by Jim Melvin
“We will need the Sampati, but not you,” Mala said to the pilot. “I’ll fly the beast to Asubha myself. This one will carry precious cargo.” The Chain Man nodded toward Torg, who lay on the rooftop, still restrained and under heavy guard.
“As you command,” the pilot said, before stepping aside.
Mala ordered the guards to secure Torg to the platform. Before this was completed, a soldier hustled over and dropped to his knees in front of the Chain Man.
“Pardon my rudeness, Lord Mala,” the soldier said. “But something is happening in the valley below that might be of interest to you and King Invictus.” Then the soldier turned toward Invictus. “There is an odd commotion, my liege.”
Curious, Invictus walked to the edge and looked down. The valley far below was bursting with soldiers and citizens. From the rooftop they looked like a swarm of bugs. Near the base of the tower some of the bugs had encircled a single tiny figure.
Mala joined him at the edge of the precipice. “What is going on down there?” he asked, sounding sincerely baffled.
Invictus focused his eyes, which upon command could become supernaturally keen. “There is a woman, dressed in black. She fights anyone who comes near. Her swordplay is impressive.”
“An Asēkha!” Mala said, turning to Torg. “You have broken your promise, you filthy flea.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Invictus said. “What can she do? Defeat us by herself? If she kills a few, who cares? But look at her, Mala. See how she fights. How interesting . . .”
Mala’s hideous face reddened even further. He started toward the wizard. But Invictus froze him in place with another wave of his hand. “Do not cause the Death-Knower further discomfort,” Invictus said. “When he arrives at Asubha, I want him to have a little strength left. There will be no fun in any of this if he perishes too soon.”
“Arrrggghh . . .” was all Mala could manage in response. He climbed onto the Sampati’s back at the base of its neck. Soldiers lifted Torg and strapped him onto the platform. Then they released the chains from the creature’s legs.
With one great sweep of its wings, the Sampati was airborne. Mala tugged at its bridle and forced it northward, toward Asubha.
“Fly, you miserable beast . . . fly!”
Invictus laughed. And waved goodbye. He was so proud of his pets.
So very proud.
Like any god, he was in love with his own creations.
Several times in his long life, Torg had ridden high over mountaintops on the backs of giant eagles. Each time he’d adored it. Once, while grappling with a pack of dracools, he had been lifted more than a hundred cubits into the air and then dropped. He hadn’t liked that much. Riding on the back of the Sampati, trussed in golden ropes and strapped to a wooden platform, resembled the latter. It was miserable.
He’d been trapped within Invictus’ magical restraining device for more than forty days now. Even so, he’d managed to remain sanitary. Each time he urinated or defecated, he had disintegrated his wastes with blue flames.
Up until he had greeted Invictus, Torg had honored his word and not resisted his restraints. But once his vow had been fulfilled, he’d fought with all his might to break free. To his despair, he’d failed. Although the leather and fabric binding him were inconsequential, the golden ropes encasing him from neck to feet were irresistibly strong. Every time Torg twisted or heaved, the ropes grew yellow-hot, squeezing with increased vehemence as if they were living beings directed by a devious mind. The more he struggled, the more helpless he became.
Eventually he stopped fighting. When he did, the ropes loosened their grip only enough to allow him to breathe. Escape was impossible. It was all too clear that Invictus’ power was greater than his own.
Afterward he had lain in the wagon, desperate and depressed. To make matters worse, he could not stop obsessing over his brief encounter with the woman on the balcony. His attraction to her had been intense. Somehow he knew her—and yet did not. Would he ever see her again? He doubted it, and it smote his heart.
Then there was the matter of the female warrior that Mala and Invictus had witnessed fighting so fiercely at the base of the tower. Torg guessed it was Sōbhana. Only she would have dared such a thing against his direct order. And now she was probably dead.
The Sampati soared at extraordinary heights, higher even than a mountain eagle could fly. Only Bhayatupa could have managed greater altitudes. The cold, thin air seared Torg’s lungs; he felt as if he were suffocating. Mala, on the other hand, appeared to be ecstatic; he chortled, sang and waved his arms. The hybrid condor struggled against the cumbersome weight on its neck, swaying this way and that in response to the Chain Man’s relentless squirming.
