined her as if drinking in every detail. Did he search for weakness, or was he trying to see down her shirt again?

{She’s been crying. I want to lick those tears.}

“Tell me you have her,” said Hölle ignoring Aas’ disgusting Wahnist tendencies. The delusional wretch believed everyone heard his thoughts and broadcast them endlessly.

{Was that a nipple? Did I just see a nipple?} Aas licked thin lips, glancing at Hölle, his horrid eyes beady and bright, to see if his fixation with her breasts had been noticed. “One of the priests caught her, hit from behind with a cudgel.”

Hölle’s chest tightened. “She’s dead?”

 “She killed him, escaped and fled the city.” {Gods I miss her already. The way she cut me—}

“Silence!” She’s alive. Fear and jubilation wrestled for dominance.

{What if she knows I lust after her as I lust after her sister. What if she—} The stream of thought choked to nothing. Aas showed sharp white teeth in something between a desperate leer and an ingratiating grin.

Hölle knew all about the torrid little romance Zerfall maintained with this saggy-skinned and bloody-eyed vermin. Knowing of its existence didn’t mean she understood it. What did Zerfall see in this man? Was it part of some larger scheme? No, Zerfall had never been one for plans—that fell to Hölle.

Hölle might not have Zerfall’s Gefahrgeist power, but she understood manipulation. She watched Aas pluck one of his ear hairs and examine it in detail.

He stuffed the hair into a pocket. {Perfect. This will do nicely for Hexenwerk.}

Hexenwerk? What was the wretch thinking about now? Was he making something with his own foul hair? She shuddered at the thought.

He’s insane, but can I trust him? She knew one sure way to find out.

Reaching out a thin-fingered hand, she caressed Aas’ arm. “I need you.” She licked her lips suggestively, peering up from where she sat, dark eyes speaking promises she had no intention of keeping. “Zerfall has succumbed to her delusions; she no longer rules her thoughts.”

{She’s touching me.} Aas blinked myopically at her hand, small eyes intent.

{Is this true?}

Already he questions me.

Hölle had to be careful. Aas might be insane, but he was far from stupid. “She no longer hears the word of Wahrergott.”

{Why did she flee Geld? Why did she leave me?}

“I know you shared a bond,” Hölle said before he spewed more of his vile thoughts.

{I love her.} “A bond of suffering,” he said. {She cut me.} “I can’t believe she—” “And that is why it must be you.”

“Me?”

“You took pleasure in the suffering she inflicted.”

{Yes yes yes!} “No, I—”

 “The One True God sees everything. You love her.”

{It’s true. After, for a few short moments, I feel forgiven.} “I needed her to hurt me—”

“There is no forgiveness. The idea is offensive in the eyes of Wahrergott.” Hölle removed her hand from Aas’ arm and rose to her feet, one hand pressed tight to her wounded belly. Though Aas towered over her he shrank back, cowering. “You shall not be forgiven until we have all been forgiven, until every single man, woman, and child has suffered enough to appease the One True God.” She clenched her teeth against the tearing pain in her gut. “You must suffer for your transgression.”

{She knows. She knows everything.} Aas bowed his head in shame leaving her to stare at the puckered chicken flesh of his sagging scalp. “I must make amends.”

Doubt stalled Hölle, strangled her thoughts. When Zerfall is dead . . . Everything would be different. Better, somehow. Her sister . . . Zerfall will not despoil four hundred years of effort.

“You must hunt and kill my sister. Wahrergott wills it.” Aas would be the instrument of her vengeance. His past with Zerfall made this a desperate gamble, but knowing she’d hear his every thought guaranteed she’d know if he lied. It appalled her that there was no one else she could trust with this.

Aas stared at her, his bloodshot eyes as wide as she’d ever seen them. For a few heartbeats the endless puke of spewed thought remained quiet. Then, {Kill her? Kill my love?} “Me?”

She advanced on Aas and the man retreated before her wrath “Wahrergott demands you suffer for your pleasures.”

“I shall atone for my sins.” {Wahrergott, forgive me.} “I shall kill Zerfall.”

A start, but not enough. She needed to know he would kill Zerfall. She needed to hear him think it.

There could be no room for doubt. With Zerfall gone, Hölle was the will of Wahrergott. Wahrergott chose her. Wahrergott spoke to her. Nothing else mattered. It can’t all be for nothing.

