Dagger - The Light at the End of the World

by Walt Popester

  The mark on his chest slowly stopped bleeding. Pain was gone. He could not feel his heartbeat, his other heartbeat—the heart of darkness pumping death in his arteries.

  He got up and threw all his tension out in a scream, kicking at what remained of the shadow. He gave new life to the fire, using the sparks of his dagger, then threw the corpse into the flames.

  “I’ll teach you what happens when you break my balls!” he screamed.

  Fire quickly consumed the slender body. When Marduk ran back, he could only see the humanoid creature’s face disappear into the flames. What was left of it was just a misshapen skull, flattened, without cheekbones nor nose, no jaw nor mandible. Only two small orbs for eyes and a hole filled with twisted bony plates instead of a mouth. He saw a greenish liquid drip out of his mouth, a fluid that seemed to have its own will. It rebuilt the backbone, regenerating foamy and flabby tissues. From the bony plates of its mouth came a moaning. Dagger felt lost, sick, when he understood that the shadow wasn’t already dead. He turned to the Dracon.

  “Gorgor!” Marduk quietly pointed out, coming closer. He penetrated the creature’s head with his blade, making a greenish liquid come out. A suffocating stench filled the air, an acrid smell of rotten eggs. Tissues stopped regenerating, and the bony plates moaned no more.

  The Gorgor was dead.

  “The head. Always separate the head from the rest of their body, if you can. Then open it, smash it or pierce it, and you will have no more problems. These are no ordinary creatures.”

  “Ktisisdamn it!” Dagger cursed. “Ktisisdamn it!”

  “Surviving in this city did teach you something, it seems,” Marduk said, pleased. “I must say, that you know how to defend yourself.”

  “But… who are they?”

  “These? These are the same creatures that contributed to your creation,” he said. “They are looking for you, Dag. They are following the scent of your blood and soon others will come. It’s you, who’s bringing them here!”

  The boy found himself transfixed. “What can I do?” he asked.

  “Just one thing,” the Dracon continued, shaking his head. “Stand still. I’ll do everything.”

  A new pang of pain shot through him. Blood gushed abundantly out of his chest. Murky voices filled his head again as he felt the beating of his other heart. Two, four, six new red eyes appeared in the darkness. He pointed at them, when he found himself pierced by a sword. He looked down. He brought his hands to the blade protruding out of his belly and knew he was dying. He looked up and saw Marduk’s face, now stern and impassive, rising above him.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “We’ll talk about this later, now we have no more time. By the way, you’re immortal.”

  Then everything faded.

  * * * * *

  Darkness seeped into his body and claimed his every thought, sentencing him to the silence born within. Time and space were freed from the unnecessary reins of human thought, to blend together as it was in the beginning. Everything was nothing and nothing was everything.

  A deep and dark laughter rose all around as, in darkness, the Spiral materialized, that red Spiral pulsing like a heart.

  “We are blind to the world within us, just waiting to be born,” a voice hissed. “Come to me. I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time.”

  He felt something under his hands, smooth and cold stone. Since he could feel, he realized he still existed. He opened his eyes and found himself on all fours on an endless expanse of black rock, with no interruption until the dark horizon. The distant voices of memories were running inside his mind, reminding him that he had been alive once. But what was he now? He looked at his own body, black as night, an adult body where every muscle seemed carved in relief. Its surface was crossed by numerous shiny symbols which, like open wounds, gave off a white and intense light. The symbols kept on changing position, but remained bound to each other like the links of an unbreakable chain; a universal design where the individual was part of the whole.

  Am I a part of the whole? he wondered. He looked up and found himself in the presence of an infinite Spiral, a long ribbon of light lost in the celestial fluid of matter and void. The great All flowed like a never-ending stream, with neither end nor beginning. It was one, indivisible and found its balance in the destructive and generating harmony of chaos. He saw the stars merge, destroy and regenerate themselves in the fatal attraction that moved and changed everything that existed.

  He was overwhelmed by a wind load of gray dust, when the voice spoke again, “Now I’m here.”

  He noticed a blue light, far away, and walked toward it. He thought that trek would last forever. Life after death was just like that, the eternal walking toward the light at the end of the world. Often the light trembled and disappeared but he, whatever he had become, knew that light would always come back to guide his path. It was his heart to tell him so. When he reached the intense and blue light he saw it enveloped in a dust-laden wind, like a dense fluid that protected it without affecting its luster.

  “How I’ve waited for you to come,” the voice in the light said. “I’ve been here, all alone. Now that you got here please, stay a while. I promise I won’t keep you long. I’ll keep you forever.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Kam Karkenos. And you. Who might you be?”

  “I am Dagger.”

  Kam Karkenos softly laughed. “Yes, this is your name as a mortal,” he said. “The name that you think you have, not the one I gave to you when I created you, Kam Konkra. I know your name. I’ve been waiting for you since I was locked up here.”