“What say you, little sparrow?” Mala said to Torg. “Do you like the view? Are you comfortable? Is there anything I can get you?” Then he burst into ribald laughter, continuing to bounce on the Sampati’s neck.
The beast squawked in protest, especially when the chain touched its scales.
“Yes . . . there is something you can get me,” Torg said. “Some wax to plug my ears.”
Mala found this hysterical. His long white mane fluttered in the wind. Huge gobs of spittle flew from his mouth. Torg could feel tiny droplets of it showering his face.
“Aaaaah, Torgon! You have a sense of humor, after all. And you’ll need every bit of it. You’re going to love the little hideaway Invictus has prepared. It’s so . . . so . . . cozy. And it cleans up after itself, so you don’t have to worry about any messes left behind by previous occupants.”
Mala laughed even harder, and then he succumbed to a spasm of coughing. Grotesque balls of sputum spiraled from his mouth. Torg already had grown to hate the monster, but now he despised him more than ever.
“Mala, when you finish your babbling, there is something I wish to tell you,” Torg said, through gritted teeth.
“Yes, dear?”
“I no longer have any desire to rescue you from your torment. I’m going to see to it that you die in a ball of fire.”
Mala laughed so hard, he almost fell off his perch.
Torg was, first and foremost, a creature of the desert. Heat was his natural clime. In temperatures exceeding one hundred and thirty degrees he could walk barefoot on burning sands without discomfort. However, he also was capable of enduring cold. He had journeyed to Triken’s northernmost reaches and lived to tell the tale. But the chill he felt as the Sampati approached the peak of Asubha was like no other. Though winter still was several weeks away, the temperature at this great height was well below freezing, and the severe winds intensified the effect.
As Torg and Mala neared the prison on top of the mountain, another hybrid condor flew into view. Several ordinary condors also approached, flocking around Mala’s mount and sweeping in and snapping at the bridled Sampati. Mala found the intruders annoying, waving his massive hands as if shooing mosquitoes.
“Get back, you filthy buzzards. If you come any nearer, I’ll pluck the feathers out of you, one by one, and eat you raw.”
As Mount Asubha came into view, the attackers dispersed. From then on, the Sampati’s flight was undisturbed. The prison appeared beneath them, its courtyard several times longer and wider than the rooftop of Uccheda, giving the Sampati more room to land. But Mala was not as good of a pilot as he probably imagined himself to be, and he forced the beast in too sharply, causing it to smack onto the icy stone, sliding precariously before crashing into a lumpy wall. The Chain Man was thrown head over heels. Then he leaped up, cursing and complaining.
“Where is the warden? The little weasel!”
One guard who appeared braver than the rest ran up to face Mala, though even he kept his distance. “The warden is not here, Lord Mala,” the guard shouted into the wind. “He disappeared several days ago. He said that he needed to feed, that he wanted to be strong when the prisoner arrived.”
“Well, he has arrived, as you can see,” Mala said. “Never mind, never mind. The import
ant matters are always left to me. Come . . . and bring others with you. I want the wizard removed from the beast before it tries to fly away.”
But the Sampati would never fly again. It had broken its massive neck in the crash. Torg sensed the creature’s final heartbeat and wished it well in its next existence.
“Remove the wizard from the platform. Bring him to the pit. Hurry . . . HURRY!”
The guards started forward, but Torg’s final attempt at freedom caused them to halt. Death Energy sprang from every pore, his body glowing like a small blue sun fallen from the sky. The leather and fabric that encased him disintegrated, along with what remained of his black jacket and trousers. Even the golden ropes began to stretch, and for a moment it appeared they might burst asunder.
Mala leapt at Torg and grasped the ropes in his powerful hands, reinforcing their strength. If it had been only Mala’s magic against Torg’s, then Torg might have prevailed, even in his weakened state. But the sorcery that coursed through the golden strands was born of Invictus.
Mala squeezed Torg’s breath from his lungs. He felt like a rodent in the murderous grip of a constrictor.
