The two Kahars burst out laughing. Nehorur knocked him to the ground. “Well, that’s what I call a sign of destiny. Go on. You know your place in the world.”
The shit boy knew he couldn’t oppose the macabre joke. He grabbed his rag and moved a step, but the chain around his neck was pulled and he ended down once again.
The Asmeghin rested a heavy foot on his chest. “Be careful. One unforeseen movement and I’ll stick this blade in your ass. All of it.”
The young Tankar got up on his three unwounded legs and crawled toward the middle of the tent. He raised his eyes to Skalmold and brought them down again, in awe. The Shaman’s white eyes, as old as the world, were still staring into that impenetrable emptiness, his nails driven into the wood, his arms rigid, all his muscles still contracted after hours by the energy which had seized them in the beginning.
The more Bai drew near, the more the mole of the old Shaman grew imposing above him. Bai watched him out of the corner of his eye, as if he was expecting the old man to spring forward and attack him.
Before the revelation, the shit boy thought. The fall from grace. He doesn’t know. He cannot know. That day his thoughts seemed to have a new voice. As he rubbed and rubbed, Bai heard them take a course of their own. What was to be forgotten has flowed into folly. The repressed desire. A denied happiness. The shit boy began to suspect those thoughts were not his own.
That’s when he saw them again: the white appendages on Skalmold and the litter bearers, on their eyes and lips. The appendages slithered on the throne and floor. Soon they were on his own body, climbing his legs.
“No!”
A river of words poured on him with all its violence, Don’t fear the putrid, my boy! Don’t fear the untouchable side of existence!
“No!” Bai tried to break free from the tiny tentacles, but they made their way along his belly and his chest, fondling his neck. They were not grasping him. It was a benevolent movement, a caress.
He calmed down and listened to the rest, Stop looking at that damn light and surrender to the dark. There’s no time to lose. While everyone sleeps, he is back.
“He?”
Skyrgal. Skyrgal has been resurrected and there’s no more time for us.
Bai fell on his back and pulled back. He looked behind, but the two Kahars were lifeless. He turned to Skalmold again. The old Shaman was still staring into space.
Are you blocking them? The boy looked down to the bucket. It was tilting to the side in an unlikely balance. He had hit it with his foot and now the dirty water was about to pour on the floor. Only, the water didn’t pour on the floor—it was undulated and still like a crystal sculpture.
You’re like that too, my boy. Dirty and still, waiting for what’s to come, the voice said. The spark from which everything comes is the filthiest thing you could imagine. But it’s necessary. Chaos is necessary. Evil is good, because wherever there’s life there’s the fertile stench of hate, of war and the massacres done in the name of nonexistent gods. Life stinks in every possible way, so love what you do. Love life’s stink and nobody will ever be like you.
Slowly, and not without fear, the shit boy looked up at the old Shaman. Now Skalmold was staring at him. He had moved his cold, terrifying eyes in the motionless, cold world.
Baikal. Listen to me. There’s not much time left.
The shit boy moved yet another step back. “My…that name is forbidden!”
You can’t hide from the shadows inside you. That’s one thing you two have in common, yet you still don’t know, and he isn’t even born.
“Who are you talking about, now?”
Follow your heart and nothing else. You can do it, if you try. Be the stench that makes them turn their noses for the last time. Be the putrescence that awakens them from a peaceful sleep. Be something you love and understand. Be free. Be free.
Bai shook his head. What are you…
I saw. They brought back Skyrgal inside the body of Crowley Nightfall, and he got in the oven something way more dangerous and powerful. This is what you have in common. Yet, no, you still don’t know. And he isn’t even born. The silence in his mind became one immeasurable void. It’s not over, Bai. It never is. Take a look around and you’ll find everything you need. Do it now because there’s no more time. In the violated womb of a woman, the end of the world is already growing. A smile appeared on the old man’s face. Every sky clears in an instant, my boy. Even your own.
