Dagger - The Light at the End of the World Read Online Free Page B

one. He was nothing.
    “ I’ll take you out of here,”
he whispered. “I’ll take you out of here even if it’s the last
thing I do!”
Only when the sun had begun its slow
descent into the putrid horizon of Melekesh, the screaming stopped.
Pain had the better of him and he closed his eyes.
He heard the wind.
And the wind-borne sand.
     
    * * *
* *

Thirteen years
earlier .
    2. Desecrated Trinity
     
    The cry of the wind was the
only audible sound in the vast silence that hung over the ruins of
Adramelech, the ancient and glorious Gorgors’ Metropolis, made a
desert by the tireless work of time. The titanic stone faces that
emerged from sand, the ruined domes and megalithic walls were all
that remained of its ancient inhabitants’ dream; to build a city
worthy of Skyrgal, their god and creator, where he could bring his
reign in blood once he’d risen again. Now there was nothing left of
the ancient splendor, but the ruins half buried under the desolate
dunes, sent from the desert to claim back the space from which it
had once been stolen. Under the ocher line that bisected the city,
hid the ancient Master way. It was this path the woman was following, head bowed and
her step uncertain. She wore a worn-out tunic and a cap on the hair
as the last refuge from the fury of the elements. The ruins swirled
the treacherous currents to push dust between her lips and the
narrow slits of her eyes, blinding her. Still, she stubbornly
dragged forward, propelled only by the fear of failure.
    For a Guardian, failure is
never contemplated, she recited in her
mind, and then again, All steps you have
taken in your life have led you here!
    The first commandment of the
Guardians. Her favorite one. Those words had a personal meaning for
her since the first time she read them. They were engraved in the
stone arch at the entrance to the Fortress of Golconda, that one
place that, even if for a short period of her life, had been
synonymous with home. The pain of a memory suddenly seized
her: ‘It’s not really a commandment. It
seems a sort of premise,’ she said to her
Guardian instructor when, as a child, she stepped in the arena for
the first day of her training. Long, long before then. She
remembered how he smiled, putting a hand on her hair, as if to
caress her. She remembered. She remembered the coldness in his eyes
as he began to beat her viciously in front of her companions, to
teach her in the most effective way the meaning of blind obedience,
the unquestioned loyalty to the six commandments of Angra. For a
moment, she wondered if it was not just the complete confidence in
the truths revealed from above to have led the world to ruin. It
was only a fleeting doubt, soon swept away by the storm along with
what remained of her strength. Now, that first, unusual commandment
only sounded a bit sarcastic to her. Truly, many steps had taken
her right there, on her knees in the dark and cold.
A long howl made her skin crawl. For a
moment, at the top of an obelisk, she saw the shadow of a Tankar, a
marauder of the desert, opening wide his jaws to the sky and
stretching his claws to the currents of the East. He was alerting
his companions she had entered their territory. From then on every
moment was the right one to shake the cold hand of death. She
grinned. No. They would not attack her, they were afraid. Not of
her, of course, but of the shadow that was chasing her. She hugged
the burden she was carrying to her breast, as if she was hiding the
most important thing in the world. Then she pulled herself to her
feet to walk on.
I’m almost there. Almost!
Entranced by her tormented thoughts, she
nearly didn’t notice she had reached the ‘light at the end of the
world’ and, with it, the only refuge that night would offer. It was
a filthy tavern for stonecutters, created under the imposing arches
of a bridge collapsed, nobody knew how long before, in the dry bed
of the river that once it crossed. The first, or last, outpost