“Which one?”
“You’ll find out when you’re a father.” This time the smile touched the eyes of Skyrgal. Then he shoved Dagger away.
The boy stumbled. He went back through the colonnade, chased by green and scarlet flames that didn’t seem to touch him. Behind him a gap opened in the floor, the stone cracked, the roof and everything seemed to collapse.
When he reached the threshold of his old world of pain, he turned.
In the divine fire he saw a shadowy silhouette, still watching over him.
Skyrgal raised a hand.
Dagger looked at him. He raised a hand in turn, and moved the last step to the place where he belonged.
* * * * *
Light took him. Light was all that still existed. Dagger spontaneously smiled at the heat that swept away every fear and memory.
A monster came out of the void and barked a breath away from his face, breaking the balance and bringing back every horror. He grabbed the boy’s hand.
You’re not the boss of me now, and you’re not so big.
Dagger felt the clawed hand slip out of his. He rolled down the mayem flow cast out of the mirror, immersed in its red, hellish light.
Out of the silence came the footsteps; out of the dark, a hand.
It was open.
“How many fingers are there?” a voice asked.
“Four,” Dag said.
“No. Say two.”
“Two.”
“You’re okay.”
Still blind, Dagger jumped to his feet and unsheathed Solitude. To make his intentions clear, the tentacles of emptiness wrapped his forearm, separating it from reality. “Don’t you even try, whoever you are!” Again in connection with the material world, he felt his every sense sharpen. He breathed twice, assuming a disgusted expression. “Baikal,” he understood. “What are you doing here?”
The Nomad Emperor came forward. “You must get up very early if you want to fool a Nehama.”
“You already said that.”
“And you should have listened. Did you really think you could fool me, when I sleep with an eye open and I pretend to close the other one?”
Dagger stepped back, opening his eyes in a slit.
The Faithful flanked their Asmeghin. One of the five was a Tormentor, another a Kahar.
He promised power to their leaders, and got their support, Dagger thought. Some slavery is more gilded than freedom, and some beasts think better than many Guardians.
The black tentacles became thicker around his arm, pushing Baikal and his Tankars to stop.
“How strange the moons seem, these nights,” the Nehama Asmeghin said. “And they give unusual advice, like walking unbeaten paths along the thin border between right and wrong. You made me reason, this is why I ordered my Tankars to step aside and leave you free.”
“Don’t step in the way between me and the place I’m heading to. Don’t do this to me, Bai.”
“Step in the way?” The Nomad emperor stretched the five blades of his glove in a dry, metallic sound, soon imitated by the army he had carried with him. “I have no such intention.”
“No?”
“No. There is where I want to escort you, once I have reunited my people. One day a messiah will lead us to the promised land and all that blah blah. We’ve already discussed this.”
Dagger lowered the point of his blade to the ground. “You’re not thinking that—”
“My people are almost one once again, and this is the dawn of the long journey to the holy land. The dream for which my father died and I have lived through every pain. I don’t know if you’re the one who should have come, or if we have to wait for the next. I only know I’m sick as fuck of it.”
Ktisis, we only lacked the wolves in search of their messiah. “You’re ruining all the poetry.” Dagger tried to open his eyes. Baikal was looking down on him, even if Dag was on the mayem solid flow. “Where’s Kugar?” Dagger snarled.
The Nehama shook his shoulders. “She must have found her way. They saw her ride your cursed cruachan to the wide west, where every destiny awaits us. Yours, mine, and that of my people, lost forever.”
We must stop what’s growing in her womb. Do you understand how I feel or should I get you a drawing? Dagger raised his eyes. The revelation fell on him with almost a physical force: “She means to kill Erin’s son!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kill the unborn in the womb.” He sheathed his sword. “A long story.”
“Tell it.”
Dag found the eyes of an intelligent creature, ready to understand.
The end of the story found them walking side by side among the writings of Ktisis—a giant, white Tankar, and a black-hearted boy.
