“
He must be escaped. That
little son of a bitch must be somewhere out there!” It was Mawson’s
voice.
A guard stepped forward and bent to his
knees. “Must we suspend the search?”
In response, the prefect stuck the sword
inside his face. Then he pushed him to the ground with a kick,
watching his body shaken by the spasms. Blood flowed beneath the
grate, dripping hot and dense on Dagger’s face.
“
No,” Mawson replied. “None
of this old game is of any importance, anymore. There are no more
rules, no more terms to be respected. Let violence reign supreme on
this night. Give free rein to your every meanest instinct, but
watch over this place and make sure that flames do not embrace it.
Maybe he will come back, if he’s more stupid than I
think.”
Then he left. Dagger
listened to the clattering footsteps of the guards placing
themselves around. Then there was only the raging of fire, the
barking of dogs and the screams of agony. Now he could be certain
that they were looking for him. That carnage was
all
for him. He didn’t
wonder about the other Spiders’ fate. He doubted that Mawson had
knocked before entering.
I am more stupid than he thinks. Perfect,
prefect!
He had to get out of there in a hurry, out
of that hell, then he would have time to think about what to do
next.
He got back to the crack through which he
had entered, but found out that fate had rolled the dices, having
fortune take two steps backward, he barely had time to hide, before
encountering the watchful eyes of one of the guards. From the deck,
they were now watching over the channels between the ships. He felt
the instinctive desire to punch the wall and swear Ktisis. However,
that would surely not come in handy this time. He walked away from
light, being swallowed by darkness. He explored the walls with his
hands, for long time, hoping not to run into a hole on the floor
that would make him fall hopelessly in the never explored lower
decks of the ship. Soon he lost orientation. He was no longer able
to understand where he was, nor how to get back. He was on the
verge of surrender, and wait for death to come or find him there—to
kill him at its will, with fire or hunger.
Then he found himself walking in a spacious
and dimly lit room. The little light came from a bright square on
the ceiling, high above him. He walked on until, with his
outstretched hands, he met an old wooden ladder. In that moment, he
knew exactly where he was. The punishment room, where Mama locked
up the Spiders to torment them at the end of the night. That place
where he had sent only once, coming just through that bright
square. The trap door in the old Mama’s studio.
He climbed the rungs until his fingers
brushed against the ceiling. There he stood for a while, listening,
imploring his heart to beat more slowly. Then, with the caution
that prudence advised, he opened the trap door to a crack. He saw
two boots and immediately closed it.
Shit!
He rested his forehead against the top
rung. When he heard the sound of an unsheathed blade, that sound
which he would be able to distinguish even in the uproar of hell,
he hoped his hour had come. He was exhausted. His world existed no
longer. He wanted to reach Seeth in Almagard, the large tavern of
the afterlife, and get drunk to unconsciousness in the company of
the dead. But he realized that the blade had not been unsheathed
for him, when he listened to the last lament of the guard who had
just been slaughtered. He heard him fall to the ground and die, as
blood penetrated through the cracks of the hatch. The murderer
landed heavily on the floor, jumping from the ceiling where,
probably, he had remained hidden for so long.
He could not hear his footsteps as quiet as
he was, yet he was able to track his way, following the sound of
the blade. He imagined it sticking in the flesh of the guards,
surprised, their throats cut, one by one. Only when he heard him
getting out on the deck, Dagger jumped out of the hatch and rushed
through the cabin of Mama. In the gloom, he saw the shadow stick
his knife into the neck of the last guard, and then he slammed the
door and stepped back.
Time passed. Nothing happened.
All of a sudden, the shadow tore down the
door with just one kick. Dagger saw his black silhouette against
the crimson glare of the flames, advancing through the cabin with
fingers clenched on a shining dagger. He observed him getting
closer and closer, as he stepped back and back, until he found
himself with his back to the wall. He dropped to the ground,
resigned, taking shelter behind his arms in a last, desperate
gesture of defense.
