Dagger - The Light at the End of the World by Walt Popester Page A

‘great
Mama’?”
Sannah shrugged. “It began with one of the
older ones that amused the others mangling my name. Sannah, Mama,
sounds pretty much the same,” he paused. “I cut off his tongue,” he
went on. “Yes. I’ve wore it around my neck for a week, so that the
other ones would remember how much I hate when people mess with my
name. But, with time, I found it funny and let everybody call me
that, apart from the one who had done it first, of course. I offer
a roof and half a meal a day to a host of irresistible rogues
abandoned in the world by their whore mothers. In return, they do
something for me. It’s the closest thing to an orphanage you will
find around here. Funny, isn’t it?”
The woman made a skeptical expression. “You
could do better,” she said, looking at the corpse of a rat skewered
by a fork rotting in a corner of the room. “Yes, you could do much
better, whereas in Golconda there are still some books that talk
about you as a legend. And many people too.”
Sannah grinned bitterly. “Life is mutable,
Aniah, and luck too,” he said. “Once I landed on this world I had
to invent something to survive. On this side of the portal, life is
harder than it seems, but I suppose it’s difficult to understand it
in the shelter of the warm walls of the Fortress. These people are
sick, more than we, you should really see the passion they put in
tearing apart each other. Even I am a beginner in comparison. At
least they say, since I wouldn’t get out of these four walls for
any reason!” He chuckled, his hearty and hoarse laughter, before
pulling a puff of smoke from the cigar hold between his dirty
fingers. “As for the legends about me, well, you know what remains
of human deeds once time buries them under his generous, and
inexhaustible, load of shit?”
Aniah did not answer. There was no need to
answer and the old man himself left the question hanging over his
grin.
    “ So why you came here?” He
continued. “Not just to remind me how hard life is on this sick
world, I hope. This sick world already does so.”
    “ I’ve got a problem. We both
have.”
    “ Oh. Seriously?” Sannah
said, coughing out smoke. “Well, after all this time I’ve been
waiting for you, do you know what can you do about your problem?
Any problem? Go tuck it in that mastodontic ass of your beloved
Angra!”
Aniah drew a dagger, bringing it against
his neck so fast that the old man found just time to helplessly
open his arms. “Do not mention Angra in vain!” she growled. “This
is just a demonstrative gesture, but if you nominate him again, oh
Ktisis be fucked! I put an end to your atrocious life now and where
you are, whoever or whatever you have been for me!”
Three boys dressed in rags burst in through
the door, armed with switchblades that only asked to be used.
Judging by the look in their eyes, Sannah thought that they had not
expected to find a scene like that: their master, perhaps their
owner, with a knife to his throat. They had the expression of
someone who believed such a thing was not even possible.
    “ Get out of here. This is
none of your business!”
    “ But—”
    “ Get the fuck
OUT!”
The three could only obey that order.
    “ That’s better,” Aniah
continued, lowering her blade. “I don’t really feel like shedding
more blood today. The trip was far too long.”
Sannah put his hand around his neck,
massaging it nervously to make sure there were no cuts. “Damn, you
got good at it! Nothing I wouldn’t expect from my daughter, of
course; not even your brother Marduk could put me up against the
wall so quickly. I’m really proud of you.”
    “ You’ve been a lousy father
and not a day goes by that I do not curse you in my prayers,” Aniah
replied in the same tone of voice that she could use to order a
beer in a tavern. She was good at not showing her suffering. She
had always been. “Angra will understand. My god always understands
the grudge.”
Sannah laughed again, rubbing