Blinded by Power: 5 (The Death Wizard Chronicles) (44 page)

BY THE TIME Deva reached Avici, it was almost midnight. With his extraordinary night vision, the snow giant could see a score of Tugars and several hundred smaller companions walking the battlement east and west of the southern bridge. The great iron gates were open, as if inviting any who might approach to enter the Golden City. But Deva had no desire to join forces with them or anyone else. Whatever business remained between him and Invictus, the two of them would settle.

Deva sprinted westward and then northward alongside the Golden Wall, running for about a mile in the time it would take a human to travel a tenth of that distance. The snow giant came to a portion of the bulwark that was shrouded in deep darkness and unguarded by friend or foe.

Though the gold-coated wall was almost thirty cubits tall, the snow giant was not dismayed. He sprinted forward and sprang at the last moment, landing gracefully on the battlement. Then he leapt over the side, disdaining the interior stairwell.

Soon he was deep inside the great stone city, striding along streets that were disconcertingly quiet and empty. Mala had walked these roads and alleyways many times, and they had never been deserted, even in the early hours before dawn. The citizens of Avici didn’t tend to sleep particularly well, and there was a good deal of milling about, even in the darkness.

Deva found himself wandering almost aimlessly. Something was causing him to hesitate. Was it cowardice? It didn’t feel like it. Rather, it was more like regret. A part of him wanted no part of vengeance, even if he could somehow successfully execute it.

As if in a half-sleep, Deva continued to stumble forward.

On the main causeway he finally encountered some of Avici’s citizens, though they seemed to be wandering as aimlessly as he. Deva walked over to them with his arms spread wide, intending to apologize for the atrocities he had committed while entrapped within his former persona. But the nearer he approached, the stranger their behavior became. Suddenly, they were attacking him, biting at his legs in fits of ravenous hunger. This disgusted Deva, and he realized with sadness what they had become. He swept the fiends away with his huge arms, splattering them against the nearby stone walls. Afterward, he continued on, his determination renewed.

When he reached the peak of the dead volcano and looked down upon the valley that contained Uccheda, the sight stupefied him. A glimmering palisade surrounded the tower, and jammed within it were several hundred thousand fiends. As Mala, Deva had had many conversations with Invictus about the worthlessness of the citizens of Avici, and how better to make use of them. Deva remembered suggesting how much more valuable they would be if they all could be transformed to fiends—and then he had laughed.

But Invictus had not.

Amazingly, the sorcerer had pulled it off, turning half a million people into cannibalistic monsters. Had any of them known what was happening, and if so, had they even tried to resist? Knowing their fear of Invictus and his minions, perhaps not.

By the time Deva reached the palisade, it was less than a bell to dawn. The fiends huddled near the fence, not daring to touch it, but they snarled at him and bared their teeth, their lust for living flesh unquenchable.

Deva, of course, had nothing to fear from them. No number of fiends could harm him. But the sight of them smote his heart. Invictus had committed atrocities on a scale never before seen on Triken. Not even the demons or dragons were capable of this level of cruelty. Deva felt tears gushing down his cheeks.

Even Deva had no desire to touch the fence, which Invictus’s golden power had superheated, so he simply leapt over it, landing amid the fiends and then wading toward Uccheda. He knew the locations of the secret portals at the tower’s base and how to open them. He also knew the ways that led deep beneath the bedrock to where the sorcerer slept during the night. If Deva could catch Invictus unawares before dawn, there was a chance he could slay him.

Thousands of fiends pressed against him, but Deva cast them aside with great sweeps of his arms and huge thrusts of his legs. Now the tower was just a stone’s throw away.

Suddenly, the snow giant stopped.

And slowly looked upward. What he saw amazed him.

Though dawn was approaching, the eastern sky was growing increasingly dark—increasingly black—and it was happening
 . . .
fast
.

For reasons he did not quite understand, it made him want to cheer.

DURING HIS MANY travels, Torg had skirted the border of Kauha several times but never had entered deeply into the swamp. Though usually curious and fearless of the unknown, the marshes had disconcerted him, as if he could sense that for him some sort of doom awaited inside. Now it was midnight, and he again stood on the fringe of their madness.

Bhojja, transformed to Jord, also was there. Then Peta joined them, adorned in the same dress she had worn the first time he had seen her seven centuries before.

“Father,” Peta said, without even saying hello, “life has been appeased. But Death and Undeath still await their payments.”

“I don’t understand,” Torg said.

“It is time to enter,” Peta said.

“Why the marshes?”

“Do not fear,” the ghost-child said.

Despite her diminutive size, Torg wanted to slap her. “The only thing I fear is becoming someone’s puppet.”

“You distrust me,” Peta said. “And I don’t blame you. But, it will do you no good to hate me. I have your best interests at heart
 . . .
as well as Laylah’s. It’s not a simple thing to destroy a god.”

