The Tankar Dawn

by Walt Popester

  Dag sheathed his sword.

  “Come with me,” Khalifa said, still sitting on his throne. He put his tentacle on the boy’s right shoulder and led him to the foot of the apse, which had completely lost its old tint. From there, Dagger could see the tiny filaments that had infiltrated it. As if they were just wires tied to his fingers, Khalifa flicked his hand and the wall came down.

  “Seeth!” Dag said that almost before recognizing her. He was about to throw himself against her, when he saw Olem and Ianka, too. And beyond them Ash, Araya and Angra. His friends were again before him, reflected in the infinite mirror which was the bottom face of the pyramid. High above him, immense like his forgotten past, it was composed of red and green stains that were constantly shifting positions. Unknown, dark faces emerged among the silent glances, figures in black he had never met. They were shown only by the red stains and disappeared when, in a fluid movement, his green human memories had the better of it. It’s a deep memory. It’s the one I’m looking for.

  Dagger approached the mirror to see his own reflection, even that split in his twin nature—the red spots showed the claws and the horrible face which had suffered the horror of Creation, surrounded by the shadows. In the green ones emerged the face of Dagger, flanked by his friends.

  “Follow the beast into you, straight to the mystery,” the Gorgor recited. “This is the second threshold. Only a god could enter this place, and only a god can get out of it. Break the mirror and meet yourself.”

  That’s not just one voice, Dag thought. Now they sound like two overlapping…and I know both. “Hanoi.”

  Someone, a force, put his hands on Dagger’s shoulders. It was not Khalifa. Khalifa was no more, and maybe he had never been. I am the parasite of my pet, Dag thought again. “Is that you?”

  He felt an affirmative answer within himself and in the energy that pervaded everything.

  Dagger held out his hand but drew it back before touching the cold creature waiting for him. “What is this place? Why can it do this to me?”

  “Who can know that, if not you?” Hanoi answered. “The desert was everything, but you fled to this dimension by the Gate above us and here you evoked your children. Why did you destroy it afterwards?”

  “Maybe I was afraid to be followed.”

  “Maybe there’s something that can scare even a god, and push him to hide out. I myself chose this place as a refuge—and that of my Guardian, too, melted to my soul and the body he gave me. It all ended when Angra won his battle at the edge of the desert and forced me to sleep.”

  Dagger watched Araya’s reflection, which immediately flowed into the darkest shadow of all. “Yet sleep doesn’t mean death.”

  A voice laughed, another wept. “I dreamed, and dreaming I infiltrated this world. I went up the drained river of memories until I reached this place, where Khalifa got trapped at my disappearance. From here we resumed our old dream.” He produced an amused sound. “A world without gods.”

  “You didn’t want me to step in the middle of your vengeance against Skyrgal…neither of you wanted.”

  “And now you can’t go back, as you may have seen.” He laughed. “Who will come to your rescue, now? They left you alone with this hatred, which is completely useless to you.”

  She, Dagger thought, She’s gone. And even Ianka, Ash…they’re all gone with the flow. He reached out to himself, ready to find shelter in his own power. But next to his reflection he saw that of Mumakil, the master who had taught him to dig deep into his inner void. “Master.” Dagger watched him smile, just another vision. He remained in religious silence when he saw Mumakil open his lips.

  “Dag,” Mumakil said. “Get away from that fucking mirror.”

  Dagger felt picked up and thrown back. He slipped on the broken floor as a cry shook the Twilight Hall. He opened his eyes in time to see Khalifa’s dress catch fire, exposing the dried body twisting on the throne, his hands clasped on the armrests, and the broken face thrown back. The white tentacles swayed everywhere around him, like high grass stems shaken by the wind. They were screaming.

  Mumakil tried to hit him a second time with the Sword, but a powerful wave of energy pushed him back, near Dagger.

  The boy was soon on his feet. “Of all those who could save me, it had to be you?” There was anger in his words. “And then only a god could come in here, so why…” Slowly he turned to Mumakil.

