The Tankar Dawn

by Walt Popester

  The moon has a strange look tonight. Dagger couldn’t take his eyes away from the great golden disk wandering in the night sky. “No story of my life, unless you have a beast locked inside you.”

  Mumakil approached. “It’s not a beast, nor a shadow, that’s what you still don’t understand. It’s not the growling dog locked beyond the bars. He is Konkra, the god of Emptiness, and a part of his soul is yours. The most important one, the core of the three…”

  “Three. Just like the arches,” Dag whispered.

  “…the metastasis of the emptiness Skyrgal has spread around the world,” the man in black continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “You must learn to live with it if you want to meet your power. You must learn to respect it.”

  The moon was crossed by the winged shape of Apatridus. The green steed landed next to its master, shook its head, opened its beak, then closed it.

  Mumakil smiled. “Ah. I’m sure of this, my little friend. Just sure.”

  “Sure of what?”

  “I was not talking to you.”

  Last thing I needed was the man who speaks with birds, Dag thought. If only I had Solitude…hey, wait a moment! “What happened to my sword?”

  “It must be inside Hanoi.”

  The red moon rose in the sky, dismissing the golden vest of the desert for a copper one.

  Mumakil moved few steps toward the new moon. “Baomani can’t have been so foolish as to bring that sword with him—surely he didn’t want to keep Olem with him—and I deem unlikely that he left it nearby waiting for its next master. Who knows. You can always dive back into the damn crab and look for it, and maybe ask him to be more precise about his intentions.” His eyes reflected the light of the moons when he turned around. “You need something else now. Too many times your destiny has been in the hands of individuals who didn’t have the foresight to manage it, and you yourself totally lack it. We’ll fix that. You’re the one who’s bringing the Cry of Mankind into this world, so you’re the only one who can stop him. My god has chosen me to help you, and I will use every means to reconcile you with yourself. I’m here only for this.”

  Dagger shuddered. You exterminated the Hammer Guardians and had me tortured. You truly used every means. “You want your revenge on Baomani,” he understood. “I saw the Hermit’s memories inside the Hammer of Ktisis. You killed his brother, his and Sannah’s, and they threw you into the crab to make you pay for it. I won’t ask that story. Just thinking about what I saw makes me want to vomit the last decent dinner I had in my life. And I won’t even hear you say I didn’t kill my son, it would be—”

  “I killed my son,” Mumakil interrupted him. “I tightened his throat and looked into his eyes as he tried do draw his last breath. The one I denied him.”

  A river of words stopped precariously on Dagger’s lips. “Oh. This was not expected. But you agree that it might be a little difficult?”

  “What?”

  “Trusting someone who killed his own son.”

  This got a smile from the black man, whose lips were not made for laughing. “You remind me of someone. He had your same sarcasm and could pull it out in the most unlikely moments just like you. Maybe that’s why he managed to convince me.”

  “To do what?”

  “To kill him. And it’s funny, really funny, to hear you say such a thing. I begin to understand why Angra wanted me to help you.” He stared at him with eyes suspended between life and death. “You still don’t understand, after everything you’ve been through. The life of every being is linked to that of the others and to the fate of the world which we carelessly trample. Our lives are continuous, they are seamlessly tied to one another. Through various events, every thread of a spider web leads to the others.”

  “If that means you will help me against Baomani and the whole gang, I can live with it.”

  “I want all the pieces to get back the way they were in the beginning. But no one remembers. No one ever remembers.”

  “Before the Red Dawn?”

  “In the beginning.” Mumakil took a step. “You must go beyond the threshold within yourself. Konkra is trying to get out and snatch the life he was promised when he escaped from the heart of the Hammer. We need him to make sure everything gets back to its place. Just tell me if you’re ready and I promise that you will like this ride, this time.”

  Dagger closed his eyes and emptied his mind of all thoughts, looking for the necessary determination.

  Two blue eyes opened deep within the heart of darkness.

  I’ll never see your eyes again. I’ll never follow them to the end of the world.

  “Kugar…” he whispered. She betrayed me. She killed my best friend. She could have any future with me, but chose her past.

  Five white appendages emerged from the carapace and seemed to observe Dagger.

  “Dag,” Mumakil said. “They sense your insecurity.”

  “I—”

  “Tell yourself who you want to be, and do everything accordingly. Then the river will take you there. You can’t be forever torn between where you are and where you want to be. Dag. Listen. Hanoi has awakened. Hanoi wants some more.”

  Dagger made a clumsy movement. He hesitated.

  Hanoi acted in a flash.

  “No!”

  Four white tentacles pierced his wrists and ankles, slipping just below his skin. When they seemed to have found the channels where his black blood flowed, some core of repressed energy exploded and Dagger felt the most intense physical pain he had ever experienced.

  “No!” he screamed again. “I must…I must find her…”

  “Stop fighting. Let it flow, Dag. Let it flow as it’s always been. You need someone to help you. Take the needle in.”

  The fifth white appendage swayed threateningly before him. It started forward and found his heart.

