Dagger - The Light at the End of the World

by Walt Popester

  “It would have been better to deal with it during the day,” the latter said, his rage disappeared. “One wrong step and we’re dead.”

  Behind them, the far cry of a Cruachan invited them not to waste any more time.

  “It’s easy to choose, when you have no choice,” Araya said. “Look at where I place my feet, the exact point. It takes little to die, walking in here.”

  He picked up a stone, not very big, and threw it. At the first bounce, it was hit by a spray of acid. At the second one, a trap snapped shut. At the third, it was hurled into the air by six metal spikes, appeared out of the ground so quickly that anyone passing by would have ended impaled. The rock flew up and spun several times before falling back to earth. There, nothing happened.

  “Uhm. Curious,” Araya said. “Make just one error and you won’t tell this story. When it comes to building traps and handles deadly poisons, no one beats the Messhuggahs.”

  The lizard Dracon took a step forward and they followed him closely. He moved constantly from one quadrant to another, slowly, to allow them to see the exact point where he was setting foot. The Gorgors had got to the cabin on fire and were exploring the forest in search of them, he was sure. They felt his smell. He felt their presence at the center of his chest.

  “Stuck in the trap of lizards,” Olem grumbled. “While Gorgors walk free in this world. What have I done to deserve to see such a thing?”

  “Oh, many things, Olem. Starting with all your bad racist jokes about Messhuggahs, but let’s not talk unless it is necessary. Watch your feet!” Araya warned, proceeding slowly. Then he stopped, turning around. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  They stood in silence, until the light of a flare lit up the trail and they were invested by the Gorgors’ screams of surprise.

  “Front Row. Second quadrant,” Araya noticed. “Bad choice.”

  The screams of those who were burning alive soon faded to low moans of pain, to end in a ghostly silence.

  “Take it in the ass!” Olem growled.

  Araya walked on, without distracting himself further. A step to the right, a jump to the left, straight forward and then right again.

  “So, you have to go through this crap every time you want to go home?” Dagger asked. “There’s something deeply wrong with you, you’re aware of that?”

  “If it was not for you, we would have never set foot in this brothel you call a world.”

  “Araya’s right. The world Beyond is just a prison to us,” Olem added. “Used to banish the cream of Candehel-mas society at the dawn of our history. Thousands of years ago, when the order was still young. Thieves, rapists, murderers. Everyone thrown here, out of our world.”

  “Here there were no bars, and no cells,” Araya continued. “There was only the law written in blood that the criminals exiled beyond the portal gave themselves. Condemned to live in a world dominated by their same violence. I’m not surprised that, through the centuries, they have created a city as pleasant as Melekesh.”

  “This path was built just to make sure this would remain a one-way street,” Olem added. “In fact, it hasn’t been used so many times to return on Candehel-mas.”

  “My mother did.”

  The two Dracons exchanged glances.

  “There was no need to specify,” Olem muttered.

  “And those Guardians who were here looking for me and died in the sinking of the ship? How long had they been here? Did they ever go home?”

  Araya grinned bitterly. “There was no coming home for them. Once they came in this world, once they crossed the portal, those Guardians knew that they would not see home ever again. They had to find you and that would be the last thing they would do in their Guardians life.”

  “What, they would kill themselves?”

  “Well, at least those who wished to come back to Candehel-mas. They could do it only feet first. The others would simply remain here to build a life away from Golconda, if they found it possible.”

  “You don’t understand how far the sense of sacrifice goes, for a Guardian.”

  “Blind obedience,” the boy guessed. “The Great Mama always talked about it.”

  “The Great what?”

  “Sannah,” Olem specified. “It’s the name Sannah used on this world.”

  Araya let out an amused puff. “I understand.”

  “In Golconda they were declared missing,” Olem went on. “As a cover for their mission. Men erased from history, you may say, sacrificed for the common good which was your discovery. We could not bear to know of your existence and, at the same time, not know where you were. As long as your mother didn’t to speak, locked in her madness, the only thing we could do was look for you without ceasing. At the Fortress, there are children who will never see their parents come home again. Dead dogs waiting for their masters on the doorstep. Old parents surviving to their sons.”

  “It’s the price of your secret, Dag,” Araya continued. “No one outside the Dracons needs to know who you really are. When we get back to Golconda, always remember that. Talk little with the other ones, mind your business. Already too many people died because of you. The human being is corruptible.”

  “Would it not be easier to tell the truth? Tell your blood brothers, or whatever you call yourselves, that I’m the son of Skyrgal?”

  Araya shook his head. “They would come to you at night,” he answered grimly. “They’d put you into a sack, piece by piece. They would burn your remains and seal you in a case to throw you in the bottom of a ravine, or the ocean. Then you would come back to life. Your obscene self would be built again starting from a little piece of your heart. You’ll find yourself waiting forever, at least until someone, in the course of ages, finds you. Then you will be already gone mad. Don’t play with our superstitions, my boy. Skyrgal is a disturbing presence in our unconscious, part of the personal history of each of us, as well of our collective one. We grew up at his feet. Each stone of the Fortress was placed under his silent gaze. We saw him scream at the sky in his petrified anger every damn day of our existence.” He bowed his head, and stopped his foot a few inches from the ground. He moved to another quadrant and continued to advance.

