Blinded by Power: 5 (The Death Wizard Chronicles)

by Jim Melvin

  “Two Asēkhas are no longer, that at least we know,” Aya said. “Dalhapa was set to join our ranks ahead of me, so she already has ascended. I wonder if Dvipa will be able to tell us.”

  “I fear he will know little more than we,” Mudu said. “The world is closed.”

  29

  AS AYA AND MUDU spoke, the desert girl Nimm slept restlessly inside a small tent on the outskirts of Anna. The Tugars had placed Ura and Nimm as far from the ruined center of the city as possible. As usual, Nimm’s dreams were nightmarish, in content and scope. The monster killed Tāseti again and again, each time more horrifically than the last. The Asēkha’s funeral, which in truth had been simple and beautiful, transformed into an orgy of bloodletting. Nimm sat up and screamed, causing Ura to do the same. They looked at each other in the pale light of dawn, both bathed in sweat.

  “Ura, will the dreams never stop?” Nimm rasped.

  “I don’t know,” the motherly woman said. “My sleep is also haunted.”

  “I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it.”

  “What choice do you have? Or I?” Ura said. “We live or we die. If you wish to end your life, I will not blame you or attempt to stop you. But if you do not, I promise that I will love you as my friend . . . and my daughter.”

  “I’m not brave enough to kill myself,” Nimm said, sniffling.

  “Nor am I.” Then Ura smiled. “Yet, is there no reason for joy? Surely our next lives will be better than this one. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t live our current lives to their fullest. The wise ones counsel to live in the present moment. They say that the past is only a memory, and the future does not exist.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  “I’m not sure . . .”

  Nimm sighed. “I miss my family. I miss Tāseti. I miss them all. Something tells me I will join them soon.”

  “Surely our next lives will be better than this one,” Ura repeated. “I can’t imagine them being any worse.”

  Afterward, they both slept without dreams or nightmares, if only for a very short time.

  AT DAWN OF THE fourth morning since Tāseti’s death, the Taiko drums were played for the third time. After an Asēkha or Asēkhas perished in battle, it was customary for the barrel-bodied drums to be pounded each morning for twenty consecutive days. Twenty different Taikos were used, their canvas heads ranging from a span in diameter to seven cubits. The variety of tones was mesmerizing, creating a hypnotic splurge that could be heard for as far as ten leagues, depending on the time of day and stillness of the air.

  Gutta, now the senior Tugar at the Tent City since the deaths of Tāseti and Dvipa, presided over the performance, counting slow breaths with deliberate precision. When he reached six hundred, he called a halt to the percussion with a wave of his hand. An empty silence ensued.

  Then the girl named Nimm was beside him, her face still red and peeling from her grueling journey through the desert with Tāseti. Ura, the woman with the sad face, stood near her.

  “Would it be all right if I tried . . . just once?” Nimm said to the enormous man.

  The Tugar smiled. The girl had experienced unimaginable horrors, but her curiosity had not been blunted. There was hope she might yet heal.

  “First, introductions are in order. My name is Gutta. Yours, I am told, is Nimmita.”

  “Nimm.”

  “And I am Ura,” the woman offered. “We’re sorry to bother one as great as you, but she really wants to play one of the drums, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “Dear lady,” Gutta said, “not only shall Nimm be allowed to play, she shall be permitted to choose any one of these drums as a gift, once the twenty days of service are completed.”

  Nimm’s eyes brightened. “Really?”

  “Do you not know? You are great, even among the Tugars,” Gutta said to Nimm. “We are a humble people, and our wealth is modest, but what is ours is yours.”

  Then he handed the girl a stick twice as thick as her arm and guided her to the largest of the Taikos, a drum hollowed from the trunk of an ancient oak found dead in the eastern foothills of Kolankold. Quickly he gave her a lesson on how to swing the stick, using her shoulder to create a long, steady stroke that culminated in a snap of the wrist. When Nimm struck the tightly strung canvas head, a cavernous boom erupted that surprised even Gutta.

  “Throoooooooooooooooooooooooooom!”

  She struck again . . . harder.

