Dagger 4 - The Tankar Dawn: A Dark Fantasy Adventure

by Walt Popester

  Baikal growled softly. “Girl. You’d better keep your mouth shut when you’re not using it to suck the cock of your uncle.”

  Kugar closed her eyes. “You were trying to hurt me, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.” The Emperor put a hand to his canteen, tipped it up and took a long sip. “And if I can still read the face of a human, I succeeded.”

  “A human?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Kugar opened her eyes. “You wouldn’t hear before. First it was necessary for you to face your earthly demon to understand.” She watched the black corpse of Vektor. “Now you only miss the one stuck between hell and earth. The demon from whom you have been running away for far too long.”

  “He…”

  “Aeternus lives and rots out there every day that you waste in killing and dominating your likes. The killer of our father lives, no one could defeat him. Neither the Hermit, nor Araya, nor all those who crossed his path without surrendering to his bitter promises.”

  Dagger turned away his gaze.

  “His power doesn’t come from this world,” Kugar continued. “And only with the power of another world can it be erased. You can lock up yourself at the top of the highest tower. You can impale the most innocent of your enemies, but you can’t change the reality that dies every day around you. The secret to wipe away the Disciples hides itself in the temple you are destroying. You’re risking to lose it forever. You’re closing your ear to the whisper of the desert, who just wants to help you.”

  Weren’t you the one who didn’t want to talk…Dagger thought.

  “Forgive your god,” Kug concluded. “Let us enter his temple.”

  Us?

  “No.”

  “I can interpret those writings,” she insisted. “Now I know my place in the world. I will finish the work Moak and those who preceded him have left pending, and of which I am the only heir. Free your mind from hatred and try to understand that you’re no longer alone. Even I did that.”

  He rebelled against those words, barking a single sound in which he conveyed all his power.

  She didn’t seem impressed. “No. You’re no longer alone, my brother. Your enemy is my enemy.”

  “Why?” Baikal asked. “What did Aeternus do to you?”

  Barefoot, Kugar walked toward the Nomad Emperor, resting her feet in the thick layer of coagulated blood which hosted him in the company of his dead, private demon. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Exodus was my father, too. Should it be the last thing I do, I’ll make him pay for that.”

  Baikal tightened the canteen at his neck with such a force that he seemed about to break it.

  “Bai…brother.”

  “Our father died for that temple,” the Emperor said. “Should I die in the effort, I will raze it to the ground. I only need to find the black book of Aeternus, that will be enough to—”

  “The black book contains the Immortal Rites, a small part of Ktisis’s knowledge halfway between life and death. Not the knowledge of Ktisis. Dagger needs that to deal with the enemy.”

  “I?” Dagger asked. The two Nehamas turned to him as if to ask, Who did you think we were talking about so far? Then they focused back on each other.

  “I’ve forbidden it,” Baikal said. “My word is forever.”

  “Your anger is forever.”

  “Anger is always forever! If you forget anger, it means that it wasn’t anger at all.”

  Kugar opened her mouth, thought about it, then closed it again.

  Ktisis, Dag thought. Sometimes only a homicidal wolf Emperor of the desert can silence a woman.

  “No words, sister?”

  Kugar turned briefly toward Dagger, before focusing back on her brother and Emperor. “You are right.”

  “I’m honored.” Baikal got up, his white fur stained with blood. He marched in the coagulated blood, squeezing the yellow serum and leaving horrid footprints as he approached the secret door. “That temple will be destroyed, whether you like it or not. It will take time, you may have noticed it’s damn big. But even if it’s the last thing I do, I—”

  “Your demons never let you go.” This time, that of Kugar was an affirmation. “I know. I know what it means.”

  The Emperor stopped, his back to them. He raised his finger, but didn’t say anything else before leaving the throne room.

  “Follow him,” Kugar said. “Sometimes it takes a friend to make a lone wolf think.”

  Dag watched the arch of the secret door. “I don’t think I’m his friend.”

  She shook her head. “I know. The lone wolf is you.”

  * * * * *

  Dagger climbed the secret staircase past the room of Kugar, which was accessed through a fake wall. A distant, confused music emerged from the silence. He followed it in the dark until he was standing before a green glass plate. The empty sarcophagus, he thought. He pushed forward the lid, entering the room at the top of the tower.

  Baikal was seated at his organ and played in a frenzied, chaotic manner even though Dagger could spot traces of heavenly music in that infinite racket.

  “Coming out of the tombs is starting to become a habit for you!”

  Dag didn’t immediately understand the meaning of those words, then turned to the umpteenth sarcophagus out of which he had come. He turned back to the Emperor and shrugged.

  Off-key notes. The hands stopped. “Ktisis. That joke should have been funnier.”

  “Bai…”

  “How can you accept that?” Baikal asked. “How?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Kugar. Why do you still care for her, after what she did to you? Just because she’s the mother of your unwanted son?”

