Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Read online

  DAGGER

  The Light at the End of the World

  by

  Walt Popester

  First volume of the Redemption Saga

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Walt Popester

  [email protected]

  ‘Dagger – The Light at the End of the World’

  Copyright © 2013 by Walt Popester

  Professionally edited by progressivedits.com

  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 product of the author’s mind or are used in a fictitious way.

  To my parents.

  For the never-ending patience and tolerance, from Nassau to Trieste.

  To the reader:

  The author promises that in this novel you will not find any funny dwarves, elegant elves, paladins, wizards, little magicians, or sparkling vampires. Nor will there be the umpteenth land of the five lands terrorized by intestine wars.

  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.

  Anyway it’s just a book. Real life is out there.

  Enjoy.

  1. Dagger

  Dagger put a hand to his waist to make sure, once again, of the presence of that one object from which he would never separate: his switchblade. Crouching in a dark alley, his bare ankles deep in the gutter that ran parallel to the wall, Dagger leaned over to look at the street. The unstable sign of the Gypsy was rocking back and forth in the rain, making fun of him with its cold and rusty chuckle. The light inside the tavern was still on, but no one had come through that door for at least an hour.

  Curse you, Ktisis! he swore to himself, flattening against the wall.

  His toes were tingling, as if bitten by a thousand needles. The beginning of a freezing, he thought. He had seen many Spiders lose their fingers that way and be degraded to mere beggars, forced to drag their pathetic stumps around to move people and ask them money. He didn’t want to end up like that. He pulled one foot out of the icy water, then the other one. He tried to move his toes, but he could no longer feel them. He had to hurry to accomplish his job, or else return to the guild with empty hands. And with all the consequences the latter would involve.

  He leaned back to look again, checking out every movement of the shadows around him. When he turned to the right, his heart missed a beat: a shadowy figure was coming toward him, slowly, in the rain. Dagger wrapped his fingers around the handle of his knife, then he realized he was looking at a city guard and the desire to use his blade suddenly passed. There were accords to respect and accords were important, the old Mama always said.

  The guard stopped not far from him, with no intention of sneaking into one of the back streets. It seemed he just wanted to finish his shift and get back to any place with a roof, or at least a floor. “Look at my boots!” he said, his voice little more than a boy’s. He raised his face to the sky. “Curse you, Ktisis! Enough already!”

  The sky answered with a burst of rain. Discouraged, the boy who was forced to dress as an adult by society, drew a leather bag from his pocket and poured a little magic dust onto the back of his hand. He took a long sniff and stood there, motionless, gazing into space for an interminable time.

  For a moment, it seemed he was staring right at where Dagger was hiding; but his eyes were fixed, dull, and were not looking for anyone or anything. Soon they filled with tears. Dagger felt a deep shame at having spied on the intimate pain of the boy. He felt like a thief, more than when he robbed customers outside taverns to survive. Ktisis must really be too busy for us, he thought.

  The young guard resumed his solitary journey through the dark. Dagger watched his shadowy silhouette move away and finally disappear, revealing a wooden statue at the end of the road, in a shrine surrounded by red lights: Ktisis, the jackal god of violence and sin, creator of the world and all the creatures condemned to walk upon it. Almighty Ktisis would not listen to any prayer if it was not accompanied by a bloodbath worthy of his name. In truth, now that his annual festival, The sacred slaughter of the origins, was approaching, Prefect Mawson’s guards were just waiting for the opportunity to catch a thief like Dagger and to sell him to the organizers of the sacrifices required for the occasion. For that special kind of event organizers could pay well, since the city’s clergy was never short of money.

  Dagger had seen a sacred slaughter only once, when one of his companions had been caught and sentenced to repent for his sins through pain. The old Mama had said that it would be good for everybody to watch what happened to those stupid enough to get caught. In fact, what Dagger witnessed had been quite convincing. Some of the sacrificial participants were still alive when the ceremony was over and the audience was leaving the amphitheater. Even if he feared and worshiped his god, as everyone else in that city, he did not want to witness one of the sacred slaughters again. Least of all be one of its protagonists. He did care for his thing. They could tear anything away from him, but not his thing.

  He got to the middle of the street, planting his feet on the hard cobblestones surface. It felt good to get out of the icy mud and gradually regain possession of his toes. He even managed to move them. Maybe he was not going to lose them after all. He looked up at the sky, watching the raindrops falling on his face, and prayed. He prayed to the dreadful, eyeless god, the foul lord of torment and orgasm, the one who had created the world and then, seeing the many worries to which it had condemned mankind, decided to reward it with wine, lust and everything that made life more bearable. He prayed. He begged Ktisis to stop being an asshole and be helpful at least that night, just that night, then somehow he would have paid off. Only then his god finally seemed to listen.