  “Throoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!”

  She smiled. Then giggled.

  Again . . .

  “Throooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!”

  30

  AMONG THE FOUR hundred Tugars whom Aya had sent to scour the desert in search of fiends, Silah, Kithar, and Yoen—along with Chieftain—were the first to find some. The night after leaving the oasis of Wuul, the three close friends had been walking silently alongside the chestnut gelding when they came upon a dozen fiends wandering together in the bowed floor of a dry streambed. It was past midnight, and the quarter moon was about to set, but the sky was full of stars, producing enough light for the Tugars to see clearly without need for torches.

  Silah feared that Chieftain might snort or make other noises that would alert the fiends to their presence, but the horse was clever and remained silent.

  Yoen unsheathed his uttara and started toward the fiends, but Silah waved him off. Then she gathered her Tugarian companions close together and spoke to them in a whisper. “The fiends are unaware of our presence. I believe we should follow them for a while before we destroy them. Perhaps others of their kind will be drawn to this group, and it will make it even easier to end their miserable existences.”

  “Agreed,” Kithar said. “But we must watch carefully. If a living person comes anywhere near, we must react with haste.”

  Yoen nodded, and then Chieftain nickered just loud enough for the three of them to hear, which made it difficult not to laugh and betray their position.

  The foursome trailed the fiends for the rest of the night, over dunes, across plains, and even through a difficult thicket of thorny shrub. During this time, ten more fiends joined the original group, drawn to each other like herding animals. At dawn, the Tugars struck, taking their heads one by one, the fiends too few to pose any threat.

  Afterward, the Tugars dragged their remains into the shrubs and set them aflame.

  While they stood and watched the fire, Silah said, “These fought with less vigor than the others I’ve encountered. Is it possible that they finally wear themselves out?”

  “Regardless, they are still dangerous,” Kithar said. “We must slay them all, or it will be as if we slew none.”

  The next night they found only two, and the night after, none. The fiends were no more.

  THE NIGHT AFTER they left Wuul with the noble ones, Rati and Aya heard the drums coming from Anna. The rhythmic sound was faint and many leagues distant, but its purpose was unmistakable: The Tent City was announcing that two Asēkhas had perished. This puzzled Rati, and he could recognize confusion on Aya’s face, as well.

  “How would Anna know?” Rati said. “Has the Tent City somehow received word from Nissaya?”

  “Or even worse,” Aya said. “Is it possible that Dvipa is one of the fallen?”

  “He was fine when I last left him,” Mudu said. “But I told you already of the rumors of the great giant. Appam went in search of it, and I haven’t seen him since. With the Simōōn dismantled, my heart fears the worse.”

  “I would send most of our warriors ahead,” Rati said, “but The Torgon commanded that the noble ones be well protected. It is an order I will heed, despite our concerns.”

  “Agreed,” Aya said. “Besides, by this time tomorrow, Anna will be in our sights. The noble ones are tougher than they look and can walk many leagues without rest, as long as we continue to urge them.”

  “What will we find when we arrive, I wonder?” Mudu said.

 
“We shall see what we shall see,” Rati said.

  At about the same moment that Kusala emerged into the southern foothills of Mahaggata, the large company of Tugars, monks, and nuns that Rati and Aya led came within sight of the watch-fires surrounding Anna.

  Cheers arose from the desert warriors who had remained with the company, and even the noble ones let out a few shouts, though they typically eschewed outward displays of emotion. Scouts wandering the perimeter of the Tent City rushed to greet them, and soon afterward several hundred warriors came into view, screeching with delight. By the time the company entered the Tent City, everyone in Anna was hooting and hollering. Though it now was well past midnight, bonfires were built, casks of nectar opened, and food prepared. There would be a celebratory feast for the honored arrivals, though the mood would quickly grow solemn when Rati, Aya, and the others learned of the deaths of Tāseti, Dvipa, and Tathagata.