“All very romantic,” Baikal summarized. “But Skyrgal hid in there just to get away from the growing power of Hanoi. It’s not that hard to understand, is it?”
Dagger wished he had never said that. “Are you sure you have to ruin—”
“The only time your dad appeared to you as a guide? Yes, I know. But it’s my duty.”
“Which one?”
“Piss people off on the evidence of things. Those words, his last words…something’s not right. Skyrgal understood that, with your children around, reaching Megatherion is impossible, or almost. Maybe he’s simply reorganizing himself. He has time on his side, and that is a much more comfortable prison than others where he has ended up in the past. Sooner or later fate will present him with a new breach.” Baikal looked at him. And sighed. “But I have to admit that, from what you say, at least his words to you were sincere, if his actions weren’t entirely. He put you in the world for this. He really wants you to be his Redemption. Maybe even Kugar, who is getting herself into real trouble only to save you, wants that.” He rubbed Dagger’s hair. “There are still so many people caring for you.”
They will leave you alone with this hatred, which will be totally useless to you, Dagger remembered. It can’t be like that. It must not be like that. “There’s a light I have to follow, a dream I can’t renounce,” he said. “And if this means returning to the starting point—”
“Yes, I know, it means we have to get going.” Baikal whistled, and two Tormentors brought them two saddled skars. He patted the back of one of the beasts and Dag jumped on the saddle without questioning.
They rode through the ruins, darting before the crucified gods and the writings in blood, an army behind them. They rode at the feet of Ktisis’ titan, which Dagger tried not to watch. They descended along the ramp built on the monumental staircase and reached the colossal entrance of the temple, at the gray light of a cloudy sky. They stopped, pulling the reins and raising a sand cloud, barely tamed by the feeble rain that had started to fall.
Can it rain even in this desert? Dag wondered. He turned around. From the distant center of the temple a heavy mass of gray and green clouds rose, reddish lightnings flashing on its side.
Before him, the road the Tankars had opened through the dunes led one way to Asa Bay, one way to the Fortress and every possible destiny.
“What is it you Guardians always say? You eat when you eat, you sleep when you sleep.”
“I prefer another saying. There’s only the road you can count on. The road is the only salvation.”
“Beautiful words. Who told you that?”
Marduk. Dagger closed his eyes. “Someone. Somewhere.”
“Things may have become a little more complicated, however,” the great white beast said. “A few days ago, before we let you run away in your improbable elope, we intercepted a message directed to Asa. It was pretty clear.”
“Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re not part of my magic circle.” Baikal produced a small rolled up sheet. “You can read, can you?”
“If I read more carefully when someone gave me a message to interpret, maybe I could have avoided some raw deals.”
“Like what?”
“Li
ke ending up twice in a crab’s gelatinous gut.” Finally, he hard Baikal laugh heartily, before concentrating on the letter.
The writing was neat, linear, perfect:
Don’t look for me at the Fortress.
I’m running away from the power that infects it, too. The power from which the Hermit was born, and every ghost who caused the end of the Guardians.
We’ll meet at the end of the road. I know.
Because in every game there must be a winner.
“It’s him.”
“Yes,” Baikal answered. “It’s Aeternus. We took down eleven messengers, not even half of those we saw in the sky, and they all carried the same message. It’s like a cry of help given to the four winds, in hope for anyone to listen it.”
No. He’s not referring to anyone. Don’t look for me, he wrote. “He’s talking to me.”
“Yay,” Baikal nodded only once. “Aeternus wants to hasten the end. His, yours, or that of both. He’s the veteran of a world that no longer exists.”
A little like you. “Do you feel pity for him?”
The beast snorted. “I’m a sentimental. I always feel pity for those who have tried to triumph over my corpse. I still have a score to settle with him, a chase that started long ago at the foot of the Throne of Skyrgal. A long story.”