“Venerable Skalmold, I—”
The bucket fell to the floor, and all the dirty water with it.
Rogoh shouted, “Who the fuck are you talking to, shit boy?!”
Baikal picked up the bucket and turned around, instinctively rubbing the floor with his hands. The Faithful of Nehorur came forward.
“I—” His timid opposition was broken by a slap. Bai tried to stand up, but he slid in the sludge. “He was talking,” he said in little more than a whisper. “Don’t you understand? He was…ARGH!”
The Faithful crushed his wounded hand making it bleed again; then a kick in his belly, a jab on his head. “Clear this mess up and we’ll forget you spoke.”
Baikal brought his hand to his chest, crying and bleeding. He tried to grab the rag with the other hand.
Putting his foot on it, Rogoh shook his head. “No. Use your dirty Nehama hands.”
* * * * *
In the heart of night, the three litter bearers were sleeping with their heads and arms resting on the irregularities of the throne. The six Kahar, Tormentor and Beshavis guards sat with their backs against the six poles sustaining the mother tent.
Everyone slept except for the shit boy, who was watching with reverential fear over the Last Shaman. The old Tankar was still staring into the narrow, infinite horizon unfolding before his useless body.
In the middle of the limitless silence, before the horrors to come, Skalmold turned down his terrible eyes and stared at the shit boy.
The appendages moved toward Bai, springing from the foot of the throne.
No, please, Bai thought. Not yet. Please.
Don’t fear the putrescence, my boy. Let it make its way inside you, as your father did.
When the pool of water appeared beneath his tired feet, the shit boy thought he had fallen asleep too, in a dream inside a dream.
You have never been so awake, my boy. Look around you. Everyone sleeps.
What are you doing to me? Baikal asked.
Look at the bottom of the pool. What do you see?
I’m scared.
Look beyond fear, repeated the deep and calm voice of the old Tankar. Look beyond the limit you’re building with your own hands and eyes. What do you see?
Baikal moved a step, or maybe he thought he did. His body was pervaded by a sinister tingling. Only now did he see that the candid and harmless white appendages had reached him. He stood still, unable to move. That liquid and terrible mirror advanced toward him, as if it wanted to absorb him into its world of illusions.
Baikal saw it. A boy, he said. A black boy in the ruins. He has…some silver writings on his skin. He is screaming my name.
“Well,” the old Shaman whispered. “Again, I will not discuss your choice, my master.”
The shit boy didn’t understand to whom those words were addressed. He didn’t want to understand. He only wanted to disappear and run away from everything, including his fears.
Two more days went by before Skalmold spoke again, and this time he was speaking to everybody. “How long on this longest day,” he whispered in a feeble voice. “Until we finally make it through?”
The three litter bearers woke up from their sleep. The youngest one jumped on his feet. “How long did we sleep?”
The second one answered, “Long.”
The third one just said, “Hurry!”
The Kahar, Tormentor and Beshavis clans hurried inside the mother tent, shoving each other around. The old Shaman on his throne had assumed a more natural and relaxed position, now. The tension which
had seemed to keep his body together had vanished. Quiet had taken its place.
The shit boy—who had had no obstacles to the view of Skalmold until then—was pushed to the background again behind the legs of the most insignificant members of the Tormentors.
But in the partial silence he could hear the strong voice of the old Tankar, “In the darkness of reason, beyond the fogs of sleep, my master has shown me the way, and I took my decision.”
Baikal imagined the Asmeghins kneeling before the Shaman with their worthless sons at their sides.
“And we want to have the privilege to hear it,” answered Gehennah, the old Beshavis Asmeghin.
The only Tankar who tried to change my father’s mind until the end, Bai remembered.
“The river will choose its Guardian through a rite as old as the sand under our feet. Follow me to the holy island, where the flows of the time that was come to mix, giving birth to every possible future.”
“On the shores of Inherjer. It will be done,” Gehennah answered in a ritual sentence. “Let the river choose its own Guardian.”