  What began as a celebration became more of a second funeral. Rati spoke long of Tāseti’s numerous exploits, and Aya the same of Dvipa. Ura retold the gruesome yet heroic fall of the Tugarian warrior named Appam, and many described Tathagata’s final moments. Yet when it was revealed that the High Nun had achieved enlightenment before she died, the noble ones were pleased. Their former leader no longer would be reborn, her endless string of births exhausted.

  “No matter how many times or how long you meditate, no matter how many rites or rituals you follow, there is no liberation from suffering,” said Dammawansha, now the official High Monk of Dibbu-Loka. “Pleasure and pain walk hand in hand like day and night and life and death. The yogi who recognizes these truths, at their deepest levels, will enter into eternal tranquility. Though Sister Tathagata suffered terribly in the final moments of her life, she ultimately was the victor. We should rejoice for her, while at the same time continuing to strive to achieve nirvana for our own sakes. Each and every one of us must walk this path alone.”

  Almost a week had passed since the battle at Anna, and though evidence of destruction remained in its interior, the Tugars had been hard at work, carrying their fallen to hidden burial sites, cremating Tathagata’s massive corpse, clearing away the charred debris, and erecting new tents. The noble ones were provided basins of water for bathing and comfortable accommodations for sleeping. By dawn, they all were tucked away. But Rati and Aya remained awake, joining Gutta—who had been the senior Tugar at Anna until their arrival—for a conference.

  “Now that Asēkhas are again among us, we should rebuild the Simōōn,” Gutta said. “The question is, do we want to do it here or at another location? Our stay at Vimānal has become unpleasant, to say the least. What say you, Rati? You are now our leader.”

  “There are still twenty score Tugars wandering the sands in search of the remaining fiends,” Rati said. “Until they return, we should not leave Vimānal. As for rebuilding the Simōōn, it’s a question of whether we dare to extend its absence.”

  “Dvipa dared it, and it proved to be costly,” Gutta said. “The fiends are destroyed, but Invictus is not. Should the sorcerer send more monsters our way . . .”

  “Nissaya and Jivita must fall before Invictus will come for us,” Aya said. “Nonetheless, the sorcerer is a danger that cannot be ignored. The Tent City has already paid once for lack of foresight. I would argue that we remain at Vimānal, despite the bad memories.”

  Rati sighed. “I ask myself, what would the The Torgon do if he were here? My mind tells me that the safety, comfort, and protection of the noble ones would be uppermost in his thoughts. Therefore, for the foreseeable future we will remain at Vimānal. Tomorrow will be a day of rest. The following day, on full moon’s eve, we will begin the rebuilding of the Simōōn.”

  “Ema . . . Ema . . .” Aya and Gutta chanted in unison.

  31

  JUST BEFORE DAWN on the third day of Mala’s march toward Jivita, a thin man with a shaved head sat cross-legged in a tent and meditated. Dammawansha, the newly crowned High Monk of Dibbu-Loka, began each day in this manner, without exception. In the past thousand years, he had missed this ritual only one time: the morning when the infected noble ones had begun to transform. The memory of that terrible day still caused him considerable discomfort. But he saw this unease as an impermanent emotion.

  He inhaled.

  He exhaled.

  His heart beat slowly.

  His body was as still as a statue, but his mind was fantastically alert.

  Dammawansha both felt and watched the invisible molecules of air pass in and out of his nostrils. This experience caused neither craving nor aversion. Instead, it simply served to confirm his observations regarding impermanence. Each breath had a beginning, middle, and ending. But that was just the simplest extent of his understanding. In the past millennium, Dammawansha had watched, with mindfulness, more than forty million unique inhales and exhales. Each of those also had contained a beginning, middle, and end—to him, proof of impermanence.

  Breath was impermanent. So too was pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, bravery and cowardice. He knew this not only because he watched his breath, but because he watched these other things as well—over and over and over and over again.

  To the awakened mind, all things had a beginning, middle, and end—a revelation that rendered craving and aversion impotent.

  And yet . . .

  This session of meditation was not going well. He had slept poorly during the night, and now he was too sleepy to maintain proper concentration, his wooziness causing his mind to wander. Before he knew it, he uncharacteristically fell asleep sitting up.

