—HOFFNUNGSLOS

A wagon thundered over the bridge at the Gottlos border as the sun peeked over the horizon. A contrail of dust and smoke hung in the air long after its pa.s.sing. The two guards awake in the local border garrison saw that the carriage clearly displayed the colors of Selbstha.s.s. While the Geborene Damonen were hardly favorites of King Dieb Schmutzig—sporadically despotic ruler of Gottlos—they weren't on his s.h.i.+te list either.

The guards watched with dozy hooded eyes as the carriage disappeared from view and wrinkled their noses at the smell of burned meat.

The older guard slapped the younger on the back. "If we don't report it, it didn't happen."

The younger guard frowned at the old man. "Wouldn't that be a dereliction of duty?"

"How can it be dereliction if it never happened?"

Gehirn, lips cracked and bleeding, her vision a smeary fog, reached the city of Unbrauchbar at high noon. The sun screamed high overhead. The whole world s.h.i.+mmered and wobbled as if viewed through bloodstained aspic. The thick gloves protecting her hands were sodden with blood and pus from suppurating wounds. Her entire body a bubbling sore, she felt like a sun blister about to pop.

The city gate stood open, but a dozen guards gathered there. As Gehirn approached they waved frantically, motioning her to stop the wagon.

Darkness. She must find blessed darkness.

Gehirn snapped the reins hard, driving the horses faster. The idiots would move or she'd run them down.

They didn't move. Instead they raised crossbows and shouted dire warnings. As she had thought: idiots. Searing agony left little room for more thought. She saw only obstacles between her and soothing shade. As one, the guards burst into pillars of bright flame and Gehirn scattered their ashes as she rode through them. Pain narrowed her vision to a collapsing tunnel, focused all thought on one goal.

Getoutofthesungetoutofthesungetoutofthesungetout . . .

Roasting the guards to ash didn't even require conscious thought.

They were an impediment.

They were gone.

Gehirn drove the horses through narrow streets, scattering people and as.h.i.+ng those too slow to flee. She acted on instinct, with thought of nothing but finding shade. Seeing the Geborene temple through what little was left of her eyes, Gehirn hauled the reins with all her remaining strength and the carriage shuddered to a halt. The horses, at the edge of death, shook with exhaustion, their eyes wide with terror, chests heaving with the struggle of drawing breath. Gehirn fell from her perch and landed badly. Wet skin sloughed from her arms, leaving a viscous pink puddle on the ground. She crawled toward the door. Something moved before her. A tall shape.

"Halt in the—"

Gehirn burned it and crawled through the ashes. Her knees left long b.l.o.o.d.y streaks in the dust. Her eyes burst and ran down her cheeks, igniting pain in the cracked and flayed skin.

Getoutofthesungetoutofthesungetoutofthesungetoutofthesun . . .

Darkness greeted her like the most gentle lover's embrace. She saw nothing, but instinct drew her to the deepest depths, the place where sun and moon could never reach. Only the dimmest spark of intelligence remained. Her eyes would heal. Her skin would heal, though if she didn't remove her clothes now they'd fuse to her body as she scabbed and healed. Avoiding that agony was worth facing this agony now. She pulled herself to her feet, leaving smeared b.l.o.o.d.y handprints on the wall. It took half an hour to peel off her sodden clothes and a great deal of already healing skin came away with them. In the end she stood naked, raw and fat, and felt the cool air move over her skin. Already her eyes were recovering and she could make out vague shapes. When she thought her skin sufficiently whole, she crawled into the first cot she found and curled around her pain.

Fire, so hungry and beautiful. She felt wrapped in its comforting love.

She lost consciousness with a contented smile on her weeping lips.

GEHIRN AWOKE TO find her fingers sticky with congealing blood and her arms wrapped lovingly around the cold corpse of a young priest with an opened throat. The memory of her arrival at the Geborene temple in Unbrauchbar was hazy at best. With any luck most of the town remained unburned. Never before had the fire come so easily. Her delusions grew in strength. She'd burned three Krieger—no doubt powerful Geisteskranken in their own right, though she had no idea what their delusions might have been—while sleeping.

How could she control what she did in her dreams? Had she burned others and not known? G.o.ds, she shuddered to think of all the times she'd dreamed raging infernos, bodies stacked like cordwood. How many had she killed without knowing? If her nightmares slipped free, no one was safe.

Is that why Konig sent the Krieger with me? Were they to a.s.sa.s.sinate her as she slept? In her dream . . .