He was lost.
All was lost.
When Mala finally removed the magical restraints and lowered him by ordinary ropes to the bottom of the pit, Torg lay as limp as a dead man, barely aware.
His nightmare in the pit had begun.
Sōbhana’s body was slick with sweat. Her breath tore from her lungs in desperate heaves, and her heart seemed about to burst. More than one hundred of the enemy lay dead, including a dozen druids, several wolves, a huge cave troll, and a disgusting creature that looked like a spider with a human head. In the great battle Sōbhana had lost the dagger Torg had returned to her at Dibbu-Loka, but she still held her uttara along with a dented shield she had plucked from the lifeless arm of a golden soldier. Now, tens of thousands surrounded her. She had no chance. She would continue to fight until she was slain. What else was there to do?
As the enemy closed about her, a tremendous shadow descended from the sky. Suddenly Sōbhana was plucked from the ground and lifted high into the air. The force of the blow knocked her sword and the shield from her grasp. Her beloved uttara was lost to her, too, but she was too shocked to feel grief.
Bhayatupa grasped her in the talons of one of his front feet, carrying her into the clouds as easily as a crow might lift a cricket.
“Quickly, do as I say!” the great dragon growled. “Remove your clothing and drape it on this.”
In his other front foot Bhayatupa held the naked corpse of a young woman, similar in size and appearance to her.
Sōbhana was terrified, but her warrior instincts took over. She managed, as best she could, to tear off her outfit and wrap it haphazardly around the dead woman.
“That’s good enough,” said the dragon, before deftly slipping Sōbhana’s now naked body beneath a massive scale on his crimson breast. All the while, his back was to Uccheda.
From his vantage point on top of the tower, Invictus watched Bhayatupa swoop down and grab the Asēkha. The dragon flew up into the clouds and momentarily disappeared. When he reemerged, he tossed a black bundle into the air and with one snap of his jaws swallowed it whole.
“Such a shame,” the sorcerer said to the pilot who had surrendered his Sampati to Mala. “She was so brave. And so interesting. Maybe she’ll find what she was looking for inside the dragon’s belly.”
With eyes that had been open to the ways of the world for eighty thousand years, Bhayatupa watched Invictus enter a doorway at the top of the tower and disappear. Despite being more than half a mile away, Bhayatupa had seen everything in great detail and had heard every word. The sorcerer had fallen for his trick. And why not? Bhayatupa had not yet done anything to elicit distrust.
Invictus did not seem to understand that a great dragon’s arrogance would not permit obeisance to anyone. Still, Bhayatupa was no fool. He sensed the sorcerer’s rising power more clearly than most. Bhayatupa did not yet fear Invictus, but he knew enough to be careful. Destroying the sorcerer would do him no good, if he then had to face a retaliatory army.
Bhayatupa had lived for eighty millennia, the specter of his own demise haunting almost his every waking moment. By mortal standards, he still would live an extraordinary span of time—another twenty millennia, at least. But to Bhayatupa, the concept of dying was unacceptable. The fear of it consumed him. And though he wielded formidable magic, death remained an enemy beyond him.
This was the true reason he tolerated Invictus: The sorcerer provided him with the most direct access to the Death-Knower.
And not just any Death-Knower. Hundreds had existed during Bhayatupa’s tenure, but none like this one. The Torgon was different than all the rest. Perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . the wizard could teach the dragon how to achieve immortality.
Bhayatupa craved the Death-Knower’s knowledge, but first he needed to get the wizard away from prying ears and eyes. And if Torg did not then talk voluntarily, Bhayatupa would force him—brutally.
Twelve years before he rescued Sōbhana at the base of Uccheda, Bhayatupa had been deep in the throes of dragon-sleep in one of his many hiding places in the remote heights of Mahaggata. Somehow Invictus had found him in the misty cave. The sorcerer had crouched by his pointed ear and spoke to him, though it had taken several days for Bhayatupa to awaken fully. But even before he achieved the lucidity to open his eyes, he had been aware enough to listen—and he was stunned by the extent of Invictus’ knowledge. It was as if the sorcerer could read Bhayatupa’s mind and regurgitate his thoughts.
