Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (15 page)
Read Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Online
Authors: Walt Popester
Tags: #horror, #fantasy, #heavy metal, #dagger, #walt popester
in his inseparable black cloak. He stopped in the doorway and
planted his full attention on Dagger. “Here you are, little brat!”
he said. “You have been more stupid than I thought,
apparently!”
“
And who the fuck is this
now?” Marduk asked, putting himself in front of Dagger.
who killed my guards, right?” he asked. “Damn, you’re good.”
Marduk shrugged. “Thank you.
It’s always good to hear you’re
good
!” he answered. “Years and years
of hard training finally make sense, though you could train your
guards a little better! Damn, they didn’t even move!”
This one likes to play dirty. Anyway, to me you looked clumsy all
the same.”
“
Leave the boy to me and
I’ll let you walk away.” Mawson said. “He’s too important for
me!”
“
Oh, really?” Marduk
replied. “You know… instead, I made my way through all this shit
just to come and see how he was getting by. Be a good boy, whoever
you are: go back into the asshole you come from. Maybe I’ll let you
go with your head still on your shoulders. If I want
to.”
“
It was you who ordered all
this, wasn’t it?” Sannah asked.
yes!”
“
But why?”
“I know everything about him. They taught me. And I know everything
about you too: Guardians of Golconda; temples in the desert; a dark
knowledge written in blood and gods exiled from their bodies. Oh
yeah, they told me many things about the wicked world you come
from. I am in the Divine’s service, I’ve always been. I am his
representative in this world.”
“
The Divine?”
“
It’s the way they call
Crowley, now,” Marduk murmured.
open. “And Crowley is still alive?”
“
I don’t think it’s the
right time for a summary, Dad.”
“
Well. After the soul of
Skyrgal had been torn from his body, his limbs were still moving,”
the prefect said. “At least, those that remained. I don’t know if
‘alive’ is the right word. For sure, now he’s not a friend of
yours.”
“
And now, as this shit on
two legs is saying, he’s here,” Marduk pointed out.
“Perfect.”
“
Oh, and not just him,”
Mawson replied. “Gorgors also set foot on this world, searching for
the boy.”
“
And how? How, if we hold
the only link between the two worlds?!”
little secret. You’ve been stupid and predictable. Your only luck
is that no one knew where the boy was, not even yourself. But now,
his divine blood is taking over the human one and Gorgors are on
his trail. The countdown for your extinction has finally
started.”
Marduk bowed his head to the side. “Nice
metaphor,” he said. “I’m impressed. Then you are not just an
ignorant, asshole, crazy bloody wanker placed halfway into the
social pyramid of this sewer, between the nobles who rule it, and
the rats that wallow in it.”
In response, Mawson pulled the sword from
under his cloak. “There are many things that you don’t know,” he
said. “And that probably you’ll never know. In the next life, try
to be more vigilant.”
Sannah yelled. Before his son could stop
him, he snapped against Mawson. The latter did not even look at him
when, with a single blow, he ripped his belly. The old man fell to
the ground with guts in his hands, drenched with his blood and
stool.
Dagger found himself
transfixed. The
smell
. He knew well the smell of a gutted man. Many spoke of blood
and guts, hands trying to get them back inside, but it was the
smell that made the difference between a man with an open belly,
and another who was dying of any other violent death. The
penetrating reek of shit.
“
Kill the bastard…” the old
man managed to spit out.
repulsed it with the sword, laughing, amused.
“
Come here. My collection
misses a Dracon.”
“
Some people collect just
about anything,” replied the Dracon. Then every shade of mockery
was gone from his face. He gripped his sword with the right hand, a
dagger with the left one, and faced his opponent. The two began to
walk around the room, staring at each other, both waiting for the
other one to expose himself first.
“
You know, it is an honor to
duel with the great Marduk. The Divine told me a lot about you and
your legendary humor. Always present, even in the most difficult
times.”
“
Yeah, like when you’re
forced to deal with the great… sorry, what’s your name
again?”
Mawson turned his back to Dagger. The boy knew that Marduk had
calculated that too. He reached for a long shard of glass, praying
Ktisis not to fail him once again. He waited for the right moment,
then snapped.
The prefect dodged him nimbly, laughing at
his innocence as he pushed him to the ground with a kick on the
back. But the trap had worked perfectly, looking down, the prefect
saw that Sannah was not dead as he thought.
The old man tightened his arm around
Mawson’s ankles and cleanly severed his tendons, causing him to
ruin on the floor. Then he crucified him, pinning his hands with
his knives. The ecstasy was so strong that he completely ignored
even the guts that hang out of his belly, as they drew abstract red
figures on the black waistcoat of the prefect.
“
This is for Arleb and his
children!” he growled , before falling to the ground.
planted his knee on the chest of Mawson, crucified to the ground.
He brought the shard of glass to his throat, his heart pounding
fierce in the middle of his thorax as he watched the prefect trying
to escape.
Terrified.
“
I don’t want to die,”
Mawson said. “I cannot! Who will take care of him?”
“
I am Dagger. When you get
to hell, tell Seeth it was me who sent you.” And the boy cut. He
tore the prefect’s throat and blood spurted on his face in a warm
gush. He looked into his eyes as he died. He thought of something
important to say, an epic phrase. But time had already run out.
Mawson could no longer hear him, because Mawson was
dead.
Funny
. He had thought that he would have wasted all his life to
carry out his revenge. Instead, it had been far too easy. It had
not been worth all that pain.