  The dark figure rose from the floor and flanked him, Sword in hand. “You’ve never been that bright, my son. Let me tell you.”

  It’s not his voice, not entirely. Dag turned to Khalifa, carbonized on his throne, then back to his master. The manegarm sword in his hands didn’t shine like once. You’re not Mumakil, he thought. Only a god could come in here. “Dad?”

  “Oh. Finally.”

  “And how did you—”

  Skyrgal raised a finger. “Shhh. Leave the summaries for later. If you think our friend is dead, you’re wrong.”

  “You shouldn’t be here!” Hanoi hissed through the mouth of Khalifa.

  “You wanted me, didn’t you?” the Lord of Destruction replied. “Pick on someone on your own size. You have no idea how long it took for my boy, here, to build the refuge you’re stealing from him. The problem is that he doesn’t remember. That’s always his problem.”

  The hands of the Gorgor opened and closed. The white world that rose from him moved sinuously. “Very funny.”

  “You have become the parasite of your servant, Hanoi,” Mumakil said, decapitating one of the tentacles which had tempted to approach. “Now it’s difficult to understand who’s the guest, and who’s holding the reins of the side-actors and is bringing that monstrosity on this side.”

  “Don’t play the part of the unlikely hero who saves the world at the last. We both know you’re not.” Khalifa’s black head turned to Dagger. The white light glowing in his eyes had nothing to do with the living, even in that space suspended between dimensions. “It’s a big wrong you’re doing to him, depriving him of the last show.”

  “Don’t listen to him. Dag…”

  “It’s Konkra!”

  Skyrgal snapped, “Don’t bother me with definitions, now!”

  “I…he…” Dagger shook his head. “I just want to go home, if there is still one. I…”

  “Down here is your home!” Mumakil, or Skyrgal, brought a hand to his eyes. When he lowered it, it seemed like the red fire of hell was burning in them. “Dagger. Listen to me. The gods’ world is really a mess. The life of the mortals is better than anything they’ve got up there.”

  “I…”

  Skyrgal rose a black finger and the boy didn’t continue. “You’ve run away from that dimension. Oh, you can’t remember, but you did.”

  “You must remember!” Khalifa hissed. “You want to remember, don’t you?”

  “I…” The boy squeezed his eyes. “This is a fight between you. I just want to know who I am.”

  The Lord of Destruction didn’t answer.

  Khalifa laughed. “Did you see? Jump in the mirror, my boy. Do it before it’s too la—”

  “Be human.”

  Dag turned to his father. Skyrgal tried to smile, but his smile died long before it reached the corners of his mouth. “Dagger. Don’t throw away all that effort for a buried memory that no longer makes sense.”

  “What happened to me?!”

  “You’ve fled to a better place. Why? Why go back?”

  “Because this is not his home,” Khalifa said. “This is not the truth.” A dry noise followed his every movement as he stood. He levitated, suspended above a mass of white roots. “Isn’t it obvious, Lord of Destruction? I thought you a bit brighter after an eternity spent watching the world go to ruin. And then…” He advanced, burdened with pain. “Why are you helping him? What pushes you? Do you really think this boy is so stupid? I’ve led him to the only place he wants to be, on the threshold of a choice.” He smiled to both. “Why should he throw everything in the air? To listen to t
he infamous god who created him and forced him to the whole solitude of this world? Ktisisdamnit, you melt a column of mayem to do that.”

  Dagger backed away, Solitude in his hands, and looked ahead. To his right, Skyrgal, the Sword tightened in Mumakil’s fingers and a confident look in his eyes. On his left Khalifa, Hanoi’s eyes open in that dimension. “Why should I go back to mortal life?” he asked the two dark Lords who demanded his trust with equal conviction. “Kugar left me again, and—”

  “Oh, come on. You really believe that?”

  Dagger looked up to Skyrgal. “What?”

  “The writings different from all the others…the footsteps in the dark, the evil laughter, the doll with the pins…”

  Dagger moved a step. “Was that you?”

  “Of course it was me! Kugar has acted according to the instructions I’ve scattered for the temple, the ones you couldn’t read because you’re too ignorant.”