“My distrust sickens me like poison,” Torg said.

A raspy voice from the darkness interrupted their tête-à-tête. “Are the two of you going to gab all night? We’ve got work to do. My grandson won’t remain blind to our conspiracy forever.” Then Vedana came forth and glared at Torg, her eyes ablaze. “If you care at all about your pretty little girlfriend, you’ll quit asking so many annoying questions. Either follow me and do what you’re told, or get the hell away from here and try to figure out for yourself how to rescue Laylah. You certainly did a great job of it in the Green Plains.”

“You are I have unfinished business,” Torg said, holding Obhasa in his left hand and the Silver Sword in his right. “But once again, I am at your mercy. Lead on. But do not expect me to love you.”

“Who cares? I’ve had better than you—lots of times.” Then the grandmotherly version of Vedana swirled and waded into the swamp, her translucent flesh aglow.

With Jord and Peta at his side, Torg followed warily, sloshing first through ankle-deep and then knee-deep water. Soon they entered a snarl of bushes as dark and forbidding as a cave. The dense canopy shut out moonlight and starlight. In the deep darkness, Vedana, Peta, and Jord glimmered, but they did not provide enough light for Torg to see for more than a few cubits. So he willed Obhasa to shine, casting blue-green illumination several dozen paces in each direction.

Vedana turned and glared at him, but then shook her head and kept wading.

The water was black and cold. Torg felt it seeping through his boots and freezing his feet. He could sense that this wasn’t ordinary water, nor was the squishy bottom ordinary mud. Though his boots were thick, he still could feel strange creatures squirming and wiggling around his calves, as if the water were filled with worms. And perhaps it was. The light from Obhasa did not penetrate beneath the surface. When he lowered the tail of the staff into the water, the ivory seemed to vanish into oblivion.

Vedana, meanwhile, was entirely in her element. Though the labyrinth of passages twisted and turned, the demon seemed to know exactly where she was going.

Several times the water came up to Torg’s waist, and he carried the ghost-child on his shoulders. Jord requested no aid, though her expression was stern, as if she had been appointed an unpleasant task that she nonetheless was determined to complete.

The going was difficult, but a brisk current always was at their backs, making it easier to maintain a steady pace. The four of them waded deeper into the swamp, continuing forward for more than a third of the night. The air grew stale and seemed to lack nourishment.

Torg’s claustrophobia, born in the pit on Mount Asubha and intensified in the labyrinths beneath it, lifted its ugly head, causing him to breathe so quickly that his heart pounded and his head felt woozy. For a panicked moment he considered using Obhasa to blow a hole in the roof of Kauha’s tangled canopy to let in some fresh air and starlight. But a saner part of him knew that this would alert Invictus to their presence, which would destroy any chance of rescuing Laylah. As he had done in the bowels of Asubha, he used his millennium-long practice of meditation to calm himself and regain his wits. To be with Laylah again, he would confront any enemy or fear.

Now the water was knee-deep again, and it seemed to go on forever. Torg began to suspect that they were being followed. Fluttery breezes caressed his cheeks and danced on his neck, slipping inside his jacket and crawling on the thick muscles of his shoulders and chest like invisible ants. He found himself jerking his head this way and that. Swirling wisps hid just out of the range of his peripheral vision.

“It is not your imagination, Father,” Peta said in a near whisper. “Ghosts have joined us. Death must be appeased.”

“Some are only recently deceased,” Jord said in a voice strangely sad.

“Who are they? And why do they follow?” Torg said.

“There you go with your questions,” Vedana snarled, so loud that it seemed to echo off the bony branches. “You’ll find out soon enough. We’re almost there. And don’t ask ‘where.’”

“You and I have unfinished business,” Torg repeated.

“Blah
 . . .
blah
 . . .
blah,” the demon said.

They trudged on in silence. The water became extremely shallow, exposing patches of black, gooey mud, but then it deepened to the point that even Torg was forced to swim. Was it now so endless that it went through the world and into another dimension? This question made him tremble. Or maybe it was just the icy water. Torg could no longer tell the difference between thoughts and physical sensation.

The demon swam effortlessly, propelling through the black water like a snake. Perhaps she had transformed into just such a creature. Jord and Peta also swam easily. The cold did not seem to affect them, but their facial expressions were severe. They didn’t like this horrid place any more than he did.

The foursome came to an island of mud barely broad enough for all four of them to stand. Vedana climbed up first. Torg and the others followed. They stood in the cold air, their bodies dripping wet, though only Torg shivered. Vedana appeared anxious to get on with the proceedings, whatever they might be. Torg also was impatient. Ever since he had surrendered to Mala at Dibbu-Loka, Torg had been preparing for this moment. The karmic forces he had unleashed the previous summer were finally coming to fruition. Laylah’s freedom depended on it.