No. That was a dream.

Her mind was going in circles.

"Konig needs me," she said. "He said so."

Still, it made sense. If she was burning priests in her dreams, Konig had to kill her. He'd do it out of necessity.

No, he needs me.

In the end, she realized it didn't matter. As long as there was even a chance Konig needed her, she couldn't fail him. She'd do what he sent her to do. If he had her a.s.sa.s.sinated upon her return, at least she'd die knowing someone had needed her and she hadn't let them down.

Konig, I will not fail you. No matter the cost.

Disentangling herself from the corpse, Gehirn rose from the bed and sniffed at the air. She'd slept an entire day and a new sun had risen, shrouded in thick cloud. She could smell it. She stalked through dark temple corridors in search of clothes and found the temple's laundry room, robes littered across the floor. It looked as if a child had scattered them in a temper tantrum.

"Priests are such d.a.m.nable slobs," she muttered as she searched through the robes for a set fitting her height and rank.

THE SURVIVING CITY guard scattered when Gehirn exited the Geborene temple swaddled in layers of priestly robes. She paid them no attention, too distracted by the pulsing pressure of the sun lurking behind the heavy clouds. It was awaiting its chance to peer through and reduce her to cinder. Gehirn's skin, still raw and pink, chafed against the robes. It was all she could do to quell the urge to cower and whimper in the dark.

High Priest Konig sent her here with a task and Konig was not a man to disappoint.

Konig said I was critical, that he needed me. She hugged her arms tight to her body. He'd called her "old friend." Remembering Konig's words calmed her. Though he often seemed distant and disgusted with her constant need for his approval, Konig cared about her. He and Morgen were the only people alive who did. It was enough. Two people was more than she'd had before Konig brought her into the church, gave her purpose.

More than I deserve.

Gehirn followed the whiff of insanity to where the local Geisteskranken lived. The deranged tended to live in segregated parts of town where their delusions would not be tainted and limited by the proximity of the stolid beliefs of the pathetic sane. Having a few hundred unimaginative people nearby could render the often tenuous powers of minor Geisteskranken nonexistent. Power was a balance of distance, ma.s.s belief, and strength of delusion. For most Geisteskranken the first two factors defined their abilities. For people like Konig and Gehirn, it was the opposite: their delusions were so powerful they could influence or even define the beliefs of the common people. But no one in Unbrauchbar was anywhere near that powerful—except for whoever killed all these priests.

Gehirn hurried along the abandoned Unbrauchbar street. Long-term planning was not one of her strengths; fire left little room for plots and plans, it demanded immediate satisfaction. She found what she was looking for by examining the homes of the local Geisteskranken. The Mirrorist's house, large and sprawling, spoke of wealth and success. Its run-down and decaying appearance spoke of a deteriorating state of mind. A mosaic of shattered mirror fragments covered the exterior walls.

Gehirn paused to study the home. None of the tiny Gehirn reflections quite mimicked her actions as she approached the main entrance. Some battered at the gla.s.s walls of their tiny prisons while others writhed in flames. In all it sounded like the cacophony of a distant crowd, barely audible over the hubbub of city life. Gehirn waved at her little reflections, entertained by their obvious anguish. Hers would be a fiery death. All Ha.s.sebrand ended the same way, only differing in how many they took with them when they went. As those slain in this life served in the next, Gehirn was not overly worried. She'd have more than her share of servants in the Afterdeath. A dim memory of her dream, faded like dyed cotton washed too often, pestered her. Someone had said something about the Afterdeath, but she couldn't remember who had said it, or precisely what had been said.

Gehirn pushed the thought aside. When the day finally came and she faced the last fire, she would embrace that moment as she had embraced all the fires leading to it. To be devoured by your one love was to achieve a harmony few would ever realize. Just thinking of one final heat made Gehirn moist and warm with arousal.

She looked back at the reflections. The fact that they did act so erratically meant that this was the house she sought: a Mirrorist at the pinnacle of power yet still clinging to some shred of sanity. Sliding that slippery slope where control faltered, but still able to see deep into the reflections. It was not lost on the Ha.s.sebrand that she was herself growing in power. She could remember the days when burning men to ash would have been impossible. Now it was easy.

Now I do it in my sleep.

She must finish this a.s.signment before her delusions immolated her soul. Her fate had been a long time coming—and no doubt she deserved it—but she couldn't fail Konig.