The shadow grabbed his tunic and pulled him
to his feet, with the same ease with which he would have lifted an
injured dog from the ground.
Then he uncovered his chest. And smiled.
“Umh. Look what the cat dragged in.” He examined him from head to
foot. “Damn. You’ve grown up since the last time!”
Dagger wriggled out with a jerk, putting a
hand to his knife, but keeping it sheathed. “Who are you?” he
asked.
The shadow stood motionless for a moment,
then he pulled down the hood to uncover the face of a man in his
fifties, hardened by deep scars. He had blue eyes and gray hair
that had once been auburn, like his.
“
I am Marduk,” the man
replied. “Delta Dracon of Golconda. Usually, I do not save people’s
lives. Usually I kill them.” After that consideration, he slowly
looked around, taking his time to examine every dark corner of that
place.
Overwhelmed by his Spider’s instinct,
Dagger drew his knife but Marduk threw him to the ground without
even looking at him.
“
This place is impregnated
with a familiar smell,” he said calmly. “All too familiar. The man
to whom this stench belongs must have died a long time ago. I’m
confused.”
The boy was on his feet again, knife
clutched in his hand. He gasped, refraining from attacking.
Marduk lowered his gaze back
on him. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “I saved your
life. It’s very rude of you to try to kill me. And then, if you
really want to do it, try with a decent weapon. Not that…
thing
!”
He put a hand to the belt of daggers on his
chest. He picked one and handed it to him. “Happy Birthday!” he
said. “Some time ago you turned thirteen, you know?”
“
What the Ktisis is a
birthday?”
At that, Marduk laughed. Then he realized
that Dagger was serious. “This is a gift,” he continued, handing
him the handle. “Do you know at least what a gift is?” The smile on
Marduk’s lips turned into a bitter grin when the boy shook his
head. “It means you must not be afraid of me,” he added. “I’m here
to get you out of this mess. As long as you want it.”
Dagger examined the knife.
He had never seen a blade like that. It was rough and porous, of a
greenish color, mottled with yellow as if it had spent a long time
on the bottom of the sea. The handle was engraved in a tangle of
abstract shapes, reminiscent of thorny brambles and
tentacles.
It belongs to a
museum
, he thought. Then he realized that
weapon had killed. There were marks on the blade, one for each life
taken from a man. When he took it out of Marduk’s hands, sparks of
purple light went through its entire surface, changing it under his
eyes. It looked like his fingers brought the dagger back in time,
to the day when it was a shining and sharpened blade, ready to
kill.
He looked up in amazement. “What the
fuck—?”
“
Aniah was right,” Marduk
said. “This is a confirmation that it’s really you.”
“
I never had any doubt of
really being me,” Dagger answered.
The man grinned again. One last time. His
face suddenly froze. Pulling back the cloak, he put his hand to a
hidden sword that hung by his side and Dagger did not dare to move.
He looked at him open-mouthed, dumb.
Marduk unsheathed his silver blade and
stood still. “When I sensed your smell, I didn’t even want to
believe,” he said. “You should be dead!”
Only then, Dagger saw the old Mama come
forward at the man’s shoulders, limping. He clutched two knives in
his hands and his face was a mask of blood. He didn’t wonder how he
managed to make his way through the guards. He must have been more
clever than he had ever believed and, judging by the pace, even
drunker than he had ever been.
“
Marduk Nightfall,” the old
man’s lips spat. “I realized it was you when I saw the cut on these
guards’ throat. I would recognize your clumsy signature even in a
battlefield all covered with dead bodies. Is this the way I taught
you to kill?”
“
You may not be dead, but
you still smell like a corpse, Dad,” Marduk said, turning with
sword in hands. “Tell me; did you drink so much in the afterlife to
be kicked out even from there? Drunk and disorderly in hell. It
would be typical of you.”
“
And you never change jokes,
right?” Sannah limped a step forward. “Sometimes I wonder if you
really kill with your knife, or if you bore people with your
sarcasm until they die!”
