No matter how hard you push, you can’t move a step further.
No matter how loud you scream, she can’t hear you.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“You are the one who decides what to see in this infinite source of nightmares.” A distant scream breaks the voice again—this time it’s closer.
You slide with your back against the crystal barrier and turn toward the transparent pyramid which shows and hides Erin—again and again, her tortures.
You shake your head. “What did I do to them?”
The voice understands your dismay. “They filled their heads with words,” it says. “Leveraging on their pain as they did with you. They did their best to get you away from each other, and you let them do it.”
You raise your face. Maybe you see it now, a human silhouette darker than the darkness around. “You’re justifying them. You are—”
“You must look for them,” the voice says. “Erin is too far away now. She’s far from the land where her young hero—”
“Skip that part! You already said that. What must I—”
“Find Kugar. Bring her beyond the only arch still open in the belly of this horror.”
“Why?” You look inside you, where no one can hound you, and understand that you don’t need answers to that question.
In the pyramidal case, you see Baomani is once again trying to violate Erin’s belly, but his claws retract suddenly. Something is fighting him back. ‘Mumakil,’ you think. ‘Mumakil has complicated your plans. Hasn’t he, Baomani?’
Fear gives. The shadow clears just enough to let you see the vastness of that horror. There’s no ceiling. The black walls tower toward the titan of—
—the scream brings you back to your little world. You are terrified. Your beast’s heart beats faster and faster.
“Dag. You’re still standing on the threshold of your room in the Fortress Nest, uncertain whether to face the world out there or stay in your comfortable darkness.”
“What do you know?”
“You didn’t take a single step since then,” the voice says. “The stars shine for all of us in this merciless sky. Whatever they say, you are alive. Whatever they say, it makes no sense to give up what we want just to keep on wearing our stage costume, however comfortable and richly adorned. Trust me, I know something about that. Now I’d give everything to go back and fix my errors, to wallow in the mire of useless mortal happiness. A woman. A son.”
“Missy…” You stand up. “Is that you, brother?”
Beyond the case, by a soft light, darkness shows Olem’s face. It’s the first time you see him again. He’s real—the scar on his cheek, his hair as black as the obscurity out of which it’s born.
He flickers and disappears, a wisp in the vast fields of nothingness.
“Our happiness is too important.” Olem’s words dig a furrow in your mind, dividing hatred from new hopes. “It’s worth fighting for happiness, Dag, even against yourself. You must look for Kugar. She needs your help now.”
“How can I help her?”
“He will help you.”
You turn toward the door from which you came. The darkness that lies beyond, in which you were wandering, is thicker than the one you’re in now.
There’s a man standing on the threshold. His face must be black because you can only see his short, white beard. It climbs his chiseled, virile jaws exposing his chin and joining above his mouth.
It’s the only thing you see before the scream shakes the fragile balance of that little world, forever lost.
* * * * *
Light burst into his view, unbidden. Dagger fell on the carapace and rolled on his side.
The first thing he noticed was the incessant swinging of the horizon. The left and right sides rose and lowered alternatively as the portentous beast advanced and advanced. Hanoi was bypassing the heart of Adramelech. The ruins around them were not impressive, but low, clay structures which his claws found too easy to raze to the ground.
Dag barely saw them as he tried to keep his eyes open. Yet he felt. He felt the wind kick against the flank of the creature. He felt the clay crumble hopelessly under the blows of Hanoi’s sharp feet.
He opened his eyes once and for all. The fogs of sleep dissipated and he saw the starry sky, bright as he had never seen it. One cloud kept wandering in the infinity and abandoned him in the light of the moons.
Dagger coughed, turning in the slime. He could feel the breath of Hanoi through his own pain. Now they were bonded. He realized that when he first opened his eyes, and at least a part of him deemed natural that curious circumstance. Now the power of his blood had flowed into something too great to be contained by the limited confines of a mortal body. It seemed to expand in every direction, putting him in touch with the world of which he was part.
He could feel the river flowing under the city, and knew Hanoi was following that. It doesn’t run in a regular course, he thought. It bends northward.
In the background of everything there was a deafening silence, the most complete he had ever heard. It was the one that enveloped everything, the sound of the space around things and people.
Listening to it, fear quickly made its way through him, but a metallic noise tore the silence.
Dagger turned, watching a manegarm blade bounce several times before stopping, still smoking.
“Solitude!” He threw himself to the ground and nearly hugged it, but the sword was still red hot. Little by little, trying several times to touch its grip, he managed to grab in and lift it up before his eyes. “You got kicked out from that hell too, Olem?”
He laughed, but his happiness lasted short. There was something different in his sword. It seemed lighter and lacked the lively hues. Now it looked like a simple piece of manegarm. You decided to stay in there?
In the light of the moons he watched his own distorted reflection. Nothing seemed changed—his face older than his years, his sandy hair, his eyes…
Shit! he thought noticing the new color of his eyes—yellow gold. For the rest, his fragile outer shell had its usual appearance. It was inside that everything had changed, exploded, connected.