  And he dreamed of the The Torgon.

  The Death-Knower wizard stood on a smoky plain, holding a glistening sword and an ivory staff. At his feet lay a dead body, and when Dammawansha’s vision widened, the monk saw that there were many corpses—thousands and thousands—sprawled on the charred grass as far as the eye could see. Torg was shouting. And sobbing. Then a yellow light, as bright as the sun, enveloped the wizard in its blinding might.

  The vision staggered Dammawansha, and he cried out. But no sound came from his lips. Instead, there was darkness for a time . . . and then light again. Now Torg stood on an island of mud in a fetid swamp. Ghostly essence swirled around him like a whirlwind. Three others were with him, human in form but otherwise obscured. Without warning, Torg dropped to his knees, crawled to the island’s edge, and submerged his face in the inky water, as if so distraught over his predicament that his only choice was to drown himself. Then the three others fell upon him and held his head beneath the water. Afterward, there was only darkness, as deep as nothingness.

  Dammawansha screamed so loudly it hurt his own ears. He continued to scream as monks, nuns, and Tugars rushed to his aid, his cacophonic eruption startling them. When the monk came fully awake, he was inhaling and exhaling many times faster than he had been just a short time before.

  Even then, each breath had a beginning, middle, and end.

  AT NOON OF THE same day, Asēkhas Rati and Aya began the supervision of the regeneration of the Simōōn. Seven hundred Tugars formed a broad circle around the oasis, each spinning on his toes right to left with blurring rapidity. Wisps of swirling dust already were beginning to form, but with so few warriors available for the task, it would take at least five days for the Simōōn to re-grow. Though five score already had come back to Anna, three hundred warriors still roamed the desert in search of fiends, and many might not return for a week or more. It was up to those now gathered in the Tent City to complete the magical barrier.

  The Asēkhas walked from Tugar to Tugar, shouting instructions in the sweltering heat. In the midst of it all, the High Monk of Dibbu-Loka shuffled up to Rati, his face bearing an uncharacteristically grim expression.

  “Asēkha,” he called. “Might I have a word?”

  Rati shook his head. “I mean no offense, High Monk, but as you can see, I’m very busy. Mudu is in charge of Anna in my absence. If you have problems or concerns, please speak with him. The Va
si are more than capable of lending aid in whatever form you desire.”

  Dammawansha frowned. “I desire nothing. But there is something I need to tell you, not Mudu.”

  Rati recognized the monk’s urgency and gave him his full attention. After Dammawansha departed, Rati went to Aya, who was amazed by Rati’s words. “You’re going to leave Anna because of a dream?” Aya said.

  “Not just any dream . . . nor any dreamer,” Rati said. “If Dammawansha believes it’s important, then I must consider it so.”

  “We are already weakened. Your absence will make it even worse. The mission you propose is madness.”

  “You are more than capable of commanding Anna,” Rati said. “Besides, the mission will require only a small company. I will take just nineteen warriors—to symbolize Viisati (The Twenty). Where I go, large numbers would be a hindrance. But if Dammawansha’s vision is more than just a dream, our king will need my aid.”

  “It is dangerous to act on such visions. How do you know your appearance won’t somehow worsen his plight?”

  “We shall see what we shall see,” Rati said.

  The Trials of Rathburt

  32

  RATHBURT SAT alone on a fallen trunk, the extent of the darkness amazing him. Even this close to its border, the dense canopy of the forest named Dhutanga shut out moonlight and starlight. The Death-Knower could barely see his hand in front of his face, but that didn’t stop him from enjoying the balsamic fragrance of a blooming poplar.

  These days, joy was not typical of his routine. The doom that hung over him was darker than the forest. Even the simple pleasures of life were blunted. Eating, drinking, and sleeping offered little respite from the anxiety and depression that haunted his every moment. His dreams became nightmares, sinister reminders of what was to come. His destiny made him bitter.

  But the cravenly portion of his mind—quite large in comparison to the rest—still hoped that the looming horror could be avoided. The more time he spent with Peta, the more convinced he became that her soothsaying was not without flaws.