  Dagger felt his heart stop beating and then vibrate in an uncoordinated manner. Pain swept away his most precious memory, the one to which he was about to hold in the last moment. The acid needles of the anti-god snaked under his skin, everywhere—between his ribs, his elbow pits, his mandible and along the temples, brushing his skull.

  They pulsed, absorbing what remained of his divine blood. On the boundary between consciousness and nightmare, Dag saw it flowing inside them in a dark peristalsis as the appendages shifted to gray.

  Lost in a new world of lights and shadows, in his dream in black and white, Dagger couldn’t hear the frightening scream which shook the world.

  He couldn’t even see the hidden claw of the crab emerge from the mountain.

  The rocks crumbled into the sea, raising high waves. The palm trees bent their heads until they fell, and the sand rose in a cloud which covered the two moons. The eight legs emerged one at a time as the great body shattered the stone chains and was freed from the grip of the world.

  Suspended in the air and crucified on the appendages in the middle of the anti-god’s blue eyes, Dagger couldn’t see Hanoi move his first, new steps on the world of mortals.

  * * * * *

  3. The Three Arches

  ‘Who can say it won’t happen? Who can say my fantasies won’t come true, this time?’

  Again the three arches, one behind the other. There’s background music snaking in the dark.

  Between the inaudible notes, a voice, “The fall from grace, how could you forget? Only the one who stands beyond, if you know how to ask, will tell you who you were before.”

  The shadow appears again against the infinite obscurity. He’s waited for you all this time and he too wants to get in touch with you, but he doesn’t. Silence and stillness seem the only things he’s ever known. The shadow seems to draw back—he’s inviting you to follow him in the heart of darkness, well beyond the last threshold.

  “Who are you?”

  “Find the way,” the darkness advises. “Find your way, if you want to know that. This is a dream of mirrors. Lost in a paradox…”

  “…we’re not here.” You walk throug
h the first arch, but it’s a story you’ve already seen—after a few steps, you are rejected.

  ‘In a mirror, nothing is as it seems,’ you thought. ‘Maybe if I want to go forward, I must just…’

  You turn around. Only now you see a long corridor emerge from the dark, supported by high black columns. Monstrous faces, in tears, hide themselves from view as you limp forward, or maybe backward, on the long trail of memories. A light appears on the far end, where once only darkness stood. It attracts and repels you, pulsating and showing the rough paintings on the walls—atrocious sacrifices, violent cuts to the innocence.

  The ceiling lowers and the walls shrink more and more, until they scratch your shoulders and head.

  Soon you’re on your knees, crawling toward the light. You will not give up, not this time. Someone is following you but you don’t turn around, and keep on advancing toward the truth.

  The ceiling lowers.

  The walls shrink.

  Now you’re snaking on your belly, as the corridor closes itself around you—a claustrophobic stone bowel in which you are but a larva. Unable to give up, you go toward the light because you’re sure there’s something in that miserable beyond which once was part of your memory.

  You hold out a hand. Your feet slip. The walls and the ceiling are claiming your last breath as everything bends upward. Now you’re climbing the incommensurable void toward the light which keeps on calling you as it’s always done. It’s there. It’s the darkness at the beginning of the world.

  “How long have I been marching?” the voice asks. It’s discreet, this time, nothing but a little whisper behind you. “Is it you? Is it me?”

  “Why do you do that?” you ask. “Why don’t you leave me alone, at least here in the dark?”

  The walls shrink.

  “Because this is your destiny.”

  The ceiling lowers. The nothingness made substance locks your head in a grip. Your mouth impacts against the last step and you look beyond, caught in the middle of a new dream and a forgotten nightmare.

  The light on the bottom finally takes on connotations: it’s the last candle burning on a white stone altar. There’s a boy nailed on it and the shadows are standing around him. You knew them once, or maybe you must still meet them—Warren, Ash and Ianka. It’s all superimposed, the abyss of the past and the future. You see the titanic paw of Angra and other shadowy figures whose names you don’t remember, not here, not now. They are giant, and mute.

  “Who’s the boy on the altar?” you whisper. “Who were we?”

  Somewhere in the darkness, a reply, “Who is the man in the mirror, we ask you.”

  The boy on the altar turns his head—it’s you, lying there helpless for all to see.

  “No!” you scream, but the laughter of the shadows takes away your useless opposition.

  “Are they exploiting you?” the voice asks. “Or do they care for you only until you recite your role? It’s never worth playing the part they fastened on us, even if they think it’s for our own good. You’re free only when you break the chains. You’re free only when you tear down the wall of every comfortable fiction.”

  “They’re all here. My friends and enemies.”

  “Look closer. Have you forgotten who you were?”

  One by one, you look at their eyes fixed on the altar. They are expressionless, waiting.

  There’s someone missing. “Erin,” you say. “And Kugar.”

  “Who lives in the light will never understand those like us, who belong to the dark,” the voice says again. “Those left out in the rain. Those who have found themselves bound hand and foot in a dream that was not theirs. Yes. We’re only shadows in a dream of mirrors. Lost in a paradox, we’re not here.”

  You try to grab that faint memory flying over your perception, yet you can’t. You thought you understood its meaning, its true aspect, before it disappeared in the black wind that has destroyed everything.