He lowered the tip of the sword to the ground and felt the hard contact with the carapace as if he was touching it with his fingers.
I’m inside the web. I’m inside the All. He liberated his reason from the reins of fear and permitted himself a moment of the greatest and less manageable freedom. He heard a sound, quiet and harmonious background music. He smiled as he looked up at the two moons and spontaneously identified that heavenly song with their movement.
Nothing ever ended. Everything was expanding, he too. He tried to keep control and free his mind even more. The moons, the singing of the stars, and then further and further away, one step at a time. The singing disappeared and he listened to silence again, that chaotic and terrifying silence parading in the dark.
He could do that. Another step, one step at a time.
The endless shadows—so dark he had never seen.
What’s that? “NO!”
He fell again in the reality of the tangible things. He heard a noise and turned to the ghost town.
Mumakil moved forward and stood before him, the faithful Apatridus at his side. “It’s the first time you heard me coming, right?”
Hanoi raised its endless claw to obscure the moons, then lowered it and knocked down an old tower on his way.
Dag stood up, trying not to slip. “How long has this thing been marching?”
“Hanoi? For a while. Yes, a while. Do you always have this effect on the others? Do you always put them in motion as soon as you’re inside them?”
“There was a two-way?”
The fallen Pendracon shook his head and sighed. “You cursed them with your love, Dag. You cursed them as only love can do, and now they’re both far from the land where their young hero sleeps.”
Dagger was silent. No, not that phrase. “You were watching in the darkness, or
what?”
“Don’t forget that I, myself, have been inside the damn crab. Every so often there’s something Hanoi decides to let me see when I sleep. And every now and then there’s something I can hear when he’s asleep. He likes to play, the anti-god of my ass.”
Dagger asked, “Where did Baomani bring Erin? Is that where we’re headed?”
“Are you planning to jump on the stage at the climax and save the world as always?”
“I never saved the world. Others did that.”
“Mine was just sarcasm.”
“Look behind you. There’s a three-headed monkey dying with laughter.”
“Baomani must have brought Erin to the only place where she can still give birth to your son,” Mumakil answered. “Now your blood is flowing in Hanoi, with a little effort you could go up the Inherjer river to see where she is…with the eyes of your mind, of course.”
And probably that’s just what happened. Dag kept that thought to himself, driving out the image of Baomani’s claws penetrating Erin’s belly. He closed his eyes, focused, and isolated the world outside himself. He felt life crawling in the sand and in the rocky depths of the desert until he reached that heavenly music again. The water flow carried him away through the hundred places touched by Hanoi.
He sensed the smell of the Fortress and of the contamination snaking in the intimate, holy heart of the Glade.
A slap brought him back to reality and he found himself on the ground, staring at the profile of Mumakil in the red moon.
“No!” the black man said. “Bad, Dagger. Bad!”
“You’re always that funny, or at times—”
“At times I take a break.” Mumakil held out his hand, which Dagger accepted. “Don’t worry. It’s still early to give birth to such a creature, and it’s early to go there. You’re not ready and Baomani is very powerful, you may have noticed.”
You, too, are scared of him.
The old murdered Pendracon lowered his eyes. “Olem taught you how to wield the sword, in a world that wields completely different powers. Warren tried to teach you that good is somewhere in the middle, hidden under endless layers of shit. And Araya…Araya tried to teach you a lot of stuff, especially the value of trust. Yet you totally misunderstood his lesson.”
“And the point is?” Dagger rolled Solitude in his hand.
“The point? You’re holding it in your hand. Now you are your sword and your sword is all you want to be, a bit like your dead friend, that Schizoid.”
“Schizo!”
Angry in face, Mumakil turned toward Apatridus, who looked away. The black man turned again to Dagger and continued, “This is a danger for the whole world, if you really want your vengeance against the shadow that is calling you. To face the Hermit you need your power. The cancer that’s devouring this world has never wielded a sword.”
“Very poetic.”
“You’ve fought to the end to get your own ruin in the pipeline, Skyrgal should have known that when he created you like this. Divine miseries are not easily born by a mortal, and the other way around. Who can say what effects mortal impulses may have on a god’s mind?”
“What are you talking about?”
“About a dream of mirrors, my boy. About what will happen. The path to power is only one. Know yourself.” He stroked one of the many scars on his black face. “I know who you are, and you’re here to find it out.”
Dag rolled Solitude once again to keep his fear under control. “I just hope that what happened to your bodies when you got inside there won’t happen to me too.” He pointed to his eyes and their new color.
Mumakil cocked his head sideways. “You’re talking in the plural, aren’t you?”
Dagger realized his misstep. “I mean—”
“Who did you see in there?”
Dagger closed his eyes. He saw himself again, crucified on the altar with his friends around.
Mumakil sighed. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”
“There was my brother.” Dagger emptied the bag. “The same who asked me to kill him.”
The black man was frozen by those words. He bent his head and said nothing.