Dag looked up to the tears in the sky. Kug…He closed his golden eyes.
“Scars are the wounds we show,” Baikal said, but perhaps he was not talking to him. “And that time heals, only if you let it go.”
“Is this what you whispered to Kugar to make her speak?”
Bai looked at him. “How do you—”
“She was listening to you. And she liked those words, but I don’t. The circle must always be closed.” Dagger lowered his gaze before him. The end of the road was its beginning. A drop went down his face when he thought that every step taken in life always led, sometimes just with one’s thought, to where the journey has begun. We could do it together, you and I. We could fight the whole world, but you left me alone in the rain, hanging on to an ancient vow when there’s only hell to gain. He smiled. But I promised. Wherever you are, I will be there or in your search.
“What are you laughing about, kid?”
“That Fortress is eroded from within. All the evil of the world is there, if even Aeternus was forced to flee.” He shook his head. “Are you sure you want to go there?”
Baikal showed his canines. “Do you know what you can do when there’s nothing left? When your last friend betrays you, when you don’t even care about the fact that you don’t give a shit about anything, anymore. When you look around and there’s nothing else than an infinite desert stretching everywhere around, when—”
“Hey, get to the point.”
“When there’s nothing left to die for, do you know what to do?” He pulled the reins and the skar hissed his anger. “Sweep away everything and start again!”
Their hands met in mid-air and the two friends stared into each other’s eyes.
Ktisis, isn’t it the most unlikely friendship? Dagger held a hand toward the road. “After you, monster.”
Baikal gave a Nehama battle cry, soon answered by the wrath of the army behind him. He stretched his blades to the wind. “We’ll have a lot of fun, you and I, before we go to hell.”
He put his heels into the beast, and together they rode into the womb of the desert.
* * * * *
Epilogue
The Sanctuary was in ruin, and the world with it.
Five figures in black walked the long and white road that led to the heart of Molok, carrying a pyramid-shaped amorphis case.
One of them lifted his eyes, returning the gazes of a myriad black and blind windows. No lamp burned on their sills. At sunset, no fragment of everyday life came from within the homes; no quarrel between boys, groaning of lovers, lullabies or mothers cooking for their children.
The void had won. It was death in life and they had carried it there.
The slow procession climbed the short staircase leading to the unhinged door of the Sanctuary. In the dark heart of candor, one of the sad figures leaned and whispered to the metal pyramid, “Here is dark, my lord.”
A hiss came from within, “No. Not yet.”
The Hammer of Ktisis, an immense pillar of pure mayem, supported the hexagonal dome of the structure. The shadow of a man waited at its foot.
He didn’t walk to meet them, but waited until the case was in front of him. “Here. Come,” he said.
He escorted them past a door. The five shadows found some difficulty in carrying the case down the stairs before them, and then along the underground crypt crowded with tombs. The second staircase turned out to be wider, and flowed into absolute darkness.
From within the amorphis came a placid order, “Here. Put me down here, before him.”
The five obeyed, laying the poles to the ground. Three of them grabbed the chains hanging from the top of the pyramid, one each. They exchanged a fleeting look through the cracks in the bandages before pulling the chains together.
The case opened in a glimmer of light bursts that illuminated the room for a brief moment. The three sides slowly drifted to the ground, revealing the quiet, dark figure sitting inside with crossed legs.
He wore dark black clothes and a belt of daggers on his chest. “I need light to see it.”
The shadow who had welcomed the procession produced an ensiferum sphere and stretched his arm to illuminate the underground: a round room surrounded by eleven armors shaped on the appearance of Konkra. In the middle, a metallic structure like the bow of a ship supported the ceiling.
The shadow who had come in the pyramid stood up with divine bearing and moved a step. “Thank you for having carried out my orders, Marduk.”
“Did you have a good journey, master Aeternus?” Marduk asked.
