Blinded by Power: 5 (The Death Wizard Chronicles)

by Jim Melvin

  The commander couldn’t help but smile. “Now all we need to do is build a few dozen siege engines, and we can breach the Golden Wall by force.”

  “Do not forget Kauha,” Madiraa said, her voice suddenly stern.

  Indajaala stood nearby. “If there is any other way to enter Avici, we must consider it, your highness.”

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

  At the northern border of the village, the breadth of the Ogha narrowed to just fifty cubits. A wooden bridge—wide enough to accommodate five horses side by side—spanned the frothy waters. There was evidence of charring on the far side of the bridge, as if villagers had attempted to set it aflame as they fled. Perhaps Mogols had come and extinguished the fire before it did too much damage, so that they could continue to use it to make raids on the eastern bank. Palak and Indajaala examined the bridge carefully before deciding it remained stable enough to traverse.

  It took until midafternoon for Madiraa’s entire host to cross. Afterward, the small army marched north for about two leagues before coming to a stand of bald cypress clinging to the water’s edge. Madiraa was surprised to find these huge trees growing this far north, but the shade they provided was a welcome respite from the sun. Madiraa knew they needed to get into the habit of marching at night to avoid the worst of the furnace-like heat, so she ordered a halt. Again they dared cook fires, finding little need for secrecy. It was as if Mala’s army, now making its way toward Jivita, had drained the area of evil.

  Now they were fewer than twenty leagues from the Kauha Marshes. Given the ease of the terrain away from the river, they could reach the marshes in just two more long nights, traversing the distance between Nissaya and Avici in a third of the time it had taken Mala’s army.

  When the gibbous moon began its slow rise in the eastern sky, they set out again, skirting the river for five more leagues before finally turning away from its banks. The Gray Plains became as flat as the surface of a lake. Vast fields of stunted grass extended as far as the eye could see. As usual the sky was clear and full of stars, and even in the darkness there was excellent visibility. If rogue Mogols were anywhere in the vicinity, Madiraa’s army would be forced to fight in the open. But Bhasuran and Svakaran scouts constantly returned with reports that the plains were devoid of activity.

  By midmorning they had marched at least ten leagues, finally stopping at a rock formation that rose suddenly from the plains. The limestone walls leaned enough in places to provide patches of shade. They huddled to escape the searing heat.

  Several among the company had traveled this way before, and they told Madiraa that there would be little shade to be found between these rocks and the marshes. The queen decided to remain there until dusk.

  The Bhasurans and Svakarans rode far to the east in search of game, returning with several gazelle that were roasted over open fires. Though she still had little fear of attack, Madiraa was relieved that the wind was blowing strong to the southeast, carrying the wispy smoke into a vast empty landscape far from prying eyes. That afternoon the company feasted on gazelle and consumed the rest of their wine, but they still carried enough water to last several days, which would be long enough. The border of the marsh was believed to contain potable water.

  At dusk they continued their journey. One by one the stars appeared in the night sky, and less than a bell later the moon joined them. The land began to roll slightly, making the march more wearisome, but they still made excellent progress. Less than a bell before dawn, the southern border of the Kauha Marshes came into view, and soon the hard-packed ground softened and grew damp as the stunted grass gave way to taller grasses, sedges, and reeds. Indeed, the water proved to be fresh and drinkable. Everyone refilled their skins.

  At sunrise Kauha was an impressive sight, a misty wetland surrounded by an otherwise arid plain. The marsh was huge, perhaps a fifth the size of Java. Madiraa had never seen Kauha before, but its exterior didn’t look malevolent. Waterfowl with dragon-like necks and long, skinny legs waded through the reeds in search of fish, frogs, and small snakes. Hawks, eagles, and vultures circled the skies. A family of raccoons skittered by and then dove into thorny brush after catching sight of the large band of humans.

  “What’s so dangerous about this?” Madiraa said to Indajaala.

  “If we remain on its border, we will be safe,” the conjurer said. “It is Kauha’s interior that is deadly.”

  The Senasanan countess overheard their conversation. “Any who go to the heart of Kauha never return,” Dhītar said. “At least that’s what I’ve been taught since I was a child. When I misbehaved, my parents used to threaten to punish me by leaving me here alone at night. I was terrified of it.”

  As always, Maynard Tew was at the countess’s side. “I heard that Invictus would send the worst of the slaves into the marsh. The sorcerer liked it when they screamed.”

  “Until I see reason to fear something, I don’t fear it,” Madiraa said. “Still, we will skirt the marsh until we reach the Golden Wall. If there is any way to breach the bulwark without entering Kauha, we will do so. But I believe we will have no choice but to enter the swamp.”

  She turned to one of the homeless people. “What do you sense?”

  The Pabbajja shrugged. “It has been years beyond count since any of my kind traveled this far to the north and east. What now lies within Kauha is beyond our perception.”

  There was no more to be said.

  They rested through the worst of the heat, some of them wading into the shallow water to find shade amid the cattails. At dusk, they resumed their march. Other than a few poisonous snakes and an enormous wild cat that fled at their approach, they encountered nothing threatening. The marsh was indeed huge, and it took most of the night before they finally came within sight of the Golden Wall.

  The army huddled in tall grasses and surmised its situation. A cylindrical watchtower, three times as tall as the bulwark to which it was attached, flanked the northwestern border of Kauha—and there was no gap between the tower and the tangled foliage. The roof of the tower was ablaze, as if a giant bonfire burned behind its crenulated parapet. The battlement of the Golden Wall also was well-lighted by torches. Dozens of soldiers could be seen patrolling the wall walk, which stood thirty cubits above the ground. It was clear that Invictus had not left Avici entirely unprotected.