  Dagger didn’t want to answer that question. The answer came out against his will, “Because I know how she felt. Until the end, in the most dreadful hours. This is why I…”

  Baikal turned around to look at him and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt that silence. Dag made a gesture of annoyance and approached the dismal arch open on the desert, touching the thin veil before nothingness. “You can’t understand that until you fall so far down that you can’t remember your name. Sometimes we have no other choice but to walk the wrong path because it’s the only path that numbs that crazy pain in our hearts, the pain of this obscure world. When you have no purpose you cling to the first one that comes into your life. It’s like that, Bai. Don’t hate on people for wanting a purpose to be in this world. Imagine your life without any purpose. It’s the most painful thing in this world.”

  “Ktisis. You’re falling for her, aren’t you?”

  Dagger didn’t want to laugh. “You don’t know what it’s like. If you did, you’d find yourself doing the same thing, too.”

  Baikal played some distracted notes. “There’s a hole in my soul. It’s been killing me since always,” he said. “What do you know? The both of you, you talk about—”

  “If Hanoi really wanted us to meet, he wanted it because only I can understand you.”

  Baikal snorted. He played few harmonic notes, and brought the canteen to his mouth. “You convinced me,” he said, letting the canteen swing on his chest, to play freely. “Yes, yes, you really convinced me, but I warn you. It’s better to leave your demons behind when you enter that temple. Hanoi sent you to me, you’re right. But you must be crazier than you look if you think I’ll lose you in there.”

  Dagger looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something in that place, in the same stone it’s made of.” The Nomad Emperor played in decrescendo. “It brings them alive, your worst memories.”

  And maybe that’s why I have to go in there, Dag thought. “If half of what I’ve heard from your guards is true, I can easily guess the look of the demon who danced in front of your muzzle.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Think about my father.”

  Baikal started and pushed him back—not with such a strength to kill him, even though Dagger was sure he could, but enough to make him sli
de on the floor and slam his head against the sarcophagus.

  The beast locked his fists. “DON’T…” He bowed his head. “…talk about him.”

  With a hand on his nape, Dag lifted his eyes. Baikal stood against the arch of amber sky that weighed on the desert—white, immense, fingers still locked, the skin around his knuckles so tense it seemed about to tear apart.

  “You should figure out that too, despite the enormous dick-head you have on your shoulders,” the boy said, not at all frightened. “Everything could change until now. You could even lock yourself in here and pull away from the mission Hanoi gave you, until now.”

  “I told you to stop.”

  “Now you must dive into the heart of darkness. There’s no other way to free your brothers still dominated by your sworn enemies.”

  Every light disappeared from the face of the Tankar. “You…” he said. His shoulders moved and Dag prepared to die again. Instead, the Emperor moved forward and held out his giant hand. He helped Dagger stand up and preceded him to the balcony, overlooking the waste of which he was the indisputable lord—except for a light shining enemy and free, far toward the sea.

  “There’s no place for us in this world anymore. There never was, after all,” he said when Dagger joined him. “Everything that is not in ruin will soon be. Everyone, as elsewhere in Adramelech, destroys, no one restores.” He stared at the stars above them. “But do you ever get to look up to the sky and have the feeling that he is still there, watching over you?”

  Angra, Dag thought. He realized that his hand was locked around the precarious balustrade. “Yes,” he said.

  “It happens to me all the time,” the Emperor answered. “The memory of my father is the light that has watched over my filthy journey, over every step that has led me from the broken chains to the freedom of the desert. I will not betray it. Never. You can’t betray that light, Dag, can you understand that? Sometimes it’s all you’re left with. The one thing that reminds you who you are, who…you were.”

  I…Dagger looked for something to say. I understand you.

  “Betraying that light won’t bring anything good,” Baikal continued. “The kids educated in this place now laugh at every old Tankar belief, yet I still remember the terror those beliefs inspired when I was a prisoner of the Kahars. Infinite superstitions made their whole knowledge.” He put a hand to his faithful wine canteen, yet he didn’t bring it to his lips. “One has survived, Dag. Under the infinite knowledge given by Hanoi, one has survived and there’s still an impassable limit for me.” He looked down on him. “Your temple.”

  “Don’t call it that. I’m pissing in my pants, dammit.”

  “The reason my father sacrificed himself.”

  Dagger was seized by his memories. The danger, the shadows hunting for him, the desperate journey to a trap even more deadly than the one he was fleeing from. It’s better to leave your demons behind when you enter that temple. Baikal’s words sounded heavy in his mind. There’s still something in there. There always has been.

  He noticed the Asmeghin was still talking, “…Hanoi brought you to me so I could warn you against your own power, maybe. He knew what happened to me. He knew I could make you—”

  “Bullshit!” There was anger in Dagger’s voice. “Besides us gods, even you Nehamas can be the interpreters of his will! There is the key. Only you among the mortals can take Solstice without dying.”

  Baikal reasoned in silence. “Except, perhaps, the white blood,” he said.

  “The white blood?”

  “Like us, they come from a hidden vale in the Silver Mountains, surrounded by high peaks, and for a thousand years they’ve had more truck with us Nehamas than with other men. This made them different.”

  “I guess more cynical and poisonous.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I guessed.” Dagger’s eyes wandered into the sea of ruins. “It seems to me that your answer is no.”

  “My answer is never. I’ll find another way to defeat the Disciples and honor the will of the ghosts who have accompanied me here.”

