God of Emptiness

by Walt Popester

  “Really?”

  “Yay.”

  Baikal closed his eyes and clutched at his father’s side, hugging him in silence.

  “Sorry about the dates,” Exodus said. “It’s just that—”

  “I don’t care, Dad. Let’s go home.”

  The Asmeghin looked up at his Faithful, who nodded just once in the typical nod of Tankars.

  They were soon in march under the two moons—the golden one and the blood one, painting the world copper.

  At dawn, the holy truce would be broken.

  *

  In the amber night, the column of the Nehamas moved fast on the southward road to home. The Throne of Skyrgal was visible from there, too, and towered over a compact mass of ruins.

  Riding his skar, Torah reached Exodus at the head of the procession. “She’s saved. The Agent Orange said yes.”

  The Asmeghin closed his eyes and thanked Mother Desert for not being too hard on him. When he opened them again, it was enough to observe the face of his assistant to understand that the other news was not so good. “How far?” he asked.

  The young Tankar dismounted and walked at his side, talking in a low voice. “Gorgors,” he said. “Thousands of them, and well armed. They have no mount, only some cruachans flying in the sky. Whatever we do, they know it.”

  “How far?” Exodus repeated calmly.

  “Two days, maybe three.”

  The Asmeghin looked up, identifying the distant silhouette of a winged cruachan. “Even more time than I thought.”

  The young Tankar looked at him. “Did you foresee this?”

  “Didn’t you? At the end of the truce, that rotten villain stuck between life and death would move his first piece. He had already arranged everything, while the dogs at his leash howled in honor of that whore—their new goddess.”

  His Assistant let out a low growl, “But why the Gorgors?”

  Exodus walked in silence, at the head of his clan. “They send the shadows to do the dirty work, while our brothers Tankars will attack the Fortress of Pendracon Crowley.”

  “Do they mean to kill us all?”

  The Asmeghin weighed those words in the depths of his conscience, right where a metallic voice answered him, I will never make a hero of you, or of your people. So Aeternus had said in front of everyone. “He gave precise instructions to take us alive at all costs, before we can reach our people. They will make an example of us.”

  Torah looked down.

  Still so young… “Yet something can be done. Two days, you say.”

  “Maybe three.”

  “Maybe three.” The Asmeghin raised his face to the south. “We will reach Assado.”

  The young one stopped, frozen by those words. He watched his guide go further, slow and imperturbable. “Assado?” he asked as he walked again at his side.

  “Before leaving, I ordered to have it supplied with food and water until its warehouses and cisterns burst.” Exodus watched his feet, in march as always, then he shifted his gaze to his lands, where an isolated rock plateau ruled the horizon. On its summit the ancients had built a fortress. It had walls sixteen feet high around the entire mile circumference, with forty towers at regular intervals. The only access was a steep path three miles long and so narrow that a Tankar couldn’t rest both feet on the ground.

  The Asmeghin nodded. “Run to our people, faster than the wind, and bring them my message: We will resist and give you time, a luxury you can’t waste. Run to the hills. Run to the Silver Mountains. Slavery awaits. One day the Tankar Dawn will light the world, and a messiah will come to lead us to the end of the road.”

  “Asmeghin, I—”

  Exodus interrupted him by putting his big hand on Torah’s shoulder. “Faster than the wind, you have saved her. Now save my people. Family. Clan. Tankar!”

  “Family, clan, Tankar!” The young Tankar bowed his head. He jumped on his skar and whizzed up the road.

  Each passing hour Assado became bigger and bigger, until it disappeared from their perspective at the base of the high rock cliff. They set foot on the Snake’s Path and began the ascent. Its continuous curves circumvented several protruding rocks and ravines overlooking the ruin. The mothers marched with their children in their arms or hand-in-hand in front of them. Following their example, every Nehama put his hand on the shoulder of the one who preceded him. When half the path was behind them, Exodus turned around and thought that every one of them looked like the ring of a chain, unbreakable despite the blows of fate.

