Dagger 3 - God of Emptiness Read online

  DAGGER III

  God of Emptiness

  by

  Walt Popester

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Walt Popester

  [email protected]

  Dagger III – God of Emptiness

  Copyright 2015 Walt Popester

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are the product of the author’s mind or are used in a fictitious way.

  Cover art, copyright 2015 by Silvio ‘Simbio’ Costa.

  facebook.com/SilvioCostaSimbio

  Edited by Sheryl Lee

  http://sherylleee.wix.com/editor

  To my brother, the greatest asshole in the universe.

  And to all the other Olems in the world.

  To the reader:

  The following novel contains coarse language, unavoidable elements of Satanism and scenes of graphic violence. The reader’s discretion is advised. It is recommended for an adult audience. However, due to its contents, it should not be read by anyone.

  The author dissociates himself from the politically incorrect and socially irresponsible behavior of his characters. He does not believe in violence as a means to solving interpersonal, international and interracial conflicts, at least until it comes to a situation where the author is right and acting on behalf of God.

  Anyway, this is just a book and real life is still out there.

  Enjoy.

  Prologue

  A woman was marching across the desert.

  At nightfall, the west wind became a tangible, disturbing presence placed between her and salvation. It tore at the nauseating darkness populated by the shadows of the past—faceless figures emerging from the depths of consciousness to harass her with every breath she took, every step she made. She was certain that they would prevail, but then she looked up and saw a light, not far away, hidden until that moment by gusts of sand. A thought materialized in her mind: Knowing you’re going to lose is not a sufficient reason to stop fighting. The fifth commandment. She repeated the words several times in a mechanical humming and clung to them. To fight, no matter what. To never bend one’s head against the blind anger of fate and to walk forward wherever the road might lead. It was that which made a Guardian of a simple mortal being. And I am. I still am!

  Then, the treacherous wind flung her back against the harsh reality, making her fall.

  “Don’t give up now. We’re almost there!” the man cried through the fury of the elements.

  “Leave us here, Hermit!”

  “Only when you’ll be safe. For Ktisis, Aniah! Get up!”

  The woman hugged the bundle to her breast, and sinking one foot in the sand, she stood up. Only then, in a brief respite granted by the currents, did she see it. Standing before them was the white dome of the Sanctuary, vast and immense. It’s so beautiful, she thought.

  “We’re almost there!” The Hermit tried to protect her with his mantle.

  The light appeared. The light disappeared. They marched.

  The titanic faces of the gods portrayed in the granite peered from the past all along the old access road to the Sanctuary. They were watching them.

  They don’t want us here. We are strangers. Aniah drew a breath only when she felt the pavement underfoot. The wounds that had made her a mother burned a bit less, but she looked up and her blood froze.

  “Don’t look!”

  “Baomani, I…”

  “Don’t look!”

  Welcome home, my son…

  From the center of the dome, so high that it was impossible to see its handle, the Hammer of Skyrgal rose—a single block of mayem, once home of the soul of Ktisis. It was a lighthouse in a sea of sand, granted to mortals since the dawn of time. It was said his divine light could be seen from as far away as Asa Bay. Now it was a useless monolith in the heart of the ruins.

  Aniah caressed her violated belly, advancing among the white, decrepit buildings, the broken mirror of Ktisis luminosity. The road seemed endless until she stumbled on the steps of an imposing staircase. She raised her eyes to the remains of a marble palace. The collapsed domes and spires loomed on the colonnade in front of the entrance. Above all stood a broken statue, of which only a pair of open and menacing pincers remained.

  “This is the temple to the unknown god.” Baomani set foot on the first step and looked at her. “Come with me, if you want to live.”

  Aniah followed him to the top of the stairs, to a large bronze door.

  The Hermit knocked hard with the only knocker left. “Hagga, my pupil! I’m back!” he screamed, but the wind seemed to rip away his desperate call.

