Dagger - The Light at the End of the World

by Walt Popester

  Three Ensiferum balls were placed at the center of the hold. Around these, two Guardians sat, sipping their beers. When he came forward, everyone turned toward him. Dagger looked at himself: he was still wearing his old, filthy tunic, with the Mayem dagger tucked in his belt, his face reduced to a mask of blood. It seemed he had just escaped from the amphitheater of Melekesh in a day of celebration. Some pretended not to see him, others stared at him for a long time, in silence, leaving open a conversation, keeping the dices in their hands or needle and thread between their teeth, with the wound still bleeding. When everybody pretended to get back at what they were doing before his coming, Dagger got to the wall and slid to the ground. He looked at the floor between his bare feet, thoughtfully, wondering once again why he was in the world.

  “You’re safe now,” a voice said. He looked up. One of the two Guardians, who he had seen sitting in front of the Ensiferum balls, was now in front of him. He had approached without being noticed by his Spider’s senses, even though he was fat and no less than two meters high. Dagger realized that he could learn a lot from him. The man, completely bald and with a gentle face, spoke again, “Marduk has entrusted you to us. He’s decided to stay on this world to try and figure out if he could understand more about what’s going on. Or, alternatively, take down some more Gorgors. We’re taking you to the Golconda Fortress, the only safe place for you. We, the Guardians, defend it since always. It is everything for us: our home, our life, our future. If the Fortress falls into the hands of the shadows, everything would be lost.”

  Dagger nodded. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Me? I am Moak, but that does not matter. You are Dagger. And, if you’re wondering, the answer is yes: I know you. Everyone here knows you. We came to this world just to bring you home.”

  “I’m leaving home, now, and it was hell,” Dagger replied, impassive. “But this is not the problem. Marduk killed me. He pierced my guts from side to side, but I’m not dead. This game is not funny, you know? Have you ever tried to die? Do you have the slightest idea of the pain you feel?”

  The smile faded from the man broad face, replaced by a confused scowl.

  Moak looked at him puzzled and the kind expression vanished from his face. “Come,” he said. “There’s someone who’s been waiting for you for a long, long time.”

  Dagger followed him toward the light where a tall and robust man sat. Differently from the others, this Guardian wore a cuirass formed of electric blue plates, with shades of purple, yellow and red. He had an olive skin and, despite his young age, his face looked more experienced than the ones around him, mainly because of a deep scar that plowed his whole right profile from the forehead to the chin. He still wore his sword, well secured on his back, and he was armed only with that. His sword did not seem made to be held only by two hands. It was longer, thicker, wider. Old symbols were engraved on the groove. The double-edged blade dazzled with bright reflections. On the handle at least four hands would have found place.

  A four-handed sword, he thought. What need can ever have a man, of a four-handed sword? “You care a lot about showing your manhood. Got something to hide?” he said.

  The man did not answer. He just looked at him. Prisoner of those eyes, Dagger stood waiting for him to speak. “And so you would be the reason for all this?” the man said at last, with a deep voice. “I was expecting something better from Aniah. To tell you the truth, I was expecting something better even from your father. Sit down, damn you!”

  Dagger stood still, as if he didn’t want to look like he was obeying his orders. Then he sat on the stool in front of him and stared through the purple light.

  “I am Olem, Dracon of Golconda,” Olem said. “And this is Moak, the best friend I could ever want, or perhaps the only one who I managed to endure in my short but meaningful existence. You are on a ship bound for the world where you belong. You will follow us without making a fuss. You do not belong only to yourself and, if you have a little wit in that head, you should have already figured it out. Otherwise, it’s time you get used to the idea, or you’re not going to last much even though you are immortal.” He said no more, and it did not seem he wanted to add more.

  Dagger looked down. After having talked to Skyrgal, he felt that none of the experiences had in that life and on that world were important anymore, nor the words heard, nor the people met. “From one prison to another,” he murmured. “I had already figured that out. And, once we get to there, what will you do with me?”

  “This will be the Pendracon’s decision,” Olem said dryly. “You can be sure, you’re lucky that this decision is not up to me.”

  “And who might the Pendracon be?”

  “Our guide in the dark, according to the language of the ancients. In your veins flows the blood of some of them. You are come from an illustrious family, on your mother’s side. Certainly better than what you’d deserve.”

  “I thought only Skyrgal’s blood flowed in my veins.”

  Just hearing that name, the two Guardians froze and every trace of mockery disappeared from their face.

  “Who told you about him?”

  “Oh, You would never guess.”

  Olem snapped and grabbed the boy by the neck, moving so fast that Dagger, the Spider with the most ready reflexes of his guild, could not even see him. The Dracon clenched his fingers as if to choke him but, before the situation could escalate, Moak put a hand on his arm and Olem let him go.

  “The typical irony of his family, don’t you think?”

  Olem composed himself, without taking his eyes off Dagger. “Yes,” he replied, while everybody around started to talk again. “And you know how much I hated their irony. Sometimes I think that was their ruin.”