“
A little of this, a little
of that. I like to vary when I kill. Irony is hereditary in our
family. Even your daughter had a lot, remember?”
“
Where’s Aniah?”
Marduk let his guard down. “Oh. Hear him!
So you’re the one asking questions?”
“
What’s going on here, old
man?” Dagger asked.
“
Do you know who this guy
is, Dag?” The great Mama said, pointing to his son with the tip of
his knife. “This is the man who decided to lock you up in this huge
prison. It’s him who ordered your mother to take you to this world,
and you want to know why? Because he was afraid, like all cowards.
I’ve never been afraid of you, not once in my life. Maybe that’s
why I’m mad.” He laughed.
Dagger turned to Marduk, but he had eyes
only for his father. He was looking at him with an unconditional
hatred, buried for years but not yet extinct.
“
On this
world
?”
“
Oh yes, it’s a damn long
story,” the old man kept on. “You don’t even know. It starts with
two fucking gods slaying each other like pigs at the top of a
mountain; it continues with an endless series of wars fought at the
foot of a fortress; to end with your birth, disgusting
abomination!”
“
You’re drunk as always,
stop it!” Marduk growled. “Say one more word, and even if you’re
not dead I’ll kill you right where you are. I swear it on the dead
body of my sister!”
“
Where’s Aniah?” Sannah
asked again. Then he listened, finally hearing his son’s words. His
face transformed under their eyes, seized by pain. “You said, ‘on
the dead body of my sister’?”
Marduk bowed his face. An howl rose
straight from his gut. With a kick, he hurled the desk against the
window and smashed it to pieces. From outside came the wind, warmed
by the fire that ruled on the neighborhood.
“
Aniah is DEAD!”
Sannah fell to his knees, resting his hands
on the ground. “No.”
“
Oh, you are
sorry?”
The old man hid his face between his hands
and the floor. “How did it happen?” he asked in a small voice.
“
What do you care?” his son
replied drily. “You’ve been here all this time, not saying
anything. How could you? How could you make us lose all these
years?”
Sannah clutched his head in his hands. “You
dirty shitface!” he replied, raising his face and looking at him
with his bloodshot eyes. “You come to lecture me, now? You, who
sent her here to deprive herself of that one being who could mean
something to her? You, who treated her as a pawn in your
chessboard, an expendable pawn for your fuckin’ Equilibrium! Yes,
oh yes, how brave you were! Now tell me how the fuck did my
daughter die!”
Marduk took umbrage, suffering every word
like a blade in his belly. “After being forced to disown her son,
Aniah gave herself over to a slow madness,” he revealed. “For
twelve years, she remained locked in her room, refusing to eat,
talking by riddles. I often thought she was just making fun of us
to protect her secret but sometimes, looking into her eyes, I was
convinced that pain had really made her crazy. Only on her
deathbed, reduced to little more than a skeleton covered with skin,
she confessed having hidden him here. Of course, she left out the
small detail to have entrusted her son to you. It must have been
her last left-handed shot. ‘I abandoned him to a man who will amaze
you’ she said. Then, grinning, she was dead.”
“
Why only now? Why she
didn’t tell you before?”
Marduk shook his head. “I
always had the feeling she knew about this story more than us,” he
said. “Of course, she wanted to keep him away from the Fortress as
long as possible. According to Dracon Araya, now that the boy has
turned thirteen they can smell his blood. He’s no longer safe here
either and she knew it. She had read all the prophecies concerning
the birth of his son, at first hand in the temple of Adramelech.
His blood is now
flowing
.”
Dagger shuddered and turned to Sannah.
“What?!” he asked, but got no answer. He turned to Marduk.
“
Sannah. We have to take the
boy away from here before it’s too late, then we will be able to
accuse each other of all the wrong choices made along these
years.”
“
I think it’s already too
late,” a third voice said. Only hearing it, Dagger shivered. Sannah
jumped to his feet and all three turned to the door blades in
hands.