  “Hey!”

  “No offense, but it’s extremely easy to handle those who don’t have a culture.”

  “Aren’t you calling me the simple guy?”

  “Is there…any other way to put it?”

  Maybe it’s just a first barrier, Dagger thought about the words she had said. That wasn’t a mere supposition. “Kugar knew too many things.”

  “Probably the ones I explained to her,” Skyrgal answered. “I made her an offer she didn’t want to refuse.”

  “And tell me. Did you tell her everything?”

  “Does a god ever tell the whole truth? And can a mortal understand that?”

  “A very elegant way to stick it in the ass of people.”

  Skyrgal shrugged. “I sent her away.”

  “To do what?”

  That took away the smile from the Lord of Destruction. And maybe now Dagger realized why Khalifa had let him talk so far. “To save the world. Easy.”

  Dag came forward, furious. “Did you send her to fight alone against Baomani?”

  “No, no, I’m not so crazy. Not alone, there’s still someone who can help her in that damn Fortress.”

  Dag was puzzled. “Araya?” he asked. “Warren? Or maybe—”

  Skyrgal opened his mouth when Khalifa, tired of listening, snapped with an avalanche of tentacles.

  “DON’T INTERRUPT!” Dagger yelled. The black ramifications emerged from the void inside and wrapped the body of Khalifa, squeezing. Konkra felt his pain melting with his, just like the obscene thoughts of the crab. He tried to keep control. He moved back, dragging with him the Gorgor Lord and any force which possessed him. He pushed it toward the mirror and the dark tentacles pulsed all together one step from the last threshold. The white ramifications anchored to the end of the world to resist. “No, Konkra!” cried the voices inside Khalifa as he tried to escape the shiny surface. “This portal is for you. I kept it open for you!”

  In the body of Mumakil, Skyrgal walked to the boy’s side. “Of course he created it for you, like the mirror out there that only you could bring down. Ask him the whole story.”

  “I doubt I want to hear it,” Dag replied.

  “How could you forget that your soul wouldn’t be whole? If you’re so crazy that you want to rediscover yourself, remember you must still find again Redemption, your damnation.”

  “Beautiful rhyme.”

  A howl shook the intimate dimension when Khalifa flew through the mirror, turning it completely red.

  Everything around them seemed to scream, “YOU KILLED HIM!”

  A giant claw emerged from the glossy surface and snapped a breath from their faces, but Skyrgal and Dagger dodged it and slammed their blades in the junction of the claw. This exploded in a purple sludge, splitting in two halves. One rolled on the floor in a deafening racket, pulling down three columns. The other retreated to the place from which it had come.

  “The Fortress!” cried the inhuman voices beyond. “Everything will be fulfilled at the end of the road! We’re all waiting for you there!”

  The claw pulled behind the mirror, which broke in a thousand liquid metal splinters. The green and red tears infiltrated the floor and sank deep, opening infinite holes that blew out sulfur and toxic fumes. In their hiss, Dagger was sure he heard the lament of the matter, That’s where you want to be, Dag. I’m waiting for you.

  The ramifications of Hanoi disappeared together with the light. The only one left was that of the mirror he had used to get there, in the distance. Now it had become green again, like the placid forest around them.

  Two arms held him close.

  Dagger tried to break free, but he finally gave up to the paternal embrace. “How did I do it?”

  “Maybe you just grew up.” Skyrgal helped him to stand. “You’re no longer a piece of soft clay, yielding imprint to each new experience. The clay has hardened, Konkra. Somewhere in this endless journey which lasted a thousand years, you’ve become yourself and now you’re out of the control of Hanoi, Aeternus…and of mine. You crossed the second arch when you set foot in here, but you couldn’t know. It was the one at the exact center of the pyramid of mayem, when it looked like you were walking through time.”

  The boy looked at his father. “I…”

  “You have found yourself reflected in the eyes of those who loved you. Now you know who you are, and what you want. Now there’s only you and the long way home.”