Now the ghosts were clearly visible as they swirled around the island like a miniature whirlwind. They came in different sizes, shapes, and colors, and were no longer silent, moaning and wailing with such intensity that Torg feared they might somehow alert the sorcerer. The ghosts seemed most attracted to him, spinning around his body like schools of fish. At the same time, they evaded the demon, as if death were preferable to anything Vedana had to offer.

“Father, it is time,” Peta said. “Life was appeased by the sacrifice of the druid queen. Now, Death demands its own payment. You must free the ghosts from Kauha.”

“Tell me
 . . .
and I will obey,” Torg said, no longer able to resist whatever might occur.

“You must achieve
Sammaasamaadhi
,” Jord said.

“Here?” Torg said.

“Yes, Father,” Peta said. “Only this time, the
Vijjaadharaa
and I will journey with you once you have passed.”

“To and fro,” Jord added
 . . .
but Peta lowered her head.

Torg arched an eyebrow. “What of the demon?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Vedana snapped. “I have my own role to play—far more important than yours, by the way.”

Peta rolled her eyes, or at least some semblance of that act. “Leave it to you, Mother, to be arrogant even now.”

“And you’re
not
being arrogant?” Then the demon moved so close to Torg, he could smell her fetid breath. “Listen to me, Death-Knower. We are in Kauha for a reason. Many portals lead from the Realm of the Undead to the Realm of the Living, but none larger or more potent than where we now stand. Powers are about to be unleashed that will change the fate of this world. Life, Death, Undeath, and the
Vijjaadharaa
are about to join together in an unprecedented alliance.”

“To achieve
Sammaasamaadhi
, I require a quiet place where I can concentrate,” Torg said. “It’s not like I can just snap my fingers and make it happen.”

“Why not? All I ever have to do is snap my fingers to make things happen,” Vedana said. Then she threw up her hands. “Do you ever stop whining, Death-Knower? I suppose not. Anyway
 . . .
Peta, in her brilliance, foresaw this ‘problem’ and has already come up with a solution. You don’t have to meditate yourself to death. All you really have to do is die
 . . .
period.

“I suggested that I pay you back by strangling you, but Peta seemed to think you wouldn’t be overly receptive to that idea. So she came up with an alternative. Isn’t your daughter a sweetie? All you have to do is place your face beneath the water and drown yourself. After you’re dead, Peta and the Faerie will take care of the rest.”

Faster than any living being had ever moved, Torg grabbed Vedana by her scraggly hair and pressed the edge of the Silver Sword against her throat. “Tell me all you know, or I will take your withered head,” the wizard said.

“Who cares?” Vedana rasped. “It’s just a head.”

“The Silver Sword is capable of ending your existence
 . . .
in all realms,” Torg said. “In fact, I’m willing to bet Laylah’s life on it.”

The demon’s face contorted, but there was fear in her eyes. “It would take centuries to tell you all I know.”

“Tell me, then, only one thing: How will we defeat Invictus?”

Vedana did not answer.

“Father!” Peta said. “If you destroy the demon, all will be ruined. Stay your stroke.”

Reluctantly, Torg withdrew the blade from Vedana’s throat.

The demon backed away, her eyes filled with hatred. “Can we get on with this?” Vedana finally said.

Torg had willed himself to die more than a thousand times, but it had always occurred during bouts of intense meditation. Never before had he taken his own life by harming his body enough to accomplish the feat. But he had to admit that, in this case, drowning would be an equally effective alternative. When he returned to his body, he could hack out the water in his lungs and go about his business. The efficiency made sense.

“Did you foresee my drowning?” Torg said to Peta.

“Yes, Father
 . . .
but I took no pleasure in it.” Then she sighed deeply. “You must die
 . . .
before Laylah can be freed.”

Torg arched an eyebrow and started to protest, but Jord interrupted. “Trust us,
Torgon
! Peta and I will not fail you.”

Vedana hissed like a Tyger. “Dawn approaches. Why delay any longer? We don’t have all of eternity. Are you a coward? Either do it or don’t do it! I’m sick of your dawdling.”

Torg looked first at Jord and then at Peta. Both were nodding. “Where you go, we will follow,” they said in unison.

For the final time, Torg pondered his options. It was within his power to leave the demon, Faerie, and ghost-child, find his way out of the swamp, and rush to Uccheda. But what then? Invictus would best him as easily as before. Failure would be assured.

Torg returned the Silver Sword to the scabbard on his back, then jabbed the tail of Obhasa into the mud, where it stood like a lamp post. He knelt and lay on his chest, squirming toward the water’s edge. The ghosts swept down upon him and squirmed along with him, mimicking his every move. Torg looked down into the black water, seeing no reflection.