When he peered at Adolph, he perforce gave the cultist a
clear look at his altered face. Adolph’s eyes widened in surprise and, perhaps,
dismay. That’s right, you bastard, Dieter thought. You haven’t won yet.
His captors marched him up to a mutant as grotesquely
deformed as any he’d seen, whom he assumed to be their chieftain. Despite his
hugeness, his stunted legs, lack of eyes, and the way he appeared to use his
elongated fore-limbs as crutches might have led one to infer he’d be helpless in
a fight, but the two-handed sword strapped to his back suggested otherwise.
“Good evening, Herr Mann,” Dieter said.
The raiders in general seemed surprised at the display of
civility. Leopold Mann cocked his bat-like head.
“I’ve hurt some of your people,” Dieter continued. “I regret
that more than I can say. But your band attacked me. I had no choice but to
defend myself.”
“We attacked you,” Mann answered in a startlingly shrill
voice, “because you murdered another who bore the Changer’s mark.” He shifted
the weight resting on his knuckles, and as he eased himself, his single form
split into four, each slightly different from the rest.
Dieter wondered again precisely what he was seeing. The
phenomenon tugged at him as if it was important he comprehend it. But it could
scarcely be as important as arguing his innocence.
“I didn’t murder Lampertus,” he said. “I had no reason to,
and even if I did, I’m not stupid enough to do it out here in the forest, where
I don’t know my way around and scores of the god’s faithful servants were camped
close at hand to avenge the treachery. Adolph killed him so he could falsely
accuse me and convince you to slay me in my turn. Or, failing that, so he’d have
justification to dispose of me himself.”
“Liar!” Adolph snarled. “You killed Lampertus and tried to
murder me too because your nerve failed, and you were afraid to meet Leopold and
his people.”
Dieter looked up at the outlaw leader. “Does that gibberish
ring true to you? Isn’t it plain that even if I were a spy and afraid, the
safer, more sensible course of action would be to continue my masquerade, not
reveal myself and provoke your anger? Only a man lost to panic would do
otherwise. Do you think the witch hunters recruit agents who are prone to panic?
Did I seem like a coward or idiot as I struggled to keep your band from killing
me?”
One of Mann’s several images spat, then the next, and then a
third. The gob of saliva seemed to take its time splatting on the ground. “It
would have been stupid for you to kill your companion,” the bandit said. “But it
would have been almost as risky for Adolph to try it. Why would he want you dead
badly enough to take the chance?”
“No reason!” Adolph cried. Tendrils of mauve and crimson
shimmer oozed on his body.
“Every reason,” Dieter said. “Your lover forsook you for me. On top of that,
I’m the better magician, and as a result, neither Mama Solveig nor the other
cultists think you’re anything special anymore. Essentially, I’ve taken
away I everything that made you feel like a man.”
Perhaps trying to control the fury welling up inside him,
Adolph took a long breath. “Leopold, you and your comrades have known me for a
while now, and I’ve never done you anything but good. This wretch is a stranger
to you, and you know for a fact that he’s killed a couple of you, wounded
others, and destroyed the black powder and other supplies I smuggled out of
Altdorf. So I ask you: which of us ought you to believe?”
“The one who carries the Changer’s mark,” Dieter said. “If he and his friends
are wise, they’ll put their trust in one of their own kind.”
“You didn’t carry the mark at the start of the day,” Adolph
said.
“But I do now.” Dieter shifted his regard back to Mann.
“Think about it: you have known Adolph for a long time. He’s worshipped before
our lord’s icon for almost two years. Yet the god has never seen fit to mark
him. Now me, I’ve only belonged to the Red Crown for a few weeks, and I’ve
already transformed. If the Changer of the Ways so favours me, how can his
children do otherwise?”
The mutants clustered about growled and muttered to one
another. From what Dieter was able to overhear, he’d persuaded some, but not
all.
Just as his followers found themselves unable to agree, Mann
appeared divided and uncertain in his mind. He stood and pondered, his image
split into three selves, which shifted their weight in quick succession. It
seemed to take a heartbeat too long for the whisper of alar membrane dragging on
the ground to reach Dieter’s ears. He wondered if that was merely his
overstressed nerves playing tricks on him.