  “I hope you’re not getting distracted,” Olem said.

  “It was a mistake even to bring Moak here,” Araya went on. “But when, after twelve years of fruitless searching, your mother emptied the bag and Hammoth the Pendracon sent also me and Olem to this world, he ordered us to take him too. ‘You will need his help,’ he said. And he was damn right. Moak was a trusted Guardian and would become Dracon of the poison at my death. One necessary exception to the rules.”

  “Why him?”

  “Because Moak had traveled and studied much, even things that I do not know. Forbidden knowledge. He had searched extensively for the Temple of Ktisis and its damn inscriptions. It was the very reason of his existence. He was fluent in the language of Gorgors, had even made friends with some clandestine Tankar. He knew your story already before we informed him. He would definitely come in handy to follow your tracks on this world.”

  “And now he’s dead,” Olem added. “Dead because of you.”

  “Yet his knowledge did not go entirely lost,” the Messhuggah replied, watching the face of Kugar, asleep, on his shoulders. “He must have passed on his knowledge to this student of his, at least in part. I’m not surprised he insisted so much in taking her with him. They traveled and studied a lot together and, I fear, they knew about your nature more than us.”

  “I’m just an abomination to her,” Dagger said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Araya contradicted, grinning. “In some ways, I think she likes you, but you cannot see it. You must have had a sufficient experience of life, and a certain number of disappointments in love, to recognize some looks, some dynamics.”

  Olem struck him with a pat on the head, but Dagger did not answer.

  Araya frowned. “But like them, there might be others who know too much about your nature. Hidi
ng you has never been easy and, perhaps, only now we realize that it will be impossible to do it for much longer. In doubt, it’s the only thing to do.”

  “The only thing to do. You repeat it all the time,” Dagger noticed. “It’s nonsense: there is never the only thing to do, at least that’s what the streets of Melekesh taught me. There’s always a choice, sometimes it’s just deciding what we should sacrifice. Like the life of our blood brothers sent on a hostile and depraved world, for example.”

  “Only we Dracons had to be involved in your research after the mistake of your mother!”

  “Kugar will keep my secret.”

  “We cannot know,” Olem objected.

  “And what do you want to do, kill her as we arrive at the Fortress?”

  The two Dracons made no reply save with their eyes.

  “There are other solutions,” Araya said, at last. “Perhaps even worse than death. As for you, get used to the idea of not creating strong bonds with mortals. You will live forever, we won’t. Trust this lizard, who lived so long to see the death of all his friends, and his only love.”

  Dagger had nothing in reply to offer.

  “Could you please focus on your steps, lizard?” Olem said. “I don’t want to end my days with a pole stuck up my ass! When you die, there will be plenty of time to reflect on your past.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you are succeeding,” Dagger said. “I lived in the belief I had never killed anyone, despite what I did for a living. Now you tell me that far too many people have died because of me, and that others will.”

  Araya shrugged. “Our world was not made for peace. Peace is an illusion placed in the middle of two wars. To mortals, death is a kind of indispensable habit. We are all expendable for the ultimate goal, the preservation of the Equilibrium that protects all and of which, unfortunately, you’re a pillar.”

  “Watch where you walk!”

  “There’s no need, Olem,” Araya said. They had arrived at a spacious and tidy lawn, surrounded by larches. The trail continued at the other end but, for the moment, the Dracon seemed to have no plan to deal with it.

  “Let us rest. When they created the Death Pass, my ancestors knew that mind needs to rest after a prolonged effort. Now there are no traps beneath our feet, even if the lawn and all the Pass are surrounded by them. Try not to walk around.”

  Despite his words, Dagger waited until the Lizard Dracon advanced on the lush grass, green as poison, before following him, still putting his feet exactly where he was putting them. Olem gathered some branches and dried leaves, to light a fire in the center of a circle of blackened stones, used for that same purpose for who knew how long before. Perhaps even his mother herself. In front of the flames, the two Dracons sat down and lit the pipe between their lips, peacefully smoking after the long march.

  “So ends our long journey,” Olem considered. “A city in flames, thousands of deaths, and a Tankar in our ranks.”

  Araya blew a puff of smoke, watching Kugar lying on the ground beside him. “It could have been worse, Olem. A lot worse,” he said, turning to Dagger. “Imagine if they had caught him, too.”

  “They’ll take him, sooner or later. Eternity is a far too long time to have a minimum control on it.”

  “Stop talking about me as if I were just a fucking… thing!”

  Araya looked at him, squinting his eyes into two narrow slits. “I hate coarse language. Stop using it in my presence!”

  Dagger grinned. “Funny,” he said.

  “What do you find funny about that?”

  “Nothing.”

