Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (16 page)

Read Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Online

Authors: Walt Popester

Tags: #horror, #fantasy, #heavy metal, #dagger, #walt popester

“
Do not worry, they’re
practically blind,” the Dracon added. “But their sense of smell is
infallible and are following the stench of your blood.”

“
My blood?”

“
Yes, but in this sewer they
can’t feel it. I think you and this world stink too much even for
them.”

Dagger’s eyes widened. “Stink! Sewers!” he
exclaimed. “Of course, the sewers of Melekesh lead right
here!”
Marduk made a crooked smile. “And I suppose
it’s our only way out, isn’t it?”
Dagger merely raised an eyebrow.

“
Okay, boy. Show me the
way.”

They marched on the rocks, careful not to
slip on the wet surface and kept a low profile, so as not to make
their presence known to anyone, be it man or shadow, that could be
on their trail, or waiting in darkness. Soon they saw the great,
black circle of the pipe sticking up from the dark bowels of earth,
spilling its dense sewage into the sea. Dagger was about to rush
toward the longed-for salvation, when Marduk stopped him.

“
Always, look!”

Just in that moment the boy saw a small
light in the dark circle. He saw it moving from top to bottom and
then vice versa, several times.

“
Gorgors?”

“
Don’t be stupid! Someone is
smoking a cigar in there,” Marduk replied. “Even the sewers are
guarded. Well, it was to be expected, no one can get out alive from
this hell.”

“
What are we gonna do,
then?”

The Dracon grinned, as if surprised by the
stupidity of that question. His hand went to his dagger, but he
stopped when the guard lurking in the darkness emerged.

“
Look how them
buuurn
!” They heard him
mumble. He was joined by four other men armed to the teeth, drunk
to the bone.

One of them was holding a
nearly empty bottle. “Ktisis almighty,
riivenge
for all our dead! Ffuck
you
guilds
!” He
raised the bottle and emptied it in his guts, surrounded by
laughter and curses.

After that, the gang
disappeared into darkness, singing “
With a
rusty hook we gut’em, got’em! With a dirty knife we cut their
throat, and gut’em. And if they yell again we’ll make’em shut up
forever, with no tongue and no lips, with no eyes and no ears!
Kti-sis! Kti-sis! Flood the world with beer and blood! Kti-sis!
Kti-sis! To you we owe our kids and foes! Kti-sis! Kti-sis! Thy
will be done! Thy kingdom come!
”

Marduk shook his head. “Three of them are
completely drunk,” he noted. “Only one of them seems lucid enough
to hold a weapon in his hand, even if he would use it as a stick.
One is limping. One visually impaired. They must not be glad to
have been sent to monitor the sewers, and got drunk, even if only
to better endure this stench. They are well armed, but their coat
of boiled leather makes me laugh. I think you can do it by
yourself, let’s say, you have a fifty percent chance, if you kill
first the less drunk. What do you say, wanna give it a try?”
Dagger turned.
Marduk smiled. “Okay, I’ll do it, this
time,”
He stepped up to the duct, climbing inside.
It all happened very quickly. Dagger, from outside, did not hear a
noise apart from a strangled cry. Before long, he saw Marduk emerge
from darkness with a body on his shoulders. He threw it into the
fetid waters and beckoned him to come closer.
In the darkness of the sewers, the stench
became unbearable even for him. They left behind the entrance in a
hurry and, with it, the light of the flames. As they advanced
through the gloom, Marduk occasionally pointed to where the bodies
of the other guards were. “There may be others, farther on,” he
whispered. “Make little noise, sounds are amplified in here.”

“
I’ve never seen anyone kill
so easily in the dark,” Dagger whispered.

“
Well, because you’ve never
seen a Delta of Golconda in action. Except for Sannah, of course,
but that’s another story.”

The light behind them soon disappeared,
leaving them in complete darkness. Marduk took a small metal ball
from under his cloak and rubbed it between his hands, until it
emanated a purple light. He lit up his face and looked at him from
head to foot. “Everything okay?”