  In the silence that followed, she thought she heard the man repeatedly say, “He can’t abandon me, not him.”

  Time passed, slowly and cruelly. Then the old metal groaned. They ducked into the crack offered by fate, finding themselves in the dark.

  At least we’re no longer at the mercy of Mother Desert. Aniah pulled down her hood, so full of sand there was an audible thud on the floor as it tipped out.

  The Hermit stepped forward. “Hagga, is that you? My pupil, did you really come to—”

  They heard some slow steps, until a ball of Ensiferum brought to light every wrinkle on the face of an old man. “Once again you look for asylum at the Sanctuary, Hermit?”

  Aniah realized that he was not their savior.

  Baomani walked toward the light, but the face disappeared when the sphere was covered. “Godivah…Holy Father, where is Hagga?

  The old man laughed. “My dear Arax. Show him where is his pupil.”

  A little farther, a second shiny sphere made the shattered face of a boy appear in the darkness. The light rested on the irregular holes where his nose had been cut, on the jagged rim of his broken teeth, on his eye sockets so swollen that he couldn’t open his eyes.

  He said, “Forgive me, Master…please…forgive me.” Beside him, flashed the green metallic smile of Arax, the Torturer priest—all his teeth consisting of sacred mayem.

  Darkness claimed them both.

  The voice of the old man continued, “It was hard to understand what he was saying with his mouth reduced like that. When he spontaneously revealed that you were back on the road, I didn’t want to believe in your stupidity disguised as desperation. To get in touch with him and search for his forgiveness was a foolish act—brave, but foolish. I can’t understand the game you’re playing. Is it a double play? A triple play? You extracted the soul of Ktisis from the Hammer. You ran into the arms of the Disciples and now you come back to us looking for what, exactly?”

  “Asylum for this woman,” Baomani answered. “They’re already on our trail. You know that.”

  They listened to the Holy Father walking around. “And, with her, we should accept in the bosom of the Sanctuary also her burden, I guess. It’s him who is the ultimate goal of all this, the ultimate blasphemy.”

  “Godivah, I—”

  “How did you decide to call him?”

  The Hermit opened his mouth, but Aniah answered, “I didn’t give him a name.”

  The old man produced a gloomy, amused sound. “No. You didn’t. When you give a name to something, you are responsible for it, the old saying goes. And so you don’t want to be responsible for him, but that…” He stopped. “How did you decide to define him, at least?”

  “At the moment, he seems only a child.” She hugged the bundle. “And he’s hungry.”

  “Your creation,” Godivah decided, as if he hadn’t heard. “Tha
t creation came out of your belly and you don’t want to be responsible for him. So why should I? Why should I give him refuge in the same sanctuary that this man—once welcomed like a son—felt compelled to desecrate?!”

  Aniah didn’t answer.

  “I feel pity for you.” The Holy Father was walking again. “Poor unconscious girl, one of the best Delta Guardians, and still a helpless child against what’s happening around you. And inside you. But the fault lies only with the man next to you. Ask him if he’s happy with the result. Ask him if he’s happy with his creation.”

  “I was blackmailed.” Baomani tried to control his voice. “And you know that, too, if your informers can still tell the truth.”

  As if in protest, a loud flapping of wings resounded below the roof.

  Cra!

  “My informers didn’t betray me, unlike my pupil. I’d have put everything I ever had on you.”

  A metallic hiss in the darkness. “Yeah, and you would’ve lost.”

  “Yeah, Arax. I lost, like a father loses when his son hits the road to perdition. Sometimes I get the feeling that he’s influenced me all this time, leveraging my memories and pain. They say They can do it, you know?”

  Still that whisper, “Perhaps he’s become one of them, Holy Father.”

  “It may be. And we know how to stop him, don’t we?”

  “Yes, we do. He himself taught us.”

