* * * * *
2. Sleepless nights
The wind’s howl woke him up at night. Impetuous and icy, it slammed the shutters against the wall and reinvigorated the dying embers in the fireplace. Then it decreased, as suddenly it had arisen. Dagger ran across the room and punched the wall, injuring his knuckles and making them bleed. Then the fog of sleep thinned out, allowing him to take a step outside of the twilight zone, the middle-earth between consciousness and unconsciousness.
What did I dream? He remembered little: men, or what was left of them, marching toward Agalloch walls and covered with filth and insults by the crowd. He had seen Araya as a child. He had felt wrath and remorse in a god’s shout, as if he was living all of it in first person.
He looked around, feeling observed and not only by Crowley’s eye. The world outside the window lay tinged with gold and blood by the two moons. In the dead of night, the city at his feet was living again. There were shadows in the streets, women leaning out of the mouth or the eye of a monstrous stone face, flickering fires and songs in the taverns.
He wrapped himself in a woolen cloak and went down the stairs. There was nobody at the bottom, but he didn’t rest his heels on the floor until he reached the door out of which the Dracon Delta had come. He found himself at the beginning of a corridor, with a ceiling far beyond sight. In front of him he saw many doors in succession, but only the one at the end caught his attention. Its huge knockers were stuck in the mouth of two snarling Mastodons, and it was flanked by the statues of two Delta Guardians, three times the normal size. They pointed their index fingers at the silvery letters shining in their own light above them, in the dark, reciting, What is done is dead.
He followed that warning in the half-darkness, until he opened the door.
“Holy shit!” He entered the impressive circular hall that was beyond. An order of blue granite columns supported the marmoreal gallery running all around, dominated by a paneled dome with a large oculus at the center. Through this it was possible to observe the multicolored stars of a crowded night sky, so bright that Dagger could appreciate the figures of the rich mosaic crowning the place. Gold-and-blood tiled, old and crumbling in its decadent magnificence, it depicted a headless Angra and a one-armed Skyrgal fighting on top of Golconda—the same mountain where, a little farther on, the Fortress was built, though the blank spaces made it already seem in ruin. Following the cycle, he saw the god of Creation grasp Skyrgal by the tongue and pierce his chest with a sword, disappearing together with most of the flames his brother was spitting on his face. Not far away, Angra planted its blade into the ground, then pulled out a piece of metal and gave it to the Guardians—some headless, others erased from the waist down. It wasn’t long before shadowy armies lined up against Agalloch walls, the tiles of which had partially fallen down as a presage of defeat. Then wars, wars and more wars, until the mosaic had been destroyed. Not by the slow and merciless hand of time—there were still visible signs of the chisels that had demolished it.
Some injuries are forever, he thought.
Aside from those, the beauty and symmetry of the hall was perceptible even in the half-light. The relation between its proportions would have allowed it to hold a perfect sphere inside, whereas the only item of furniture was the pentagonal table positioned right below the oculus, with high-backed thrones placed on four of its five sides. Mirroring these, five doors led to the five towers of the Fortress, marked by the silver sword on a purple background; the red hammer on black; the ocher dagger on amaranth and the crimson-red vial on green. The fifth door, opposite to the table-side where no one would sit, was devoid of ornaments and battered by termites. It looked like a closed mouth and the mosaic had been destroyed just above it.
Approaching it, the boy noticed that one of the thrones—Olem’s, judging by the symbol on its back—had a profound rift with well-defined margins, as if caused by the slash of a sword. He slid his finger along the edges of that umpteenth wound in the Fortress, wondering why the throne had not been replaced, until the tip of his index finger met a metal object. A coin. He took it and observed it: it seemed old. On one side there was a road, which shrank to the horizon. On the other, the profile of a man erased by time. Aeternus was written all around, Builder of the Main Road.
A part of me should say this proves nothing, he thought. He looked up at the mosaic again, feeling like someone was spying on him hidden behind the eyes of the shadows, the Guardians and the gods portrayed.
He rolled the coin over his fingers in an elegant sleight of hand, advancing toward the largest door. He pushed it forward and was nearly knocked down by the wind, which stopped him on the threshold. A long porch stretched in front of the entrance to the Fortress. It was made up of two rows of high red porphyry columns, carved to depict the Pendracons of the Guardians, as he could see from the titles engraved at their bases. It seemed the wind gave them voice, making them shout and cry.
He pulled his cloak over his face and walked toward the dim lights at the end. He descended a short flight of steps and entered the belly of Golconda, finding himself in a glade of surreal beauty. From numerous cracks in the rock vault flowed high waterfalls that became lakes and streams, making their way across several clumps of trees: tall pines, larches and willows; peach trees, white birches and oaks.
He wandered for an indefinite time, sometimes walking barefoot on the emerald green grass covered with dew, sometimes through the trees. Multicolored birds drew near, curious, hopping on the branches. Balls of ensiferum were scattered everywhere, like shining fruit fallen from the trees. They tinged with purple the trees and the streams, down to the meadows and…
The tombs?