  One of the columns that had resisted until that moment collapsed under the weight of the claw, which lay once and for all on the ground. His sharp, bright green profile looked like a border set through the darkness of that nightmare.

  “Why are you here?” Dagger asked, his hand still tight around Solitude. “How—”

  “Mumakil abandoned you when he realized the purpose of Khalifa and Hanoi. I’ve seen it in his memories—he used the Sword against himself to bring me back to Candehel-mas, because he knew I was the only one who could oppose their plan. At least…the only one still available. His body contaminated by the power of Hanoi won’t decay, and I finally found a guest forever.”

  “He said that—”

  “Forever. No one would ever accept the infinite darkness that lies beyond, after tasting the joys and sorrows of a mortal life,” Skyrgal said. “That slowly contaminated me since I made the wonderful mistake of getting into your mother’s body. When I discovered the disruptive feeling you experience when you love another being to the end, the silent thunder at the beginning of Creation.” He laid a father’s hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Angra would be happy to see me learn that lesson he tried so hard to teach me a long time ago. We gods reflect ourselves in the mortals, spying on a happiness we can’t feel, a show we don’t even know we want to be part of. We find out that, only when a mortal decides to make us realize it. Every being is perfect and unhappy until it defiles itself in the body of another one. That is the impassable boundary for us gods, and you know it all too well.”

  Be human. Dagger squeezed his eyes.

  “Love, Dag,” Skyrgal concluded. “The one you feel when you know that one day you will die. Love moves the world, and Angra understood it a long time ago. Only that made him better than me. He let Baomani and Orange go ahead with their plan because he knew Hanoi could free you from your divine blood—my blood—and make you a human. Angra sacrificed himself for you. He realized what you really wanted and did everything accordingly.”

  “You can lose your mind with that.” The boy looked up. “And maybe that’s just what happened to me.”

  “It’s not yet time to remember.” The Lord of Destruction stretched his arm toward the surviving mirror. “Reach the end of the road, the true end of the road, that Fortress where everything has begun and where everything will be fulfilled. Then, if you still want, you’ll find out how ancient is your desire.”

  “And you?”

  “I…I…” Skyrgal clutched his hands. “I can’t hold it much longer.”

  Now that his eyes were adjusted to the rediscovered dark, Dagger could see the stream of red energy flow
ing from the broken mirror. It concentrated in his father’s left hand, turning in a green wave flowing toward the portal. Skyrgal was damming the vast Inherjer inside the Creation.

  “How do you—”

  “Ktisis, Dag! I’m the Lord of Destruction, who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”

  “You hated vulgarity.”

  “I hated so many things, once. Then I saw. The boundaries of my jail grew weaker, thrown down by the light I had tried so hard to hold out. In the end she won. In the end, she always wins.”

  Dagger bent his head and a tear fell down. “You know what happened to me…what happened to Ktisis, the reason why he went crazy. What’s on the other side of the last threshold?”

  Even Skyrgal shadowed. “At the decisive moment, make the right choice, Dag,” he answered. “Be human. Lock yourself in this illusion and desire nothing else, because there’s only the desert around. It’s good to be brothers. It’s good to have someone who watches over your steps, and it’s better to watch over someone else’s footsteps. It’s good to overcome the difficulties and find yourself in the arms of the woman you love, at the end of the longest days. It’s good to feel someone grow inside her, the life which regenerates and expands infinitely to destroy every pre-established order. Live and die in this day, Dag. Live and die in this day.” Skyrgal dropped down on his knees, crushed by the weight of the worlds. He stared into Dagger’s eyes. “You’re the dream of the gods, the most beautiful illusion. It is so. Life, Dag, the real one, which is our death. It’s the utmost aspiration of all the sterile matter you see around you.”

  In the body of Mumakil, the Lord of Destruction seemed the only still point. Everything around him shook. The carved columns, the roof of the world, the whole Twilight Hall. It was all connected.

  “Dad,” Dagger said. “Why?”

  The god seemed to understand the meaning of his question. “Why?” he repeated. “Because there’s a form of love greater than all the others.”