God of Emptiness

by Walt Popester

  “I believe the battle didn’t go well,” Schizo said.

  Everyone around laughed.

  Orgor applauded. “I told you he was funny as fuck. I want him alive.”

  “Step aside, Dag,” Ianka said. “They’re beyond your abilities.”

  “If I still had Redemption, they wouldn’t laugh so much.”

  “Try not to get killed. Not in front of them.”

  Ian acted in a flash. He wounded Dagger’s hand and pushed him to the ground with a kick in his belly.

  “Argh!” The son of Skyrgal let go his grip on Solitude, which was grabbed by Ianka.

  Schizo drove it into the chest of a slaver, then pulled it off and sliced the air, making a complete turn around. The supreme weapon burned, taking with it the limbs on its trajectory. The scream of Olem rode through the wild shrieks.

  Olem lets Ianka grab him!

  “I just need a public. I’m an exhibitionist,” Ian said as he made the blade dance in the air dense with smoke.

  Blood flowed copiously.

  Orgor laughed.

  Oh Ian! Dagger thought, sheltering from a sudden red spray resulting from a torn femoral artery.

  “It’s in my blood!” Schizo continued. “I’m the son of the Pendracon! He doesn’t want me to become…” Limbs fell. “a dancer. He wants me to…” A head rolled next to Dag. “train and become a great guardian. But it’s in my blood, dance.” Schizo danced fast, quick, bypassing an enemy to stick Solitude in his back. Dagger thought he could still hear Olem’s laughter when the blade came out from the man’s belly. The slaughtered slaver put his hands on its shiny surface, screaming when Solitude burned his palms raising a sweetish smell of burnt flesh. The energy detonated the slaver into two halves, both still moving when they fell to the ground.

  Ianka continued to jump elegantly around. “I’m the son of the fucking Pendracon! But dancing is in my blood!”

  Then Orgor—who had been enjoying the fight all along—decided to intervene. With one hand he pushed aside some of his men, entering the circle enclosing the two boys.

  Ianka stopped and listened to the man cheering and applauding, genuinely amused.

  “What a show! A show!” Orgor said. “I beg you, promise you’ll do it for me every night! I’ll give you ten, a hundred…a thousand men to slaughter.”

  Schizo smiled. He lunged forward, sword in hands, but when Solitude touched the mayem there was a silent explosion—a sudden release of energy. Everybody fell to the ground except for Orgor, who stood laughing with his fists planted in his flanks.

  “A living weapon, right? I haven’t seen one of those in a while,” Orgor said. “I wonder who’s inside that and why does it obey two nobodies like you.” He stepped forward and blocked Ianka’s wrist under his boot of bones and metal. He crushed it for good making sure the boy suffered, until Ianka let go of his grip.

  Only then did Dagger believe that it was really over.

  *

  With his right hand nailed to the pole at the center of the arena, Ianka rejected his last attacker driving the tip of his rusty sword in his throat. The black-skinned slaver fell to the ground on the body of the companion who had preceded him.

  “Bring it on. Come on! Who’s next? Dancing is in my blood! Dancing is in my blood!”

  Orgor threw another coin into the pot at his feet, echoing the cry of Schizo, “The stakes are increased! Who wants to bathe in gold, tonight?”

  Blood didn’t flow from Ianka’s nailed hand anymore, except when a coward duelist attacked him from the side, forcing Schizo to make sudden movements and reopening his wound.

  Orgor laughed and laughed, crucified in his own way—he held his hands between the firm buttocks of two teenage slaves while another young girl, knelt at his feet, played the notes of her sweetest melody.

  In a corner, his lieutenant was playing the human rodeo. He had claimed the back of a prisoner, riding her wildly while his cheerful pals were betting on how long it would take her to break free.

  Near them, a boy had been tied to an overturned table. Two slavers pelted him with their throwing knives taking turns.

  STAK! the blade sang against the wood. STAK! STAK! Then a damp noise. The drunk man cursed a god unknown to Dagger, when his last clumsy launch made him lose all the doblos.