  “He must have talked with his father when he died,” Moak speculated, looking straight in the eyes of the boy. Dagger tried not to show that this assumption was correct. “When they die their souls are reunited, at least from what I’ve studied on the code of Benighted. Surely he won’t tell us. He does not trust us, why should he? It’s a miracle that he is not gone crazy.”

  “What do you think about him?”

  “What do I think? Judging from the smell, he’s swum in a more or less metaphorical sea of shit, and it will be difficult to manage him. But we might as well give it a try. I’ll take care of it. Since Araya sent me around Candehel-mas to study everything that concerned his coming, I’ve always wondered what he really looked like. He looks so… human.”

  “He looks like a jerk!” Olem replied. “But I have to admit that it was not entirely a mistake to take you with us, Moak. You’ve wasted a lot of time behind all this crap.”

  “It’s called ‘studying’, my Dracon.”

  “Studying? The fuck! It’s called ‘waste time on books instead of training’! A bit of admiration for what they have created shines through your voice. I am just afraid.”

  “It’s ok to be afraid. Even he is afraid of himself, can’t you see?”

  Olem looked down. “Everybody is afraid of himself. And everybody is a bit sick of himself.”

  “Oh, what a deep thought!”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You’re drunk. And when you’re drunk, you begin to act like a philosopher, even though you can’t afford it. You’ve wasted too much time with a sword in your hand to be able to think in a manner worthy of a human being.”

  “You decided to piss me off, Guardian?”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “Bringing him back to the Fortress will be like leading him straight into the lair of the enemy! And if he runs away? How can we defend him if he decides to do so? At Golconda, life is so hard that we’re all used to fighting since the cradle, he—”

  “My whole life has been a struggle!” Dagger broke. “What the fuck do you know about it?”

  “Dagger,” Moak interrupted.

  “No, no, let him finish!” Olem said, glancing back at him. “Let me hear the whine of the guy who has seen too many things. What is it, y
ou got stabbed sometime? You’ve seen so many people die? You are ridiculous. Your world is ridiculous, and it’s false! It’s the world we used to keep you hidden. Dammit! We hid you so well that we could no longer find you ourselves!”

  “Olem—”

  “Well, Dracon, I bet you’ve never risked to have your balls ripped in front of an applauding audience!”

  “Dagger!”

  “Oh, really? Well, the worst part of your life is just about to begin!” Olem continued. He grabbed Moak’s mug without asking for permission, and drained it. “Those shadows are hunting you down and now they know where you are! Do something stupid – only once! – and you will not have just a black eye to show your guild fag buddies! You! What the fuck do you know, asshole?”

  “Olem!”

  Dagger did not answer, but did not look away either. Not a single blink of an eye. After all the times he found himself face-to-face with death, he did not find it too difficult. He realized that Olem too had struggled a lot in his life.

  “Look in his eyes,” the Dracon said. “He’s just a thief. He grew up in the streets and we can’t expect anything good from him.”

  “Do I have to remind you the asshole out of which Crowley and Aniah pulled you out?”

  “I was different!” the Dracon broke. “And certainly I was not a—” He paused, lowering his voice to a whisper. “…damn monster.”

  Silence fell.

  “Olem. Many things have happened down in Melekesh. Marduk thought it right to get the boy out of this place. After all, at this age, he’s got the right to know the world he comes from.”

  The Dracon nodded, but unconvinced. “To have him brought to this world was the first mistake,” he pointed out. “If this decision had been up to me, the story would have gone differently. I would have buried him in a crate of Amorphis, to rot with his cursed blood for all eternity.”

  “Aniah would never let you.”

  “Oh yeah, his mother. Dead and buried like all heroes!”

  Moak grabbed Dagger by the arm, preventing any action the boy was going to take with his already clenched fist. “Once you get to know him better, you will understand that Olem is all smoke and no fire,” he continued. “It’s just… he likes so much thinking about the past. Oh yes, he would take a bath in the past. He always thinks back about how things might have turned out, what he could have done, but most of all what others could have done. Sometimes he just doesn’t understand that what is done is dead.”

  “Flattered,” he answered. “And believe me when I tell you that, after all these years at the helm of the Fortress, I recognize the smell of shit even from miles away, unlike Marduk. And unlike you!”

  Moak shook his head. “Marduk has always proved right,” he said. “Always. And like all the right decisions, his are unpopular. He seemed to have made a mistake only when he pushed the Pendracon to choose you as the new Dracon of the Sword, when you were just twenty years old. No Dracon had ever been elected so young, and of so humble origin. Do you remember how many people would have preferred to see you dead, in those days? And remember how some did try to kill you? But then… then you rebuilt the Fortress after the devastating war against Gorgors and Tankars. You pushed us to raise our head even when the new Pendracon lingered. And today, you defend the Fortress as if it was your home.”

  “Your false flattery will not get you anywhere.”