“
What the hell is
that?”

“
A ball of Ensiferum,” the
Dracon replied. “The metal created by Ktisis, the prime mover of
the universe; the one who brought light into Creation when humans
did not exist. Well, when nothing existed, in fact, since he
existed before anything else. Cool, isn’t it?”

“
Ktisis is the god who gave
alcohol to men. To repay them for all the sorrows of
life.”

Marduk looked at him skeptically. “Sannah
didn’t taught you anything about him?”
Dagger shook his head. “On Burzums and
Mastodons, on Gorgors, on the Guardians? On Borknagar, the creation
of the portal, the Exile of—”
Dagger shook his head once again.

“
Angra come down to earth, I
bet he did not say anything even about your… about
Skyrgal!”

“
Who?”

“
Oh, fu—” Marduk bowed his
head. “This is really funny. I hate to think about what he taught
you in these twelve years!”

“
Oh. To survive.”

The Dracon grinned. “This won’t be of any
use to you, my boy.”
He said no more. He began marching again
and Dagger followed him reluctantly.

“
What did you mean by
that?”

Marduk turned and put a hand over his
mouth. “I told you not to raise your voice in here. They’ll hear
us!”
He let him go. Dagger swore to himself,
following him into darkness. They suddenly emerged in a vaulted
room, connecting the conduit in which they were with other two
little ones that there converged to continue their journey to the
sea. The bigger one was virtually unused. It could be a good way to
go as a dead end, but it seemed that Marduk had no intention to
find it out soon.

“
Let’s stop here,” he said.
“We have to dry ourselves off.”

The vault had partially collapsed and, to
their right, there was a small beach composed of debris, twigs and
dry leaves. Dagger ran ahead and climbed up to a hole in the wall,
where he took two flint stones. He got back down and began to beat
them one against the other over a pile of branches and leaves,
placed at the center of a circle of blackened stones.
Marduk watched him. “Tell me, this is not
the first time you set foot in here, right?” He sat down next to
him, taking off his boots and emptying them of the muddy water.
“Dag?”

“
As long as you don’t want
to speak, don’t talk to me!”

“
What’s this? An
oxymoron?”

“
What?”

“
Stop it!”

He moved him aside, put the tip of his
knife on the wood and rubbed it a few times. Fire instantly sprang
to life under the boy’s astonished eyes.
Then the man raised his blade to divide
their sight, grinning mockingly. “Yes. We, Guardians of Golconda,
know all the properties of the sacred metals. This is a knife Hvis,
the metal with which Gorgors kill and light the fires. Or both at
the same time. It’s a battle trophy,” he smiled, but Dagger wanted
to respect his vow of silence. “In fact, I’ve never figured out how
the Ktisis you light a fire with flint stones. It always seemed to
me nonsense, only good for novels.”

“
It takes time!”

“
Oh. I’m sure it does,” he
added. “What the heck is this place?”

“
The only safe place,” the
boy replied, eyes fixed on the flames. “Me and Seeth often came
here to hide from guards, when they were running after us. This
place saved my throat at least a couple of times.”

“
You ran away in the
sewers?”

“
No guard will ever follow
you into the sewers. To tell the truth, most of them are too well
fed to pass through a manhole.”

The Dracon looked at him with compassion.
“Oh Dagger…”

“
Yes, that’s my
name.”

“
What a ridiculous name to
give a boy.”

Dagger tried to punch him, knowing that he
could never succeed, yet unable to resist the temptation. Then he
hugged his knees with his arms and went back to staring into the
fire.

Marduk put his hand under
the cloak, pulling out a small box of carved wood. He opened it,
but the pipe that was inside was all soaked with water, as well as
the tobacco. “
Uhm
,” he muttered, throwing everything into the fire. “What a
crappy day. In every possible way.”

Dagger reached back the wall and pulled out
a brick, looser than the others, making appear a pipe and some
tobacco. He came back to the fire and handed them to Marduk. “This
belonged to Seeth, I don’t think she’ll need it anymore. Take it.
It’s a gift.”