  They reached the summit before dawn. The promontory stood in the middle of a vast depression, populated by the titanic Gorgor vestiges. The sun in the west seemed to peep above a rock wall and pour its warm light on the surrounding land.

  The black lines of the Gorgor army were already visible. Exodus didn’t care. Over the next few days he tried to show that absolute firmness that had once made him Asmeghin. He kept everyone busy, always, giving them little time to worry. He had his Tankars fill the Snake’s Path with stones and obstacles, divide and organize the stocks, set up the dormitories, break rocks to create bullets. He assigned tasks, guard duties, patrols. He made few speeches, and in public he appeared relaxed, confident, making it evident that Assado was impregnable.

  He often moved children away from the tops of the walls where they could see the Gorgors form the orderly and perfect square of their camp, while part of their army kept on marching.

  Toward home. Alone on the perimeter walls, in the middle of the night, Exodus watched the precise lines separating the black leather tents, the trenches, moats and walls of the enemy camp.

  Sherpan, son of his late brother, walked over to his side. “They give me the creeps.”

  “Hmm?”

  “For what Skyrgal did to them.”

  The Asmeghin nodded. “Gods have a strange way of guiding their people, and of punishing them.”

  “Why are they setting up camp? This fortress should be impregnable.”

  “Yay,” Exodus only replied.

  The reason became clear over the following days. It became increasingly difficult to keep children, as well as adults, away from the walls while the Gorgors built their ramp. Using a natural ridge ascending from the foot of the cliff, the countless shadows moved large amounts of stones and earth to create the road that didn’t exist.

  From the top of the walls, the Nehamas pelted the fervent builders with stones and the little fire they had, but it was ineffective. A simple covering of water-soaked skins was enough to let the workers build their stairway to heaven in peace.

  The noise of shovels, drills and hammers breaking the stones echoed day and night, day and night. It seemed the beating of death steadily approaching in the deaf valley.

  Waiting was torture. Months passed without an instant of silence, then one day the ramp was completed, and quiet lulled any fear.

  “They’ll enslave us, and they’ll rape our women. They’ll do it in front of our eyes to teach us humility…like they did with you!” said a clansman during the council. “That was the meaning of his words when he promised not to kill any of us.”

  The Asmeghin wasn’t even listening. The only thing he could think of was, The most defensible rock in the whole world, against organization…there’s a keen mind behind this madness. A ramp, for Ktisis! They built a ramp. Maybe even the Guardians’ Fortress is not impregnable for the Disciples of Skyrgal.

  “What should we do, Asmeghin?”

  I’ll never make a hero of you. Exodus raised his face and everyone looked at him. Or of your people. Anger burst in his mind. Mother Desert took almost everything I cared about from me. Why should I care about you? In the end, why should she do something else with you? “Say goodbye to your children, now that you can.” Those words rang in the hall, accompanied by the crackling of the fire they all sat around. “Then we’ll do what’s necessary to leave our cry of indignation written in history.”

  “You want to fight to the end?”

  The Asme
ghin shook his head. “No. They will limit the losses. Aeternus said he’ll make an example of us, and he’ll keep his promise. But it’s up to us to decide what example we want to be for those who’ll survive, and perhaps for all Tankars. Only now can we write a page of history worthy of the Nehamas. There’s always a choice, my brothers. If we can’t live free, we can at least die free.”

  A Tankar came forward, pushing his son in front of him. “My Haren will never know slavery!” He emphasized his words with the threatening movements of his knife. “He will never fight in the arenas for the entertainment of the Kahars!” He bent his son’s head backward, and without hesitation slew him in front of everyone.

  Not a single sound of horror or disgust arose among the observers, who bowed their heads resignedly.

  “But one will survive,” the infanticide said. “If fate is cruel, that one will have the opportunity to tell what happened here so that the courage of the Nehamas won’t be forgotten!”

  There was a buzz.