Eventually Invictus explained that he was born of demon blood and knew many things only demons knew. When the sorcerer told Bhayatupa that Vedana, mother of all demons, was his grandmother, the puzzle began to take shape.
Invictus left the cave on Bhayatupa’s back, bragging endlessly about the might of his growing kingdom. The pair flew over Avici and Kilesa, and the dragon saw the sorcerer’s great army. They visited the prison on Mount Asubha, and Invictus stood proudly by the pit as Bhayatupa squeezed his titanic body into the courtyard and managed to bend down his long neck and peer into the hole, which was barely wider than one of his eyes. The dragon jerked upward, in pain and disgust.
Invictus laughed. “Be thankful you’re too large to fit inside,” the sorcerer said. “Not even the demons know of the dark magic I used to summon the beings that inhabit the walls of the pit. They are from a place beyond all awareness—save mine.”
And now, the Death-Knower would be imprisoned in the pit, and the greatest chance at immortality Bhayatupa had ever encountered was in dreadful peril. Unbeknown to Invictus, Bhayatupa had briefly flown alongside Mala and the Sampati just out of eyesight. He had considered killing the foul-mouthed Adho Satta that clung to the Sampati’s neck, and then taking Torg to some distant place. He knew, though, that kidnapping the Death-Knower would enrage Invictus and invite open warfare. The dragon was not prepared for that. There had been ages in Triken’s long history when Bhayatupa had commanded magnificent armies. But now he was alone except for a few Mogol slaves. For this reason he had to move carefully and choose the perfect moment. So he’d returned to Avici just in time to rescue the female Asēkha.
Perhaps the warrior could free The Torgon. It was worth a try. Besides, it now appeared to be his best chance.
Such limited options annoyed Bhayatupa. And he did not like being annoyed. If he achieved immortality he would take revenge on all living beings, including Invictus.
And if immortality were unachievable? Then he would at least force the Death-Knower to teach him how to overcome Tanhiiyati, the insatiable craving for eternal existence.
If he were not cured of it soon, he would go mad, if he hadn’t already.
Sōbhana felt drowsy. One of Bhayatupa’s thick crimson scales held her against the interior flesh of his breast. The pounding of his massive heart—which she guessed was larger than her entire body—lulled her toward sl
eep. The skin beneath the scale was covered with a sweet silky fleece as warm and dry as a luxurious blanket.
Her warrior curiosity finally overcame her weariness, and she managed to squirm and wriggle until her head poked out from beneath the scale. Thick clouds obscured her vision. Everywhere she looked, the air was white.
Bhayatupa was far larger and more powerful than a Sampati. His enormous wings swept through the air with long, steady strokes. His legs were tucked against his body, and his neck, which Sōbhana guessed was more than fifty cubits long, stretched straight forward, while his tail, which was even longer, extended straight behind his sleek torso. Despite weighing more than several desert elephants, the great dragon flew faster than a diving hawk.
Sōbhana realized she was no longer terrified. Ironically, the closer she got to the dragon, the less she feared him. Perhaps it was because she no longer cared if she lived or died. Perhaps her hopelessness had eliminated fear from what remained of her tattered range of emotions. Perhaps it was the spicy smell of his skin.
There was an occasional break in the clouds. For brief moments she could see land far below. To the southeast she recognized Ti-ratana, the largest lake in the known world. To the west was the Gap of Gamana, where Arupa-Loka and its demon inhabitants lay hidden. She had flown more than once on the backs of eagles, so seeing the land from so high above was not unique to her experience.
The dragon’s intentions puzzled Sōbhana. Obviously he had ingested the corpse that wore her black outfit in an attempt to fool those who watched from below. But why? And now he flew northwestward toward the mountains. Was he taking her to a secret place to devour her at his leisure?
“I hear your thoughts,” Bhayatupa said, in his indomitable baritone voice. “Your mind is more closed than most, but I do comprehend some of what you say. You wonder why you are not already dead. Is that not so?”