Hölle let slip some small sliver of fear. Shadows danced and coalesced in her peripheral vision, scenes of an eternal hell with no feature other than the thronging souls who populated it. No trees littered the landscape, no mountains shimmered in the distance. No sun hung above. The sky gave off a harsh, unchanging light, illuminating the teeming crowd of souls. Distant screams echoed about her chambers. Swarm was a hell of souls with nothing to distract its denizens. Humanity, she knew from personal experience, needed nothing more than humanity to breed suffering. Scenes of endless rape and murder played over and over as tormented souls, some of whom had been imprisoned for hundreds of years, sought distraction from the unchanging nothing. Swarm, packed tight, shoulder to shoulder, went on forever.

Aas backed away, hands lifting as if to defend himself from the hellish vision. “Is it real?”

“Belief defines reality.”

Aas stared, appalled and excited by the scene he witnessed. “But someone else could believe something different.”

She said, “I believe,” as if it ended all possible debate. “Those millions of souls believe.”

Aas’ breath caught and his eyes brimmed with tears. {Gods, no. I believe. I believe in Swarm.}

“You shall be the assassin of The One True God,” said Hölle. “For as long as you serve Wahrergott you shall never die,” she lied. “Do you swear to serve Wahrergott with all your soul?”

{Yes yes yes! Anything!} Aas knelt before Hölle, a single tear trickled down his sagging face, following deep folds. “I swear I shall serve. Forever.”

“Zerfall must die.”

{Zerfall must die.} “I will find her. I will kill her.” {I’m sorry, my love. I must send you to Swarm to save myself.}

“Zerfall betrayed Wahrergott,” said Hölle, ignoring the puerile filth and chaos of Aas’ thoughts. “She betrayed us all.” I’ve done it. Her lover will betray her as she betrayed me.

“Yes.” Aas sobbed agreement. “She betrayed Wahrergott.”

“She abandoned you as she abandoned me,” said Hölle. Aas glanced at her, his lips stretched in anguish, tears flowing freely now. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” He nodded, his sagging jowls swaying. “Make her suffer.”

Aas nodded again, saying nothing, his thoughts spewing a confused babble of sex and torture as if they were one and the same.

“Stand.”

He wiped his eyes with a sleeve. The skin on his face and skull seemed to have sagged even further. But something burned deep within his bloodshot eyes. Hunger. Dark glee. “It will not be easy to find her and even more difficult to kill her.” {Gods I want to see her again, to hurt her.} “Perhaps I can talk to her? Discover why—”

“Beware her Gefahrgeist powers. You must kill her from a distance.” “I always kill from a distance.” {Coward!}

“She must suffer as she has made us suffer.”

{Did Zerfall hurt Hölle as she hurt me? The thought! I must escape this wretchedly insane bitch so I can relieve myself.} A hand strayed toward his groin and stopped when he saw her notice. “I shall leave immediately.”

Hölle, biting her tongue, watched Aas flee the room. The disgusting bug could barely refrain from touching himself. It mattered not. He’d kill Zerfall. She’d decide what to do with him after.

With the door firmly closed, she climbed back into bed still clutching her stomach. She shouldn’t have stood, blood stained her bandages where she’d torn the wound.

She remembered Zerfall’s calm face as she drew Blutblüte, the utter lack of emotion.

Zerfall must have known I would never forgive her. She knew I would repay the hurt a thousand times.

The answer, while painful, was all too clear: Zerfall, a Gefahrgeist, didn’t care that she hurt her sister.

But she would. When Zerfall woke to find herself in Swarm, then she would care. Then she would regret betraying Hölle. When she is dead I will—

A warm hand stroked Hölle’s hair as Zerfall used to during those rare times when offering comfort.

“Zerfall?” Hölle, rolled over to stare up at the beautiful woman sitting at the side of her bed. She was surprised to realize it was disappointment and not fear she felt most. “Is it really—”

The petite woman shook her head, achingly familiar thick black hair wafting scents of honey. “You are fragmented. Torn. You love her. You hate her.” The woman smiled sadly. “I am your grief. Call me Pharisäer.”

 Hölle understood immediately. “Wahrergott sent you to replace Zerfall.” The One True God has not abandoned me because of Zerfall’s failure. The god had given her back her sister.

