The Tankar Dawn

by Walt Popester

Dagger raised his face to the metal arch. In that vast, barren land there were no reference points and it was hard to tell how far it was. Yet now that his visual had changed, he noticed its pointy appearance. The arch didn’t stand straight upward, but was tilted as if its top should be supported by a third metal column to form a sort of pyramid.

  And once, the column was there. Only a stump survived of it, hanging in the void.

  “Once it didn’t look like that,” Mumakil explained, understanding his doubt. “One of the columns melted when the Gate was forced to bring Hanoi in this world. Since then it’s unusable. Mortals always manage to destroy perfection when they find it.”

  Mortals? Who lived here? Dagger looked below—a cold, hostile land, and a dry snake winding in its bosom. He lifted his gaze back to that simple and terrifying structure. Be human, he thought. “This will end badly.”

  “You say that of everything.”

  “Yup. And usually I’m right.”

  “You must surrender to your power,” Mumakil said, a sinister note in his voice. “Life is change, Dag. Don’t be afraid of it.”

  Dagger turned to him. “I think that’s the most reasonable thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. And like all the reasonable things, it doesn’t work with real life. I have something to die for,” he said, surprising himself. “And you ask me to live forever.”

  Mumakil rolled the stick in his hand again. “So that’s your problem. You don’t want to be saved anymore, just like them.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Avenging your brother is no more a matter of life and death. Not even saving Erin, if you ever cared for her. No. You still want a mortal existence, because you’re still looking for that light. You’re still looking for Kugar, who treated you like a…like the last link in the chain.”

  “Stop it.”

  “If you ever meet her again, you should drive an axe in her face. You must forget her. You have no reason to stay here, crucified to this wall. Your friends are gone—those who died and those who betrayed you. They didn’t understand how much help he needs who is waging a war against himself. They left you suffering on that altar, and you can’t forgive them.”

  “I…” Dagger said. “I need—”

  “You need more, my boy. You need a reason to embrace your power. You need that despair, the anger you lost when you abandoned the streets and fooled yourself about the possibility of a better life. There’s never a better life, not for you. You’re still standing in the doorway and—what is worse—you have no idea to move a step forward or backward. Sometimes I think the only way to change your mind is to kick your head in the ass. The problem is that I think that of everyone.”

  “Now I’d just like to know where we’re going.”

  “Gorgors’ lands,” Mumakil answered.

  “And how do you know?”

  The black man pointed straight in front of him and Dagger turned around.

  Red eyes emerged from the unconscious of the night. Dagger saw the shadows spilling down the banks and gush from a village of low conical houses on the bed of the dry river. Fast like ants, they threw themselves out of their anthills and ran to the feet of the crab, their hvis blades shiny like the ripples of the waves in the moonlight.

  “Holy shit.” Dag looked down and put his hand to his sternum. He looked at his fingers and found them clean. The mark on his chest was not bleeding as it had always done in the presence of Gorgors.

  The damn crab has drunk Skyrgal’s blood, he thought as the first enemy tried to climb a claw. “Did you foresee this bad meeting too?”

  “This is only the first halt of the cancer that will absolve the evils of the world,” the black man answered. “One day you will understand.”

  “One day is not today, I guess.”

  Mumakil smiled. “We will meet at the end of the river, have no fear. That’s where they are carrying you. Now…there’s a certain individual I have to find, to understand whose side he is on.” That said, he dropped back into space. Dagger looked out from the ledge of the carapace and saw Apatridus darting beneath him. The cruachan flew with his master toward the mysteries of the night, leaving him alone with the darkness of a thousand faces.

  I’ll be dam—

  His thoughts were interrupted by an abnormal wave of hisses, one cry of hatred coming from the shadows at the feet of the crab.

  I don’t know if you chose me as your Guardian. Dagger smiled. Anyway, let’s show them what a misunderstood boy and a giant crab angry against the same god are capable of.

  Standing in the middle of Hanoi’s blue eyes, Dag stretched his arms. Here!