  “Oh, I’m not flattering you. I’m just saying that Marduk had never been proved wrong, not even about you. Dagger will get back home and he will probably be brought up as a Guardian. Right now, this madness is the only sensible thing to do. The entire world, or worlds, out of the impenetrable walls of Golconda are a death trap for him.”

  Olem stood up. He said nothing. He did not take leave from them, nor tease them one last time. He just left.

  Dagger watched him go and disappear into the darkness at the bottom of the hold. What kind of an asshole! He thought.

  Moak toyed with his empty mug. Then he looked at him as if he was about to start a very serious talk. “Olem is not a danger to you, Dagger. He was bound to your mother and he has never forgiven himself for not having… helped her avoid her fate. I think in some way he even likes you.”

  The boy stared at the ground. “I never had a mother.”

  “Your mother did not want to abandon you, if that’s what you accuse her of,” Moak continued, before stopping to look within himself for the right words, probably not finding them. “You were a danger, and you still are.”

  “A danger?” Dagger shook his head. “When someone becomes a danger you leave him behind, or send him away as far as possible, where he may not cause harm to others than himself. If you think I’m going to look for the truth about my mother with all my strength, you are wrong. I don’t feel anything for her. In the end, I don’t even know her.”

  “No. It must not have been easy for you, but her decision was right, my boy. She hid you even from us. Did she already figure out what was the situation at the Fortress?”

  Dagger looked away. His same feelings turned indecipherable to him. “And what’s the situation at the Fortress? From what you say, it does not sound so safe to me.”

  “No, it is not. Olem is damn right about this, yet there’s no other place we could take you, right now. If you lingered in this world, this story would end very badly, and very quickly. You already met the Gorgor. You know they can smell your blood from afar and, if what I have studied about the matter is founded, even your blood can feel them.”

  Dagger shuddered.

  The Guardian noticed it. “I see it is true.”

  “My blood comes out of my body when I am close to them, as if it were attracted. He wants to get back to them or some shit of the sort?”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Yeah! Interesting!”

  Moak found himself wrong-footed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why don’t you tell me something about my father? By now, you’ve realized that I already talked with him when I was dead. Why is Skyrgal there? What’s been done to him?”

  Moak froze. “Do not call him father, I beg you. Skyrgal is an ancient god, even if the few who have studied these matters know that this is a misnomer.”

  “A force that has lived through all eternity,” Dagger specified. “Yes, I know that too. Tell me what happened to him.”

  Moak did not answer. He got up from the stool. “It’s too late. It will be better to go to sleep.”

  I had no doubt! Dagger wanted to answer, but he did not. He merely took note that on many things Skyrgal was right, those people were lying and wanted to keep him away from the truth. Although, by the time, he reserved the right to think that they did it for his own good, or for any other good reason. Moak took him back to his room and shut the door, without saying good night. The boy realized he was the only one on board to have a cabin, which probably he was not free to leave whenever he wanted. They had already begun to keep him locked up in a cage and probably would never stop. He looked at himself. The Spiral was there, silent and ominous, an alien element that did not respond to his will. Everything revolved around that. Just looking at it, a thousand faceless shadows materialized in his head. Lying on the bed of straw he slowly drifted into sleep, as Skyrgal’s voice echoed in his mind.

  ‘I know why you were born. Everybody else is lying.’

  * * * * *

  When Dagger woke up the next morning he found himself dripping with sweat, filled by a total and overwhelming terror. He put his hand to the mark, but found it silent. It was its fault, he knew— his blood was making fun of him.

  He stood up and looked out the porthole for a long time, letting the voice of the waves clear his fears. He was hungry and, even though he had slept for a long time, he was more tired than when he had fallen asleep. Hunger and fatigue; it was somehow happy to still feel them, but he knew it was all an illusion. He could starve to death and then come back to life soon after. He would live forever. ‘Forever’ was an eas
y concept to understand in words, yet to find oneself living it firsthand was slightly different. Nothing was forever in human life. Love was not forever, not even the most intense; friendship was not forever; the things that you bought or stole or tore away from the hands of others were forever. Fear took over, when he realized that only an eternal being like Skyrgal could really understand how he felt. Only he, could understand how painful forever could be.

  He got out of his room, or cell, and found the Guardians breaking their fast. They had split open most of the boxes in the hold, emptying them, and now they were eating with the enthusiasm of those who did not know when they could do it again. Dagger had never seen all that food, all together, so close at hand. At least, not without the danger of being sprinkled with honey and fed to the ants if caught in the act. When he was hit by the smell of bacon, his stomach growled in acknowledgment.

  Sitting in a corner, Olem was eating in company of his men. He was still wearing his armor, as if he had gone to sleep like that. Everyone laughed at his jokes but he did not laugh at the jokes of anyone. He was conscious of being a leader and, in the eyes of the others, he read only respect and fear. Just looking at him, Dagger risked to lose his appetite.