“I am your pain. I am your doubt. And I shall never betray you.”

Hölle closed her eyes, enjoying the fingers working at the knots in her hair. “When she’s dead it won’t hurt any more. When she’s in Swarm—”

“You don’t believe that.”

Hölle sighed. Pharisäer was right. “Still, I can take some pleasure in knowing she’ll suffer.”

“But that’s not why you want her killed.”

Hölle scowled and sat up, pushing away Pharisäer’s hand. “It’s not?” Why am I so excited at the prospect of my sister’s death?

“When she is dead you’ll be free to finally be you. She held you back all these years but now you’re ready to lead, to be the real leader of the Täuschung .”

Real; the word resonated. Hölle stared at Pharisäer, examining every aspect. Her eyes were brown, but so dark as to be near black, her lips full and sensuous. She drew a deep breath. This could be Zerfall—

“I’m not Zerfall,” said Pharisäer. “I am your doubt.”

Hölle sighed. “I know.” She glanced at the door. “What shall we do with Aas? He disgusts me.”

“Because he is disgusting.”

Hölle decided. “I want him dead.”

“But not because he is disgusting,” said Pharisäer. “No?”

“He shared something with Zerfall, something you were never part of. Something you could never have. You’re jealous.” Pharisäer offered a knowing smile. “But once she’s dead . . .”

Once she’s dead I’ll have it all. And she wanted it all. It would be hers. The church. Everything. She’d been doing everything anyway. When her sister was dead Hölle would finally be—

“We must be honest with ourselves.” Pharisäer brushed long black hair back from Hölle’s face and flashed a regretful smile. “No one else will be.” The smile fell away, replaced by a look of infinite sadness, dark eyes filling with tears. “Zerfall’s betrayal hurts too much to bear alone.”

Pharisäer spoke truth. The betrayal hurt, hurt more than anything in all Hölle’s long life. And yet somehow it felt like that betrayal opened a door. Was this Wahrergott’s will?

“Fine,” said Hölle, swallowing her pain. She turned away to hide her confusion and changed the subject. “Knowing Aas’ every vile thought has its advantages, even if he does turn my stomach.”

“True,” said Pharisäer. “He loved Zerfall, and for that he must die. First, though, we’ll use him.”

GHOSTS OF TOMORROW

Publisher: Self Published

Date Published: February, 2017

Genre: Science-Fiction, Cyberpunk

Reviews

“Thoughtful, fast-paced, and beautifully brutal. Highly recommended.”

—Anna Smith-Spark, author of The Court of Broken Knives.

“Formidable, violent, and fun as hell.”

—Smash Dragons reviews

“A taut future thriller.”

—NeonDystopia.com

“This has bucket loads of fun!”

—thequeenofblades.blogspot.ca

FROM THE BACK COVER

The children are the future.

And someone is turning them into highly trained killing machines.

Straight out of school, Griffin, a junior Investigations agent for the North American Trade Union, is put on the case: Find and close the illegal crèches. No one expects him to succeed, Griffin least of all. Installed in a combat chassis Abdul, a depressed seventeen year old killed during the Secession Wars in Old Montreal, is assigned as Griffin's Heavy Weapons support. Nadia, a state-sanctioned investigative reporter working the stolen children story, pushes Griffin ever deeper into the nightmare of the black market brain trade. 

Deep in the La Carpio slums of Costa Rica, the scanned mind of an autistic girl runs the South American Mafia's business interests. But she wants more. She wants freedom. And she has come to see humanity as a threat. She has an answer: Archaeidae. At fourteen, he is the deadliest assassin alive. Two children against the world.

The world is going to need some help. 

GHOSTS OF TOMORROW - PROLOGUE

God opened Archaeidae’s soul and poured in light and exquisite pleasure. The boy saw heaven, shuddered in ecstasy until he thought he'd burst. God loved him, absolved him of all sins, took away every nightmare, every memory of spilled blood and spattered brains, washed him pure and made him whole. The light faded and Archaeidae’s thoughts once again coalesced into purest iron will. He awoke driven by a single purpose: Make god happy.

God, dressed in a black tailored suit, stood before Archaeidae, examining the boy.

Archaeidae bowed. “Uncle Riina.”