  A gruff voice broke the silence, tearing his prayers. “When we close, close!” cried the host, the gypsy in person. “Not stay open for one person! Fuck you home!”

  Dagger had already disappeared into the alley when a guy landed on his back in the street, tearing his coat and skin. After a brief struggle against gravity, and water that made the ground slippery beneath his elegant loafers, he managed to pull himself up and tried to shout something that his thick tongue found difficult to articulate into syllables. The gypsy answered slamming the door and turning off the light at the window. The young customer looked at the closed door, muttering, then lolled against the wall and managed to rest an elbow on it, before vomiting on himself. He soon fell to his knees, sobbing for the various pains of life and all the things that were not fine.

  Dagger left him plenty of time to complain, finding that it was the right thing to do, but when the young drunk stood up to begin his journey home, the boy in the shadows acted in a flash, tightening his arm around the drunk’s throat as he dragged him into the alley, like a spider carrying an immobilized fly inside a hole.

  He pushed him to the ground, a blade already on his neck and a hand over his mouth. It was easy to handle drunks, he thought. That was why he always chose taverns for his nightly routines.

  “If I were you I’d avoid crying for help,” he said. “It’s dark. Nobody sees you die in the dark and no one helps you in the dark. Not in this town.”

  Two eyes full of tears and fear silently answered in the affirmative. Dagger removed his hand from the mouth and the boy did not scream. He merely peed on himself. He wasn’t muc
h older than he, judging by his size.

  “Your voice… you’re just a kid, ain’t you?” he mumbled. “Do you feel so lonely t—?”

  Dagger stunned him with his legendary fist. Legendary at least in the Spiders’ Guild. The boy spit blood and teeth before Dagger lifted him by the collar. “Be good. Let me work quickly and soon you’ll go home. Alive. And whole.”

  The boy stretched out his arms, starting to cry again.

  Dagger cleaned him up quickly, with fast movements refined by practice. He found six Dragoons on him, a real fortune in those days, a sign that Ktisis had woken up somewhere up there in Almagard, the big tavern of afterlife.

  Entranced by the unmistakable touch of gold he smiled spontaneously, but that moment of distraction cost him dearly: his victim reached out and snatched the handkerchief from his face, screaming madly: “A thief! A fuckin’ thief!”

  Dagger cursed and clenched his hand against the screamer’s mouth. The other one bit it, so he flicked the knife under his eyes and that was enough to calm him down, but a light was turned on and lit up everything. Dagger looked up. The gypsy himself stood on the door with a lamp in his hand.

  “The color of your eyes!” The boy on the ground noticed. “Oh, Ktisis! What color are your eyes?”

  Checkmate the king, Dagger thought. Rule number one! Screamed the voice of old Mama in his mind. Who sees you in face while you work, dies!

  “Curse you Ktisis!” he muttered again.

  The boy merely raised his trembling hands in the air. “Don’t kill me! P-please, don’t kill me!” he whined. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I don’t want to die here, please! I’m afraid!”

  “Just shut up, dammit!”

  “Wadda fuck happens there?” the gypsy shouted from the door.

  “Shit!” Dagger cursed.

  “Help!”

  “Man, just shut up!”

  “Oh, de fuck I come out there to help a stranger!” the gypsy decided, before closing the door once again, and turning off the light.

  Dagger looked down at his client and felt him tremble under the knife.

  “And… now what?” the boy gasped in fear.

  Dagger smiled. “Now? You’ve seen my face, what do you think happens now?” he replied. “You must die, there’s no alternative. ‘A dead man tells no lies’ the old man always says and he’s damn right. If I don’t kill you, there will be consequences, we both know it. There are always consequences in this world, especially for the ones like me. However, takin’ your life away, I can fix all this mess. You’ll probably agree.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a sister, a little sister. Please, please, I want to see her again! She has only me in the whole world!”

  Dagger stood still, knife clutched in his hand, the edge pressing on the throat’s skin, on the carotid and the red life that flowed into it. Then the grin disappeared from his face. He closed his eyes and, cursing his god no longer, but for the day he was born, he stood up. “It’s your lucky night, motherfucker,” he said. “You did say the magic words.”

  When the boy’s eyes asked for an explanation, Dagger kicked at his temple. He hoped the blow was strong enough to make him forget about a lot of things.

  * * * * *

  Dawn was breaking when Dagger got back to the ship cemetery. The district of Melekesh where anyone who had something to lose, including life, was advised not to approach. Here, there were no streets, and no alleys. The cemetery was entirely made up of ships that had been beached and abandoned to rot in the sun. Over the centuries, many were reduced to wooden skeletons that didn’t seem to have ever seen better times. Eroded by water, gnawed by rodents, dismantled for firewood before water soaked their souls. Their groans rose into the air in an endless dirge, weaker in summer, stronger in winter when dampness swelled the wooden planks making them split.

