Dark Labyrinth 1 by Kevin J. Anderson Page B

touches the creation’s head like a lover’s caress, placing both hands on the stranger’s cheeks, one of which is marred by a thin scar from a knife fight.
    “Can you hear me? Are you there?” he says in a voice full of hope.
    #
    His head hurt from sharing one-too-many bottles of wine the night before, and the thin scar on his cheek throbbed again, as if often did . . . but if the wine and find food kept Greta and her friend Katarina happy, he would gladly pay the price.
    The thrill of the crowd in the town square buoyed him up. Two executions in a single day! He was particularly interested in the beheading of the foolish stuttering tinker. He stood close to the block, one woman on each arm, all three of them watching with intent amusement.
    The mad strangler’s hanging would take place later in the day, but by that time, he expected that the two lovely women would be entertaining him in bed, enjoying their good fortune. Life was good.
    More than a simple cutpurse or highwayman, he took any job that paid well enough. He was known in local taverns as a man who could accomplish difficult tasks that must remain quiet: eliminating debtors, traitors, spies . . . even rich old uncles who needed to die so families could have their inheritance. Recently, Victor Frankenstein had hired him to slit the throat of a servant who had stolen some family silver to pay off a gambling debt. In his work, he had been cut in knife fights, slashed in the face, even endured the pain of a lead musket ball in his ribs. Thus, the ache of a hangover was nothing.
    He had a fondness for good wine and brandy, dice and cards, stylish clothes, and especially women. Greta was as lusty as he was, and both of their appetites extended to her friend Katarina as well. For appearances, Greta’s friend had married an unlettered and oafish woodcutter, who was gone most of the time. Doting on Katarina, the oaf gave her trinkets that were small in comparison to what Greta’s husband provided.
    One time, a month ago, as a masked highwayman, he had waylaid a plump and red-faced priest who carried a jeweled medallion among his treasures as he traveled through the forest. The medallion would have fetched an excellent price, but before the highwayman could complete his robbery, a meddling tinker and his pet wolf had come upon them and driven the robber away. Some days later, dressed as a fine dandy, he encountered the tinker again and learned that the red-faced priest had given the stuttering foreigner his medallion out of gratitude!
    Incensed and wanting it for himself, the now-undisguised highwayman tried to buy the medallion for Katarina and Greta, who were both with him. They ogled the treasure from the tinker’s cart, but the stuttering idiot wouldn’t part with it. So, they had gone back to Ingolstadt with a concocted story. Weeping, Greta reported that the stranger had stolen her dear aunt’s jeweled cross, and then raped her and her friend. The constable and town guard rushed out to arrest the tinker straightaway.
    Once the medallion had been “returned” to them, and the tinker got the punishment he deserved, Greta and Katarina went back home with the handsome highwayman, arm in arm, where they all engaged in an afternoon of celebration. Everything was going so well.
    No one had expected Katarina’s husband to find them, or his axes to be so swift.
    After his head fell to the floor, the highwayman’s vision faded swiftly. He couldn’t feel his body, which lay much too far away. Thoughts, and blood, drained out of him.
    #
    Once the second heart begins to beat, the creation is close, very close to real life. Another jolt, and the muscle clenches, pumps, stutters to life. Stutters. . .
    The memories flow smoothly, without the logjam of words that had always caught in his throat.
    #
    As a tinker, he loved to make pieces fit together, to fix things that were broken. He owned a wagon full of pots, pans, prisms, swatches of bright cloth, and assorted