  The Hermit took a step into the dark. “Do you want to punish me? Fine! You just have to throw me out of here. Soon Aeternus and Skyrgal will understand what happened—the thousand deceptions that led me here on the run—and they will torture me for my betrayal. I took the result of a thousand labors away from them, can’t you see?”

  “Such a blasphemy won’t set foot inside the Sanctuary,” Godivah stated. “We didn’t create this problem and we will not solve it. Fate will decide his doom, and that of all of us—Ktisis save us. We’ll send one of our winged messengers to Pendracon Hammoth and we’ll inform him. If he and the woman are fast and wise, they won’t find it difficult to meet each other at the Light at the End of the World. Let the Fortress think about the child. Let the Fortress tolerate his presence, as a punishment for errors as old as the stone with which it was built. Be sure I won’t be crazy enough to leave your creation in the hands of the enemy.”

  “Then I have no more time to lose.” The man moved toward the door.

  “One moment,” the Holy Father said. “I just said that the woman and his creation can’t stay.”

  Dozens of Ensiferum spheres were uncovered in the hands of as many brothers of the Sanctuary, armed to the teeth.

  Godivah stepped among them, looking straight into the eyes of his former pupil. “You’re now my guest, Hermit. Forever.”

  *

  1. The clansman

  Some time before.

  Half-heartedly reciting his prayer, Exodus marched on, looking down and kicking away the pebbles in his path.

  He raised his face. Two children—a boy and a girl—sat on a low wall, their feet dangling. They tickled each other, candidly searching each other’s bodies. The girl suddenly pinched the boy’s bottom and then fled. The boy jumped up and ran after her, thus beginning a chase that would last all day—and perhaps for a lifetime.

  Two teenagers shared other sweetness, holding hands, as a bunch of sweaty kids crossed Exodus’ path, screaming loudly and running after a makeshift ball. They almost knocked him to the ground, but Exodus smiled because every spark of life that went on its way, in that sea of death, reminded him of how life was beautiful and worth living.

  Even for simple Tankars like us…

  The smile disappeared from his muzzle when he remembered the place he was going and the task ahead. He looked away in search of his only lighthouse: The Hammer of Skyrgal at the Sanctuary, with the shining soul of Ktisis trapped inside it. They said it could be seen from the sea in the days when Mother Desert was lenient with her children, but he didn’t believe it. Even from here, the light was barely visible. Looking at it, Exodus felt a profound, indefinable unease—their god was indeed in the mortal world, so close no matter how far. He was visible everywhere, yet unreachable to anyone.

  Except for those priests who never allow us to approach Ktisis. Control a god, and you control the entire world that worships him…

  He shooed a beetle from his muzzle, shaking his head that was covered with white hair except for the large burn scar disfiguring the left side. With his hands clasped behind his back, he walked forward, praying to himself, Mother Desert, grant that I may not judge my neighbor until I have walked a mile on his paws. Grant that my son will not know the hard blows inflicted by fraternal war. Take me by the hand to the promised land at the end of the road, the world where we will prosper in peace after the Tankar Dawn. Mother Desert, daughter of Ktisis, guide me from the first to the last step of this long caravan beyond redemption that is mortal existence.

  All the steps he’d taken in his life had led him here, in the form of Asmeghin—the warrior-priest leader of the clan Nehama. The four clans guiding the fortunes of the Tankars had arrived that day in the center of the holy city to perform the Rite of Rebirth. Their tents stretched in every direction around the esplanade of the temples, and more caravans were still arriving, gray lines against the ocher desert.

  Everyone was in turmoil waiting for the sunset that heralded the start of the year for the nomad and warrior civilization of the desert. On that occasion, the four clans abandoned every occupation—including war—and gathered at the foot of the Throne of Skyrgal to celebrate the end of winter. No conflict was allowed. The murder of a peer, that day, was severely punished, but such an incident had happened only once in history. The only burial given to that perpetrator was in the stomachs of those who had subsequently fed on his whole body.

