“A real show, I was saying,” Olem continued. “We ensure to always put them so high that even from far away it would be possible to see them. Yet every month a new emissary comes to treat your delivery and the poor creature knows what end awaits him, once those cold, sterile words are repeated. Give us the boy. I’ll tell I found it funny for a while, then I realized that their sense of sacrifice is similar to ours and I always wonder if it’s not us to be in the wrong. In the end, they just want to do you in pieces and make you disappear forever. Anyone with some sense in his head would do the same.” He smiled.
“Anyway, the Gorgors no longer want the return of their ancient god,” Araya completed. “Now they worship a common one, their leper messiah. But there are others who serve the lord of Destruction, now, and those are figures less obscure than you could imagine.”
Olem became suddenly serious, turning slowly. “Araya,” he warned in a low voice. “It’s really too early for this.”
The Poison Dracon did not continue, perhaps regretting he had said that much, or perhaps caught in the middle of the urge to say and the belief that it was better to keep quiet.
“Who are them?” Dagger asked. “Who wants him back today?”
“If Olem says it’s too early, it is.”
“It’s never too early for truth!” the boy replied, standing up. He drew Redemption, which tore the gloom apart with its light. “Speak!”
Araya froze him with his eyes. “Put that blade away before someone gets hurt,” he said. “What do you want to do? Kill us?”
“Oh, no. I did not unsheathed it for you,” he precised, taking the knife against his throat. “I just have to kill myself if I want to know more. I go to Daddy and come back in a moment!”
Darkness crossed the eyes of the lizard Dracon. “Don’t! Never! We are not keeping anything from you, just the things you still wouldn’t understand.”
“I want to know, what will happen to me once they have squeezed the blood out of my body! I want to know who I really am, who I will be… who I was!”
Araya stood up, taking a step toward him. “I want to know who I am,” he repeated, comprehensively. “That’s what all humans say. Ask yourself if it’s not others who tell us who we really are through the use they make of us.” He took another step. “And through the lies they tell us with the sole purpose to use us. How many people, or gods, are trying to use you this time, Dag?”
Dagger could not answer to that. Araya was now in front of him and, with the greatest naturalness, lowered the blade tight in his fist. The Dracon’s eyes hid a deep wisdom. He wondered how old that creature was, and how many horrible things he had been forced to see in his long existence. How many people he cared for he had seen die. He felt him somehow close.
“At the Fortress, I will ensure you’ll receive all the information you ask for, at least the ones we have,” Araya said, so as to be heard only by him. “You have my word, the word of a Messhuggah, and that you could write on stone. Now there’s only one thing I would focus on if I were you, don’t die anymore. Every time you talk to Karkenos, you walk away more and more from truth. There’s only the voice inside you that you must listen, that is the only guide. I see it, my boy: you want to trust us! You do feel that only we can be on your side and, even if I would like to let you know that you’re right, I cannot, I can’t manage to prove it. The truth is big, and it’s destructive, but at the Fortress everything will be explained to you all the same. Now is the moment of trust. Do you trust me?”
Dagger saw a sympathetic look, the look of a being who understood his pain and confusion. He found himself nodding, sheathing back Redemption.
“Good,” Araya breathed. “Stay with us and I promise that you will like this round, this time.”
“Araya, sit down. What the fuck, you’re making me nervous!” Olem said.
The lizard Dracon sat back down. “He trusted Skyrgal.”
Olem grinned. “Yes. I heard. I told you he did not seem so smart to me. Who would not trust a god banished from the world at the dawn of time? Bring him back to life, do! Then he himself will prove how much he cares for you… and for all of us!” Olem laughed, with his wild laughter, before slowly darkening, as if a black thought had seized his mind. “All fathers, in the end, just want the blood of their children,” he said grimly. “To destroy the future they have created, eat the fruit of their gonads. It’s the old man who’s afraid of the new, the death that fears life.”
“You should not be drunk, I didn’t see you drink.” Araya tried to say, but Dagger could see that those words had hit him somehow.
“When I’m drunk, I’m quiet.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“They’ll take him sooner or later!” Olem went on. He took a new drag on his pipe. “Yes. They’ll take him back and we’ll lose control of the situation. Provided that we have ever had it.”
Araya smoked in turn, reasoning. “Many pieces are moving in an unusual way in this gigantic chessboard,” he added. “And are driving us more and more toward an inevitable failure. Or maybe this is not the chessboard on which we have always played, at least not anymore.”
A deep silence followed.
“Dagger, don’t die anymore,” Olem said. “Your father can be very convincing when he talks with mortals. He could be able to convince them of anything, even to trust him. It’s already happened: think about that bitch of your mother.”
Dagger felt a sudden urge to open a smile from ear to ear on his throat.
“What is done is dead,” Araya said in the end. “Rest, you who can, dark days lay in front of my eyes. And, after those, days even worse.” He dumped the contents of his pipe to the ground and snuffed it out with his foot. He crossed glances with Dagger. “Go to sleep. We can guard.”
