Dagger - The Light at the End of the World
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Authors: Walt Popester
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DAGGER
The Light at the End of the
World
by
Walt Popester
First volume of the Redemption
Saga
PUBLISHED BY:
Walt Popester
‘Dagger –
The Light
at the End of the World
’
Copyright © 2013 by Walt
Popester
Professionally edited by
progressivedits.com
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of
the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters and places are product of the author’s mind or are used
in a fictitious way.
To my parents.
For the never-ending patience and
tolerance, from Nassau to Trieste.
The author promises that in
this novel you will not find any funny dwarves, elegant elves,
paladins, wizards, little magicians, or sparkling vampires. Nor
will there be the umpteenth
land of the
five lands
terrorized by intestine
wars.
language, unavoidable elements of Satanism and scenes of graphic
violence. The reader’s discretion is advised. It is recommended for
an adult audience; however, due to its contents, it should not be
read by anyone.
Anyway it’s just a book. Real life is out
there.
Enjoy.
1.
Dagger
Dagger put a hand to his
waist to make sure, once again, of the presence of that one object
from which he would never separate: his switchblade. Crouching in a
dark alley, his bare ankles deep in the gutter that ran parallel to
the wall, Dagger leaned over to look at the street. The unstable
sign of the
Gypsy
was rocking back and forth in the rain, making fun of him with
its cold and rusty chuckle. The light inside the tavern was still
on, but no one had come through that door for at least an
hour.
Curse you, Ktisis!
he swore to himself, flattening against the
wall.
His toes were tingling, as
if bitten by a thousand needles.
The
beginning of a freezing
, he thought. He had
seen many Spiders lose their fingers that way and be degraded to
mere beggars, forced to drag their pathetic stumps around to move
people and ask them money. He didn’t want to end up like that. He
pulled one foot out of the icy water, then the other one. He tried
to move his toes, but he could no longer feel them. He had to hurry
to accomplish his job, or else return to the guild with empty
hands. And with all the consequences the latter would
involve.
every movement of the shadows around him. When he turned to the
right, his heart missed a beat: a shadowy figure was coming toward
him, slowly, in the rain. Dagger wrapped his fingers around the
handle of his knife, then he realized he was looking at a city
guard and the desire to use his blade suddenly passed. There were
accords to respect and accords were important, the old Mama always
said.
The guard stopped not far from him, with no
intention of sneaking into one of the back streets. It seemed he
just wanted to finish his shift and get back to any place with a
roof, or at least a floor. “Look at my boots!” he said, his voice
little more than a boy’s. He raised his face to the sky. “Curse
you, Ktisis! Enough already!”
The sky answered with a
burst of rain. Discouraged, the boy who was forced to dress as an
adult by society, drew a leather bag from his pocket and poured a
little
magic dust
onto the back of his hand. He took a long sniff and stood
there, motionless, gazing into space for an interminable
time.
For a moment, it seemed he
was staring right at where Dagger was hiding; but his eyes were
fixed, dull, and were not looking for anyone or anything. Soon they
filled with tears. Dagger felt a deep shame at having spied on the
intimate pain of the boy. He felt like a thief, more than when he
robbed customers outside taverns to survive.
Ktisis must really be too busy for us
,
he thought.
The young guard resumed his
solitary journey through the dark. Dagger watched his shadowy
silhouette move away and finally disappear, revealing a wooden
statue at the end of the road, in a shrine surrounded by red
lights: Ktisis, the jackal god of violence and sin, creator of the
world and all the creatures condemned to walk upon it. Almighty
Ktisis would not listen to any prayer if it was not accompanied by
a bloodbath worthy of his name. In truth, now that his annual
festival,
The sacred slaughter of the
origins
, was approaching, Prefect Mawson’s
guards were just waiting for the opportunity to catch a thief like
Dagger and to sell him to the organizers of the sacrifices required
for the occasion. For that special kind of event organizers could
pay well, since the city’s clergy was never short of
money.
Dagger had
seen a
sacred slaughter
only once, when one of his companions had been
caught and sentenced to repent for his sins through pain. The old
Mama had said that it would be good for everybody to watch what
happened to those stupid enough to get caught. In fact, what Dagger
witnessed had been quite convincing. Some of the sacrificial
participants were still alive when the ceremony was over and the
audience was leaving the amphitheater. Even if he feared and
worshiped his god, as everyone else in that city, he did not want
to witness one of the sacred slaughters again. Least of all be one
of its protagonists. He did care for his
thing
. They could tear anything away
from him, but not his
thing
.
planting his feet on the hard cobblestones surface. It felt good to
get out of the icy mud and gradually regain possession of his toes.
He even managed to move them. Maybe he was not going to lose them
after all. He looked up at the sky, watching the raindrops falling
on his face, and prayed. He prayed to the dreadful, eyeless god,
the foul lord of torment and orgasm, the one who had created the
world and then, seeing the many worries to which it had condemned
mankind, decided to reward it with wine, lust and everything that
made life more bearable. He prayed. He begged Ktisis to stop being
an asshole and be helpful at least that night, just that night,
then somehow he would have paid off. Only then his god finally
seemed to listen.