  Two thick white cords sprang toward him and wrapped his arms, seeping under his skin. Dagger screamed, but endured the pain. Blinding beams of energy climbed his body up to his face and eyes, which gave a red and green light.

  He was no longer himself now, and maybe he had never been. He listened to the cry of a Tankar mother, somewhere beyond the barrier of visible things. A wolf cautiously turned in an unfamiliar forest. A flock of birds flew away along the beach. Dag felt everywhere the pain and the fears of mortals, kept at bay by a frame of unbreakable will to live. Hanoi stood up on his hind legs and raised his claws to the sky. When he lowered them, a horde of Gorgors was hopelessly crushed. Dagger felt inside himself the horrid shatter of bones in their black meat.

  Gray squirting liquid mixed with amputated limbs darted in the air at every movement of the crab, carrying with it the exploded green brains and the black hearts still beating in the wind.

  Dag was sure he could hear Hanoi sing, Sbash! Sbash! Sbash! and heard him laugh as big white boulders rolled down along the banks.

  The crab advanced and clung to a giant anthill, demolishing it and singing and laughing all the time.

  Sbash! Sbash! Sbash!

  A quick thought crossed Dagger’s mind, What did I put into motion again? How can I stop him? Then his eyes shone and he was the All again, staring at the life flowing inside him like a raging river: a Tankar looked out on the ruins of his world, sipping a cup of wine; two children hugged in front of the beheaded corpse of their father; a cat sprang toward a bird fallen from a roof.

  Pain brought him back to the present. Gorgors were now shooting the bizarre creature with poisoned arrows and spears, but Hanoi laughed at their useless attacks in a constant orgy of putrid carcasses and flying shadows.

  The Gate! They were walking under the arch of amorphis. Immense above their heads, it reflected the hvis flashes generated by the useless blows of the shadows.

  Hanoi went up the shadowy river singing, laughing and massacring all those who opposed his march. He advanced until Dagger saw the riverbed shrink and sink, a little further, in the darkness of a wide cave topped by a rocky hill.

  There the river disappeared underground, Dagger thought. Perhaps the crab understood that too, since he slowed his march. He looked suspicious now. The surviving Gorgors scattered, vanishing down one hole or another.

  Dagger heard Hanoi scream inside himself when the Armor emerged from the darkness before his eyes. Standing on the threshold of a wide nothingness, the Armor was shaped like Ktisis and was surrounded by a sinister, electric aura. The surviving shadows got away from it.

  Hanoi stopped with a Gorgor stuck in his right claw. The squealing shadow put his hand to the claw in a foolish attempt to open it, as his green entrails oozed and rained down on the broken corpses of his comrades. The agonized Gorgor soon joined them, one half at a time. The eight legs of the crab retreated. The Armor came forward, and the more it advanced, the more the anti-god stepped back, raising his open claws.

  Why are you afraid of him? Dagger thought, angrily. That man has died too many times to still scare someone!

  Yet now the crab no longer sang. Dag heard him cry inside himself—a sharp yell that made his skin crawl. Hanoi backed away faster and faster from the man in the Armor, stopping only when he saw it disappear beyond the curv
e in the river.

  Soon the electric shadow appeared again, still in march.

  The two sticky cords that anchored Dagger’s body suddenly pulled back and the boy fell on the carapace. Hanoi stood up on his hind legs and lifted his claws toward the majestic arch above them, as if he wanted to reach it but couldn’t.

  The sound that Dagger heard explode in his mind was beyond any possible definition.

  He’s calling someone, but who?

  He clung to a hard deformity to avoid slipping down to yet another death. An eerie flash in the infinite sky brought to light a titan, but it didn’t last long; not long enough to understand what was happening and with which eyes was he watching the reality.

  He felt the immense body of Hanoi stiffen and fall down. He put his hands to his ears when that cry erupted again, as if it came inside his head. Stop it! Why are you afraid of him?

  In the confused mental din of shouts, squeals and screams in an unknown language, something emerged: That! What is that blasphemy?