“You never sleep?”
“We’re too tired to sleep,” replied the Dracon.
Dagger lay down and fell asleep almost immediately, confident that the watchful eyes of Araya would watch over him.
He felt the wind. The wind-borne sand.
* * * * *
9 . The end of the Divine
The trees, caressed by the wind of the morning, greeted a new day, shaking the leaves covered with dew. A nice view after so much death. Then his eyes fell on the path opening before them, and Dagger felt emptiness and fear fill his mind again.
Olem was sitting next to Kugar. He did not look tired, even though he must have spent the whole night awake. Araya was gathering their things without haste. It seemed they wanted just to enjoy the peace of the early morning, before the danger that awaited them. They didn’t obliterate the traces of their passage, confident that no one would follow them in there. Soon, all too soon, they were again on the march to fight every step against death.
“All the steps taken in your life led you here,” Araya softly recited. “First Commandment.”
“What does it mean?” Dagger asked.
“That things go as they go, not as they should go, and everything contributes to the final result, even what we do not want. In life, there are no decisions, choices or experiences more significant than others. When you laugh and when you cry, when you are alone against the world or with the world on your side. The people you loved and left, those who betrayed and those who returned. All contributes to the final result. Almost nothing in existence depends entirely on our will, and all the steps taken in life…” He stopped. “Did you hear that?”
They stood in silence, trying to catch even the slightest noise in the now sinister voice of the wind. Soon the unmistakable cry of a Cruachan gave him the creeps.
“He’s smelling us.”
“They are waiting,” Araya said, pointing straight ahead. From then on, the roof of branches and leaves that had been protecting them had been thinned, destroyed, so as to allow the light of the cloudy gray sky to penetrate.
“He’s flying over the area,” the Messhuggah murmured again. “He’s hunting us, the son of a bitch!”
“A
nd what are we supposed to do, run through the traps?”
Araya shook his head. “There are no traps in the last part of the Pass. Even they must know.”
“Let’s go ahead then, we can’t do anything else. Give it a break with philosophy and think about your skin, or what the fuck you lizards have on your bones.”
Araya continued to measure the distance, until they reached two large white stones on the sides of the road. From then on, he began to walk faster, regardless of where he put his feet. Dagger realized the traps were over. Now death could only come down from above the tops of the trees, thinned out more and more, making them easy targets.
“We’re going straight into a trap and we can’t go back,” Araya deduced. “They want us to come out, then they’ll attack.”
Behind them, the prey cry of the Cruachan seemed to confirm his suspicions.
“And what’s the plan?”
This time Araya did not answer. He just let the chains slip along his arms. Olem got the message and pulled the sword from the scabbard on his back. Dagger wielded Redemption. So, they went out to meet their fate, while the secure twilight brought as a gift from the foliage, thinned out more and more.
“Do you think we should start to run?” Olem asked.
In response, a Cruachan emerged between the branches and hovered over their heads, as if it wanted to smell them, before flying up again and remain suspended in the air, watching close. It cast its hellish trill. Araya threw a knife. The beast dodged. It continued to follow them, deafening them with its cries.
When, from behind, they heard the creepy rustle of leaves once again, they realized that all was lost. Nine Cruachans ridden by nine Gorgors appeared and began to fly in circles above them, savoring their downfall.
“Needless to escape,” Araya resigned, stopping.
“What have you in mind?” Olem asked.
“Run. Take the kids and run to the portal. It’s not very far, you should make it.”
“And you?”
Araya turned the chains between his fingers, silencing him with his eyes. Olem clenched his fists, then looked up and realized they had no more time.
“Damn you!” he simply said. He loaded Kugar on his shoulders and began to run.
“Follow him,” Araya said.
“And what are you…?”
“I said, follow him!”
The Cruachan, which until then had just been watching over them, waiting for its companions, plunged again. Dagger threw himself to the ground, just in time to hear the hiss of its passage above his head.
“Run, damn you!” Araya boomed again.
Dagger could only run behind Olem, while the lizard covered their shoulders with his formidable chains. He landed and killed the Cruachan, however this did not intimidate the others, and soon he found himself repulsing their attacks with his saber, receding more and more under the blows of sharp claws and scimitars. A Cruachan flew around the chains and threw itself immediately against them, but Olem encircled Dagger by the shoulders and threw him to the side. He got up again, then a dart whistled through the air— the Gorgor on its saddle was targeting them with his crossbow.
“We’ll never make it, we have to fight too!” Dagger cried.