  Even though his visual was limited by the bars of the cage in which he was locked up—that of a dog, judging by the smell—Dagger realized that the slavers had a soft spot for betting, and were somewhat bored by simple dog fights.

  Orgor put his golden cup to his lips, then he threw it against a duelist who had tried to attack Ianka before the last opponent was dead. “I want a clean fight!” Orgor shouted, brutally pushing aside the servant who was playing for him. He stood up. “When you bet, you must be serious!”

  To please him, the man was taken away and nailed to the table in place of the dying boy.

  STAK! STAK!

  Blades against wood, blades against blades, blades tearing the living flesh and all over the sterile, monotonous Ianka’s chant, “It’s in my blood! I’m the son of the motherfucking Pendracon! He doesn’t want me to become…a dancer, he wants that…I train and become a great Guardian. But it’s in my blood. It’s in my blood!”

  Orgor laughed among rivers of wine and blood, despot of his horrible, wonderful world.

  Are you genius or insane? Araya’s voice asked inside Dagger’s head. He wondered what they had in mind for him at the end of the show.

  “Bring it on!” Ianka cried. “Is there anyone who wants to have fun with me? I want to dance a little more before dawn!”

  No one came forward.

  Orgor applauded and laughed, as he had done for most of the show. “Well, well, that’s enough, my precious boy. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and…”

  Dagger saw him disappear. Following the gaze of the attendants, he knew that Orgor was approaching him. He felt a heavy foot land on his cage, and the mad butcher’s thundering voice, “…a new competitor! We should put them against each other. A real, fair fight!”

  “Yes!” everyone shouted, laughing with him.

  When Orgor stopped laughing, everyone stopped at the same time. “Seek that bitch.” Orgor was serious, now. “Look for her in every corner of these damned caves. And bring her to me. Every time I promise a girl roast, I always put it on the table. I have my principles, Ktisisdamn!”

  Ianka was left nailed to the pole.

  Dagger watched him from the cage. When he saw them all disappear, and listened to their footsteps move away, he called him, “Ian!”

  Schizo jerked, as if he had fallen asleep on his feet. He met Dagger’s gaze, then slammed his head against the pole.

  “Tomorrow you will kill me, Ian. You will do it.”

  After a long silence, Ianka replied, “These people want a fair fight and tomorrow we’ll give it to them. May the best man win.”

  “Ian.”

  “They’re listening, you idiot.”

  He realized Schizo was right when a sword ran through a rift in the cage and wounded his back. “Argh!”

  “Let’s bet!” a voice exclaimed. “I say I can put this sword through the wooden panels ten more times without killing him.”

  “I bet Orgor kills you, if he finds out,” a second voice warned.

  “Orgor said that these two have to fight on an equal basis. The arm of the other one is already half yellow, and it will soon begin to stink. Dammit, I want to have some fun after all this trip.”

  “Ten strikes without hurting him, right?” a third voice said.

  “No, I’m not that good. Only without killing him.”

  “Two doblos. I bet two doblos that you can’t do it.”

  The sword went through one of the slots and missed Dagger. “One!” the slaver screamed amusedly.

  Shit! Dag thought. The second strike grazed his arm. He moved in time to avoid the third and the fourth ones. He was distracted by the cry of Ianka, “Leave him alone, you dick
heads!” The fifth caught his left shoulder. He cried, but avoided the sixth strike. The seventh would have opened his belly, had he not held his breath. He tried to lock the blade with his hand, but the slaver pulled out the blade tearing his skin. The eighth and ninth blows nearly deprived him of his ears. The tenth was precise enough to open his face.

  “CAUGHT!” the slaver shouted happily. “See if I killed him. He doesn’t move anymore.”

  Through the thick red blood curtain, Dag saw an ugly, toothless face look at him through the bars.

  “You sliced his eye, damn you!”

  Dagger tried to speak but couldn’t. He felt only pain and panic. He even tried to get up, crawled to the bars and put out an arm, which was quickly crushed.

  “Well, now they really are on an equal basis, right? Eye for an eye!”

  The other slavers laughed, cursed and went away, leaving him alone in his vermilion pain.

  He heard Ian screaming his name, then everything went dark.