A gruff voice broke the
silence, tearing his prayers. “When we close,
close
!” cried the host, the gypsy in
person. “Not stay open for one person! Fuck you home!”
alley when a guy landed on his back in the street, tearing his coat
and skin. After a brief struggle against gravity, and water that
made the ground slippery beneath his elegant loafers, he managed to
pull himself up and tried to shout something that his thick tongue
found difficult to articulate into syllables. The gypsy answered
slamming the door and turning off the light at the window. The
young customer looked at the closed door, muttering, then lolled
against the wall and managed to rest an elbow on it, before
vomiting on himself. He soon fell to his knees, sobbing for the
various pains of life and all the things that were not fine.
Dagger left him plenty of time to complain,
finding that it was the right thing to do, but when the young drunk
stood up to begin his journey home, the boy in the shadows acted in
a flash, tightening his arm around the drunk’s throat as he dragged
him into the alley, like a spider carrying an immobilized fly
inside a hole.
He pushed him to the ground, a blade
already on his neck and a hand over his mouth. It was easy to
handle drunks, he thought. That was why he always chose taverns for
his nightly routines.
“
If I were you I’d avoid
crying for help,” he said. “It’s dark. Nobody sees you die in the
dark and no one helps you in the dark. Not in this
town.”
answered in the affirmative. Dagger removed his hand from the mouth
and the boy did not scream. He merely peed on himself. He wasn’t
much older than he, judging by his size.
“
Your voice… you’re just a
kid, ain’t you?” he mumbled. “Do you feel so lonely t—?”
Legendary at least in the Spiders’ Guild. The boy spit blood and
teeth before Dagger lifted him by the collar. “Be good. Let me work
quickly and soon you’ll go home. Alive. And whole.”
The boy stretched out his arms, starting to
cry again.
Dagger cleaned him up quickly, with fast
movements refined by practice. He found six Dragoons on him, a real
fortune in those days, a sign that Ktisis had woken up somewhere up
there in Almagard, the big tavern of afterlife.
Entranced by the unmistakable touch of gold
he smiled spontaneously, but that moment of distraction cost him
dearly: his victim reached out and snatched the handkerchief from
his face, screaming madly: “A thief! A fuckin’ thief!”
Dagger cursed and clenched his hand against
the screamer’s mouth. The other one bit it, so he flicked the knife
under his eyes and that was enough to calm him down, but a light
was turned on and lit up everything. Dagger looked up. The gypsy
himself stood on the door with a lamp in his hand.
“
The color of your eyes!”
The boy on the ground noticed. “Oh, Ktisis! What color are your
eyes?”
Checkmate the
king
, Dagger thought.
Rule number one!
Screamed the voice
of old Mama in his mind.
Who sees you in
face while you work, dies!
“
Curse you Ktisis!” he
muttered again.
in the air. “Don’t kill me! P-please, don’t kill me!” he whined.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I don’t want to die here, please! I’m
afraid!”
“
Just shut up,
dammit!”
“
Wadda fuck happens there?”
the gypsy shouted from the door.
“
Shit!” Dagger
cursed.
“
Help!”
“
Man, just shut
up!”
“
Oh, de fuck I come out
there to help a stranger!” the gypsy decided, before closing the
door once again, and turning off the light.
him tremble under the knife.
“
And… now what?” the boy
gasped in fear.
what do you think happens now?” he replied. “You must die, there’s
no alternative. ‘A dead man tells no lies’ the old man always says
and he’s damn right. If I don’t kill you, there will be
consequences, we both know it. There are always consequences in
this world, especially for the ones like me. However, takin’ your
life away, I can fix all this mess. You’ll probably agree.”
“
No!”
“
Yes.”
“
I have a sister, a little
sister. Please, please, I want to see her again! She has only me in
the whole world!”
Dagger stood still, knife
clutched in his hand, the edge pressing on the throat’s skin, on
the carotid and the red life that flowed into it. Then the grin
disappeared from his face. He closed his eyes and, cursing his god
no longer, but for the day he was born, he stood up. “It’s your
lucky night,
motherfucker
,” he said. “You did say
the magic words.”
explanation, Dagger kicked at his temple. He hoped the blow was
strong enough to make him forget about a lot of things.
* * * * *
Dawn was breaking when
Dagger got back to the
ship
cemetery
. The district of Melekesh where
anyone who had something to lose, including life, was advised not
to approach. Here, there were no streets, and no alleys. The
cemetery was entirely made up of ships that had been beached and
abandoned to rot in the sun. Over the centuries, many were reduced
to wooden skeletons that didn’t seem to have ever seen better
times. Eroded by water, gnawed by rodents, dismantled for firewood
before water soaked their souls. Their groans rose into the air in
an endless dirge, weaker in summer, stronger in winter when
dampness swelled the wooden planks making them split.