Dagger - The Light at the End of the World

by Walt Popester

  Against the light, the shadows of five Guardians appeared. They were waiting with arms crossed on their chest and a sadistic grin on their faces.

  “Where are you going?” one of them asked. “The world Beyond is not a suitable place for a woman, especially one that has so many things to tell.”

  She took a step back. Coming out of nowhere, two hands pushed her forward.

  “Twelve of our blood brothers died to come and rescue you!” the voice behind her said. “I hope you are a bit sorry, at least. What are you hiding in that rag?”

  “I must go to the world Beyond. This order comes from Dracon Marduk,” Aniah said, as she realized those men were not there to talk. A blow on the temple blurred her sight and everything disappeared. Hearing the cries of her terrified child she came back to her senses. She drew her sword, blindly beheading the Guardian who tried to tear him from her arms. Immediately, the other ones threw her on the ground and closed on her to hit her again and again, and again. She felt the fingers of one of them reach beneath her tunic. And then inside her.

  “Open your legs, come on!” a grotesque voice snarled as two hands grabbed her ankles. “Do it for all those who died because of you, before we cut your throat like a sow!”

  She felt his saliva on her throat and wept helplessly, still holding the baby against her breast as they began. They had been sent there, they had not come on their own, she knew it. She was being punished for her betrayal. She hoped it would all end soon then, suddenly, she were soiled by a spray of warm blood. She looked up and saw the throat of the Guardian over her slashed by a deep cut. The other ones cursed and backed away in terror, vanishing. Aniah took the lifeless body of the Guardian off from inside her, before kneeling on the floor and screaming.

  Marduk appeared in front of her, emerging from nowhere. He had a bloody dagger in his hand.

  “Marduk,” Aniah groaned, throwing herself into his arms. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry big bro!”

  “Shhh, little sis…” he said, stroking her hair. “It will be okay, you will see. Now, you see what the situation is here at the Fortress.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He spoke softly and clearly. “Everything you have been through has only made you stronger. Even this. You have a mission to accomplish. When you do, come back. I will find a solution for you too. You will leave the Fortress and change your life. I will think about it. I will think about everything, as always. Do not worry about anything this time.”

  She slowly left his protective embrace, putting a hand to her waist to unsheathe the dagger of Mayem, the only that survived the destructive fury of Skyrgal in the tavern of Adramelech, days earlier.

  “Here,” she said. “It’s a gift.”

  Marduk looked at her suspiciously as he took it from her hands. “A dagger of Mayem?” He was aghast. “Where did you get it? These weapons are cursed!”

  “When the time comes it will be useful to you, I am sure. In this, lies what I, now, love above everything else. Even though it is my death and ruin.”

  Marduk did not understand those words. When he looked up to ask for an explanation, Aniah had already gone.

  There were still many things he wanted to tell her and, he was sure, many things she had not said.

  * * * * *

  3. The old man

  That night, like every night, old Sannah was sitting at the desk in his studio, surrounded by endless piles of papers and dust, somewhere in that maze of channels and wrecks that was the neighborhood of abandoned ships; best known as the ship cemetery. That room had been the cab of a commander once. In there decisions had been made that had decreed the death of many men. Approach maneuvers, boardings, tortures and turns of the keel to punish the unruly. He smiled at the thought. Now it was just the asshole from which he ran the Spiders guild, not one of the most important associations in the putrid city of Melekesh, perhaps not even a real guild. Perhaps the only refuge for a bunch of mutts, abandoned in the world, that did not have anything better to do with their lives than get killed while trying to sneak something for him.

  The gentle rocking of the floor went along with the weak cemetery sea waves, while old Sannah drew another entry on a register stained with moisture. He rubbed his chin, covered with sticky stubble, twirling between his fingers the round earrings that dangled from his left ear, the only one he still had.

  “That’s totally wrong. Totally wrong again!” he said, tearing up the paper and throwing it into the brazier. “Bah! Incomes from the sale of the boys, little, only twenty Dragoons. Who buys them thin as they are? Incomes from theft, still less, no more than twelve Dragoons. They are good only at getting caught, the little bastards. Begging, Uhm. one hundred and forty Dragoons. The specialty of these damn wankers. Total… a hundred and ninety Dragoons.”

  He scratched his head. He hated it when on the paper he found more Dragoons than he could find in his chest. He hated above all not to understand how much of that money had been spent on alcohol and in some kind of mushrooms, or what might have been stolen by his Spiders. The first one was more likely. Spiders knew all too well what they were getting if they were caught stealing in there. Death would only be the final consolation. No, the mistake had to be his, since every time he repeated the addition the result changed. ‘You never miss a thing, huh?’ said a voice inside that he decided to ignore. The old man knew he did not get a particularly long education. He had been educated at the game of sword and war in a place and a time far from those. For a moment, he let his mind wander to the high towers of the Fortress, the desolate landscape on the ruins of Adramelech, the bloodstained faces of his companions after a long day of war. The Glade. Yes, the Glade: a pure diamond embedded in that damn desert where people fought and died.