  “And where is, here?”

  “Here is a place that knows no life and death, beyond the breach in the impenetrable wall of Creation, where only we can pass through. We, the forces that have lived through all eternity. There are those who call us gods, or demons. However, these are only the names that mortals use in the desperate attempt to rationalize the power that dominates, surrounds, generates and suffocates them. This is your home.”

  “Looks nice!” Kam Konkra replied. He put his hand to his abdomen, instinctively. “A sword went through my belly. Now I should be dead, together with Ktisis in the great tavern of Almagard.”

  “The tavern of… Almagard?”

  “The kingdom of the dead. Where you can eat and drink and laugh forever, together with the people who came before you.”

  The light disappeared and reappeared, in a blink of an eye. “What a curious conception of the afterlife. I’ve heard many, but this one beats them all. Now, leave father Ktisis to his problems and take a look around.”

  Kam Konkra turned. He just perceived the army of shadows behind him. He turned again. The shadows were all around, he knew it, but they didn’t want to be seen. He only felt them at the edges of his vision.

  “This is the true aspect of what you’d call the afterlife,” replied Kam Karkenos, serious. “The place outside the great All. Here the souls of mortals end up when they die. The last visitor has no human form, nor of monster. The true form of death is silence. I know, because this is my conviction, live death here, outside of the Creation, where silence reigns supreme.”

  “These are the souls of the dead?”

  “Yes, they are. After the end of the pleasant dream they call life, mortals delude themselves that they end up in a place similar to the world of their happy hours, if they behaved correctly, or in a place full of fire, pain and pitchforks if they found pleasure in the suffering of others. In fact, the great beyond welcomes everybody and makes everybody equal, with no moral and no prejudices. However, watch your body. You’re different, aren’t you?”

  Kam Konkra observed once again the writings shining, and alive on his black skin.

  “I created you so, Konkra, in my image and likeness, in the short time that I was free to walk again on the world you come from.”

  “And I guess I’ll have to call you Dad.”

  The god did not respond to his humor, out of plac
e.

  Konkra himself did not find much to laugh about. No, it was not funny, if ever it had been. “What do you want from me?” he asked. “You’ve not been a very present fatherly figure, after all.”

  “You have my same irony, you know?”

  “I’ve got the irony of my mother!”

  “Your mother? You did not have a mother, not a real one. Your mortal body is an illusion. You are still blind to the world within you, waiting to be born. There’s only me, who knows you for what you really are.”

  “You can understand me?”

  “Oh, I know and see everything, although in exile. I was with you when you were abandoned by the woman you call your mother. I trembled with you in the coldest nights of Melekesh. I felt your fear of dying in a public sacrifice and know the name of your every enemy: Mawson, Sannah, even Lothar, the bully of the Three Galleons that held you captive for days when you were just a kid, waiting to burn you alive because of your red eyes. I suffered with you at every step that brought you here…”

  “Maybe. But in those moments I felt quite alone.”

  “… even as they cut Seeth’s throat before your very eyes.”

  Konkra froze. “You do know a lot of things about me.”

  “I can see the world through your eyes,” Karkenos said. “You and I are inseparably bound.”

  “When I was just a Spider I always realized when someone was trying to get something through his words. I don’t think it works differently with you. You want something too.”

  “And what do you think I want?”

  “That I free you from here.”

  “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?”

  “I should be the ironic one!”

  Karkenos laughed. “Don’t hurry. We’ve got a whole eternity in front of us. For now, I just have to warn you.”

  “About whom?”

  “About all those who will die one day,” Karkenos said. “All those who claim to fight for you, but who fight for no one else than themselves. The Guardians of Golconda swear to protect you. And from what? From yourself, what you are, what you will become? There’s only me who knows the reason why you exist. They’re just afraid of you. And they haven’t any reason to be.”

  “They got me out of that hell while your shadows were trying to tear me apart, as I recall.”

  “You’re looking only at the surface of the matter. Typical of mortals. I did not expect you to understand quickly. You’re still the embryo of what you’ll become, and I admit that it’s still too early.”

  Konkra locked his fingers into a fist. Even now that he was dead, he hated when people thought he was too young to understand something.

  “I may be a little young, but certainly I ain’t naive,” he said. “And, most of all, not so stupid to throw myself into the hands of your servants only because—”

  “Oh, but I’m not here for that,” Karkenos interrupted. “You got me wrong. Do you really expect me to advise you to throw yourself into Gorgors’ hands? No. I tell you to flee from them. Once they were my servants – you’re right, clever guy. – It’s them I have to thank if I could for reincarnating and creating you. But now everything has changed. An external and destabilizing element has intervened, and now Gorgors are serving another master, their leper messiah. A man, or what’s left of it, who is relentlessly looking for you. He was the Pendracon of Golconda once, the most powerful among the Guardians. Then it happened he hosted my soul for a time and, when he lost it, he was condemned to live forever in its search. You’ve heard about the Divine, haven’t you? If I come back in life in my true body, for him it will be over. And he knows it. He will never again possess the sole object of his desire, the only reason for his hideous and shameful life. Stay away from Gorgors, and him. I’m afraid he knows the way to… well, to have you spend the rest of eternity in an unpleasant way.”