Gehirn leaned in close to one of the larger shards of mirror. Blue eyes stared back, and the lack of eyebrows—she'd burned them off as a child and they'd never grown back—left her looking forever surprised. Sweat beaded her bald skull—that thin film of red stubble had once again been burned away—and dripped down a far-too-soft face flushed crimson. When she wiped clean her face, the reflection sneered disgust before breaking into tears.

d.a.m.ned Mirrorists.

She straightened. No point in stalling.

The door swung open as she reached to knock. A scrawny woman, sallow skin puckered like a plucked chicken corpse left too long on the counter, stood facing her. Embedded into her flesh, worked into once-open wounds, nestled tiny fragments of broken mirror and gla.s.s dust. The woman was a walking mosaic of glinting reflections and tinted gla.s.s, both a rainbow and guttering darkness, depending on where Gehirn looked. A threadbare robe did little to cover her emaciated body. Each movement caused her considerable agony. Particularly around joints, fresh blood oozed from wounds never given the chance to heal.

"You stink like burned meat," the Mirrorist said, examining her with a look of disgust.

Gehirn examined the woman, finding her thin body, obvious pain, and undisguised revulsion arousing. She saw glints of light from within her mouth, tiny fragments of mirror embedded in tongue and gums. Gehirn gave her most charming smile—more of a feral and canine leer—and bowed low. "Just the woman I've been looking for."

The Mirrorist spat squarely into Gehirn's chest and Gehirn took a moment to appreciate the phlegmy concoction of bile, blood, and gla.s.s dust. Dabbing at it with a finger, she frowned when she felt a small stab of pain. A tiny sliver of gla.s.s lodged in her fingertip. She tried her smile again. "Charmed, no doubt. I seek your services, Mirrorist. I'll pay in gold. Though"—and she leered at the ribs showing through jaundiced skin—"I suppose other . . . forms of payment . . . could be made."

"Gold will suffice." The Mirrorist's voice sounded like she gargled shards of broken gla.s.s.

"Such a lovely voice. Your name?"

"Verlorener Spiegel. And you are Gehirn Schlechtes, devoted slave to the Geborene Damonen. He cares not one whit for you."

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Gehirn's smile was briefly genuine. "I have indeed come to the right house. Verlorener, let us discuss payment and the past."

Verlorener grunted and padded back into her home, leaving a trail of small and b.l.o.o.d.y footprints Gehirn found tantalizing. She followed, ducking so as not to knock her head on the top of the door. The room Verlorener led her to looked so normal it was shocking. Only the single chair covered in sharp chunks of shattered mirrors and liberally caked with dried blood stood out. Ancient paintings, many flaking away from their canvas, covered the walls. Hundreds of unlit candles adorned every surface. Dark and earthy tones set a mood of warmth and comfort at odds with the sharp, hard angles of the woman. Aside from Verlorener and the chair, Gehirn saw no other mirrors.

The thin woman sagged into the chair as though her spine had been severed and glared barbs of disgust the Ha.s.sebrand found enticingly seductive. Gehirn tossed a pouch of gold coins at her feet, which she ignored.

"Ask," the Mirrorist rasped.

"I need to see what happened in the Geborene temple on the night the priests were slain."

"That is all? You ask nothing of your own fate?"

Gehirn shook her head. "I know my fate. I will die in flame."

"You will die a slave."

"I serve Konig Furimmer."

"That is not—"

"Not why I am here. I need to see the temple."

Verlorener stared at her as if trying to make up her mind about something. "Fine. Normally I would spend the next half hour lighting those candles."

Every candle sparked to life. No gestures, just thought and belief; faith in her growing power. The fire came too easy.

Verlorener stretched out, pulling open the thin robes, exposing her mirrored torso, small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and scrawny legs. She reflected the warm candlelight and looked to Gehirn like a glowing relief map of a malnourished woman. If she was moist before, she was throbbing now. The Mirrorist writhed in the chair, rubbing herself against the shards of mirror embedded in the chair's seat and back. Gehirn heard the gla.s.s in her flesh grate against the gla.s.s in the chair. Verlorener moaned softly.

Gehirn leaned forward, enraptured by the woman's pain, ensnared in the undulating of her thin body. She was a fragmented woman. As different parts caught the candlelight a picture began to form within the mosaic reflections. In moments Gehirn recognized the temple she had slept in the night before. A woman crept through the temple halls, a knife glinting in her hand. She was thin like Verlorener, but lithe with muscle and not malnourishment. Gehirn let out a quivering breath of desire. The woman was fantastically ugly. Matted, dirty blond hair framed a too-square jaw, pale watery blue eyes, and a long hooked nose. Gehirn s.h.i.+vered with pleasure as she watched the woman slit the throat of the young priest she herself had just spent the night with.

