Dagger - The Light at the End of the World (8 page)
Read Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Online
Authors: Walt Popester
Tags: #horror, #fantasy, #heavy metal, #dagger, #walt popester
“
Forgive me, Marduk, I’m…
completely drunk.”
“
My lord—”
“
I couldn’t defend her!”
Hammoth almost screamed. Then he added in a whisper, “The fault is
ours. Mine!”
and made the flames dance in the fireplace, waving the shadows
reflected on the walls. The Dracon joined him on the monumental
balcony, avoiding the pieces of destroyed furniture, asking no
question, making no statement, as was his style. He looked at the
horizon with him, knowing that somewhere in that huge and dark
nothing, the enemy was already reorganizing to strike.
“
His soul got back in the
sword as the blade of a knife slips in hot butter,” the Pendracon
asserted. “It’s impossible, Marduk. The sacred scriptures speak of
a booming energy, a gap opening in the fabric of the universe that
sucks everything, even time! I expected to die after trapping him
again, I was ready for it! But no, Kam Karkenos jumped in his
prison just like… like…”
a few drops of blood fell into the void. He did not finish the
sentence.
“
The bind between body and
soul was probably weak,” Marduk opined. “A mortal can’t host
a
force that has lived through all
eternity
, even if we are talking about the
body of the greatest man that ever walked upon this soiled earth.
That soul corrodes, my King. Crowley did not deserve such an
end.”
allowed to feel sorry for him,” he growled. “Pity is a form of
contempt!”
“
Excuse me, my lord. Anyway,
now we know what was the reason for Skyrgal’s short and miserable
reincarnation. Giving birth to a son in whom may flow his curse
blood.”
“
A son. Can
he
really have a
son?”
“
It looks like one of us,
just a human being,” Marduk went on. “It seems so fragile, and
helpless. I hate to think what rite Aniah suffered to generate it.
She does not want to talk about it. She hides those memories behind
her tears, but the marks on her body are obvious, even
within
, burns and cuts. I
asked Dracon Araya to examine her thoroughly; I would not accept
anyone else to touch her.
trying not to say anything and look relaxed. But the look in his
eyes spoke for itself. He was in a hurry, Hammoth, in a hurry and
afraid. I swear I saw him cry when he discovered the Spiral on the
baby’s chest.” He drew a long sigh. “That mark should not be on a
mortal. It is the symbol of the infinite; the eternal cycle of
destruction and rebirth, that regulates the flow of the great All.
It’s the symbol of the gods. He has already sent one of his most
trusted student beyond the walls of Agalloch in hopes of
discovering a little more about what happened, as well as what
expects us, but when Aniah begged him in tears, saying, ‘Kill him,
Poison lord! At least you can kill him, can’t you?’ His answer was
a gloomy silence. In that way, he confirmed that one suspect I
never wanted to become a certainty, there’s no way to kill him. He
is immortal, all like his father.”
“
Then we have to hide him!”
Hammoth ordered. “There’s nothing to talk about!”
“
The boy?”
“
That bastard!” he
specified. “Gorgors have eyes and hands even in here, you can bet
on it! We have to hide him as far as possible, where they will
never find him. if they do find him, the consequences could be
unpredictable.”
“
You speak with wisdom but
there’s no place that far. Not on this world, at least.”
“
So what should we do? Close
him in a crate and let him spend the eternity on the ocean’s floor?
So to lose control and leave him at the mercy of the currents of
fate?”
“
Angra would never allow
it,” Marduk said.
“
Was he already informed?”
Hammoth asked. Marduk nodded. “And what does he think about
us?”
“
He just bowed his face,
without answering. He looked humiliated, and
disappointed.”
trust. You can betray the trust of a god only once. We are now
impious to his eyes. No storm will ever wash away the blood on our
hands.”
A gust of wind slammed
against them, shaking their clothes and hair, before leaving them
to silence. It was the
Scream of
Skyrgal
, the strong wind that used to come
and go with suddenness, knocking men on the ground, bursting open
the windows, stripping the trees of their leaves.
“
While I was coming here I
was thinking about a possible solution,” the Dracon said. “It’s not
a good idea, but it’s still an idea, and it’s the only one I
have.”
him with firmness and fear at the same time. “Make him disappear,”
he said. “I do not want to know where. No one must ever know I just
killed twelve Guardians to protect this secret.” He let those last
words ring within his conscience, as he looked at his hands. “Yes.
I killed them. And you’ve already figured that out if you’re still
the Delta Dracon I know. This secret is worth more than our useless
lives. There are spies here at the Fortress, after what happened to
Crowley I’m sure about it. If we can’t trust all our men, we can
trust none of them. The child and his cursed blood must disappear,
nobody can know where. The salvation of all for which we have
fought depends on it.”
Marduk looked at him. “It’s a great burden
you give me.”
“
Yes. It is.”
“
And I hope to be worthy of
your trust.”
“
You’ll have to
be.”
on his shoulder and sent him away with that gesture. Marduk bowed
as a sign of obedience and strode to the door. Then, he stopped. He
turned to look at his Pendracon, overwhelmed by responsibility,
drunk, exhausted. He looked at him with compassion and felt
remorse. A Guardian, especially a Dracon, could not look that way
at their infallible, irreplaceable guide, the man from whose
decisions life and death of all depended. He could not doubt his
unquestioned integrity but, in the end, not many years had gone by
since they were both just Guardians, blood brothers, friends of a
Pendracon called Crowley Nightfall. He heard his wild laugh,
remembered the light in his amused eyes as he watched them vomit
their soul out after a night of drinking. They were just men who
played at being gods, which was the crux of the matter. Charged
with responsibility, no one could ask a man to never do the wrong
thing, to always be fit for the situation, even when he held, in
his trembling hands, the fate of the entire world.