  To speak without fear of retaliation made that day the only one during which it was considered safe enough to keep the Council. Only the families of the Asmeghins could take part in it—the first-degree relatives: sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. The decisions on which depended the existence of all had to be shared by the warrior-priests with their own blood, so that the sense of responsibility could cool off typical Tankar instincts and guide every choice.

  Exodus looked up. He was in the middle of the esplanade at the foot of the Throne of Skyrgal—the holiest place in all Adramelech, the immense throne erected by the Gorgors to welcome, one day, the sacred seat of the god.

  The sunlight illuminated the seatback of the wondrous structure, painting it with a copper glow. The four temples—one for each clan—seemed thus to be at the foot of a wall of flames.

  It must be too big even for him…

  Two thugs were guarding the entrance, holding their double axes mounted on long two-handled poles. They bowed and uncrossed their weapons to let him pass.

  The Asmeghin got inside and walked the blood-red carpet. In the faint light of the corridor, it looked like a tongue spewed from the screaming face of Skyrgal carved on the bottom, flanked by two deformed horns in yellow granite. Exodus advanced under the palate of the god and beyond the tent concealing the uvula.

  When he scanned the dim arena, he understood he was the last to arrive.

  “Exodus, Asmeghin of the Nehamas,” the old Gehennah greeted him. “We dare never start without you!”

  With his seven feet of height and characteristic white robes and fur of his clan, Exodus could hardly pass unnoticed. The crowd parted as he descended the stairs. Only the four Asmeghins could set foot in the arena. Their family members sat on the steps, higher or lower depending on their importance, and silently breathed the incense-laden air.

  With the Nehama there was only his son, who had preceded him. Exodus looked around but didn’t see him. His fatherly eyes were still searching when Exodus uttered before his peers, “Dèbris Gehennah, Asmèghin tam Bèshavis brat. Nèma ta Kràhe vau cron y sprak va tàma Tankàra jag, kem tabre sa làka res.”
/>   The youngest warrior-priest—a Tankar with sparse fur on his bare chest—turned toward the old man dressed in blue, laughing. “I do not understand what he barks.”

  “He told me, ‘Wise Gehennah, Asmeghin of beloved Beshavis. Please do not discomfort me, and speak our Tankar tongue, as sacredness of this place requires’. Rem ka, dèbris Exodus. So be it, wise Exodus.” The old man nodded once. When he spoke again, it was in the Tankar’s tongue, “I hope you’ll understand that we’ve talked so far in the twisted human tongue—even if we don’t fully understand its rules—not to be rude to our distinguished guest. After all, trade and cultural exchanges have made this the language of the future, facilitating interaction between people. When two or more people don’t understand each other, they often begin to be afraid of each other and end up going into war. Isn’t that so?”

  The Asmeghin of Nehamas nodded, too, once. “This is what you say and I have to believe it. My clan never dismissed our traditional practices and customs in favor of the occidental ones.”

  “Yes. We noticed. So share your experiences with us all. Is it worth it to lock yourself up within the walls of your sector of Adramelech, when the world outside the door offers endless possibilities?”

  Exodus looked around, no longer searching for his son. “I’m also grateful to humans for teaching us their language…”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you—”

  “…because now I know how to curse them.”

  The old Gehennah tapped the point of his stick to the ground. The smile disappeared from his face. “I esteem you, Exodus. According to our ancient tradition, old people must show respect to young ones, on whom their lives depend. Think about this: humans do the contrary. Young fellows must show respect to old people, because they have the experience.”

  In the general silence, Exodus went to his seat at the bottom of the stairs, planting his firm feet in the sacred sand. He took a little of it with his big hands and smeared it on his nose with ceremonial gestures. He looked around again. You’re looking at me, aren’t you? You’re trying to foresee if I’ll be a problem for you, and how big. “Human traditions don’t interest me. They are the product of a world where we’ve never lived, away from the wise guidance of the ancient ruins.”