Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (17 page)

“
Where are you
going?”

“
Out of here. Anywhere. I’ll
be fine. I’ve always been.”

“
Stop!” Marduk
demanded.

Dagger stopped—certainly not
for the peremptory Dracon’s order. He felt something mounting
inside of him, and this time it was not mere anger. A hammer
slammed against his chest, a piercing pain that took possession of
his every nerve ending, numbing his mind. He put a hand to his
sternum and felt that the mark had become swollen.
Pregnant
. His body was
shaken by a powerful beat that was not of his heart, then another
and another one. He looked at his fingers and saw that they were
stained with a slimy and black blood that was not his. He felt it
running down his belly, his legs, all the way to his ankles. He
tried to stanch the strange wound but the mark opposed him as it
kept on spitting more and more blood. He turned to Marduk, showing
his dirty hands and pleading help only with his eyes.

“
Stay here,” the Dracon
softly murmured. “Your blood is calling them.” Then, arms in hand,
he went back into the dark belly of the tunnel from which they had
come out.

Dagger stood next to the
fire embers, unable to do anything, now that blood was no more
coming out drop by drop, but in a steady trickle. Pain stiffened
his every limb. He had to muster all his strength to breathe, when
he felt his heart contract a last time and then cease to beat,
replaced by the pulsing of the mark. An intimate, powerful roar
that shook all his body.
And
his memories. He felt sticky sand on his skin. He
heard terrible screams of pain exploding in the darkness. He
smelled the stench of death. Now, he could hear in his head, words
of an unknown language spoken by a hostile voice. Then again the
pain, again the hammer blow on the chest.

“
I’m fucking dying here!” he
hissed and put his hands around his neck. “I’m… dying… here!” He
realized that everything was lost, when he heard an evil hiss
behind him. He turned. Two red, small lights appeared in the
darkness of the abandoned duct. He was sure that those adverse and
killer eyes were looking for him. Just for him.

“
Who are you?” he whispered.
“Will you at least tell me, before you kill me?” He felt their
thoughts were in touch. He experienced its fatigue at the end of a
long search, its urgent need to kill. To kill
him
. For what purpose, he could not
see. He grabbed the dagger Marduk had given him and pointed
straight in front of his eyes. Sparks of blue light walked its
entire surface, going down his arm. He got back in possession of
his body, and pain disappeared. The blade was giving him new
strength, he knew. It calmed down the evil within.

“
Come forward, whatever you
are!” he said with a voice barely recovered. He heard no response
but a step in the sewage, then another and another one. The steps
came nearer and nearer, until a shadow was born from darkness, to
attack him with his long sharp claws. Dagger instinctively dodged
and sliced through the air, missing it. Now the shadow had the
Ensiferum light at its back and could be distinguished from
darkness, it was not something that belonged to his world. It was a
being without meat or skin, a materialization of nightmares. Light
came through the membranes of its body, overshadowing the sharp
bones and the deformities of the internal organs. He could feel its
breath and its atrocious thoughts. He was scared, but he held his
nerves and, when the shadow attacked, he set off again, bent to the
ground, springing forward as he would with any jackal of the Three
Galleons. He felt the blade sink into the
non meat
, pierce the jelly belly
making the unclean and smelly blood come out. He smiled when he
heard the creature scream for terror, and felt his pain when he
threw it to the ground and hit, hit,
hit
, struck by its last thoughts. The
black blood mixed with the sewage, sliding on the bare stone, blow
after blow. The beast was still writhing in pain, when Dagger
pulled the knife from its womb to stick it into the neck. He heard
its deaf cries of agony bubbling out of the cut throat, as it
raised its hands to Almagard and tried to scream. Then the cries
waned and the sewer fell back into its rotten silence. A deafening
silence.

The mark on his chest slowly
stopped bleeding. Pain was gone. He could not feel his heartbeat,
his
other
heartbeat—the heart of darkness pumping death in his
arteries.

“
I’ll teach you what happens
when you break my balls!” he screamed.

“
Gorgor!” Marduk quietly
pointed out, coming closer. He penetrated the creature’s head with
his blade, making a greenish liquid come out. A suffocating stench
filled the air, an acrid smell of rotten eggs. Tissues stopped
regenerating, and the bony plates moaned no more.

“
The
head
. Always separate the head from
the rest of their body, if you can. Then open it, smash it or
pierce it, and you will have no more problems. These are no
ordinary creatures.”

“
Ktisisdamn it!” Dagger
cursed. “Ktisisdamn it!”

“
Surviving in this city did
teach you something, it seems,” Marduk said, pleased. “I must say,
that you know how to defend yourself.”

“
But… who are
they?”

“
These? These are the same
creatures that contributed to your creation,” he said. “They are
looking for you, Dag. They are following the scent of your blood
and soon others will come. It’s you, who’s bringing them
here!”

“
Just one thing,” the Dracon
continued, shaking his head. “Stand still. I’ll do
everything.”

“
Excuse me,” he said. “We’ll
talk about this later, now we have no more time. By the way, you’re
immortal.”

* * * * *

“
We are blind to the world
within us, just waiting to be born,” a voice hissed. “Come to me.
I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time.”

Am I a part of the
whole?
he wondered. He looked up and found
himself in the presence of an infinite Spiral, a long ribbon of
light lost in the celestial fluid of matter and void. The
great
All
flowed
like a never-ending stream, with neither end nor beginning. It was
one, indivisible and found its balance in the destructive and
generating harmony of chaos. He saw the stars merge, destroy and
regenerate themselves in the fatal attraction that moved and
changed everything that existed.

“
How I’ve waited for you to
come,” the voice in the light said. “I’ve been here, all alone. Now
that you got here please, stay a while. I promise I won’t keep you
long. I’ll keep you forever.”

“
Who are you?”

“
I am Kam Karkenos. And you.
Who might you be?”

“
I am Dagger.”

“
And where is,
here
?”

“
Here is a place that knows
no life and death, beyond the breach in the impenetrable wall of
Creation, where only we can pass through. We, the forces that have
lived through all eternity. There are those who call us gods, or
demons. However, these are only the names that mortals use in the
desperate attempt to rationalize the power that dominates,
surrounds, generates and suffocates them. This is your
home
.”

“
Looks nice!” Kam Konkra
replied. He put his hand to his abdomen, instinctively. “A sword
went through my belly. Now I should be dead, together with Ktisis
in the great tavern of Almagard.”

“
The tavern of…
Almagard?”

“
The kingdom of the dead.
Where you can eat and drink and laugh forever, together with the
people who came before you.”

Kam Konkra turned. He just
perceived the army of shadows behind him. He turned again. The
shadows were all around, he knew it, but they didn’t want to be
seen. He only
felt
them at the edges of his vision.

“
This is the true aspect of
what you’d call the afterlife,” replied Kam Karkenos, serious. “The
place outside the great
All
. Here the souls of mortals end up
when they die. The last visitor has no human form, nor of monster.
The true form of death is silence. I know, because this is my
conviction, live death here, outside of the Creation, where silence
reigns supreme.”

“
These are the souls of the
dead?”

“
Yes, they are. After the
end of the pleasant dream they call life, mortals delude themselves
that they end up in a place similar to the world of their happy
hours, if they behaved correctly, or in a place full of fire, pain
and pitchforks if they found pleasure in the suffering of others.
In fact, the great beyond welcomes everybody and makes everybody
equal, with no moral and no prejudices. However, watch your body.
You’re different, aren’t you?”

“
I created you so, Konkra,
in my image and likeness, in the short time that I was free to walk
again on the world you come from.”

“
And I guess I’ll have to
call you Dad.”