  Dag shook his head. The Ktisis with it. He looked at the stars again, hoping Angra would answer his call.

  And indeed, a winged shadow crossed the amber vault, stealing a smile from him.

  * * * * *

  Dagger pushed the fake wall forward and walked into Kugar’s room. “Hey.”

  The mother of his son turned to him. “Hey,” she said. She was enclosed in the arch open on the outside, flanked by the two moons. Their golden and bloody lights wet her candid skin, making her a mystical figure.

  He felt mixed feelings for her as he closed the wall behind him. “Your brother is not afraid of any living creature. That might be a problem.”

  “Tankars fear only the dead,” she replied. “Especially those who keep on living. It’s a deep fear that comes from these ruins.”

  Dag walked forward on the soft carpets. “He will never move against Asa until it’s infested by the Disciples.”

  “And it will be difficult to free the city from the Disciples, without moving to Asa.”

  “You’re getting smarter and smarter every day.”

  She put a hand on his mouth and pushed him against the wall. She moved a few steps back. “The secret lies in that temple.”

  “Moak, right?”

  Kugar knew where he was going with that. “He and I have already been there before we discovered it with Olem. And…” She didn’t continue.

  “Speak, for once in your life.”

  She kicked away a cushion, before going outside.

  Why do they need to be in the open air every time they empty the bag? Dagger joined her and hugged her from behind.

  “We found that wall,” Kug continued. “My Nehama blood allows me to take Solstice without dying, and Moak used me to interpret those writings. He wanted to find a way to make up for what Aeternus and Skyrgal did. He wanted to fix the fracture between mortal and divine, and—”

  “Take a break.”

  “Dag!”

  “How much did you know about this story when we met?” he asked. And how much are you still hiding from me?

  “We must find a way, any way, to get back there before it’s too late. It was a high, white wall. It looked like the page of a cursed book, or diary. Yes, there we were about to break the node that kept everything bonded.”

  “Kug…”

  “Now I know. I know! Only with your help will I understand. Only you can help me to throw down this wall.”

  That made Dag shiver. You pronounced the magic phrase and the door opened. “Is that what you want?” he asked.

  She looked suspicious. “That’s what I’ve always wanted. And you, do you know what you want?”

  A star fell from the sky, drawing its bright path. “Now I do.”

  Kugar smiled. “Then let’s go and get it.”

  He jumped on the balustrade, in balance on the ruin. He turned to Kugar and stretched out his hand.

  “Dag. What’s on your mind, exactly?”

  “Something I will soon regret.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “No.” She reached him on the edge of the precipice. “Every night I see you fall into that well, with her in your arms.”

  “Kug…”

  “And this time you want to fall with me.” A conspiratorial smile broke the doubts on her face. “So. Is this the great plan?”

  “Do you trust me?” Dagger asked again, suggesting that after that question there would be nothing else.

  She nodded. She embraced him as he dragged her into the void.

  In the cry of the wind he felt her tremble and hold him tight. Dagger felt their three hearts in unison and wished that flight could last forever, when the cruachan’s cry tore at the air. He tried to grab the beast with one of his black appendages, but Apatridus dodged him as if it were playing. Finally he caught him with its teeth, flinging him on its back with the girl.

&
nbsp; Kugar laughed in Dagger’s arms as the wind threw back her black hair, raven-black flames burning in the impetuous bursts of the currents.

  They flew toward the red moon, and for a moment everything was forgotten.

  * * * * *

  8. Written on the Walls

  They flew for days and nights under the sun and the moons.

  Kugar was sure about the direction to take, and Dagger drove Apatridus according to her indications. First along the course of the river, where they were able to restock their water, then on a ghost road and finally into the roaring heart of the dunes, flowing like waves under them. There was nothing in the pockets of the winged beast, except for a few empty wine skins and crumbs. It was impossible to understand how long the journey that had brought it back to him had been.

  They made few pauses, and slept even less.

  Sand, sand everywhere. There is nothing here, Dag thought, hungry and with arms and legs sore, when the sun set for the third time.

  “Here,” Kugar shouted in the wind. “Slowly, now.”

  He turned around, raising an eyebrow. She hit his back with a fist and pointed forward.

  Two dunes opened in perspective on a Tankar camp, at the foot of a majestic oval portal embedded in a red stone wall. It was half covered by the sand that at least here couldn’t conceal everything.

  Dagger realized they wouldn’t fly through the main entrance when Kug pointed to some rock formations in the distance. The proportions of the temple became clear to him only when he realized that those were not mountainous ranges, but masonry structures.

  You are a bunch of fucking fools, all of you, he thought before he remembered that he had erected and dug that monstrosity. The horror tried to break into his conscience again.

  What am I doing here? Where am I? He closed his eyes. Perhaps Apatridus perceived his dismay and called him, as it slowly drifted to the ground. The awareness of a limited and finished present came back, in which the secret of life was enclosed.

  “Dag?” Kugar wrapped him up in her arms.

  The cruachan landed on the top of a dune. Before them, smooth boulders of different sizes were perfectly fitted in a soaring stone wall.