Such efficiency of movement. Such directed intent. Gehirn could barely stop herself from reaching under her robes to relieve the building pressure.

When she had seen everything—the ugly woman taking the robes and returning to her friends and their hurried flight from town heading in exactly the same direction Gehirn had come from—she sat back and tried to focus her scattered thoughts. However, the presence of the Mirrorist—still slumped supine and exposed in the mirrored chair—and memories of the brutally efficient woman twisted her thoughts with l.u.s.t and loathing.

Verlorener watched through hooded eyes, lids covered in a smattering of mirrored dust. The corners of her eyes glistened wet with blood and perhaps, Gehirn thought, a hint of tears.

Gehirn let her gaze slide lovingly over the exposed body. Subtlety and charm were impossible and she didn't try to use them. "I have more gold." Verlorener slowly opened her legs until Gehirn was staring at mirror-studded l.a.b.i.a. She blinked away a stinging bead of sweat, licked her lips, and swallowed carefully. "That looks . . . sharp."

Verlorener showed her own feral smile. "You will be cut and bleeding by the time I finish with you. Wounded. Flayed."

Gehirn tossed another small bag of gold at her feet. "I heal quickly."

CURLED TIGHTLY AROUND the agony in her groin, Gehirn could not remember returning to the depths of the Geborene temple. She only ever had s.e.x if she could guarantee her partner's disgust and her own pain. Intimacy was something she both feared and craved. Self-hatred was both weakness and strength, prison and protection. No one loathed her more than she and thus none could truly harm her.

When the shredded pain in her groin faded to a dull throbbing ache, Gehirn rose to pace around the empty temple. The bodies still lay where they had fallen and the blood had attracted flies. She hummed quietly as she walked and thought, the pain and disgust of s.e.x having cleared her mind wonderfully.

The thin woman—still intriguing in her brutal beauty—had gone from room to room searching and killing. In the end all she took from the temple—aside from a few worthless trinkets, scarves, and baubles—was a pile of dirty laundry.

Kleptic, no doubt.

Afterward she met with the pretty fop and the big scarred man with the ax and the three left town heading north.

Alone in the dark, Gehirn barked a dry laugh of wry amus.e.m.e.nt. She had probably ridden past them at some point, either in the night or while blinded from the searing pain of the sun.

Did they ride toward Selbstha.s.s? Where else to go with stolen Geborene robes? The obvious answer disturbed Gehirn greatly. They must know of Konig's great project and the soon-to-Ascend G.o.d-child. If this was true, they were likely agents of the Wahnvor Stellung and intent on the destruction of all that Konig and the Geborene were planning.

Gehirn hissed in anger, her mood souring. To catch the three before they reached their goal, she would have to venture back into the sun. Searching this small city for a useful Intermetic both willing and capable of sending Konig advance warning seemed a daunting and likely pointless task, as she doubted there was anyone here with that kind of power. Besides, it would be far more entertaining to catch the Wahnvor Stellung agents on the open road and deal with them herself. Gehirn didn't want to warn Konig and then slink slowly home night by night, she wanted to see the ugly and beautifully efficient woman again. In the flesh. No fop or ax-swinging monster could stand against the Ha.s.sebrand, no matter how large or skilled with their weapons. The Kleptic might be more tricky—depending on her delusions and sanity—but it was unlikely she could cause Gehirn trouble. Fire devoured all. Still, a damaged enough Kleptic could be a difficult opponent. She'd heard of Kleptics who could steal a victim's heart right from their chest, though that might have been hyperbole.

Would this lithe Kleptic try to steal her heart?

Would she want to?

The thought made her excited, but that feeling quickly receded.

No, she'll hate me. And that was fine, just the way Gehirn needed it. That was the only way she felt safe.

"I wonder if her ugliness made her a better person," Gehirn asked of the darkness. It seemed unlikely. In truth, it didn't matter. Gehirn would find and kill this Kleptic, embrace her in flames. But maybe they'd rut first, share their self-loathing—for there could be no doubt the hideous Kleptic must hate herself.

Once again swaddled in heavy robes, Gehirn stalked toward the barracks of the city guard. It seemed the most likely place to gain fresh horses. If they were smart, the guards would flee.

She hoped they wouldn't.