  Dagger watched the distorted, tilted horizon, the two moons flanked by the huge eyes of the anti-god. He managed to keep his balance with one foot higher than the other. Using his hands he reached the edge and watched. The figure in the Armor had disappeared. It seemed like even the shadows had vanished in the air. Yet, staring into space, he was able to make out some of them in middle of the gelatinous remains of those who had sacrificed themselves. They embraced the maimed bodies of the dead and were not trying to climb the creature which now was helpless and still. Maybe they didn’t consider it a threat anymore, or maybe the man in the Armor had given strict orders before disappearing into the darkness.

  Hanoi, the crab, seemed asleep again.

  * * * * *

  5. Gone with the Wind

  Dawn barely touched the great, wide north.

  Wet by the timid light of the day, that of a faraway sun hidden behind a thick layer of white clouds, that place seemed to Dagger more desolate than in the dark. The Gorgors had to live underground to stave off even the mere memory of sunlight.

  Forever immersed in darkness, Dag thought. Ianka’s voice made his way from the bottom of his memory. Anyway, I mean, how do Gorgors behave under the sheets? If their pee can pass a man from side to side, what are they able to do with their…

  And the voice of Ash, interrupting him. How much have you drunk, exactly?

  His friends, all lost, all gone with the wind that had swept the desert.

  He stood watch for Gorgors, expecting to see them crop up again and try to climb the crab. But the shadows didn’t come. In the never-ending night following the short day, Dagger ascended toward his limestone house on the back of Hanoi—the carapace was still tilted—and managed to light a fire with a hvis blade. He lay on his side, whistling sadly as he fell asleep. For the first night in a long time he enjoyed a dreamless sleep. Now that the shadows were waiting before him, those inside him seemed to have opted for silence. Yet the latter were still smoldering on the bottom of his conscience, he knew it. He felt them. They would have conspired with the Gorgors if they could, locking him in a stranglehold in and out of himself.

  On the third day of waiting, he walked endlessly back and forth in the house which increasingly looked like yet another prison. He went out in the useless sunlight, watching for hours the mysterious arch of amorphis.

  His little surviving food was soon gone in the limestone shack. That gray, dreamless waiting was the closest thing to hell he had ever known. After an anonymous and hostile sunset, he decided enough was enough. He didn’t have to wait for his destiny, Mumakil was right. Dagger would meet it with a sword in his hands, if that was his only available means.

  Here we go, shadows. Now it’s only me and you.

  He descended from the mighty, dormant creature, climbing down one of the hind legs. He faced the irregularities of the road, sure of the shadowy figures at his sides. He considered them a comfortable presence now. He was nothing without his shadows. He always knew what to expect of them. They would never wear a friendly face like Marduk or Warren to cheat him. They hated him with a pure and innate grudge, and he was grateful for that. He knew hate, he knew how to face it. Good feelings had always left him with an open flank.

  He moved deeper and deeper into the gorge he had crossed on the back of Hanoi. The ground was covered with such a quantity of maimed and slaughtered bodies that it was impossible to rest a foot on the ground without trampling one of them.

  He got to the funnel-shaped section where Hanoi had stopped. Piers, stone stairs and wide bronze rings were suspended in the void above his head. They were old. Somewhere in the course of time the river had dried up, accepting life on its bottom. Further on, high pillars dug on the spot appeared. Between them, white furs were displayed.

  Tankars, he thought. White like Kugar…Nehamas!

  The meager remains of the enemies of the shadows, and of their brothers Kahar-Tankars, waved as ominous flags. Their stuffed heads, glassy eyes and open jaws adorned the columns and the walls above the entrances to the rooms carved into the rock. Those mute doors and windows, evocative of the life they had known and left, didn’t improve his mood.

  The Tankar heads became so numerous—he saw six on a single column—it gave him the unpleasant sensation of being surrounded by an army of white Tankars.

  Gorgors were at their sides, everywhere. They tried to hide from his perception, but now he could feel them behind the doors sitting ajar. As good shadows, they were expecting him to go forward, leaving them be in their dying world.