“I’m sure it was him, and not a vision. After all, my sword, Solitude, was in the crab and—”
“The crab has absorbed his soul,” Mumakil interrupted, darkening. “Olem was a Disciple, a soul stained by the hatred of Skyrgal. Hanoi took him as he will soon do with all of them.”
Dagger was unable to accept that truth. He looked again at his weapon. It was turned off. He was alone.
“What did Olem tell you?”
“Personal things. Nothing important.”
The old Pendracon stared at him; not to understand if Dag was lying, probably, but just how much he was lying. “You can do better than that.”
“There was another man in the dark,” Dagger revealed. “I see him again and again, in front of me. He looks like you somehow. Even his face is black, so I only saw his beard.”
“Oh, really,” Mumakil said as if listening to small talk. He moved a few steps around Dagger, turning his back to him.
“Really,” the boy answered. “Two white lines climbed his jaws and mouth to join under his nose, leaving his chin uncovered. He stared at me beyond the damn three arches.”
Mumakil turned suddenly, every light disappeared from his eyes.
He knows who he is, Dag realized. “You know who he is.”
“You’re sure you saw him?”
“Yes.”
A gust of wind stole the silence between them, and Dagger heard again the singing of the stars, the immensity weighing on him. Shut up!
“So that’s where we’re going…” the black man whispered.
“Is it serious?”
“Take a look around. The situation is always serious, around here.” The black man marched pensively on the roof of the world. “There is someone, in there.”
Dagger walked to his side. “And we all agree on that.”
“I don’t know to what end he is acting. For the moment, I like to think that he’s an ally…damn, we need allies.”
“So where are we headed?”
“You’re jealous of your secrets and you expect others to reveal theirs? No. It doesn’t work that way. In the end, you only need to wait to see where we’re going, right?”
Dagger remembered the white hand outstretched in the dark and the filthy monster to which it belonged. He felt the need to say, “He was able to revive my memories, the worst ones. And maybe not just mine. Was it the same with you?”
“Three arches. Three damn arches,” Mumakil murmured absently. “I thought it was all over, all gone. Instead, the web of fears that holds our lives together is always a breath from the surface. You only need to disturb the waters a little, and everything comes back up. All the hatred, the repressed anger of this world.” He shook his head in resignation. “To forget,” he said. “No one ever really forgets. We forgive, but we never forget. The memories of the unconscious creature under us are old, an endless dream. But sometimes there’s truth in dreams.”
“I’m not following you.”
Mumakil slightly smiled. “Destiny has its own way to settle the scores, having us often fly to the place where it’s expecting to find us.”
“I just want to know where I will find—”
“I won’t tell you where Erin is. Find your destiny, and the river will bring you there.” He said no more and went back in the labyrinth of narrow alleys.
I’m not looking for Erin. This time, Dagger followed him.
* * * * *
4. Chasing the Ghosts
The village was rocked by the relentless march of Hanoi, the thud of his feet and the sound of the ruins razed to the ground. But the air was still, and the sun itself seemed to be hanging motionless in the middle of the sky.
“Here we are,” Dagger said—stubble on his face, his hair long and dirty, his eyes ever increasingly yellow.
“Look at your feet,” replied a vo
ice from above.
The boy looked down, before jumping back. Small and insignificant black insects were still moving on the venous back of the crab. “Damn!” He closed his eyes and felt them crawling, a thousand beings that moved as one, each with its own existential task to accomplish.
He was in all of them at once. He could feel their primordial instincts, a little more developed that those of the inorganic matter they trampled on. He controlled them. He slowed them. He felt them moving slower and slower, until they stopped completely.
He opened his hands, and his eyes. He smiled and looked up. “I did it!”
“No, you didn’t.” Perched on a limestone arch, Mumakil stroked the green plumage of Apatridus, who shook his head in disagreement. The beast’s expressions seemed to Dagger more human, lately. “The temporal control must be exercised over all the creatures around you, otherwise it’s just a waste of time and energy. Look at my little winged friend. It’s still moving, isn’t it?”
Dagger put his hand to the belt that crossed his bare chest. He had found it—along with heavier clothes and a barely fitting leather sheath for Solitude—when he fully inspected the other empty houses. A throwing dagger almost pierced the bird, who jumped into the air and stared at him from above, flying in circles.
The crab was marching on, breaking down the fragile structures on his way. It was getting colder as he marched northward.
“Using a blade is what you still do best, isn’t it?” Mumakil dropped in the middle of the white alley. “You’re in the heart of the warp of Creation. You could have full control over light and time, over matter, but you still prefer those damn pointed things. Every street kid can use one, you know.”
The worthless insects slowly returned to life. Dagger crushed some under his bare foot. “I just have to practice the temporal control.”
“The small and insignificant creatures are not easier to control than the large and frightening ones. We’re all connected, Dag. The web of the living is one organism with his own will. The grass is the prey. The prey is the wolf. The wolf is the fly that will feed on his corpse. Life is a unique being with endless faces, like the various components of our body work alone for the common existence.”
Dagger 4 - The Tankar Dawn: A Dark Fantasy Adventure Page 12