  Olem stood up and grabbed him by the collar, bringing him face to face. “We are not aged through all this shit just to be taken for a ride by you!” he growled. “You find it ‘funny’? There’s nothing funny here! People are dying because of you!”

  “Let me go!”

  “Let him go!”

  “What did you find so funny?”

  “Kam Karkenos!” Dagger let out.

  Olem dropped him on the ground, frozen, a sinister look in his eyes.

  “Uhm,” Araya said, puffing out smoke. “Few still use that name, my boy. Where did you hear that?”

  “When I was dead, I’ve seen him.” Dagger brought a hand to his throat, sitting down again. “Did you want to kill me, you bastard?”

  Olem eyes widened. He was about to yell something.

  Then Araya silenced him with a single gesture of his hand. “Did you talk with him?”

  “Yes,” Dagger continued. “And he says he hates coarse language too. This is why I laughed. You and my father have something in common.”

  “And what else did he say?”

  “That he needs me, that I am destined to a greater power and that I should not trust anyone,” he replied without looking at them. “Not even you. Funny again. I just wonder why I’m talking about it right now with you.”

  Araya was on his feet. He seemed on the verge of losing control, but he just locked his fingers into fists, before saying: “I hate! I hate not having control of you!”

  Olem shook his head. “The old son of a bitch,” he muttered. “The god is playing dirty. He really talked to him, Moak was right!”

  Araya moved toward Dagger and looked down at him. “And what do you think?” he angrily hissed. “What do you think of what he said?”

  “Me? I don’t know. There was a time when I thought I’d trust him, I can’t hide it. Come on, put yourself in my shoes!”

  “Skyrgal only wants your blood!” Araya retorted. “Once he will have used you to return in his body, do you still think he will… love you?”

  Dagger kept silent. Araya was on the verge of going on when the boy interrupted him. “And who tells you this is not what I really want? Death, the end of everything.”

  “I tell you!” Araya cut short. “Save us from your foolishness. He’s just using your pain, can’t you get it? You won’t die once, they will do it! Death does not exist for a force lived through eternity! Each mortal touched by that god lives forever – think about the Divine – Imagine you are his son! The great power of which he speaks is something horrible. HORRIBLE!”

  Dagger shivered. “What will happen to me?” he asked.

  Araya looked away, just like Olem. He sat down again and looked at the wide emptiness in front of his old lizard eyes. “You’ll you come back to be what you were before you were born,” he finally revealed. “Something you don’t want to be.”

  “What was I before I was born? I have some memories: sand, screams of pain, and when I was in that temple—”

  “Stop it. Stop it, Dag.”

  “I remembered something. I don’t know what, but it deals with an endless pain and… I’m afraid.”

  At that last word, Araya changed his attitude. “Fear. That’s good. I can understand that, my boy. Fear is a good thing, it keeps a man alive.”

  “He even advised to let you help me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, damn it! It looks like you are working for the same goal! Gorgors are no more trying to revive Skyrgal. Now they only serve the Divine and he wants to annihilate me to prevent his return.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Olem said, puffing smoke.

  Araya hissed, amused, then laughed and Olem echoed.

  “Did you already know?”

  “Ah! Of course!”

  “And who told you that?”

  “The Divine himself,” Olem answered. “Or at least his emissaries. Each month a damn Gorgor presents himself under the walls of Agalloch, bringing his message: he wants you, only you. He’s still looking for the lost soul of Skyrgal, he wants to possess it again inside his own mangled body. It’s the reason for its existence, as a drug for a drug-addicted, alcohol for an alcoholic…”

  “Go easy on the metaphors.” Araya said.

  “And if you brought him back to life, the Divine would lose his favorite game,” Olem kept on. “He would be desperate, condemned to live for
ever in search for something he will never have again. So his ambassadors come to Golconda every month. We open the doors. We welcome them with courtesy, as fits to all ambassadors. We make them eat, rest, we prepare them a warm bath and let them fuck our sisters. Then they pronounce with their horrid accent, ‘Where is the boy? Give him to us and you won’t regret it!’ It looks like they can’t say anything else. It must have cost them a great effort to learn to say those few words, in such a way as to be vaguely understood. Well, it does not matter. In response, we shackle them, cut their hands and tongue, skin them alive, completely, making sure to put in it the expertise and the time required. Then we put them in salt to please Angra and ourselves, , before letting them dry in the sun with their testicles or a few fingers in their mouths, with sand in their eyes and wind eroding their face and anything that could make it a tad more excruciating a death. Their bodies regenerates, you saw it, which means we can prolong their suffering at our own pace. Only when we stop finding it funny, and this does not happen very often, I have to say – and surely not fast – we split their head in two. Generally these Poison’s madmen retain their gray matter, or in this case green matter, for their horrid studies.”

  “It’s only thanks to those studies that we were able to slow the Divine, mind you. From a Gorgor’s brain, come the most powerful of poisons, poisons that make agreements with death itself, slowing it, dissimulating it… or simulating it. A lot of people didn’t die before being buried,” the Meshuggah added.