In response Olem kicked him on his back and pushed him forward, falling behind with Kugar resting on his shoulder and the giant sword in the right hand. He beheaded the Cruachan as soon as it attacked him again. In a single, fluent movement he stuck the blade into the head of the Gorgor too. Dagger quickly understood the message. He ran. He found the bottom of what was left of his strength and ran, as fast as when he was just a Spider struggling for survival in the muddy streets of Melekesh. The Portal appeared, straight in front of him. The two impenetrable rows of trees that had led them there were almost suddenly sucked into the vortex of light and darkness, melted with the high rock walls that flanked it. It was far away, yet so damn close. Dagger regained hope and ran even faster, trusting in the darkness into the light. But he turned around and saw that a Cruachan had grabbed Olem by the shoulders, pulling him in flight. He stopped, looking at the lifeless body of Kugar lying on the ground, abandoned by the Dracon just before the attack.
I’m not a coward! he told himself. I’ve never been!
He watched the Portal one last time, then spun on his heels. Looking to the sky, he saw Olem piercing the Cruachan’s chest and hoisting himself on its back, knocking the Gorgor that sat on it with a kick in the teeth. He glided to the ground with the beast dripping with blood, and slid in the dust until he reached Araya. He limped to his side, then, arms at hands, the two Dracons unleashed hell and tried to resist to the last. They surely didn’t need him. As Guardians, they only had to sacrifice their lives to give him as much time as possible.
Dagger reached Kugar. He loaded her body on his shoulders and ran back toward the portal. It was not long, before the Cruachans renounced their revenge against Olem and Araya to throw themselves against him, driven by the lashes of their dark knights. When he saw the whole squadron come to meet him, he realized his flight was over before it began. He felt the fetid breath of death on the neck. He did not even turn when three sharp claws penetrated into his back, sticking between his ribs. He tried to scream, but couldn’t. He found himself lifted from the ground as blood flooded one of his lungs. He crushed his suffering under the heel of will so not to drop Kugar to the ground. The portal was already far away.
I had almost made it, he thought, almost. He looked up and saw that the Cruachan was ridden by the Divine himself. He could hear him laughing of his silly claim to survive the long hunting. He tortured him with the shock of Mayem while the Cruachan scorched his scalp with his spout. It was only the beginning, he thought, of what awaited him.
He felt Kugar breathe in his arms. He smiled. She was still alive.
Hang on, at least you! Don’t you ever leave me.
Then a blinding purple light swept the world and time stood still. His sight faded. He could no longer feel fatigue or pain, fear or torment. Light passed through him from side to side and permeated throughout the world. He heard the Divine’s scream of agony, as a strong wind swept away the Cruachans, as well as the Gorgors who sat on them. A lightning flashed, burning them alive. He heard their agony and terror, and saw their charred skeletons dashed without remedy. He felt a strong heat and immediately after a chill, while the claws that had gripped him, lifeless, let him go. Dagger fell to the ground and rolled over. He encircled Kugar by the shoulders and breathed in her hair, bittersweet smell in the middle of hell, then continued to drag her on toward the portal. In front of him, he saw the Divine rising, just a shadow against the purple haze. The shiny beast went out to meet him, growling with its ivory tusks, and staring with the one burning eye. Two huge wings overshadowed the forest, covered with feathers that had all possible shades from the bright white of pearls to the purple in the sky after sunset, as well as the fur that covered the immense body of a wolf. “Crowley!” he roared, shaking the entire world. “Why, Crowley?”
The Divine laughed in lucid madness, raising his sword to the god, but Angra snapped him by the chest, shaking him furiously. Mayem armor’s pieces flew everywhere, uncovering the body of the last Warrior king, devastated by the living death. Dagger closed his eyes. He crawled in his own blood to the portal, because he could not walk, then felt himself lifted and dragged in flight. He picked up what was left of his strength to observe the face of his savior: the gleaming wolfish fangs; the thick shiny coat. It was a terrifying and wonderful sight, as dawn in a battlefield after a night of war. He felt good. He felt at peace. He did not fear anything. In that moment, he could surrender to the superior will and let his fate slid out of his hands, given he had ever had control on it. Everything was perfect. He was intoxicated by the endless relief, such as sleep after a long effort, the swig of water that extinguished thirst.
The portal was in front of them. Exhausted, Dagger fainted and surrendered to the embrace, this time pleasant, of the gre
at silence.
He felt better, as he died.
* * * * *
Stone, cold and smooth, under his hands.
“Oh no, not again!” He heard a laugh, slow and sarcastic, and looked up.
The light in the wind was high above him, watching his every move. “Now that you’ve found out you can come back to life as many times as you want, you just can’t resist the temptation to die every ten minutes, can’t you?”
“Hello Dad,” Konkra said, standing up.
“Yeah. Dad,” Karkenos replied. “I have to admit it feels strange to be called that.”
“Oh, you have to admit a lot of things. I couldn’t wait to die! I have so many questions for you that I don’t even know where to start.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Araya said that—”
“Oh, perfect! Didn’t we just lack the fucking lizard prince breaking my balls!” Karkenos broke.
Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Page 24