“I will go first, as is tradition. Only the young Nehama will come with me.”
That last revelation, or maybe that last word, was welcomed by the Tankars with a chorus of surprise and indignation. The shit boy took a moment to understand that the Shaman was talking about him. Me? Why?
“He, your Eternity? Why?”
“Come on, Nehorur,” Skalmold answered. “You’re not going deprive an old Tankar of his shit boy?” The dry and black lips stretched in the last smile of an ancient creature. “Gather your clan and bring your son. Don’t be afraid to be disappointed. Every choice, postponed for a long time, will be made tonight.”
That last consideration filled Nehorur with hope, Baikal saw it. He beat his chest twice, bent his head and disappeared.
“Here. Come here to me,” Skalmold said. Everyone realized who he was talking to. The Tankars gave way to the shit boy, who advanced in the presence of the Last. A blow behind the knees reminded him he had to kneel.
“How little you are,” the old Tankar on the throne said. “A white dot in a black sky.” A star, he whispered in the boy’s mind so no one else could hear. But what force do those little stars exercise in the black sea surrounding them?
I don’t know anything, Baikal thought, squinting. He moved one of the thin white roots away with a foot. Please. Please don’t change things.
But the white root caressed his ankle and seemed to console him.
No, my boy. Never believe, not for one moment, that you are nothing. The web in which we are doesn’t answer to the logic of this agonizing world. Whether you like it or not, the river has found you again and you have to be up to its expectations.
The bearers moved to pick up the litter again, but the Last motioned with his hand and they stopped. “No,” he said. “I think I’ll walk, today.”
A quiet murmur ran through the audience.
The Shaman leveraged on the armrests to rise. He put one foot on the ground, then the other. Surrounded by the aghast stares of the bystanders, he stood up. He was tall and statuesque, more than it could be expected seeing him sitting.
“It’s been a long time since I last felt the sand under my feet,” he said. Bending forward slightly, he descended from the throne and left the mother tent. Stay close, and don’t be scared of me. Everyone is.
The shit boy followed the old Tankar outside and found him standing in the disk of the sun.
“This is a good day.” Skalmold sighed. “This is really a good day to die.”
Baikal didn’t dare to say anything as they descended from the top of the fortress, walking the steep alleys between the buildings.
Skalmold’s voice overlapped with his conflicting thoughts, Do your demons…do they ever let you go? Don’t you ever feel alone in their company. Sometimes they prove themselves the most trustworthy counselors.
Bai turned around. He saw two Faithful Kahars and a Tormentor follow them in the distance. The Asmeghins are having us followed. They are afraid of me.
Behind them—Bai was still wondering why he was the only one who could see them—the white appendages faithfully followed them along the unplastered walls, the jagged cornice of a door or down a drain.
He saw them stop, sway one last time, and then withdraw. The boy smiled and turned back to his path. He froze with fear. Infinite candid tentacles were waiting for him at a sharp bend, so numerous it took all his will and desperation to get back on march. He took care not to step on them, but they stung him and he felt his heart beat faster. He felt nausea and was breathless.
He opened and closed his hands, afraid to faint. “Do they ever stop?” he asked in a whisper as they climbed down a long, steep path toward the monumental tombs.
“They follow you until you don’t want to live anymore, and that’s the only time you’re really alive.”
Baikal turned again when he heard a sharp noise, like a broken branch. A spray of blood defiled the wall he had just left behind, then another one.
A Tankar screamed with fear—two fast steps, another horrid sound of death, another splash of blood, this time followed by the severed head of a Tormentor.
“Smile, my boy,” Skalmold said. “Hanoi has found you again. Hanoi has always wanted you.”
He killed them. Bai was back in march. “Found me again? I never met him.”
“You were too young to remember. In diapers, in your father’s arms.”
Bai was hit by memories that were not his—children laid naked by their parents on a basalt altar before the claws, the eyes and jaws of a being that didn’t belong to that world. The paintings. The paintings everywhere in the desert.
