Blinded by Power: 5 (The Death Wizard Chronicles)

by Jim Melvin

  “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.

  Peta and Jord knelt beside him. “Do you wish us to hold down your head?” Jord said.

  “It won’t be necessary,” Torg said, though his voice quivered. He found that he was afraid—not of dying, but of putting his fate into the hands of others.

  “Any . . . daaaaaaaaaay . . . now,” he heard Vedana say, intensifying his hatred of the demon.

  Torg leaned out a little farther, reflexively took a deep breath, and submerged his face in the inky water. How cold it felt stunned him—and how hostile, as if hungry to devour the life that roared within him. Torg opened his eyes and stared down into the opaque depths. Though he could see only blackness, he sensed millions of creatures—consumed by hatred and loneliness—glaring back at him from the Realm of the Undead.

  Closing his eyes, he attempted to relax, concentrating his awareness on the sensation of cold pressing against his face, but instead his attention turned to the thumping of his heart as his body began to react to a lack of oxygen. The water no longer felt the least bit cold. Instead, his face became flushed, hot, and tingly, and the large muscles of his legs and arms trembled. His warrior’s ability to withstand pain fueled his will, but every fiber of his being cried out for a breath of air. Death through intense concentration was a far more acceptable form of suicide than this. Torg realized that he couldn’t do it, but at the same time he knew that he must. Out of love for Laylah, he inhaled a great gout of water into his lungs.

  In response, his primitive brain took over. Torg tried to lift his head, but something held his face under water and pinned his ar
ms and legs to the ground. Vedana, Jord, and Peta were on him, their combined strength just enough to keep his now-weakened body down for the final moments it took for suffocation to win out. Torg became dizzy and then surprisingly blissful. His eyes sprang open, but there was only darkness. His body quivered once or twice more and then struggled no longer.

  Torg entered the Realm of Death, a place with which he was intimately familiar. Once again his karmic sphere leapt across the cosmos far faster than the speed of light. Other spheres joined him, watching him with lifeless curiosity, and this time the Death-Knower clearly saw glowing sheaths of green energy nudging and cajoling each of them.

  Another sphere came over surprisingly close, matching his speed. This one was smaller than Torg’s but stunningly beautiful, and it also was sheathed in green. Torg studied it with scientific blandness.

  Together they approached the titanic ball of Death Energy at the same moment, slamming to a halt just outside its broiling surface. Torg usually took this step in the process to feed, inhaling huge gobs of energy before returning to his body. But this time, there was no need for him to do anything. Instead, it was Peta’s sphere that fed, and it quickly bloated to the size of a planet . . . a solar system . . . a galaxy. Its immensity consumed Torg, but the green energy saved him from annihilation.

  Voices—trillions and trillions, it seemed—shocked Torg, and they called out to each other in a cacophony of absurd proportions. Without warning, the titanic sphere exploded like a supernova, casting Torg’s karma across vast distances—back toward his dead body on Triken. An enormous blue fountain of Death Energy, sheathed in green, followed him, attracted to his essence like metal shavings to a magnet.

  Torg reawakened on his knees, coughing and gagging. Jord knelt next to him, struggling to hold his heavy torso upright. Torg tried to speak, but before words could leave his mouth, the trail of Death Energy caught up to him and surged violently into his body. Intense pain caused Torg to arch his back and throw open his jaws in an attempt to scream. But no sound issued forth. Instead, a stupendous stream of Death Energy vomited from his mouth, blasting a hole in the canopy of brush and surging into the night sky, where it expanded like a deep-blue blanket.

  The ghosts followed the cloud like bees attracted to honey. In one fantastically short but omniscient moment, Torg saw the face of every being, including Madiraa, her companions, and all others who had ever perished in Kauha. He saw them as they were freed, never again to haunt this world. Death was appeased.

  Torg found it impossible to move. But in his peripheral vision he recognized Vedana standing off to the side, arms upraised. From her mouth poured a similar cloud, only it was black instead of blue. Finally Torg began to grasp the intricacies of the scheme Vedana and Peta had long hatched, and Jord had later joined.

  The ghost-child had sacrificed herself, exploding her own bloated sphere to unleash an unprecedented eruption of Death Energy. The Vijjaadharaa had guided the energy to Torg, using his body—now again alive—as a conduit into the Realm of Life.

  Vedana, meanwhile, was emitting energy from the Realm of the Undead at an equally impressive rate. Each speck of both forms of energy instantly expanded to a thousand times its size and then a thousand-thousand and a million-million, engulfing the atmosphere like dark dye stirred into clear water. The combination of black energy and blue energy began to create an opaque shield capable of shutting out all sunlight for incredible distances.

  “This is why we had to bargain with her,” Torg heard Jord screaming through the tumult. “The essence from the demon realm could have blocked out the sunlight by itself, but it also would have blinded every living being on Triken. But when blended with Death Energy, the demon essence becomes harmless to the living.”

  Torg could not respond. It was all he could do just to remain conscious. He felt as if his body were exploding from the inside out. The intensity was astounding, yet he somehow was equal to the task.

  “Peta is gone, for now,” Jord said. “She asked me to tell you goodbye—and to say that she loves you.”