  Now you see—there’s a door beyond the altar, enclosed in an arch.

  “Do you dare to try?” the voice is challenging you. “Do you dare to try the descent into yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you just need a reason. Come forward.”

  You raise a hand, but you’re stuck in that funnel of stone. You grab the edge of your limited field of vision, that cold, sharp rock. You try to open up a gap, but the matter of which nightmares are made is slippery and you end up cutting yourself. Wet with your blood, the stone gives a little. You try to push, you stick an arm over it, and the stone gives again until you find yourself birthed into the emptiness at the foot of the altar.

  You roll on the wet floor.

  They all turn toward you, friends and enemies alike. Only now do you notice they don’t have mouth or nose, nor ears—only those eyes mute of all expression that keep staring at you. They seem on the verge of telling you something.

  You go beyond, trying not to hear the screams of the boy nailed on the altar, who is cursing you for having abandoned him.

  The door pulsates like a heart.

  You whisper to gain courage, “Straight to the solution of the mystery. Straight to the beast.”

  You’re about to touch the door, when the world comes undone under your feet.

  You instinctively grab a rocky ledge and you don’t fall in the maw of madness, which is waiting for you alone. The door is up there, now, and you can’t reach it.

  A white hand sticks out of the dark, its skin perfect. It must be the hand of a woman and you see only that. The rest of the body is still hidden in the dark.

  You hear cries in the dark, and screams. The void is calling you and your fingers are about to slip. You are breathless and tired.

  You stop breathing. You slowly hold out your fingers to the help offered by darkness.

  “No, Dag!” the voice says. You know that voice but you can’t identify it. You only know that it’s struggling to be heard there, in the middle of the paradox. “You can do it. I believe in you. I’ve always believed in you.”

  You grab the slippery stone. You plant a foot in the rock, which crumbles like sand. Your breath is fast, terrified. The hand draws nearer and nearer, and you’re a step away from accepting its help.

  “Dag.” You’re a step away from identifying the voice that is warning you. “You can do it. There’s no one to trust, not in this place. No one’s got the right to use your pain against you.”

  You detach your hand from the rock and stretch it out toward the help offered by the candid darkness. You grab it, squeeze it. And strongly pull downwards. The darkness gives birth to the vile creature who wanted to help you. It has nine arms of different shape and length, black and clawed. A vast mouth opens in its black, necrotic belly, under two cruel and intelligent eyes. It opens its infinite mouths when it falls into the void.

  “Here! Hurry!” a voice screams.

  You manage to hoist yourself to the top of the cliff and see the door in front of you. It throbs and written on it are the words, ‘I’m in hell. Save me’.

  It shatters at the touch of your fingers. Beyond you see a feeble violet light, emanating from a crystalline structure in the shape of a pyramid.

  You notice the faint reflection of a girl in it, so weak that her features seem to disappear as soon as you lay your eyes on her face. You approach. She’s suspended in the air, completely naked except for the long copper-colored hair covering her breasts. You follow the curves of her body to her eyes and, “Erin,” you call her. “Erin, I’m here!”

  “She can’t hear you,” answers the voice that has followed you into the heart of the dark. “She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps.”

  Everything in her is still as you remember, like when you embraced her to fall together into the void of the well.

  “We haven’t got much time,” the voice says. “This is not a vision, and they don’t want me here.”

  The plot that holds the darkness together vibrates, shaken by a distant scream. You
fall to your knees and put a hand on the crystal. The vision inside flickers and disappears.

  “Always wonder why someone is helping you,” the voice feels the urge to say, twisting the blade in too fresh a wound. “There are no helping hands in this darkness.”

  You reject fear. It seems to have some control over that place. A bit at a time, Erin’s face reappears. Soon you can see the rest of her body, too, in which so often you have found refuge. Her belly is slightly swollen and the unconscious girl has laid a hand on it.

  Born out of the darkness, the clawed hands of a man move that away. They expose her groin and sink brutally into the belly before both of you can scream. Erin twitches, her eyes still closed. She cries in silence as rivulets of blood flow along her sides, onto the cold marble table where she lies.

  “No!” you scream again, hammering your fists on the glass.

  “Dag. Stop it!”

  You stand up and turn around. “This is not a vision, is it?”

  The silence weighs on you, alone in the dark.

  “No,” the voice replies. It’s close, so close. “We’re inside Hanoi, and Hanoi is inside everything. The problem is you. I can’t help you as long as you’re opposing yourself.”

  “Help me…help her, please!”

  “You can’t do anything for her, now. Erin and Baomani are far from your reach.”

  “So what can I…”

  “Remember, Dag? Do you remember? It’s all real. Pain is always real.”

  A room appears at the end of that place suspended in time and space. One of its walls has collapsed and the frame of exposed bricks encloses a starry sky, the beauty of an endless desert.

  Kugar is lying on the floor on silk cushions and rich carpets, in the dim light of few oil lamps. You think you can reach her, but a cold barrier places itself between you and her.

  No matter how hard you push, you can’t move a step further.

  No matter how loud you scream, she can’t hear you.