  In that unhealthy place, where everything was suspended between mud, tar, and sea, blades claimed more victims than hunger. Few of its inhabitants lived to see their thirtieth year. The old Mama, the master of his guild, was one of them. Perhaps he had survived all that time because he rarely got out of his vessel. To tell the truth, Dagger could not remember ever having seen him get out of his cabin. In a small pond, crowded with sharks, Mama understood that attracting little attention was a good way to stay alive, especially when it meant not stepping on the toes of the district’s most influential guild, located in the three imposing galleons anchored at the center of the cemetery. There went those who could make a career in that small, dirty world populated by usurers, rapists and thieves, whores, fences and smugglers. Where you killed for nothing and died for less. Even Mawson’s guards were afraid to venture into the neighborhood. There were no laws, except the ones its inhabitants gave themselves from death to death.

  Dagger set foot on the deck of the old ship where Mama had established his lair. The deck had collapsed in several places and been carpeted with repairs that, over time, had changed its original architecture. It was no longer a ship, had never been a home, and would never become a refuge. It was just a burrow, a spider hole to scurry into at the end of the night.

  He knocked three times by six on the door and waited. Two big green eyes appeared from the slit of the peephole. “Password.”

  “Prefect Mawson’s hands stink of our shit,” Dagger answered.

  The eyes disappeared and the door opened in a rattle of bolts and chains. He was sure he was the last. All the other Spiders quit hours earlier, maybe some didn’t even get out that night. It was becoming easier to accept the relentless punishment of Mama on those rotten days, rather than venturing out in the dark and rain, given the proximity of the sacred festivals held to honor Ktisis and their unique rituals.

  A misty light barely penetrated through the cracks in the ceiling, falling on a group of Spiders. They were sitting down, playing dice. Their knives planted in the ground. He wondered where they could find all that energy at the end of the night. Then he saw. Some of them were secretly licking magic dust from their dirty fingers and, judging from their delighted smiles, he realized that Mama would get seriously angry soon again. He hated when his Spiders used those remedies to stay awake and not feel the hunger. They were an income for him, all of them. Those he did not lose because of the guards and the diseases, he lost to that damn dust. Some Spiders were coughing. Others violently scratched the pustules on their arms and legs. Some were lying on the ground, unconscious, at least he hoped, because of fatigue or starvation.

  Alone in a corner, one of them spat a blood clot on the ground. It was no wonder that the others avoided him. The little wretch held out his hand, looking at him with eyes sunken in their sockets. “Give me a Dragoon, won’t you?” he whispered. “Do you got a Dragoon, Dag?”

  Dagger walked on. The wretch was already dead, helping him would only serve to prolong his suffering. Green death did not spare. With the yellow one, maybe you could get by somehow, if someone amputated your hands before decay ate the rest of your body. With the green one, it was better to surrender as soon as possible: you rot slowly, day after day, you could watch yourself falling apart. The smell you took up was no longer that of a human being, not a living one at least: it reminded one of fish left to rot under the sun on a hot summer day. It was a disease with a subtle sense of irony, however: when the rotting stopped, when it seemed things were getting better, and you thought you have survived after all, that was the worst moment. You could be certain that the disease had begun to eat you from the inside and suddenly, one day, you woke up with larvae pushing against the skin of your belly to open a hole through which it would escape.

  He let himself fall to the ground at the end of the room, laying his head in the crook of his arm, falling asleep immediately. He was awakened by a slap on the nape.

  “How long did I sleep?” he instinctively asked.

  “Your head practically bounced on the floor, big bro.”

  Dagger managed to keep his eyes open. He
remembered his name, he remembered who he was and what kind of world he lived in, but again was missing why. He crossed Seeth’s gaze, who was looking at him, smiling as always.

  “A little tired, uh?”

  “Well, I worked this night, little sis!”

  “How much did you get?”

  “… ’lemme sleep…”

  “Dag, how much?”

  “Six Dragoon, clean clean,” Dagger muttered, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “And you? How much did you scrap up?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Nothing at all,” Seeth repeated, looking down. “This place can’t feed us all. We’re too many. Any white trash spewed from the city ends up in the guild, so—”

  “How much do you need, this time?” Dagger interrupted.

  Seeth raised her face. She hated asking for help, he knew, but she did it all the same. At least until there was someone stupid enough to help her.

  “Three. I told you, I didn’t scrap up anything.”

  Dagger looked around before putting a hand in his pocket. He took three of his Dragoons to drop them in her hands, one at a time.