  When he awoke he was already on his feet with a sword in hand. The sunset light penetrated in a sharp blade into the cave, crowning Orgor sitting on his throne in front of his improvised arena. Dagger must have slept all day.

  Ianka was in front of him, still nailed to the pole. His hand was in really bad condition. Putting his fingers to his own face Dag felt a blindfold covering his wounded eye—pain everywhere.

  “I want a fair fight!” Orgor barked. “First guy to die, loses!”

  Everyone laughed until he raised his hand.

  The fight had begun.

  Dagger looked at his friend, who began to shout, “Bring it on. Bring it on! You think you dance better than me?”

  They want a show and he will give it to them…Dagger thought. His hesitation was interrupted by two big hands pushing him forward. Schizo’s horizontal cut nearly deprived him of his head. Ianka had been armed with a real blade this time. Dagger ducked and rolled—or perhaps he just fell. Solitude was still there where Ianka had left it. Nobody had dared to touch it and Schizo couldn’t pick it up.

  Dagger lunged, slipped and avoided Ian’s fatal blow by a whisker. He grabbed the sword and took a moment to observe its blade. Solitude was inert. You have no intention of fighting him, right Olem? Even locked up inside there, you can be a real asshole!

  They burnt his ass with a hot iron to push him to fight. Dagger realized there was no easy way out from that stage. After all, there never has been! Pain woke him up. He brought down a blow, then another and another one. Ianka answered and nearly put an end to the fight—his blade fell so hard that he looked like a butcher struggling with a carcass.

  Orgor laughed. “Friendship! The least durable of human feelings, you see?” And downed the content of his wineskin in one gulp. The wine rained down on the young slave girl kneeling on the ground, tracing red tears on her white skin. Orgor slapped her bare butt. “Come on, little filly! This snake doesn’t bite!”

  Ianka and Dagger fought long, relentlessly. Kill me! Dagger thought, so strongly that he hoped his wish could reach his friend. Kill me!

  He was sure that Ianka had missed at least two good chances to put an end to the fight, but he didn’t know if Schizo had done it on purpose. Maybe he was just waiting for a stroke of luck—a prayer that seemed to be answered when a voice said, “Oh, shit. Stop it!”

  CLANG! The swords of the two contenders met in midair, and their sinister calling was lost in silence. Still in that position, Dagger and Ianka turned together to Orgor. The mad butcher had fallen asleep, his head tilted back and his mouth open. He snored loudly, as his arms fell along his immense belly—a flabby curtain over the bare junk that the slave girl was still trying to stimulate.

  “Stop that, bitch! You gave him the most boring blowjob in the world!”

  Orgor’s men laughed. One of them dragged the slave away by her hair, already unfastening his pants.

  “So what now?” Ianka asked over the slave’s screams.

  “Shit, you asshole! Orgor wouldn’t lose the ending of this fight for the world,” the lieutenant answered. “Take a break, you’ve earned it.”

  Only then did Schizo lower his sword.

  Dagger did the same. The slavers got a rope over him and he was immobilized.

  A bald slaver said, “Come on, I don’t believe you can’t pick it up. Just watch!” He tried to grab Solitude, but the scene repeated itself. This time Olem was particularly bothered. The man’s arms exploded to his shoulders.

  The brave slaver fell to the ground, trying to understand what had happened. “Help me. Please…help me.”

  Everyone laughed as they watched him fade away, bleeding to death. Some of the attendants took the opportunity to get away in pleasant company, or continued to drink until falling asleep. Others resumed their favorite occupation, fucking and betting on anyone and anything.

  Innocent screams arose in the darkness.

  Ianka found some awkward position to nearly sit on the ground, his arm outstretched above his head.

  Dagger rested his back against the pole, too. “Ian.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Were you fighting for real?”

  “If I really were—”

  “I wouldn’t be here asking stupid questions. Yes, I know.”

  “It’s always legitimate to ask. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Olem doesn’t want to hurt you. Solitude is heavier than usual.”

  “You should learn to manage it, you know?”

  “Oh, don’t tell me…” Dagger found the strength to smile. “Hey?”

  “What?”