Revenge
sucks
.
his arms. The crazy old man was still alive.
“
It’s just in your style to
be run after all this time and die only once I find you again,”
Marduk growled. “Damn you, Dad!”
watching him covered in blood from head to toe. “You’ve had your
revenge, huh?” he whispered. “It’s not worth living a single day,
for revenge, huh?”
Marduk hugged his father, hiding his face.
He would not be observed in that moment. “Why?” he whispered.
“Why?”
In a last surge of fatherly strength,
Sannah tried to hit the son with a punch, but only managed to touch
him. “Shit, Marduk! Get it over with the whys!” he murmured, with
less and less strength. “Ask yourself who, instead!”
Marduk raised his face. “Who?”
Sannah laughed. “Who is
betraying the Guardians, since the beginning?” he said. “There’s a
hole as big… as big as an abyss in your…
our
fucking Fortress. Who?” Sannah
rolled on his side, panting. He stretched out his arm to indicate
the shattered glass. “Go!” he said. “And when we meet in Almagard,
you’ll tell me who! I’m… curious!” He chuckled softly, then reached
out for one of his knives and pressed it against his chest. His
eyes watered from the agony. “But first…”
“First tell Dagger what a fucking monster he is!”
The old man closed his eyes and died.
Marduk lowered his face. Dagger felt nothing. He had never been
bound to the old man if not from simple necessity. He was his roof,
his food, his protection from the rest of the world. A sadistic
bastard who never missed the opportunity to vent his violence
against them. He spat on the ground and turned to the flames, now
licking the threshold of the guild. They were gaining strength.
Every escape was blocked, except for one.
“
You know these channels,”
Marduk said, still bent over the body of his father. “You’re the
only one who can lead us to safety. Do it, and I promise I will
give you all the answers you need. If we’re lucky, we’ll be home
soon.”
“
What home?” he
asked.
“Golconda. The place where we all belong. Perhaps you too!”
* * * * *
5 . Shadows of a moonless
night
and sticky water, Dagger distinctly felt the pungent stink of
blood. The fitful light of fire made the lifeless faces of his old
companions emerge from the dark. Eyes wide open; half-closed
mouths; faces torn by the impact against the wood spikes. Not all
of them had been killed immediately, since many had found all the
time to take their hands to the sharp sting sticking out of the
abdomen, or chest, trying to break free from cold grasp of death.
It seemed that with the older ones Mawson’s guards had had fun a
little longer.
Even Marduk was watching them with an
expression of disgust and pity on his face. “Look at that one, for
Ktisis sake! They took his…”
“
I’ve seen,” the boy cut him
off.
“
Let’s go, dammit! With what
kind of monsters did we populate this world?”
hell.
Fire was getting stronger, now that the
wind was solemnly announcing the coming of a storm. Most of the
guards were already back on the mainland, but a few still lingered
among the wrecks to complete their methodical work of death. Their
wild cries occasionally crept in the subdued whispers of the
flames, among the barking of dogs and the approaching
thunders.
They stopped just in time to avoid being
caught by five guards, intent to administer justice to an old man.
They had thrown him into the quicksand after having chopped off his
hands and feet. Now they were enjoying his pathetic attempts to
stay afloat, as the blood mingled with mud all around his body,
fully tattooed with figures of pagan gods.
“
Where are your gods now
that you need’em,
eh
? Invoke Ktisis, mot’fucker! He alone can save
you!”
of the man’s fear of death. Then the quicksand reached up to his
chest, refusing to claim the rest of the body. The old man stood
half among the living, half already swallowed by the kingdom of the
dead. Agonizing, he looked into their eyes without saying a word.
Beyond the wall of intoxication, the guards didn’t find it funny
anymore. Using a stick, they pushed him down, away from what
remained of their humanity.
Dagger and Marduk went back on their way.
They passed an endless series of wrecks, dodging innards, bumping
with their feet the severed limbs and broken heads that guards had
thrown into the sea. Then they found themselves surrounded by a
surreal silence, broken only by the agonizing cries of a prey that
had been smoked out. Swimming along one of the canals, that now
were broader and deeper, they finally reached the northern edge of
the neighborhood, where a cliff marked the gross water basin of the
cemetery. They clung to the rocks, pulling themselves onto a dry
surface to observe the sad show. Fire was spreading faster and
faster. Only now, the last guards were retreating to the mainland,
pouring pitch as snails do with their slobbering trawl. The
youngest and most inexperienced among them was trapped by the fire.
Their companions were not striving to save them; they laughed
heartily as they watch them burn alive. They were drugged. All of
them. He could tell by the sound of their laughter, he saw it in
their eyes.
He turned away, exhausted by that overdose
of death, but it seemed that problems had only just begun— a few
feet away the sea was giving its worst to himself, giving birth to
waves so high that they jumped over the cliff and washed away the
blood and mud from their faces. The guards were still stationed on
the bank, to make sure no one came out of there alive.
“
There is no way to escape,”
Dagger concluded. “Neither by sea nor land.”
fighting!”
The boy was about to answer, when he
noticed two small red lights against the dark wreckage they had
just left behind. He saw them disappear and reappear several times,
and realized they were two eyes. In addition to those, others soon
appeared.
“
What the Ktisis are those?”
he asked.
“
Problems,” Marduk replied
without looking, as if he had noticed them some time ago. “Problems
bigger than all the guards of this Ktisisdamn town. Mawson was
right, Gorgors have come to this world and they are looking for
you.”
thought, for a moment, that those eyes were returning their gaze to
him.