  Exodus rubbed the thick fur on his own muzzle. “Who?”

  “Your son!” The infanticide pointed his bloody blade at Exodus. “Your family has always paid the price of command by dying. He will pay for your madness by living, sentenced to remember and tell. They asked to pass, damn you, only to pass!”

  The Asmeghin closed his eyes. No one objected. He was their guide in the dark, and the greatest sacrifice belonged to him. Yet I wasn’t wrong, he thought. No one can predict what abominations will walk in the mortal world, if They set foot in that temple. He nodded once. He grabbed a piece of bread and a bottle of wine, and left.

  Exodus found his son sitting on the sidelines while the other children played Tankars and humans. Exodus looked at them for a long time, then approached Baikal.

  They sat in silence. Then the boy said, “Don’t leave me, Daddy.”

  The Asmeghin gave an amused sound. Children always understand… He looked up to the starry sky, waiting for the bloody and golden moons. It’s a nice night to die. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t you ever let them get your mind and fill your head with orders and prohibitions. They’ll often play at a game that will draw you closer, until you’ll find yourself in a trap.” He split the bread and gave half of it to his son—as a good father, the biggest half. “Life is a race that no one ever really wins.”

  He couldn’t say more. It was hard to give his son enough material to reason about for the rest of his life in such a short time. Ktisis, what am I doing? Will they be so cruel as to let you live? He handed the bottle of wine to Baikal.

  “Dad, I—”

  “Drink.”

  At the peremptory order, the young, clawed hand took the bottle. Red rivulets flowed down the face covered with white hair, falling in a few drops to the ground.

  No father should ever die without having had his first drink with his son. In the starlight, Exodus allowed a tear—only one—to run down Baikal’s cheek. “You will remember me,” he said. Even that was an order. “You’ll be enslaved and suffer the pains of hell. Your suffering will be their entertainment. You’ll be humiliated and broken…but you will resist. You will live, and when the timing is right, you’ll get what is yours. You’ll be the Nehama Asmeghin, and you won’t forget the value of those who sacrificed themselves for the good of all.”

  “Of all the Tankars?”

  “Of all. Because even if he wears different clothes from ours, even if he speaks a language we don’t understand, even if sometimes he seems to be the evil made flesh, every enemy has the same light in his eyes when he looks into those of his son. There lies the truth: every mortal is worthy, and every mortal is sacred. The pain of the first god won’t soil Candehel-mas while the last Nehama lives!”

  Baikal rested his head on his father’s side. “Why?” he asked.

  Another Tankar would have continued with his explanations, but Exodus was Baikal’s father and he knew the meaning of that question. “It’s the same old no tomorrow kicked in your face.”

  “It’s not right.”

  “No. It isn’t.” The Asmeghin raised his face to look at the ruins rinsed by the dunes, beyond the walls—the endless desert. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It looks like a motionless sea.”

  “What’s the sea?”

  “You’ll see it one day. You will live, and as long as you’re alive I will be too.”

  “No. I’ll be alone.”

  The father smiled and shook his head. “She’s safe,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll meet her again one day.” Exodus rubbed his nose on his son’s head one last time. He breathed the stench of the wild hair. He nibbled Baikal’s ear, but Baikal dodged.

  Exodus was somehow happy about that. Someone is growing, right? Hate me, my son. You’ll be less sad when I’m gone. He got up and took a few steps.

  Baikal jumped to his feet. “Dad!”

  Exodus turned around, saying nothing.

  The boy raised his hand.

  The father looked at him. What’s in the heart goes from father to son. He raised his right hand, too, then marched to the council chamber.

  The parents called their children, some of whom protested, asking to play a little more, just a little more.

  Finally, one at a time, they obeyed. Some with arms around the shoulders of their friends, some joking with the little girls, some with tears in their eyes as they looked at a scraped elbow. They all crossed the last threshold and disappeared into the depths of gloom.