  “How do we get out of this, this time?”

  “Like all other times. In some way.”

  “Like when Kerry died?”

  “Maybe. Maybe sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice some marginal pawns to win the game, but this time I don’t think it’s the best thing to do.”

  “And why?”

  “Because the marginal pawn is me.”

  Dag laughed, or at least he tried to, before the pain crossed his face. Maybe he fell asleep, maybe he fainted.

  He awoke in the dead of night. He watched Orgor lying on the cushions, sleeping in the orange half-light of a torch placed to his right. He dribbled saliva mixed with wine in the rhythm of his breathing. His entire, sick court had withdrawn or was asleep at his feet.

  Dagger saw an ethereal, barefoot figure emerge from darkness and come forward with a sword in her right hand. She grabbed Orgor’s filthy hair, and pulled it. When the blade sank into his exposed throat, baring his muscles in the perfect half-circle of his skin, a red splash of blood soaked the white pillows. Breathless and surprised, Orgor opened his mouth and eyes in an idiotic expression of disbelief.

  As she still held the sword and hair in her hands, Erin watched the violence born from her will with a mixture of horror and disgust, pulling back with her shoulders.

  The torch was snuffed out by a sudden gust of wind, giving that snap-shot of death back to the dark.

  What did you do? You’re dead. All dead! Dag could only think.

  Dawn shed a merciless light on the enormous, purplish body of Orgor, his back twisted in an unnatural posture, his arm and forefinger pointed to hell.

  His head was gone.

  “What the fuck was in that wine?” one of his men asked, awakening.

  Soon everyone realized what had happened. Soon there was turmoil in the cave, soon the pressing questions. Dagger didn’t answer because he didn’t fear death. Ianka struggled even to understand what was happening. His hand smelled. The red, unforgiving infection had climbed his arm and was radiating out to his shoulder and chest.

  Between a kick and a punch against his swollen face, Dag thought he saw his friend’s body throb. He fainted. He woke up in the dark. He had been left alone with Ianka while the last slavers gathered what they could.

  “They’re in a hurry. They’re going away,” Ianka whispered. He had managed to detach his hand from the pole and now he loo
ked at him through a hole opened in the broken tendons and yellowish flesh, losing pus and blood. “Without Orgor’s guide also…the slavers will split, making war against…each other. That’s what always happens when you break the circle, don’t you think? We, the Fortress, the Tankars…don’t break the circle. Don’t break the circle.”

  “Orange would be enthusiastic about this.” Dagger got back on his feet. His friend had used Solitude to cut the rope that kept him tied.

  “How long did they beat us up?” Dagger asked.

  “Not enough to kill us, apparently.”

  “I’ll take you out of here.”

  “This is the moment I should say, leave me here, go on without me.”

  “If you really say that, I dump you. I’m serious.”

  Ian smiled, holding on to him to stand up. “Hotankar,” he said, clinging to Dagger. “Hotankar. There’s no alternative.”

  Then hell was unleashed. They heard it arise into the bowels of the rock as a single cry of horror. Someone was attacking the cove.

  “Everybody out!” a slaver screamed.

  “And the two boys?”

  “Who gives a fuck! They can stick that sword up their asses!”

  The last remaining group of slavers ran outside the cave.

  “She’s back…Kugar’s back!” Hope gave new energy to the battered body of Schizo.

  Again the song of swords was heard and again the screams of agony—the last ones before the silence.

  Dagger stared long at the entrance of the cave, until he saw a shadow move, preceded by an echo of footsteps. He tightened the grip on Solitude, getting ready for the worst.

  The shadow stopped. It whispered something before coming forward. It really was Kugar.

  “Kug,” Schizo dragged forward. “You…you came to save us!”

  The heroine comes in the end to save the whole world? Dagger thought.

  She didn’t answer. Now she wore black robes and had a warhammer on her back.

  Dagger felt his testicles shrink. He cried, “Ian, stop!”

  But Schizo stepped forward and sank in the last embrace of Kugar. He let out a strangled sob of pain and continued to hold on to her, as the clawed fingers of a Tankar glove stuck out from his left side, pulling and tearing his skin.