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this event in the minds of the witnesses. It is important they remember this clearly if I am to someday be acknowledged as the Greatest Swordsman in the World. These people are useless to me if they forget.”
    â€œYou are so full of shite.”
    â€œAll too true. I know I am not as smart, good-looking, skillful, or lucky as I think I am. I know these are my delusions. However, I’m also damned sure I am a lot smarter, better looking, skillful, and lucky than anyone else in this shite little city. Thus they bend to my will. I want them to like me, they like me. I want them to fear me, they fear me. I am a gifted orator.”
    â€œYou are a delusional idiot,” replied Bedeckt. “That you can convince people of anything depresses me. You spout things smarter people said and you yourself don’t understand.”
    Wichtig met Bedeckt’s eyes with a cold glare. “No, it is you who doesn’t understand. The facts don’t matter and that’s a fact. I wasn’t winning the crowd with logic, I was simply sowing seeds of doubt and bolstering my own confidence. Once I knew his followers doubted, I knew he too would doubt.” Wichtig glanced dismissively at the man still coughing blood into the dust. “His doubt killed him before I did.”
    Sure, thought Bedeckt, and your sword in his lungs had nothing to do with it.

CHAPTER 4
    There is not one Afterdeath, but thousands. Maybe more. We fear death, and in our fear we seek to escape its finality. But is the farmer worried about populating his Afterdeath with those he has slain? No! What the farmer seeks depends on which breed of vapid religion he clings to. Perhaps he seeks redemption, a chance to right the wrongs of his past. Or perhaps he believes in an Afterdeath of reward for devout worship and piety. If our beliefs define our lives, they certainly define our deaths.
    But what interests me is what happens after the Afterdeath? The killers among us would have us believe there is simply more death, a progression into deeper and deeper layers of hellish suffering. The Wahnvor Stellung claim death is more like climbing a ladder; each Afterdeath bringing us closer to purity or nirvana. The Täuschung twist everything, claiming only through suffering can we hope to attain godhood.
    I ask: Where do the souls of babies come from? Are they just magically created out of nothing? No, that’s ridiculous! I think once we’ve either suffered enough or earned redemption, our slates are wiped clean. And we start the entire cycle again.
    â€”V ERSKLAVEN S CHWACHE , G EFAHRGEIST P HILOSOPHER
    K onig stood unnoticed at the door, watching the thin, blue-eyed, blond-haired god-child play. The Geborene priests had built a miniature city complete with tiny people carved from various colored chunks of wood. The toy city contained a population of twenty-five hundred peasants, one hundred soldiers—fifty of them mounted—and a few hundred miscellaneous animals. Based on Konig’s experience, there were not nearly enough chickens for it to be a realistic model. The city also lacked walls and defenses of any kind, but Konig supposed they’d just get in the way of the child’s play.
    All my hopes depend on this child . The boy’s unquestioning obedience was critical to Konig’s plans, and he could see but three means of achieving it: worship, fear, and love. Reality, it seems, has a cruel sense of humor . The method most likely to succeed and with the best results was the one Konig felt least capable of. Inspiring worship and fear was easy for a powerful Gefahrgeist such as Konig, but both had their disadvantages. A god wanting to help him, desperate to please, would be far more effective.
    How do I make this boy love me? Looking back at his own childhood offered no clues. The question left him uncomfortable, tickled at the back of his neck like cold breath. He needed Morgen to need him. And need is weakness .
    Morgen,