Finally Mann thumped a fist on his massive chest. The other
brigands fell silent.
“No member of this clan,” the bat-thing said, “saw Lampertus
die. We only know what Adolph and Dieter have told us, accounts that clash with
one another. Of course, we know Adolph. He’s our trusted ally. Yet Dieter’s
claims sound convincing, and he’s one of our own kind.”
With that, Mann paused, as if he’d said all that need be
said. After a moment, Adolph exploded, “And so? I don’t understand! What is your
judgement?”
Mann snorted, the nostrils in his blunt snout flaring. “My
judgement is, I don’t know what to believe. Fortunately, the band has a way of
deciding such questions: the two of you will fight. The Changer will reward his
true son with victory and punish betrayal with death.”
Adolph gave a nod. “Let’s do it.”
“Adolph’s fresh,” Dieter said. “I’m worn out. Surely you’ll
give me a chance to rest. Otherwise, it won’t be a fair fight.”
Adolph sneered. “I have to return to Altdorf as soon as
possible. If I stay away too long, and my employer becomes suspicious, it
jeopardises everybody’s safety. And besides, murderer, I thought you claimed to
be the better warlock. Isn’t that why I’m supposed to be jealous? Well, your
mystical gifts should compensate for the fact that you’ve been running around
and I haven’t.”
Dieter peered up at Leopold. “Physical exhaustion hinders
spell casting as much as it would hamper a swordsman’s ability to cut and
parry.”
The raider grunted. “If the god favours you, your weariness
won’t matter, and if he doesn’t, you could rest for a year and it wouldn’t
help.” He raised his squeal of a voice: “Clear a space!”
The other marauders vacated an oval-shaped area twenty paces
long. Leopold gestured, and Dieter trudged towards the far end of it. He
imagined himself whispering to the sky, asking for lightning, blasting a hole
through the ranks of outlaws and sprinting through the gap, but recognised that
even if there had been a storm brewing overhead, it probably wouldn’t have
worked. His captors would butcher him in a heartbeat if he attempted any such
escape.
He turned. Adolph had taken his place at the other end of the
oval. The scribe glared, and Dieter, trying to look just as resolute and
confident of his prowess, responded with a glower of his own.
“Begin!” Mann shrilled.
Adolph charged. Perhaps he meant to close the distance to
punch, grapple, and bring his superior strength and mass to bear, to turn the
duel into a purely physical confrontation.
Dieter rattled off words of power and slashed his hands
through mystic passes. He thought he was performing the spell correctly, but
with the final syllable, abruptly sensed that he hadn’t. No wind rose to slam
into Adolph and hold him back. Rather, several spectators cried out in surprise
as the patch of earth beneath them liquefied and their feet sank into muck, a
useless, random consequence of magic gone awry.
Dieter immediately resumed chanting. Adolph kept charging. No
doubt, at this point, he was confident he could reach his adversary before
Dieter could complete another incantation. Dieter was all but certain of it,
too, but he hoped that if he pretended to attempt another spell, it would
encourage Adolph to come at him as fast and therefore recklessly as possible.
The scribe lunged, and Dieter stopped reciting, twisted
aside, and threw a punch. His skills as a brawler were rudimentary at best, but
he managed to avoid Adolph’s headlong rush and drive his knuckles into his
temple. Adolph lost his balance and dropped to one knee.
Dieter kicked the other man in the spine. Adolph lurched
forwards. Teetering on one foot, Dieter struggled to re-establish his
equilibrium so he could kick again.
Adolph spun around with a knife in his outstretched hand. The
slash streaked at Dieter’s belly. He flung himself backwards, narrowly avoiding
the stroke, but the frantic effort robbed him of his precarious balance and sent
him staggering. Begrudging the moment it would take to rise, Adolph snarled the
opening words of the spell that hurled shadow blades, and his single self
splintered into several.
Dieter could almost have laughed. Apparently it wasn’t a
severe enough handicap that he had to fight when he was tired. His eyes needed
to resume playing tricks on him as well.
Dark missiles leaped from the hand of the Adolph acting in
advance of all the others. Dieter attempted to dodge but knew he wouldn’t manage
it. He was still off balance, and the attack flew too fast.