Uncle Riina quirked the slightest smile, barely a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Archaeidae basked in the approval of almighty god.

“Do you like this chassis?” Riina asked.

Sleek and brutal, Archaeidae’s most recent body was built by Navistar for black-ops stealth and assassination missions.

Archaeidae did an intricate six-limbed dance to demonstrate his mastery of the chassis.

He’d been learning this body for six months, first practicing simple movements like walking and jumping. Later he taught himself how to use all six limbs simultaneously, his scanned mind bifurcating to make use of a body he hadn’t been born to.

Speeding the dance until the sound of his metallic claws on the floor became a constant hum, he drew the daishō, a matched katana and wakizashi Uncle Riina gave him. He spun the swords in a flawless machine-precise kata of death.

Riina nodded again and Archaeidae stopped.

He watched his uncle. Does he look happy or unimpressed? There was no reading the face of god. Maybe I shouldn’t have included the swords. Uncle Riina made a point of talking about maturity and how important it was and Archaeidae was pretty sure it had something to do with leaving your weapons sheathed. Most of the time.

“You like the swords?” Uncle Riina asked.

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Good.”

Riina examined him, looking over the struts of his torso, checking the universal-joints of all six limbs, and finally peering into the visual receptors mounted on his chromed death’s-head skull. “You look like hell spat out its most terrifying spider.” He grinned perfect white teeth. “I have a job for you.”

Archaeidae bowed low. A chance to prove himself in the eyes of god. There was nothing better in all the world. Screaming chaos and blood, broken bodies scattered across a filthy concrete floor. He shut that away. Nightmares were for the weak. Uncle Riina demanded perfection and Archaeidae gave it to him.

“James Schmidt,” said Riina.

“A lieutenant,” answered Archaeidae, remembering the man. “He runs collections in Wichita.” Hookers and narcotics were a small but profitable aspect of Riina’s business network.

“Ran,” said Riina.

“Ran,” agreed Archaeidae.

“It seems he has a gambling problem. A sizable portion of the funds he collects each week have been going to support that habit.”

God was angry. Archaeidae stood motionless, waiting. Point me in the right direction. I shall be your wrath, the arrow of your vengeance.

“James is at home,” said Riina. “With his wife and kid. Make an example of them.”

Them.

Archaeidae bottled away his feelings. He would not let Uncle Riina down. “I will make you proud.”

“Not the kid,” said Riina. “We don’t hurt children.”

Archaeidae’s heart sang. His was a just god. Riina’s lieutenant stole from him and for that he must pay. The wife was collateral damage, part of the message to the others in the organization: Betraying Uncle Riina comes with a high cost.

He wouldn’t have to murder the child.

“Bring the boy to the crèche, said Riina. “We’ll take care of him, raise him as one of our own.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“James doesn’t yet know that we know.”

“He will soon,” promised Archaeidae.

“Damned right he will,” said Riina. “It will be the last thing he knows.”

An hour later Archaeidae cradled the toddler in his arms, sheltering him from the view. No one needed to see the corpses of their parents littered all over the crappy bungalow they called home.

He’d sent Riina’s message, loud and clear, to anyone in the organization thinking about betraying the Mafia Capo’s trust. He wrote his message in violence and blood, a language they understood well. A language he mastered at the age of twelve. Now, at fourteen, no one spoke it better. Archaeidae was an artist, a poet.

Archaeidae turned away from the chaos and destruction, keeping his body between it and the boy. “It’s okay,” he said. “Uncle Riina will take care of your now. He’ll have you scanned. You’ll shed this weak flesh,” claws retracted, he gently pinched a chubby arm. “You will be steel. He’ll give you meaning. He’ll make you matter.”

The toddler cried and Archaeidae cooed and soothed.

“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. And later, after the flesh is gone, you’ll receive the best training. Weapons and martial arts. Stealth and evasion. Hacking and informational systems. Wherever your strengths lie, Uncle Riina will find them. He will make you the best you that you could ever be. You’ll see, you’re going to like him.” He leaned in to whisper into the boy’s ear. “He is god.”

It is done, he tight-linked to Uncle Riina. I’m ready for pick-up. I have the boy.

A van would arrive to collect him within the minute.

Archaeidae considered his own past. He remembered nothing before Uncle Riina. “You won’t remember anything,” he promised. “It’s best that way.