Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (20 page)
Read Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Online
Authors: Walt Popester
Tags: #horror, #fantasy, #heavy metal, #dagger, #walt popester
the Guardians breaking their fast. They had split open most of the
boxes in the hold, emptying them, and now they were eating with the
enthusiasm of those who did not know when they could do it again.
Dagger had never seen all that food, all together, so close at
hand. At least, not without the danger of being sprinkled with
honey and fed to the ants if caught in the act. When he was hit by
the smell of bacon, his stomach growled in acknowledgment.
Sitting in a corner, Olem was eating in
company of his men. He was still wearing his armor, as if he had
gone to sleep like that. Everyone laughed at his jokes but he did
not laugh at the jokes of anyone. He was conscious of being a
leader and, in the eyes of the others, he read only respect and
fear. Just looking at him, Dagger risked to lose his appetite.
Moak sat in front of the light in the
company of a girl, no more than thirteen. “I heard you scream this
night,” the Guardian said, watching him approach while pouring some
yellowish and fat liquid in a cup, to which Dagger preferred three
large slices of bacon.
“
Veally?” he asked with full
mouth. “I gueff you were guavding the door.”
“
Of course I was. What were
you dreaming about? It would be interesting for my
studies.”
don’t remember.”
Moak stared at him, before winking at the
girl. “She is Kugar. Kugar, this is Dagger, the boy I told you
about some time ago.”
But the girl continued to stare at the
ground, quietly sipping the liquid in the cup as if she were far
away from there.
“
Kugar?”
“
I’m not here,” she
said.
“
What?”
“
I’m not even supposed to be
here.”
“
Girl, the pact was
different.”
pacts, with anyone.” Her voice was rather deep for a girl her age,
in stark contrast to the fine appearance, the long raven-black
hair, the fair skin adorned with small scars. In addition to two
eyes so blue that no sea had ever seen.
“
Uhm
, you’re wrong here,” Moak replied, calmly. “Maybe I just have
to leave you alone. He is not one of them, he deserves a chance,
but it will be hard for him to decide which side to take if he
doesn’t even know where he comes from. Do just like I told you and
explain to him what he should know.”
“
I’ll try,
lizard
Guardian. I’ll
try.”
Olem, from a distance, saw him. “Come with
us, lizard!” he yelled through the hold. “We were talking about the
mothers of you Guardians of the Poison, about how they give birth
on the fly between a murder and the other.”
Everybody laughed at his wild burst of
laughter but, when he stopped laughing, everyone stopped laughing
with him.
“
He’ll never grow up,” Moak
snorted before going to him.
to ignore him even now that the Guardian had left them alone. For
his part, he did not have much to say to that girl who pretended to
have a lived-in appearance, but who probably had never risked
ending crucified to please the gods. He looked down at the big
tray, filled with bacon, and only after he had filled every usable
space in his mouth he looked up.
Kugar was now peering through the purple
light, with her cold stare. “It’s impossible to hide anything from
Moak. I wouldn’t keep secrets from him, if I were you. He smells
bullshit even from miles away.”
“
Really, this is nothing new
to me.”
“
He’s a Guardian of the
Poison, he’s my master. He has read and studied too much to be
teased by a piece of shit like you.”
will never be as good as Sannah,” he replied, starting back to eat.
“The old man could understand what you were hiding, why were you
hiding it and what you were afraid he would do you once he
discovered you.”
Kugar grinned. “Sannah was
not a Guardian whatsoever. He was Dracon of the Delta, at least
before he lost his mind and fled from our world. The Deltas are the
elected body of the Guardians, the only people Hammoth would ever
give the task to bring you back to the Fortress. Many Guardians
have died fighting Gorgors in Melekesh, while you were dead and
quiet on Marduk’s shoulders. Don’t you feel honored, and a little
guilty,
you
who
are alone?”
commit yourself a little more if you think you can hurt me with so
little.”
“
Challenge
accepted.”
“
Why do I piss you off? You
don’t even know me!”
“
Oh, me and Moak know about
you more than what you think you know,” she resumed. “On
Candehel-mas you are a sort of—”
“
Legend?”
“
Oh, no. A sort of story,
the kind that are told to children to scare them, ‘if you’re not a
good boy the black man will come and rape your mother.’ Stuff like
that.”
shock. “You’re really nice. If we were at the guild, I’d have
already killed you.”
“
You’ve never killed anyone.
The look in the eyes of someone who has killed someone is
different. It’s a look without light. It must be the little trick
you used to retain a glimmer of humanity in spite of what you did
to survive. At least you thought, since there’s nothing human in
you. In fact, you’re not even human.”
“
You’re quick to understand
people, huh?”
“
I do my best.”
“
So what am I supposed to
be?”
“
An abomination,” she
continued, naturally. “Just talking to you makes me shudder. You
are the summary of what there is most vile and obscene in our
world. The son of Skyrgal for many. Just the living container of
his blood for others. The negation of everything we believe in and
the result of a betrayal; the betrayal of a woman against her god
and her blood brothers, against their values, even against herself
and her being a mother. Even she has disowned you, kicking you out
of her life.” She sipped from the cup. “
Uhm
, delightful, this
Mokai.”
“
If you don’t stop trying to
hurt me with that bitch talking, I’ll go and tell Moak that you’re
nasty,” Dagger replied.
irony. She did not know that Dagger had always hidden all his pain
behind that.
“
Sure I’m not your enemy,”
he resumed. “And you don’t need to be Moak to understand that even
you carry your enemy inside yourself. Yes. You’re not the only one
quick to understand people. You could say I used to do it for work.