“
Hammoth,” he said. “My
friend. What is done is dead. Now his son is in this world and we
can only hide him. If nothing else, at least now Skyrgal and the
child are in our hands and not in Gorgors.’ If they want to come
and get them, we’ll be here waiting, armed to the teeth as has
always been in our glorious history. We’ll face any attack, the
example of Crowley’s end will not be lost. Leave it to me. Leave at
least this burden on me. You’re not the only one who has killed
Guardians for the common good. I’m still the Delta Dracon you
remember.”
he answered in a way that Marduk would have never expected. He
laughed. A dark, drunken laugh. He stood up and threw a bottle
against the wall.
“
Crowley is still alive!” he
shouted. He put his head in his hands and shouted again, “Our old
Pendracon is still out there! He survived the soul of Kam Karkenos
and… and…!”
the pain of a child who saw his father become weak and unreliable
just when he most needed him. He left the room and the tower behind
him, marching fast on the bridge. He went into his tower and
climbed the stairs to the top floor.
Aniah was there, where he had left her,
sitting on a stool in front of the fireplace with the sleeping baby
in her arms. “I managed to put him to sleep,” she said as soon as
he heard him enter. “He was tired. Be quiet.”
“
You’re leaving!” Marduk
said, slamming the door. “Tonight!”
into void, chanting softly. The Dracon leaned back against the
wall, watching her in the gloom. Now that she had changed her
clothes, she had a dignified look. Her amaranth tunic of wool,
typical of the Delta, hid the best qualities of her body. The
darkness in her eyes, however, still blinded who was forced to
watch it. Especially those who, like him, had once seen those eyes
full of light, childish and happy to be alive.
Time passes and everything
changes, he thought.
And it is a huge
shit
.
“
Aniah—”
“
What fate has been given
me?” the woman asked. “Why must I feel… this pain?”
to look at him. He saw her eyes red with tears and he felt
compassion. “We cannot rewrite the past. We can only make up for
what you did,” he said. “If we can’t kill his son, we will hide
him!”
“
And where are we supposed
to hide him? He’s not safe here at the Fortress?”
when you know the answer better than I? You’ve been with Gorgors.
You know that their hand moves in here too. If what you say is
true, they are getting ready for a war they think they have already
won. So we must take him away from here!”
“
Where?”
Gorgors could set foot only once they razed the Fortress to the
ground and killed the last one of us!”
She looked aghast. “No. You can’t think of
that hell! How can you—?”
The Dracon stroked the scar on her face,
the scar with which Skyrgal had branded her as a head of cattle.
Then he looked up. Above the fireplace was framed a portrait of
Crowley, his eyes still and solemn. The pain of a memory crossed
his mind:
‘
What a fuckin’ expression
you’re making? You look like a fool!’
‘
Marduk,
I’m your new Pendracon now. We should check again our way of
speaking in public.’
‘
Ah, come on! As children
we used to poo in the same place to make a joke to the same man, I
think I have the right to—’
‘
Oh! Don’t start again with
this story!’
‘
You look like a jerk.
Besides, this painter is deaf to the bones.’
‘
Let him finish this
fucking portrait, Mar, so we can go to drink!’
‘
Hammoth’s right, I’m
getting a paresis standing like this! Skyrgal be cursed, I need a
beer…’
‘
And
where could we go? Now everyone may recognize you. A Pendracon is
not supposed to drink in public.’
‘
Let’s
saddle our Mogwarts!’
‘
You’re
crazy as fuck, your grace.’
‘
Fuck it!
I’ll be crowned ten days from now. Let’s ride on the desert for the
last time, as in the old days. I know a place that you’ll like,
near the boundary with the Tankars’ land.’
‘
Which
one?’
‘
The light
at the end of the world
! Marduk and I ran
into it five years ago, during a patrol on the damn wolf-men’s
lands. Damn, that place earned its name, but there they serve a
beer mixed with Mokai that… ah! You’ll tell me if I’m not right.
But first, let me finish this Skyrgaldamn portrait.’
what they actually looked like, he thought. He would have preferred
to see his old friend and king depicted at the time of his greatest
splendor, with his face covered with the enemy’s blood in a scream
of killing wrath. He ran his hand along his sister’s face, down to
the golden pendant she wore around her neck. Aniah never parted
with it. Inside, there was the same portrait, perhaps the only
thing left of her old life, the person she used to be. He hated
portraits. They reminded him of the time that passed and made all
things look older, grayer, sadder, miserable. He took it to put it
around the child’s neck.
“
You will leave tonight,” he
said again, looking into her eyes. “You will reach Arleb in the
world Beyond, the only Guardian who has definitively established
himself on the other side of the portal. He is a noble man, blessed
by fortune. You will give him the child. You will give him my
orders. Then, you will come back here. Arleb was a Dracon, he will
know what to do. He will watch secretly over Skyrgal’s son. This
will give us the time necessary to understand what are the enemy’s
intentions, now that Skyrgal’s soul is back in our hands. Just the
two of us know it. No Guardian, subjected to the most atrocious
torture, must ever reveal the place where this beast is kept
hidden. Time. Time is the only thing we need now, and it’s the only
thing we can’t afford to lose.”
to that series of orders. Perhaps not the words she had expected
from her brother in a similar moment.
“
That world,” she said. “You
really want to leave him there, where our ancestors used to exile
the most feared criminals in whole Candehel-mas? You, who are a
Guardian, would leave my son in—?”