In the last part, the trail advanced in a vast expanse of tombstones, ending in the jaws of a gate dug into the rock face. Beyond its thick bars of wrought iron shone a red and fluctuating light. He was sure it originated from the portal between the two worlds, that boundary he was no longer allowed to cross.
He watched dozens of Messhuggahs as they carried traps and nails as long as a man’s arm, barrels and blades of various shapes and sizes, glass bottles filled with brightly colored powders and liquids. Giant felines helped them in the task. Apart from them, there was not a soul around.
A large and seemingly fragile wooden wall had been erected around the portal. On this side, the Poison Guardians had dug hundreds of holes in close proximity to each other, sprinkling colored powders everywhere in orange, emerald green, purple, and yellow clouds.
He walked among the tombstones, which were flanked or topped by sculptures of a crying Angra, crying women, and crying children. Among them were swords, hammers and knives, ready for use or sheathed to testify the more or less peaceful nature of those who, in that place, had been returned to eternal silence. Some tombstones were so old that anything they pictured, and any date that had been engraved on them, had been claimed by time. Others had been partly swallowed by the trunk of a tree, but none had fallen.
Even dead, Guardians never fall.
In the heart of the cemetery, he found a narrow cobbled courtyard with a well in the middle, surrounded by four crypts. He read the names engraved on the architrave: Korpiklan, Belhaven, Quandary and, at last, Nightfall. He looked up: an impressive and proud Angra held his stone claws planted in the arch rising above the entrance of his family crypt. The statues of two Guardians kept watch with him, placed at the sides of the threshold: one with his face bent down to hide his pain, the other with a proud look turned to the far east. This one seemed to offer a ball of ensiferum to the visitor.
Dagger noticed that the door frame, around the bas-reliefs depicting bloody battle scenes, was made up of a familiar green and porous metal. Instinctively, he put his hand on it. Sudden sparks of vivid electricity walked its entire surface, reaching the letters of the surname that had adopted him: Nightfall shone in the night and the mayem door opened, exhaling a pungent smell of death.
Someone wants me to set foot in here, he thought.
A thick layer of moss covered the ceiling, hanging over his head in green, slimy tongues. Awakened by his steps, mice took refuge in the darkest corners. Everywhere, epitaphs:
Adrian Nightfall, 3666 - 3612
Some blackened pride still burns inside this shell of bloody treason
Dave Nightfall, 3636 - 3612
I will never know the reason why I had to go
Janick Nightfall, 3613 - 3612
See who’s ruling all our lives, see who’s pulling strings
Be quick or be dead
In front of him, as well as under his feet, there were Nightfall of all ages and genders.
Funny. On this world years are counted in reverse. I wonder what the year zero will coincide to?
He noticed another unusual particular in those inscriptions: almost all members of the family had died in the same year, 3612, while no one had died later.
At the end of the crypt, he faced Crowley once again, this time skillfully sculpted in the precious mayem. The awfulness in his eyes, the lips about to open to reveal his truth to the world, were rendered with extreme realism.
There was a silver plaque under the half-bust. Approaching, he read:
Dracon Araya
To his Pendracon and brother Crowley Nightfall.
Yet another friend the desert took away.
He put his hand on the cold face and, as expected, this seemed to take life. Lips parted as if to speak. Then the bust moved backward to reveal a long staircase sinking into the ground.
Dag went down in the dark, listening to the water dripping everywhere around him, through the green veins on the ceiling as well as through the thick layer of vegetation on the walls that hid the underlying stone. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he found himself in a room so wide that the ensiferum light could not illuminate the entire space. He slowly advanced until, turning around, he saw that the way out was far behind him in the infinite darkness. He walked until a wall appeared. Only then did he notice a whitish figure sitting on the floor with legs crossed.
“Who are you?” he asked, receiving no response.
Again, he looked for the dagger at his side, but as he neared the being, Dag realized he was talking to a dead body: its eyes, dehydrated yet still inside the eye sockets, were fixed on him. They looked recessed in the layer of mummified skin covering almost the whole face. Its hands were folded on its chest, the hollow belly filled with withered flowers. Above its head was a large bas-relief that depicted a roaring lioness retreating under the blows of four hunters armed with spears. A fifth hunter ran away with a bundle in his arms. When Dagger recognized a growling cub in the hunter’s arms, he had no more doubts about who was in front of him.
“Mom,” he whispered, falling to his knees to hug her. “Mom.”
He laid his head on Aniah’s skeletal legs, letting his tears flow now that nobody could see him but his mother. His weight weakened the decaying bonds that held her remains together, so a hand fell down on Dag’s head—for a moment, it seemed to caress him.
Dag’s lips, pressed against the dried flowers, spoke again that first word that fate had not allowed him to say. “Mom…”
He raised his eyes, afraid but longing to see her face. There was no peace in her last expression; instead, he saw torment, agony, and terror. Above her head, he noticed there were words engraved at the bottom of the bas-relief. They read:
Be
human
Somewhere in the darkness, a sinister laughter echoed.
He turned around, tears still in his eyes. Every single noise, near or far, seemed to reveal the movement of an approaching hand. The threat of the darkness intensified, and Dag’s instincts led his fingers back to the ghost blade.
“Who are you?” he asked, but silence didn’t answer.
