Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (18 page)

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

Authors: Walt Popester

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

“
You have my same irony, you
know?”

“
I’ve got the irony of my
mother!”

“
Your mother? You did not
have a mother, not a real one. Your mortal body is an illusion. You
are still blind to the world within you, waiting to be born.
There’s only me, who knows you for what you really are.”

“
You can understand
me?”

“
Oh, I know and see
everything, although in exile. I was with you when you were
abandoned by the woman you call your mother. I trembled with you in
the coldest nights of Melekesh. I felt your fear of dying in a
public sacrifice and know the name of your every enemy: Mawson,
Sannah, even Lothar, the bully of the Three Galleons that held you
captive for days when you were just a kid, waiting to burn you
alive because of your red eyes. I suffered with you at every step
that brought you here…”

“
Maybe. But in those moments
I felt quite alone.”

“…
even as they cut Seeth’s
throat before your very eyes.”

Konkra froze. “You do know a lot of things
about me.”

“
I can see the world through
your eyes,” Karkenos said. “You and I are inseparably
bound.”

“
When I was just a Spider I
always realized when someone was trying to get something through
his words. I don’t think it works differently with you. You want
something too.”

“
And what do you think I
want?”

“
That I free you from
here.”

“
You’re a smart one, aren’t
you?”

“
I should be the ironic
one!”

Karkenos laughed. “Don’t hurry. We’ve got a
whole eternity in front of us. For now, I just have to warn
you.”

“
About whom?”

“
About all those who will
die one day,” Karkenos said. “All those who claim to fight for you,
but who fight for no one else than themselves. The Guardians of
Golconda swear to protect you. And from what? From yourself, what
you are, what you will become? There’s only me who knows the reason
why you exist. They’re just afraid of you. And they haven’t any
reason to be.”

“
They got me out of that
hell while your shadows were trying to tear me apart, as I
recall.”

“
You’re looking only at the
surface of the matter. Typical of mortals. I did not expect you to
understand quickly. You’re still the embryo of what you’ll become,
and I admit that it’s still too early.”

Konkra locked his fingers into a fist. Even
now that he was dead, he hated when people thought he was too young
to understand something.

“
I may be a little young,
but certainly I ain’t naive,” he said. “And, most of all, not so
stupid to throw myself into the hands of your servants only
because—”

“
Oh, but I’m not here for
that,” Karkenos interrupted. “You got me wrong. Do you really
expect me to advise you to throw yourself into Gorgors’ hands? No.
I tell you to flee from them. Once they
were
my servants – you’re right,
clever guy. – It’s them I have to thank if I could for
reincarnating and creating you. But now everything has changed. An
external and destabilizing element has intervened, and now Gorgors
are serving another master, their leper messiah. A man, or what’s
left of it, who is relentlessly looking for you. He was the
Pendracon of Golconda once, the most powerful among the Guardians.
Then it happened he hosted my soul for a time and, when he lost it,
he was condemned to live forever in its search. You’ve heard about
the Divine, haven’t you? If I come back in life in my true body,
for him it will be over. And he knows it. He will never again
possess the sole object of his desire, the only reason for his
hideous and shameful life. Stay away from Gorgors, and him. I’m
afraid he knows the way to… well, to have you spend the rest of
eternity in an unpleasant way.”

“
Unpleasant
way?”

“
He wants to keep us apart.
Forever. It’s best you don’t get caught by him and yes, this means
that you will need to accept the Guardians’ help. Let them
protect
you. Let them
accompany you on Candehel-mas, the world of the origins. Only once
you’re safely back in their Fortress, I’ll let you know what to do
so that our destiny is fulfilled. Until then, nothing will be
clear. Guardians will fill your head with their nonsense about the
Equilibrium and the universal order. You know it’s not like that,
you’re seeing it now: the great
All
feeds on chaos. It is in its nature. You will also
meet their god, that bird of ill-omen who hates you and hopes you
disappear into thin air. Maybe it will be good for you to spend
some time with them. It will give you the opportunity to figure out
which side to take.”

“
I thought they were acting
for my own good.”

“
Who?”

“
The Guardians.”

“
Oh, they are, in some
way.”

“
What a fucking
story.”

The light grew stronger. “I hate coarse
language. Never use it in my presence!”

“
I’m sorry,
Daddy.”

The light faded a little.
“What part of ‘for the moment’ don’t you understand? For
now
, get some help from
them, but do not drink the poison they’ll spit on you. They don’t
have a good opinion of you, just like they don’t have a good
opinion of me, which is why they made you grow up like a beast.
It’s their fault, all your suffering. Don’t you hate them a
little?”

Konkra didn’t answer.

“
Never forget that only by
me, one day, you’ll reach your ultimate goal. You are destined to a
greater power, my boy. Many will try to deceive you to make use of
you, or destroy you, and perhaps you will even come to trust some
of them.”

“
Don’t worry. Defending
myself from everyone is really nothing new to me. I will know how
to keep safe from you too.”

“
Oh. Do you really want to
fight against yourself? Don’t
you
worry, my boy: it’s ok to be confused. Soon I will
address you to those who can show you the path. They are my…
contact on your world. They will tell you what to do so that
everything is done. Until then, remember, you exist only because I
wanted you. When you give a name to something, you become
responsible of it, and I baptized you, Kam Konkra, I know why you
were born. Everyone else will lie to you, for their vile purposes
and power games. You, who have never had anyone, are too much
important, for too many.”

Dagger was about to reply,
when he looked at the light getting stronger and stronger.
She
wrapped him. For a
moment, he was sure he could see two eyes, black as night, staring
at him from the bottom of the shiny nothing. And sharp fangs, and
deformed horns.