  *

  2. The Road to the Tower

  At his side, Dagger saw Seeth sink her teeth into a chicken thigh, while in front of him Kugar joked with Moak.

  “You’re alive!” the blue-eyed girl said, while the fat man laughed, laughed, and laughed.

  Everybody sat joking and drinking at the lavishly decked table. Olem lay in the arms of his Missy, who ran a hand through his hair and asked him not to leave her, not yet. A little farther on, Marduk, Crowley and Hammoth drank and laughed heartily.

  “Crow! We’re alive, you see?” said the white blood to the Pendracon who had preceded him. But Crowley had eyes only for Aniah, sitting at his side.

  She brought a grape to her lips, and a hand to her pregnant belly. “I’m waiting for you, Dag, you see?”

  “You don’t know how much I loved you,” the Warrior King said. Aniah smiled, shyly, pretending to growl like a lion.

  “Hey, Dag.” To his right, Erin handed him a cup filled with wine. “It’s not so bitter, if you think about it.”

  “What?”

  “Drink, Dag. Drink.”

  There was a shadowy figure at the head of the table, at the end and the beginning of everything. Dagger couldn’t see it since it was obscured by food, bottles and dishes. Yet he knew it was there.

  A cold current blew. Dagger turned and Erin was gone.

  Kugar and Seeth disappeared in a new breath of wind. Moak joined them soon after, followed by Warren and Ash. Ianka, Araya and Crowley disappeared last, along with the last bottles.

  The jackal god raised his face. “So,” he said. “What were we saying?”

  “What’s going on, Ktisis?”

  “The Void always takes everybody away,” the god replied, sipping his wine. “The desert, and not love, conquers all.”

  *

  “No!”

  “Dag!”

  “No!” Dagger rolled on his side and locked his fingers into a fist, before Erin’s unsure smile welcomed him back to the world.

  “That was just a dream. Calm down. It was just a dream.”

  He didn’t answer, sitting up. Shy embers still glowed in the campfire made of a circle of stones carved in the shape of heads, eyes, and pieces of inhuman bodies. Other than that, there was only dust—dust on the large, yellowish floor slabs; dust on the forgotten and blackened stones of a ruined structure that for some kind of destiny still had a roof; dust on the skeleton of a giant beast laid forever to rest at the farthest corner of the room; dust falling slowly, steadily, on the burning logs to
vanish in a swirling nothingness.

  “Just a dream,” Erin repeated.

  “No dream is ever just a dream.”

  “Whoa, nice sentence.” She pulled him down, snuggling against his chest. “Shhh. It’s early, everyone is asleep.”

  “Except for Ianka,” Ianka said, a little farther away.

  “Except for Ianka,” the girl agreed, stroking Dagger’s belly and tickling his thin pubic hair. “What were you dreaming about?”

  “Dinner.”

  “We aren’t starving yet. Now you should just dream a generic threat chasing you in the dark.”

  “The generic threat was me, separated from my true nature. A part of me just wanted to feel good with everybody else. The other one wanted the end of everything. I suppose that never happens to everybody else.”

  She gave a snort and turned away.

  “What’s up?” Dagger asked.

  “Sleep.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a pain in the ass, Dag.”

  “Sounds like a good reason to me,” he said, looking for her lips.

  Erin chuckled, tightening her legs. “For being a god, you’re such a jerk, you know?”

  “Mh mh,” he agreed.

  “Ohw! It would…be better to save our energy for the journey.” Erin looked down on him and Dagger laid his head on her breast. “What did Angra call you, that time?”

  “The god of Emptiness?”

  “No, it was something like Kam Kanegra…”

  “Konkra!”

  “I dare not know what’s my name. I never asked Dad.”

  It took a moment for Dagger to understand it. With that term, she was referring to Angra. “What’s wrong with the god of Emptiness?” he asked.

  “The one I know is a whiner. I preferred the Lord of Creation. He was always laughing and drinking, just like Ianka.”

  “Maybe Ianka is another illegitimate child of Angra’s.”