Dagger closed his eyes and ran across the hypogeum, through the never-ending darkness and then up the stairs. With his heart in his throat, he frantically hit the metal face of Crowley, begging him to close the passage. He walked backward to regain the Glade and closed the crypt’s door with the mere touch of his hand.
Nightfall shone as he tumbled to the ground, exhausted.
The sudden roar of thunder boomed in the distance. Dag looked at the menacing wall of fir trees behind him, with the white stripes of the falls above them. They looked like the bars of a spectral prison before the shape of the Fortress, black against the starry sky. He walked toward the source of the roar just as it sounded again—now it sounded like a bark. He reached a stretch of water where a huge weeping willow stood alone on the shore. An island filled the middle of the river. On it stood a colossal structure made of wood and stone, with a sloping roof washed by a small waterfall.
The voice of the beast exploded again. “Go gentle, for Ktisis sake!” Whatever was roaring was inside the structure on the island.
Dag crossed one of the wooden bridges that connected one bank to the island, stealthily approaching the huge half-open door of the building. Peering inside, he admired the huge, violet body of a beast that had one of its purple, pink, and pearly feathered wings covered with water and soap. From time to time, a brush held by a Guardian dressed in red appeared in his field of vision. He tried to push the door a little forward to get a better look.
Don’t creak, don’t dare to creak! When he saw the monumental head of a wolf, he realized he was facing the one who had saved him on the other side of the portal. A large scar disfigured the right profile of Angra. It affected his eye, which on that side was white, unlike the left one of a deep purple. It looked like the result of a severe burn and Dag recalled the mosaic in the Council Hall, where Skyrgal spat fire against the face of his divine brother.
“If you fuck like you brush,” the god growled again, “I begin to understand why your girlfriend’s always limping!”
The Guardian in red, a Messhuggah, laughed and started to rub more gently. Amused, the boy noticed the look of pleasure taken on by the force who had lived through all eternity, while the brush massaged him behind the ear.
“Mmhhh. Yeah. Like this.”
It reminded him of a dog that he and Seeth had adopted when they were still children—a dog that Sannah had literally torn to pieces before their eyes, on the morning they had gotten back to the guild without a Dragoon.
No matter, he remembered. That dog always barked at me.
Somewhere, out of his narrow field of vision, Dagger heard a door creak and a few steps that sounded like a man slowly coming down the stairs. The Guardian in red stopped brushing, bowed, and left in haste.
“Hey Olem, where are you going with that sword in your hand?” Angra asked. “People run at the sight of you—you must be more intractable than usual these days.”
“When you see Araya, tell him I’m sorry,” the Sword Dracon replied, from a place where Dagger couldn’t see him. “I didn’t want to beat to a bloody pulp one of his men. Or lizards. Or what. That jerk just found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Surely in front of the wrong man. There are other ways to relax than dismantling the face of a poor Messhuggah, and other places to take shelter. Not in my kennel!” The force got out of the titanic basin and shook out his hair. He scratched at the floor to remove the soap under his nails. “Go on like this, and they will make a beautiful statue of you too in that damn porch. Cold, almost as much as the empty side of your bed.”
“Do you enjoy tormenting me?”
“Definitely.” Angra’s face descended on him. “Have you realized that all the glory and the juicier fruits of ambition aren’t worth a single, fleeting moment spent in the arms of those we love? Have you finally understood my message, the message of the god of Creation? No…because for people like you there’s no hope. For those like you, everyth
ing is always in balance on the edge of a blade.”
“Stop it.”
“You penetrated her belly, like you did so many other times, just in a slightly different way. Then you left there. Alone.”
“No!” It sounded like a cry of pain. “No,” Olem repeated, struggling to sound unperturbed. “I went back there with my Faithful Twelve. I cleaned the entire room of everything but the memories, and then I took her away. Now she rests under your weeping willow, where I could never bring her.”
Angra shook his huge head. “I can’t believe you really killed her.”
“I would never leave her in the hands of the Hammer Guardians.”
“You’re lying to yourself, not to me. She betrayed you. She was not at your command as everyone should always be. That’s why you killed her: to put some kind of order back into your world—a sterile and neat order that tastes of death more and more. And now you’re so tired you can’t sleep.”
Olem didn’t answer.
“Remorse is cooking you over a slow fire,” the god kept on. “A nice Dracon roast. Just what we need again. Dammit…did you talk to the lizard?”
“He asked me questions and I gave him answers, the kind of answers Araya likes—that my nightmares are dead and gone and at night I sleep like a baby. Yes, he asked me questions. And I told him a bunch of lies.”
“He plays a song for everyone in situations like these.”
“What he may play for me would not help—no, not at all, and the tower of the Sword is certainly the least likely place to find refuge from my thoughts. The portraits of my predecessors; the information from the borders; all those idiots asking for consultations because their wives have been taken by the Black Guardians or they are torturing their children and all that fucking shit! I preferred to spend some time alone in the sacred forest. It was here I used to hide from Crowley when I was a kid, remember? And do you remember when you defended me from him?”
Dagger 2 - Blood Brothers - A Dark Fantasy Adventure (Born to Be Free series) Page 4