The first Disciple didn’t answer the question. “It’s magnificent,” he said. In front of him, four steps dug into the mayem lead to the Shadowthrone, where the soul of Ktisis had once been. Aeternus held out a hand but didn’t dare touch the metal. “The Hammer heart.” He laughed. “I thought I had seen everything in my long existence. But I was wrong.”
Marduk walked to his side. “I still wonder how the Hermit—”
Aeternus interrupted him by raising his hand. “Call him with his name, novice. I’m so tired of nicknames.”
The Dracon bowed his head. “I still wonder how Baomani could dig into the mayem.”
Aeternus smiled just beneath the loose bands. “Ktisis allowed him. Ktisis was tired of being here. Once our ancestors dug into Angra’s Sword in the Glade. They thought manegarm was the toughest material, and that it was Skyrgal himself who had guided them to him because he wanted to escape. Then this came.” He touched the green metal. “Do you have the slightest idea, all of you, of what’s here before us? The weapon with which Skyrgal punished his father. The weapon where Ktisis spent part of the eternity, exiled from the world. Baomani could handle it. Baomani did it.”
Marduk turned to the others. “Master,” he whispered, approaching. “I evacuated the Sanctuary and the town of Molok. The slaves…its inhabitants have been sent to Asa to be blessed by the new life.”
“To swell the powerful army waiting for my arrival.” Aeternus nodded. “I’ve already thanked you for that. Get to the point.”
Marduk seemed to take courage and said, “Why did you run this risk? Why come here?”
“Um. Wise objection.”
Five lightnings illuminated the underground, when five of the daggers on Aeternus’ belt stuck into the chests of the Disciples who had brought him there.
The ensiferum sphere fell to the ground, making the shadows dance in a monstrous mockery of their electric spasms.
The souls of the servile creatures flowed into the virgin manegarm. The light and the electric discharges became so strong as to enlighten the eleven mayem armors which laughed, wept or yelled all around.
Marduk l
owered the arm with which he had shielded his eyes. “Master…why?”
Aeternus held out his hands and indicated those who had long waited for him in the silence of their tombs.
The fallen Dracon understood. “You want to bring them back to life?”
The First Disciple walked the circumference of the underground, touching the armors. “I need them again, my old friends. You go nowhere without your friends, someone taught me that, and maybe he didn’t even know.”
“And we have the knowledge,” Marduk hurried to answer, producing Dawn, the black book. “Where are the others?”
“The others? There are no others, not anymore. The two sovereigns in Asa, by now, must have preceded their here present companions. You’re the only one missing.” Aeternus unsheathed a mayem blade and advanced. “The last of the non-native Disciples I blessed with my blood.”
“No,” Marduk said, as he retreated. “No!”
The master approached more and more, and the old Dracon hid behind his own arms, screaming, “NO!”
He yelled for a long time and the low dome echoed his terror.
He screamed.
He screamed for a really long time.
When he realized he was still part of that world, alive or dead, he lowered his arms and looked at his master.
“Uh. Uh-uh.” Aeternus painfully laughed. “You have a bad memory, and apparently you can’t even count. How many armors do you see around you?”
Marduk regained control. “Eleven.”
“Of which only ten host one of the native Disciples. You should be…here.” Aeternus tapped twice with the tip of his dagger the only rough, uninhabited mayem armor. It depicted a perfectly inexpressive God of Emptiness looking ahead, slightly upward. “This should have welcomed my brother Korkore, who, however, met the Exile by Araya’s hand in his damned underground forge.” He darkened. “But it was all done. He had already set the old nightmare in motion, to keep his oath.”
“What oath?”
“Wherever and however I’ll be given to fight against that power, I will do it. This is what he promised to me a long time ago, and now the nightmare has taken possession of the Fortress. Once again, there’s no place for us.” He sighed. “So I said, I might as well face the street once and for all, the long way to our new home. It’s just…that I need proper bodyguards this time, you know? A more reliable team.”
The Tankar Dawn Page 30