“
Aren’t you too young to
smoke?”

“
Yes, but also for getting
us disemboweled in front of a paying audience.”

The Guardian took the pipe on his hands,
turning it on with a firebrand. He drew the first puffs, assuming
an expression of utter relaxation. Every wrinkle and scar on his
face seemed to melt, rejuvenating him a few years. “Yes,” he said.
“Much better.”

“
Oh, I’m glad you feel
better,” Dagger said. “Now tell me why the fuck they set fire to
half a city to get me! Who is looking for me? What do they want
from me? And who are you, to save people who are not asking to be
saved!”

Marduk blew a cloud of smoke and watched it
slowly rise into the air. Then he shook his head. “Not exactly the
question I wanted to hear.”

“
I’m sorry, I do what I
can.”

“
You have the irony of your
mother, you know?”

“
I’ve never known
her!”

“
I KNOW!” Marduk cried. He
rested his forehead against his fist, pulling a new, nervous puff
from Seeth’s pipe. It looked like he wanted to say nothing more,
then he broke off, “I know, Ktisisdamn! You’re just a boy all
covered in blood, left alone in the cold of night, forced to take
refuge in a sewer to survive! Your tired eyes have seen it all.
Your hatred is blind. You are hungry. You are alone.”

“
I know my life. It was me
who has lived it. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“
You know? What do you know?
This life is an illusion for you, no more pleasant, nor real, than
a nightmare. It’s a cover, you could say, have you at least figured
this out?”

Dagger sat down. “A cover? And for
what?”

“
You are the son of a god,”
Marduk simply answered. “The son of a god banished from my world at
the dawn of time. In your veins flows his cursed blood, the one his
servants need to bring him back to life.
Tadà
!”

Dagger kept silent, bowing his head to the
side. Then he smiled.

“
The son of a
god
,” he repeated. “Well.
That’s not shit you hear every day!”

The Dracon laughed. Even Dagger laughed.
Then Marduk grabbed him by the collar and took him face-to-face, to
look him straight in the eyes. “Listen to me!” he growled.
“Everything you thought was real or plausible in your life is going
to be swept away, like the carcass of a rat in a sewer! Your fears
are about to become deeper and darker. They will soon corrode you
from the inside. There will be no more room for anything else! You
will be denied all hope, even that stupid illusion, completely
human, that one day things will get better despite all the contrary
evidence! If you think you have been unlucky until now, wait some
more, the worst part of eternity is just about to begin!”

“
Take it easy, big
boss!”

“
It’s going to get worse at
every breath, at every heartbeat, and every step you take will drag
you more and more toward the abyss to which you belong. You’re not
ready for truth. It would be foolish to believe otherwise! But all
too soon you’ll realize how deep is the sea of shit in which you’re
drowning! What good would it be to explain something to you now?
Explain who the shadows are? Who is looking for you? Where you are
from? Who created you! No, it would not help. Now there’s only one
question you need to ask. Ask it,
dammit
!”

“
What question?”

“
Oh, the one you’ve asked
yourself any given night of your life, before going to sleep, under
a gray sky, in this sewer, or in the guild where Sannah brought you
up like a beast! Every night the same question, I’ll bet my soul.
The soul I’ve lost in these last thirteen years looking for you!”
He kept on looking at him straight in the eye, digging deep into
his consciousness.

“
Why was I born?” Dagger
replied, almost in a whisper.

“
Yes. Why!”

“
And what do you know about
that?”

The Dracon frowned. He let him go, grabbed
his pipe and went back to smoking.

“
Too much,” he said after a
while. “Too many dark matters. Just know that you’re not the only
one who has cursed the day you were born. Nothing will be clear to
you now.”

“
You already said that, yet
everything is clearer than you think,” Dagger got up to leave.
“You’re just a crazy old man, and I’m crazier than you to stay here
and listen.”

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