  “Unpleasant way?”

  “He wants to keep us apart. Forever. It’s best you don’t get caught by him and yes, this means that you will need to accept the Guardians’ help. Let them protect you. Let them accompany you on Candehel-mas, the world of the origins. Only once you’re safely back in their Fortress, I’ll let you know what to do so that our destiny is fulfilled. Until then, nothing will be clear. Guardians will fill your head with their nonsense about the Equilibrium and the universal order. You know it’s not like that, you’re seeing it now: the great All feeds on chaos. It is in its nature. You will also meet their god, that bird of ill-omen who hates you and hopes you disappear into thin air. Maybe it will be good for you to spend some time with them. It will give you the opportunity to figure out which side to take.”

  “I thought they were acting for my own good.”

  “Who?”

  “The Guardians.”

  “Oh, they are, in some way.”

  “What a fucking story.”

  The light grew stronger. “I hate coarse language. Never use it in my presence!”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  The light faded a little. “What part of ‘for the moment’ don’t you understand? For now, get some help from them, but do not drink the poison they’ll spit on you. They don’t have a good opinion of you, just like they don’t have a good opinion of me, which is why they made you grow up like a beast. It’s their fault, all your suffering. Don’t you hate them a little?”

  Konkra didn’t answer.

  “Never forget that only by me, one day, you’ll reach your ultimate goal. You are destined to a greater power, my boy. Many will try to deceive you to make use of you, or destroy you, and perhaps you will even come to trust some of them.”

  “Don’t worry. Defending myself from everyone is really nothing new to me. I will know how to keep safe from you too.”

  “Oh. Do you really want to fight against yourself? Don’t you worry, my boy: it’s ok to be confused. Soon I will address you to those who can show you the path. They are my… contact on your world. They will tell you what to do so that everything is done. Until then, remember, you exist only because I wanted you. When you give a name to something, you become responsible of it, and I baptized you, Kam Konkra, I know why you were born. Everyone else will lie to you, for their vile purposes and power games. You, who have never had anyone, are too much important, for too many.”

  Dagger was about to reply, when he looked at the light getting stronger and stronger. She wrapped him. For a moment, he was sure he could see two eyes, black as night, staring at him from the bottom of the shiny nothing. And sharp fangs, and deformed horns.

  He saw a sincere grin, then the light went through him from side to side and everything disappeared.

  * * * * *

  6. Archipelago

  In the dark, he opened his eyes. He sat on the bed of straw where he had slept, he did not know for how long. He did not even know if he had really slept, after all. He was lying under a closed porthole, through which came a circle of orange light. The room was moving. When he heard the whisper of the sea, he realized he was on some sort of ship, in navigation.

  All this efforts, and still on a ship?

  He threw the blanket on one side and put his feet on the floor. When he brought a hand to his stomach, he found there was no injury; only a thin scar, as an old cut, there where the blade had emerged from the skin. He still remembered the pain, perhaps the strongest he had ever experienced: a dense, sheer suffering that had paralyzed him from head to toe. Mortals experienced that pain only once in their life, before they died. He thought they were somehow lucky: the mere idea of having to face the great nothing once again terrified him. Marduk had found a very convincing way to explain the matter of his immortality, although he had lacked some sensitivity. Everything that had come after seemed only a dream. A damn realistic dream.

  He stuck his thumb’s nail into his palm and felt a reassuring pain. It’s nice to be alive again, he thought. Then he opened the porthole. After having got accustomed to the light, he saw that the ship was cutting fast through the waves of
the blue sea. Water was clear and frothy, not greenish and muddy like he had always seen in it his life. Even the sky was different: of a bright orange now that the sun was setting, free from the fog wall of the Melekeshian evenings.

  The ship was sailing among the islands of an archipelago. Dagger hoped the commander knew well his job, because of the large number of rocks that surfaced from the water. He closed the porthole, when a cold and salty foam washed his face. He had to know where he was, but most of all where he was headed. He opened the door of the little cabin, and found himself in a spacious and dimly lit ambient, with cargo crates and barrels secured to the walls. There were at least thirty Guardians around him, wearing leather armor worn and soiled with blood, or amaranth tunics that had definitely seen better days. Many were smoking ivory pipes, or sipping their mugs of beer lying on the ground. Others were playing dice, thoughtfully twirling a knife between their fingers. Blood stains on the floor drove up to the corner where some were sewing up their wounds. No one had less than a dozen blades on hand, including daggers, knives and swords.