The first set of darts blinked out of existence partway to
the target. As did the next, launched from the fingertips of another Adolph’s
whipping arm. So did the third. It was only the last flight of missiles that
travelled far enough to reach Dieter. He had in fact sidestepped quickly enough
to evade those, and they hurtled harmlessly by. His multiple selves collapsing
into a single image once again, Adolph goggled in manifest surprise that the
attack had missed.
Dieter was just as surprised, but at least he thought he
suddenly understood how it had happened. He’d surmised that his third eye
sometimes saw a trail of after images a person or object in motion left behind,
but he’d been mistaken. In actuality, it was peering into the future, providing
glimpses of what was about to happen an instant before it did.
It was an ability he might conceivably have turned to good
advantage—except that, now that he finally understood it, his altered vision
reverted to normality.
He scrambled back, opening up the distance once again. Adolph
clambered to his feet. Judging from his grimace, it cost him a twinge of pain.
Maybe Dieter’s punch and kick had done some damage.
But not enough to keep Adolph from edging forwards, knife
extended, or beginning another incantation.
Dieter shouted, and his voice was thunder. The deafening
bellow jolted the ground and knocked twigs and leaves out of the trees. The
spectators staggered.
At the very least, Adolph should have done the same. The
blast of sound should have rocked him back, spoiling his conjuring, possibly
stunned him or broken bones. But none of that happened. Evidently buttressed by
some protective charm or his innate mystical strength, he stood steady despite
the roar. Indeed, it was Dieter, taxed by the extreme effort the thunder spell
required, who swayed and tottered.
Adolph’s form fractured anew. The image moving ahead of the
others spun darkness from its fist, a continuous length of shade that whirled at
Dieter like a whip.
Even forewarned, Dieter could tell he wouldn’t be able to get
out of the way. The true attack would arc at him too quickly, even as it would
reach farther than he could retreat. But as he contemplated the curling shadow,
he glimpsed the intricate pattern of deeper and lesser darkness comprising it,
and that in turn enabled him to understand the binding more profoundly than he
ever had before.
He made no effort to avoid the shadow whip, and it cut him
and coiled tight around him. Adolph jerked on the other end of the lash and
dumped him on the ground. The cultist then rushed forwards, knife gripped
overhand. He realised that, given a few moments, Dieter could likely dissolve
the binding with a counter spell, and he meant to finish him before he could
recite the words.
But thanks to his heightened understanding, Dieter only
needed a single word. Enduring the stinging embrace of the binding as best he
could, he waited until Adolph was standing over him ready to stab, then gasped
it out.
Instantly obedient as a loyal and well-trained hound, the
black coils released him, leaped at Adolph, and whirled themselves around the
scribe. Immobilised, Adolph toppled and fell across the body of his foe.
Dieter squirmed out from underneath, then straddled Adolph’s
back. He reached to grip the cultist’s neck and strangle the life out of him,
then realised that even that wouldn’t provide an adequate outlet for the hate
and fury burning in his guts. It would be more satisfying to kill the other man
by beating him to death. It would likely take a lot more effort, too, but Dieter
didn’t feel exhausted anymore. He grabbed a rock.
Every time he smashed the stone into the back of Adolph’s
head, he bellowed. Blood splattered, and bone crunched. In time, the dark coils
dissolved, but by then, the scribe had long since lost the ability to resist.
Indeed, a part of Dieter comprehended that he was now simply
battering a corpse. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to stop until agony stabbed
through his skull, eclipsing his rage and robbing him of his hysterical strength
in an instant. It was the onset of a headache the like of which he’d never
known, and as he started to weep with the pain, he inferred it was the price for
using the exotic capabilities of his new eye.
Dieter studied his face in the dainty hand-held looking
glass, plunder from one of the caravans the brigands had despoiled. An ordinary
person might have thought it strange that any mutant would want to possess such
an item, but some if not all of them plainly gloried in their deformities.
But Dieter most emphatically did not, and now tried to find
reason for hope in the fact that his own alteration wasn’t as conspicuous as it
might have been. When last night’s headache began, his third eye had closed and
remained so until he deliberately opened it again. Further experimentation had
revealed that, at least under normal circumstances, he should be able to keep it
shut when he needed to.