  Uhm, let me write this down. I can write a poem on it, he thought.

  Then every questionable inspiration was swept away by the confused clamor from the other side of the door.

  “You can’t get in!” the voice of a young boy shrieked. “He doesn’t want to be interrupted when he tries to settle the score!”

  He did not understand the answer, but he did recognize the voice that answered. The voice of a woman he had not heard in a long, long time.

  The studio door was thrown open with a kick, but Sannah did not jump up and grab the dagger he kept stuck on the desk, ready for use. He always tried not to sound surprised, especially when, like that time, he really was. He kept his hands crossed in front of his lips and looked at the woman as she came in, wearing a pair of boots soaked with fetid water as well as the worn amaranth tunic she wore. Over her shoulders rose the handle of a two handed sword, in addition, of course, to the daggers on her belly and, he was sure, the knife on her calf. All this would leave very little doubt about her identity, at least to who could recognize a Guardian of Golconda even from miles away, a Delta, to be precise, their damned chosen squad, of which he had once been the Dracon. The only thing that Sannah just couldn’t make out was what the fuck that woman was doing right there. Only afterward he noticed the bundle clutched to her breast as if it was the most important thing in the world to her, and he knew that in one way or another, big trouble was coming.

  A skinny boy, whose ribs were about to pop out from the skin thin as he was, burst into the room. “I’m sorry great Mama!” he screamed. “We could not stop her! I tried to—”

  Sannah raised a hand and the boy fell silent. “Get out,” he just said.

  The Spider bowed and obeyed, fearfully closing the door behind him. The old man and the woman remained in silence, deep silence, in which suddenly emerged the moan of a newborn. Sannah raised an eyebrow.

  “The trip was long, I suppose,” he said. “And, just to know, what brought you to the world Beyond, Aniah? You haven’t come to bring back your old father, I hope.”

  Aniah walked slowly forward, looking around. “Nice little place you’ve pulled up, Dad. Exactly, what do you do now for a living? And why do they call you ‘great Mama’?”

&nb
sp; Sannah shrugged. “It began with one of the older ones that amused the others mangling my name. Sannah, Mama, sounds pretty much the same,” he paused. “I cut off his tongue,” he went on. “Yes. I’ve wore it around my neck for a week, so that the other ones would remember how much I hate when people mess with my name. But, with time, I found it funny and let everybody call me that, apart from the one who had done it first, of course. I offer a roof and half a meal a day to a host of irresistible rogues abandoned in the world by their whore mothers. In return, they do something for me. It’s the closest thing to an orphanage you will find around here. Funny, isn’t it?”

  The woman made a skeptical expression. “You could do better,” she said, looking at the corpse of a rat skewered by a fork rotting in a corner of the room. “Yes, you could do much better, whereas in Golconda there are still some books that talk about you as a legend. And many people too.”

  Sannah grinned bitterly. “Life is mutable, Aniah, and luck too,” he said. “Once I landed on this world I had to invent something to survive. On this side of the portal, life is harder than it seems, but I suppose it’s difficult to understand it in the shelter of the warm walls of the Fortress. These people are sick, more than we, you should really see the passion they put in tearing apart each other. Even I am a beginner in comparison. At least they say, since I wouldn’t get out of these four walls for any reason!” He chuckled, his hearty and hoarse laughter, before pulling a puff of smoke from the cigar hold between his dirty fingers. “As for the legends about me, well, you know what remains of human deeds once time buries them under his generous, and inexhaustible, load of shit?”

  Aniah did not answer. There was no need to answer and the old man himself left the question hanging over his grin.

  “So why you came here?” He continued. “Not just to remind me how hard life is on this sick world, I hope. This sick world already does so.”

  “I’ve got a problem. We both have.”

  “Oh. Seriously?” Sannah said, coughing out smoke. “Well, after all this time I’ve been waiting for you, do you know what can you do about your problem? Any problem? Go tuck it in that mastodontic ass of your beloved Angra!”

  Aniah drew a dagger, bringing it against his neck so fast that the old man found just time to helplessly open his arms. “Do not mention Angra in vain!” she growled. “This is just a demonstrative gesture, but if you nominate him again, oh Ktisis be fucked! I put an end to your atrocious life now and where you are, whoever or whatever you have been for me!”

  Three boys dressed in rags burst in through the door, armed with switchblades that only asked to be used. Judging by the look in their eyes, Sannah thought that they had not expected to find a scene like that: their master, perhaps their owner, with a knife to his throat. They had the expression of someone who believed such a thing was not even possible.

  “Get out of here. This is none of your business!”

  “But—”

  “Get the fuck OUT!”

  The three could only obey that order.

  “That’s better,” Aniah continued, lowering her blade. “I don’t really feel like shedding more blood today. The trip was far too long.”

  Sannah put his hand around his neck, massaging it nervously to make sure there were no cuts. “Damn, you got good at it! Nothing I wouldn’t expect from my daughter, of course; not even your brother Marduk could put me up against the wall so quickly. I’m really proud of you.”