He saw a sincere grin, then the light went
through him from side to side and everything disappeared.

 

* * * *
*

6. Archipelago

In the dark, he opened his eyes. He sat on
the bed of straw where he had slept, he did not know for how long.
He did not even know if he had really slept, after all. He was
lying under a closed porthole, through which came a circle of
orange light. The room was moving. When he heard the whisper of the
sea, he realized he was on some sort of ship, in navigation.
All this efforts, and still on a ship?

He threw the blanket on one
side and put his feet on the floor. When he brought a hand to his
stomach, he found there was no injury; only a thin scar, as an old
cut, there where the blade had emerged from the skin. He still
remembered the pain, perhaps the strongest he had ever experienced:
a dense, sheer suffering that had paralyzed him from head to toe.
Mortals experienced that pain only once in their life, before they
died. He thought they were somehow lucky:
the mere idea of having to face the great
nothing once again terrified him.
Marduk
had found a very convincing way to explain the matter of his
immortality, although he had lacked some sensitivity. Everything
that had come after seemed only a dream. A damn realistic
dream.

He stuck his thumb’s nail
into his palm and felt a reassuring pain.
It’s nice to be alive again
, he
thought. Then he opened the porthole. After having got accustomed
to the light, he saw that the ship was cutting fast through the
waves of the blue sea. Water was clear and frothy, not greenish and
muddy like he had always seen in it his life. Even the sky was
different: of a bright orange now that the sun was setting, free
from the fog wall of the Melekeshian evenings.

The ship was sailing among the islands of
an archipelago. Dagger hoped the commander knew well his job,
because of the large number of rocks that surfaced from the water.
He closed the porthole, when a cold and salty foam washed his face.
He had to know where he was, but most of all where he was headed.
He opened the door of the little cabin, and found himself in a
spacious and dimly lit ambient, with cargo crates and barrels
secured to the walls. There were at least thirty Guardians around
him, wearing leather armor worn and soiled with blood, or amaranth
tunics that had definitely seen better days. Many were smoking
ivory pipes, or sipping their mugs of beer lying on the ground.
Others were playing dice, thoughtfully twirling a knife between
their fingers. Blood stains on the floor drove up to the corner
where some were sewing up their wounds. No one had less than a
dozen blades on hand, including daggers, knives and swords.
Three Ensiferum balls were placed at the
center of the hold. Around these, two Guardians sat, sipping their
beers. When he came forward, everyone turned toward him. Dagger
looked at himself: he was still wearing his old, filthy tunic, with
the Mayem dagger tucked in his belt, his face reduced to a mask of
blood. It seemed he had just escaped from the amphitheater of
Melekesh in a day of celebration. Some pretended not to see him,
others stared at him for a long time, in silence, leaving open a
conversation, keeping the dices in their hands or needle and thread
between their teeth, with the wound still bleeding. When everybody
pretended to get back at what they were doing before his coming,
Dagger got to the wall and slid to the ground. He looked at the
floor between his bare feet, thoughtfully, wondering once again why
he was in the world.

“
You’re safe now,” a voice
said. He looked up. One of the two Guardians, who he had seen
sitting in front of the Ensiferum balls, was now in front of him.
He had approached without being noticed by his Spider’s senses,
even though he was fat and no less than two meters high. Dagger
realized that he could learn a lot from him. The man, completely
bald and with a gentle face, spoke again, “Marduk has entrusted you
to us. He’s decided to stay on this world to try and figure out if
he could understand more about what’s going on. Or, alternatively,
take down some more Gorgors. We’re taking you to the Golconda
Fortress, the only safe place for you. We, the Guardians, defend it
since always. It is everything for us: our home, our life, our
future. If the Fortress falls into the hands of the shadows,
everything would be lost.”

 

Dagger nodded. “Who the fuck are you?”

“
Me? I am Moak, but that
does not matter. You are Dagger. And, if you’re wondering, the
answer is yes: I know you. Everyone here knows you. We came to this
world just to bring you home.”

“
I’m leaving
home
, now, and it was
hell,” Dagger replied, impassive. “But this is not the problem.
Marduk killed me. He pierced my guts from side to side, but I’m not
dead. This game is not funny, you know? Have you ever tried to die?
Do you have the slightest idea of the pain you feel?”

The smile faded from the man broad face,
replaced by a confused scowl.
Moak looked at him puzzled and the kind
expression vanished from his face. “Come,” he said. “There’s
someone who’s been waiting for you for a long, long time.”
Dagger followed him toward the light where
a tall and robust man sat. Differently from the others, this
Guardian wore a cuirass formed of electric blue plates, with shades
of purple, yellow and red. He had an olive skin and, despite his
young age, his face looked more experienced than the ones around
him, mainly because of a deep scar that plowed his whole right
profile from the forehead to the chin. He still wore his sword,
well secured on his back, and he was armed only with that. His
sword did not seem made to be held only by two hands. It was
longer, thicker, wider. Old symbols were engraved on the groove.
The double-edged blade dazzled with bright reflections. On the
handle at least four hands would have found place.

A four-handed
sword
, he thought.
What need can ever have a man, of a four-handed sword?
“You care a lot about showing your manhood. Got
something to hide?” he said.

The man did not answer. He just looked at
him. Prisoner of those eyes, Dagger stood waiting for him to speak.
“And so you would be the reason for all this?” the man said at
last, with a deep voice. “I was expecting something better from
Aniah. To tell you the truth, I was expecting something better even
from your father. Sit down, damn you!”

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