You have been abandoned, more than once, and most of those words
were about yourself. Poor, poor
blacks
curls
.”
of a bitch,” she whispered after a while.
“
Tell me about that bitch.
Who was my mother?”
and threw her to the ground, with one hand on the throat and the
shining blade against her white, beautiful face, treating her not
differently from any client out of the tavern of the gypsy.
“
What you say? Now that I
know I’m a monster, I may begin to kill someone,” he told her
face-to-face. Everybody were looking at them now, even Olem, yet no
one wanted to intervene. “Why did my mother betray you? Why did she
accept the son of Skyrgal in her womb?”
“
How should I know? Perhaps
she wanted to experience the thrill of getting fucked by a god?”
The fist arrived on time and Kugar took it in plain face, but when
she turned again she was still grinning. “Your mother was not in
love with the god, you stupid!”
“
I’m sorry. I… I didn’t mean
to hit you.”
“…
but with the man in whom
Skyrgal had reincarnated. Happy little family, right? He, she… and
the god that penetrated both, although in different
ways.”
Divine?”
Kugar just nodded and Dagger let her
go.
“
Once, his name was Crowley
Nightfall” she said, sitting down again. “Once he was our Pendracon
and won a war that everyone thought lost. He was captured by
Gorgors and led to Adramelech, their ancient metropolis, where they
stacked the soul of Skyrgal inside his body,” she paused. “Well,
excuse me for the brutality. When Skyrgal came back to your mother
hidden in that body, you can easily imagine what
happened.”
“
She thought that Crowley
was still alive,” Dagger deduced in a whisper. “And she has
followed him, only to find herself prisoner of Skyrgal!”
Kugar nodded. “Karkenos used
her to pursue his sole purpose,” she continued. “The only goal he
had set for the short time he was allowed to spend as a mortal: to
find a way to regenerate his blood, the one he needs to return in
his
true
body.
You
.”
was no longer listening. “Mom,” he whispered.
“
Yeah. Bitch must have had a
bad quarter of an hour when the illusion fell, as she watched the
body of the man she loved falling apart day after day.”
“
After realizing she had
only been exploited, Aniah managed to escape from the desert where
she was held prisoner, bringing you with her to steal you from
Gorgors hands, and hand you over to the Guardians.”
“
To hide me?”
“
Oh, no. To kill you,” she
specified. “That was her initial intention. She hoped that Araya,
the Dracon of the Poison, knew a way to do it, so to rectify her
mistake. She must have really loved you. Too bad you can’t die, as
Marduk effectively showed you. And bringing you to the Fortress she
has only doomed us to hide you forever.”
“
I’ve known her,” Kugar
resumed. “I was there when, reduced to little more than a human
larva, she revealed the place where you were hidden. Only after
that, she abandoned herself to the last relief. Hers is a sad
story, a story of loneliness. I cried when she left, cursing her at
the same time.”
“
You already know the rest
of the story: you’ve been missing for all this time and, for us,
it’s been like having a poisonous spider hidden under the
bedsheets, ready to bite any time, anywhere. We’ve searched for you
far and wide and like us, it seems, even the damn
shadows.”
“
But how did the Gorgor know
I was in Melekesh, in this world? And how did they set foot
here?”
“
What do you
think?”
“
I think in your goddamn
Fortress there’s a hole in the fence where a lot of big fishes come
through. That’s why my mother did not tell you where she hid me
until it was unavoidable. She did not trust anyone, not even
you.”
“
What a fine intellect.
Well. Now you understand.”
“
Yes, now I understand what
the ‘situation at the Fortress’ is. To get me back there will just
be crazy, Olem is right.”
Kugar shrugged. “Olem is
always right. When he is wrong, he does not speak, but sooner or
later he will understand too there’s no other choice. My teacher
just wanted you to know who you are once and for all. Now you know
you can only trust yourself. No one really cares about you, your
company is just a necessary evil. We don’t even know how you
really
work
.”
“
I am a person, not a
thing!”
that?”
The flow of words stopped there.
They sat in front of the
light, speaking no longer. Dagger stealthily looked at Olem, intent
to charge his ivory pipe with tobacco as he sat next to Moak. They
had been watching them all that time, he was sure. They seemed
somehow
curious
about what would happen between the two of them.
everyone from his thoughts. One of the sailors got down from the
deck, a big man, tall and mighty. He approached Moak and whispered
something in his ear. After that, the Guardian raised his face to
look at him in amazement. There was concern in his eyes. He
immediately followed him on the deck, closing the door behind.
Kugar kept on staring at the purple balls
of light, while Olem stopped loading the tobacco into his pipe.
Their eyes met for a moment, then Dagger moved his attention back
to the door and Olem began to reload his pipe, dark in face.
The door was opened once again. This time
it was Moak who hurried down the stairs, trying not to look
nervous. He approached Olem and spoke into his ear. Dagger saw the
expression on the Dracon’s face become more and more serious, as
the ever-present grin disappeared from his face. He lit his pipe
between his lips and followed Moak above.
“
It’s something serious,”
Kugar deduced. “If Olem stood up while he was smoking, it’s
something terribly serious.”
happened when Kugar, tired of waiting, decided to climb the stairs
and get out on the bridge. Dagger followed her. Outside, the two
Guardians and the sailors were staring at at a black point on the
horizon, like of a distant ship. It was still difficult to
distinguish its shape and size but, judging from the expression on
the face of Moak, he realized that something wicked was on the
way.