  The river bed narrowed, disappearing under the rocky arch in front of which Hanoi had gone mad.

  Dagger paused and closed his eyes. The wind slipped through the crevices of the ruins, hissing and plotting. A longer burst than the previous slammed against him, and when it ceased he heard the unison beating of all their hearts. The survivor Gorgors were more than he expected, but not enough to be of interest in the Candehel-mas chessboard, anymore.

  An air stream went up from the bowels of the earth. “Dagger,” called a hiss. “My son.”

  He felt a shiver running down his spine, as he watched the darkness at the end of the gorge. There was no other way to continue. That was where each step of his life had taken him.

  “How I waited for you to come. I’ve been here all alone.”

  “This is not your line.” Dagger crossed the new threshold, sure of the sword on his back, but a place far from what he expected emerged from nothingness.

  The ghost river drifted and disappeared in the dark, leaving him alone in the presence of a beauty he believed impossible in that gray part of the world.

  A petrified wood surrounded him. Towering red tree trunks lost themselves in the dark, broken but not bent by the tyrannical passage of time. Their only ornament, the multicolored glass panels that the hand of a dreamer had dared to set among the branches.

  “Ktisis…” Dagger climbed the rocky shore and watched in awe.

  Coming from above, the light passed through the glass and fell on him in a thousand red, yellow and green darts. The multicolored panels were also between the tree trunks and depicted some mythological or religious cycle. They were terribly realistic.

  His footsteps echoed in the gallery and the glass sent back that sound in constantly different tonalities, a symphony of colors entrusted to the dark. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  Darkness answered in a crystalline whisper, “Yes.”

  “Where have we wound up this time?”

  “A fossil forest,” said the one who awaited him. “It died a long, long time ago. Like all of us, after all.”

  You must have liked it right off, then, Dagger thought, but that place made him, too, forget the omnipresent death that had chased him since always. A gap appeared between two fossilized trees and he walked through it. He moved a few, cautious steps in the obligatory path between lights and shadows. “Warren shouldn’t have freed you, Crowley.”

  A metallic laugh seem
ed to make a red window pulsate. “That boy is sick with a terrible, chronic boredom. He’s always enjoyed shuffling cards once in a while. War is the new that advances, the deafening boom your generation needed.”

  “A suicidal lunatic.”

  “They are the ones who move the world. And then, both Gorgors and Kahars really cared for their messiah. Why keep them away from me? It’s nice to know you belong to someone, it’s a feeling you should try once in a while.”

  “You know I’m alone. You hurt me.”

  The Divine laughed, that laughter totally incorporated in the dark from which it was born.

  “Believe me, my son. I took some steps out of that crypt. Now I could really hurt you.”

  Try it, Dag thought. “But you won’t.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “You want to use me. You want to put me aside, somewhere, in the hope of using me as a bargaining chip to return to reign, command. Are you sure you’re not the one sick with boredom?”

  “I just want you to leave me alone!” The cry of the fallen Pendracon was filled with a long-repressed rage. He calmly added, “Aren’t you satisfied, yet? I just want to rule over those to whom I belong and whom I resemble for what happened to them. For how they suffered the blows of an infamous god.”

  “Who? The dogs and the shadows?”

  “Don’t offend my children.” There was a moment of silence, then, “You almost killed them all.”

  Dagger walked forward. Now the light, however weak, allowed him to watch the chiseled figures in detail. The Gorgors were portrayed with amber pieces. The past beauty of their faces was indisputable in contrast to the monstrosity to which fate had bent them now. They had slightly almond-shaped eyes, and their graceful figures betrayed a culture oriented to the health of the body. The land was fertile and generous, the multicolored flowers minutely depicted in the emerald green grass, under the bluest sky he had ever seen.

  “Almagard,” Dagger whispered.

  “And the hell built by men for men,” Crowley said. The bright colors were taken over by the anxiety of dark, gloomy tones. Now the minute figures were chained in long rows and damned their bodies and souls to pull thick ropes. The slaves dragged heavy stone blocks along the ramps built on the slopes of a throne as big as a mountain.