Not everywhere, Skalmold answered in his head. Only along the banks of the river. He asked aloud, “Do you know why they call me the Last?”
“Because…you are the last one left?”
The Shaman laughed. “No. I am the greatest expert of the power of Hanoi, and for that I’m his Last servant, the humblest one. This is the real face of the power exercised for the common good, to be the one who closes the queue when everyone is safe inside.”
The boy shook his head. Inside where?
Are you scared?
Yes, the shit boy said.
“I know the face of all your fears,” Skalmold said. “The most insidious thing about a leash is that it’s easy to grow accustomed to it, but today you’ll be free again, as your father wanted you.”
“Free…”
“You were little, too little to remember. Exodus had great plans for you and decided to offer you to an old man who couldn’t have children.” The old Tankar’s eyes darkened. “But fate has rolled the dice and the divine wind fell on our miserable lives. The night your father died, such a force poured on me that I feared the web was about to break forever. The fire on the top of Assado must have been a sad beacon of light to follow in a sea of dunes. It was fueled by the remains of the Nehamas, doomed by the other clans to an unworthy end.”
Baikal looked down. “I remember everything of that night.”
“We nearly lost you, that night. All that work, my work. I sent my shamans across the desert in hope they got to Nehorur before the Gorgors to give him my precise orders. You had to live.”
“And did he listen to you?” Baikal seemed skeptical. He had never thought the Kahar Asmeghin could listen to anyone or anything except the irrational voices in his mind.
“I am the only Tankar Nehorur has ever really feared,” Skalmold answered. “I healed him when he was a child. I took his hand a step before the last threshold and kept him on this side. Since then, Nehorur is afraid of only two things—death, and the power that defeated it.”
They walked for a long time among the towering crypts of the once richest families—Tormentor mercenaries and Beshavis slave merchants, for the most. The tombs got lower and less richly adorned as they descended toward the shore.
“The Guardian of the river is at the
center of the web,” Skalmold said with a calm and soft voice. “You may have noticed that, at least.”
“The white filaments?”
“As a fly bangs against it, I know exactly where to go to get it. I sense the happenings of the world with violence. I feel the pain of the mortals on my own skin. It’s a heavy burden, I can’t deny it, a great responsibility. A Guardian of the river can’t sit idly while the events follow their curse. Unlike the powerful rulers of this world, his vocation is to divert. Dike. Prevent.”
With each step he took, Baikal was uneasily aware that he had never been so far from his prison. Those ruins which had always appeared as an ethereal and insuperable barrier, were opening before his eyes.
“And remember. Only the last can manage the power of Hanoi,” the old Tankar continued. “The last of the misfits is the one who closes the circle, and nobody else. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We’re going away, Baikal, and you know that, too. Our exodus is closer than they all believe. I and your father have prepared it for a long time away from our people’s eyes. It was written in his name. It was written in his destiny, and what’s in the heart goes from father to son.”
Of all the questions Bai could ask at that time, he chose, “What does exodus mean?”
Skalmold nodded once, and all his sadness flowed in the serenity of a smile. “Dying to live,” he answered. “Exodus doesn’t mean changing home or going away for a while. Exodus means severing your own history, and somehow poisoning your future and that of your lineage, lost forever.”
“I’m not part of anyone’s future.”
The smile on the lips of the old Tankar disappeared as they went down and down. “Always remember who you are, my boy.”
“The shit boy?”
“No, Baikal. You are the son of Exodus, Nehama Asmeghin and next Guardian of the river. A guide betrayed by his own brothers for having had the courage to stand up and shout I will not do what you tell me. You are the son of the man who planted the seed of doubt and brought Tankars to reject yet another truth imposed from above. You must do it for him. You must defeat your fears. Your father has set himself as a dam to divert the course of destiny, well aware that the flood would overwhelm him. Today you must measure up.”
The Tankar Dawn Page 5