  Torg’s eyes filled with tears. More and more Death Energy gushed from his mouth, blasting into the firmament and expanding exponentially at a rate beyond comprehension. From his limited vantage point, Torg could see that the sky already had become utterly black. The only light came from Jord and Vedana, whose bodies were aglow, and also from Obhasa, which thrummed with excitement.

  This continued for many long minutes. Torg guessed that dawn had arrived, but there was no sign of sunlight, not even the slightest brightening of the horizon. In fact, the opposite had occurred. The sky had become as black as the ceiling of a cave deep within the bowels of a mountain. To Torg, it felt as if the world had become encased in stone.

  Without warning, Vedana lowered her scraggly arms and collapsed. A moment later, Torg felt the surging Death Energy cease all at once, and he too collapsed.

  Jord knelt beside him and cradled his head in her lap.

  Meanwhile, the demon squirmed in the mud like a wounded worm, screaming and cackling insanely. Then she began to sink into the mucky ground. Vedana did not resist. Soon she was consumed, leaving Torg and Jord alone in the middle of the swamp.

  Torg tried to sit up, but dizziness overcame him.

  “Rest, Torgon . . . for a little while,” Jord said. “The demon has gone to a deep, dark place, and it will be long before her strength returns. Time is of the essence, but there is at least a little to spare.”

  “Laylah . . . I must go to Laylah . . .” he said, though it pained him to speak, as if he had swallowed a burning cinder the size of a boulder.

  “That can be arranged,” Jord said. “But the sorcerer is vulnerable now . . . like never before. I will take you to Laylah, but before you can rescue her, you must leave her and find Invictus in the bowels of the tower. He will be weak. The Silver Sword will be enough. And Peta foretold that you will receive assistance from an unexpected ally.” This time, when Torg sat up, the dizziness was not so severe. “I wish I could have said goodbye to Peta myself,” Torg said.

  “If you had known of Peta’s plan to sacrifice herself, would you have consented?”

  Torg sighed. “For Laylah’s sake, yes . . . probably.”

  “Peta told me you would use the word ‘probably,’” Jord said. “That shred of doubt is why she chose not to tell you.”

  Torg saw the truth of it. “Help me to stand . . . please.”

  Once on his feet, Torg felt his strength returning. The massive expenditure of Death Energy would have destroyed anyone but him, but the powerful essence had fueled his body for almost a thousand years, and so he had survived the mega-burst with relatively little damage. Either that, or Jord and her kind had shielded him. It was probably the latter. Regardless, it didn’t matter. He drew Obhasa from the mud. Where it touched his hand, the ivory staff cast blue sparkles.

  “How far does the darkness extend?” he said to Jord. “Won’t Invictus attempt to escape to a place of sunlight? A Sampati or dracool could carry him to Asubha in just a short time.”

  To Torg’s surprise, Jord chuckled. “Torgon, the darkness extends . . . everywhere. It is expanding like a virus, a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times a second. All of Triken will become encased in blackness. Not a speck of sunlight, starlight, or moonlight will be able to pass through the cloud . . . anywhere in the world.”

  This staggered Torg. “How long will it last?”

  “Just long enough . . .”

  Torg nodded. Now he fully understood. “I’m ready. Take me to the tower.”

  Jord delayed no longer, transforming to Sakuna, the mountain eagle. The pair sprang through the ravaged canopy of Kauha and rushed into the lightless sky, hurtling toward Uccheda as fast as a dragon flies. The extent of the darkness stunned Torg. Other than the glimmer from Sakuna’s eyes and the glow of Obhasa, the pair traveled in a world that had become devoid of light. If not for the eagle’s guidance, Torg would have become hopelessly diso
riented. It was not just black above but in all directions. Torg realized how dependent he was on eyesight; even at night, he had navigated by the moon and stars. Not since he had been trapped in the labyrinth beneath Asubha had he been so blinded.

  Eventually, he caught his first glimpse of Uccheda. The titanic tower, which usually glowed as bright as a million torches, now cast just a hint of illumination, as if the magic that fueled the golden spire’s power had been poisoned. Sakuna soared toward the roof of the tower, but even from this height Torg could hear screams and snarls far below. This puzzled him, but he had no desire to investigate it further. Finding Laylah and destroying Invictus were his only concerns.

  Rather than land on the rooftop of Uccheda, Sakuna veered around the cylindrical tower and hovered just in front of a single window. Torg needed no more encouragement. He leapt off the eagle’s back and scrambled through the opening, tumbling head over heels into what appeared to be a large bedchamber. Then he stood and willed Obhasa to glow so brightly that the entire room became aglow.

  Laylah lay on her back on a wide bed, and strewn across her lap was the corpse of a woman long dead. Confused and angry, Torg raced to her side and cast the disgusting thing across the room with one hand. When it struck the far wall, it squished sickeningly, slid to the floor, and lay still.

  Torg rested Obhasa against the side of the bed. Then he sat down and cradled Laylah’s head in his lap, kissing her mouth, nose, eyes, and cheeks.

  “My love . . . my love . . . my love,” he chanted.

  Laylah appeared unharmed but in a trance so deep she was unable to respond to his caresses.

  Jord appeared from the gloom, her body adorned in a magical gown.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Torg said.

  “The darkness affects her, as well.”

  “Help me save her. Tell me what to do.”

  “For the sister to live, the brother must die. It is your task to descend deep into the bowels of the tower, where the sorcerer dwells—though another will join you to lend aid.”