  “You’ve been a lousy father and not a day goes by that I do not curse you in my prayers,” Aniah replied in the same tone of voice that she could use to order a beer in a tavern. She was good at not showing her suffering. She had always been. “Angra will understand. My god always understands the grudge.”

  Sannah laughed again, rubbing his stubble. “You’re right. If Marduk has become a Dracon that’s because of my teachings, so we can say I spent some more time with him. To tell the truth, I don’t even remember ever taking care of your training.”

  “You took care of me in many other ways.”

  “It’s just that I couldn’t conceive such a thing,” the old man continued, as if he had not heard. “For me, you were just a woman, and women should not play at Guardians. Women need to make babies, don’t you think?”

  She took the blow. He saw it. It was stupid that he could hurt her again with a few simple words, after all that time. Aniah sat down, resting her filthy boots on the desk, and uncovered the bundle she held against her breast.

  “A child,” Sannah observed. “Yes. I was expecting to see one when I heard that cry.”

  “When you’ll understand who it is you’ll find very little to laugh about.”

  “Who’s the boy, your son?”

  “Look at him.”

  Sannah watched the little one as if he were a strange artifact, taking him in his hands, more than in his arms. The only weird thing he noticed was the color of his eyes: blue, but with thin red veins around the pupil. The little one stretched out a hand to grab his nose, curious, and seemed to smile. Sannah smiled too. He loved children, this was why he dedicated to them what remained of his life, even though in a questionable way.

  “Oh, you’re just a little son of a bitch. Yes, yes you are?”

  The child wore around his neck a golden pendant, with a portrait of his parents inside. An Arsis. All the Guardians’ children had one and if his mother had already put it around his neck that meant she was going to leave him there. Awful story, but if he would have sold it he would have gained something, at least enough to feed him for a few years. Or to drink for one week. Or to buy a pair of those kind of mushrooms that eased his long sleepless nights.

  He noticed something underneath the pendant, like a symbol tattooed on the white sternum. At first, he could not believe his eyes and thought he had been drinking too much again. Then his face turned into a mask of silent horror and his lips barely uttered, “Oh, shit! It cannot be!”

  The boy smiled. Sannah laid him on the desk, trying not to drop him, and found himself rubbing his hands as if to clean them. He raised his face to look at his daughter. Aniah smiled back impassively.

  “Ktisis damn! He is—”

  “He’s my son,” she said. “And not just mine, as you can see. You know that mark: it should not be on the chest of a mortal. Yet.”

  “This is a living blasphemy!” the old man snapped. “It must not live, must not be! How can you be its mother?”

  The woman stood up. She walked past the desk and got to the large window in the back of the room, all covered with the dust of decades. She couldn’t enjoy a beautiful view from there, just a lousy corner of sea filled with abandoned boats and decrepit wrecks, the last refuge of a multitude of wretches who had made crime their reason to live.

  “Inside me, they created him,” she said. She put her open hands on the glass, bending her fingers as if to break her nails and, in that way, appease her real pain with a purely physical suffering. “A mother should always be fond of her son, shouldn’t her? And I love him. He’s also mine, and my life and death are forever linked to him. Yet I must not.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “How could this happen?” the old man asked. “Who? Who has been so fool to make it?”

  “Skyrgal himself,” Aniah said. “Skyrgal brought back to life,” she rested her head against the glass. “In the temple of Adramelech, where the father of all gods sacrificed his children. Those sandstone walls are still soaked with the immortal blood spilled in the old days. The sacred writings, Sannah. They interpreted those!”

  “They… they found them?”

  “They found a lot of things.”

  “And did you see them?”

  “Oh, I’ve seen too many things,” she answered. “Therefore I will not be allowed to live. It doesn’t matter. Even my stupid feelings do not matter anymore; now, I just have to make sure that Gorgors can no longer get their hands on this sweet child o’ mine. If we can’t kill him, we can at least hide him wh
ere they’ll never find him.”

  Sannah shook his head. It was all too much for him, he was late one night to settle the score and suddenly he was facing a bunch of crap too big for his bare hands. He looked at his daughter for a long time and, for a moment, thought he could understand how she felt.

  “And what are the Guardians asking me to do?”

  “What I’m asking you to do,” Aniah pointed out. “My orders were different. Marduk wanted him entrusted to a Dracon come to this world years ago; a noble man, blessed by luck, who would take care of him, he said, bringing him up in a respectable way.”

  “Arleb?”

  “Yep.”

  “But Arleb was executed three days ago!”

  The woman grinned bitterly. “Executed? No, I don’t think that’s the exact word for it. The house where he lived was razed to the ground and his entire family nailed on the pillars, children included. A truly memorable show. No one had the mercy to take them down from there and crows were still feeding on the charred insides, spilled from the gutted bellies, pecking at the stumps of the wrists and neck. Not exactly what I wanted to see after the long journey that brought me to his door.”