  “We cannot pass this way,” Madiraa whispered to her confidants. “Kauha is the only answer.”

  “Compared to the bulwarks of Nissaya, the Golden Wall is a trifle,” Palak said. “We could build ladders and surmount where the wall is not as well guarded. With Mala’s army far away, there must be long stretches where there are no defenders at all.”

  “Do you see any trees large enough to make ladders that are thirty cubits tall?” Madiraa said. “Besides, even if we were to find a portion of the bulwark that appears untended, it would only take one defender on patrol to alert the others. Nay, I will not search vainly for places to surmount the Golden Wall, when I’m standing right next to the most hidden of all locations to enter Avici. Do not forget that a dozen conjurers are among us, armed with staffs of Maōi.”

  “But will any of that be enough to counter the evils of Kauha?” Indajaala said.

  “If not, then we will fall,” Madiraa said. “But we will attempt the crossing, nonetheless.”

  52

  RATI’S VASI MASTER liked to say, “Old habits die hard.” The Asēkha estimated that it had taken him and nineteen other Tugars slightly more than forty-five thousand slow breaths to journey from Anna to the southern border of Kauha. Once there, Rati had sent out scouts to skirt the swamp east and west. If The Torgon were here, the Tugars would find him.

  As dusk brought a hint of coolness to another scorching day, one of the scouts returned, her face flushed from a hard run.

  “I have strange tidings. I did not see our king, but another of high renown has come to Kauha. Princess Madiraa of Nissaya and a dozen of her conjurers huddle on
the border of the great marsh, with an odd host at their command. There are black knights, armed with sword and crossbow but bearing scant armor; Svakarans and Bhasurans on horseback; and ordinary villagers, as well.”

  This stunned Rati. “With all that has happened in Tējo in recent days, we know little of the rest of the world. Perhaps Madiraa will be able to solve the mystery behind Dammawansha’s vision.”

  Just after the word “vision” came out of his mouth, Rati unexpectedly felt a painful pressure in his chest. He dropped to his knees and let out a high-pitched squeal. In unison the other Tugars joined him.

  “The Torgon is lost,” Rati screamed.

  Beyond belief, they sensed that their king had fallen, though they knew naught where or how. The Asēkha felt dizzy and disoriented, but he somehow summoned the wherewithal to call back his scouts. When all twenty again were gathered in one place, the Tugars huddled together in a state of sorrow. Their worst fears had been realized. The Torgon was no longer.

  “Without our king, surely all is now lost,” one Tugar said, tears streaking his dusty cheeks.

  To that, Rati had no response, for he felt the same.

  Regardless, being warriors of the highest caliber, they eventually were able to regroup and begin a dreary march. Full darkness had arrived by the time they reached the spot where the Tugarian scout had seen Madiraa and her host. Now they were gone.

  “What does it matter, anyway?” one of the Tugars said. “Without our lord, the world is doomed.”

  “We are Kantaara Yodha,” Rati said, finally beginning to regain at least some of his resolve. “That’s why it matters.” Then he turned to the scout. “What say you?”

  “The signs are obvious,” she said to Rati. “A portion of the host has entered the swamp, but the Svakarans and Bhasurans did not follow, instead, riding northward toward the Golden Wall.”

  “Madness upon madness,” Rati said. “First we lose our king. Now, this. The marsh is deadly enough when the sun is overhead. To enter while darkness remains is insanity. Yet, they appear to have done so . . . and we must follow.”

  “Ema . . . Ema . . .” the Tugars murmured.

  “MY QUEEN,” PALAK said to Madiraa. “Neither the Svakarans nor Bhasurans will enter the swamp at night. They say that Kauha hungers for human flesh.”

  The queen sighed. “Do they have suggestions as to how we might otherwise breach Avici’s defenses?”

  “They do not,” the commander said. “But they have offered to harass the watchtower in our absence, so that the enemy’s eyes will be distracted. From dawn until dusk of the coming day, they will assault it with bow and arrow.”

  “Thank them, then,” Madiraa said. “But be quick. I am anxious to be on our way.”

  Indajaala thumped the tail of his staff on the ground. “I beg your pardon, my queen, but did you not hear what was said? It is madness to enter the swamps at any time, but suicide to do so now. At the least we should wait until the fullness of daylight before we proceed.”

  “I will not wait!” Madiraa said sharply. “Do you forget who you are? Maōi will light our way. And the Pabbajja’s tridents will lend further aid. Once we are within the thickness of the brush, the eyes of the enemy will be blind to our approach.”

  “The enemy on the wall might not see us,” Indajaala said. “But the enemy within?”

  “We know naught what might be there . . . perhaps nothing worse than old wives’ tales,” the queen said. “Besides, I fear bogs and quicksand more than ghouls and goblins. There are those among us with the might to withstand evil.”

  “Where you go, I will follow,” Palak said.

  “As will I,” Indajaala said. “But I am not pleased.”

  After the Mahaggatan natives departed, the remainder of the host, including the Pabbajja, followed Madiraa into the swamp. The queen half expected some of the civilians to balk, but they walked behind the black knights without qualm. Apparently they felt safer staying with them than setting out on their own, even if it meant entering a place they had been told since childhood was evil.

  However, one of their party continued to fuss.

  “I have seen what happens in there,” the Duccaritan pirate named Tew said to any who might listen. “Well, I haven’t seen, but I have heard. When Invictus sent in the prisoners, they didn’t come back out.”

  “Shut up and keep walking,” Palak said. “You come with us or you die—your choice.”

  “I wouldn’t call that much of a choice.”

  “Come on, Tew,” Dhītar said softly. “You and I will stay together. We’ll be all right.”

  “I will come, then,” Tew said to Dhītar. “But not because Master Palak says so. I just want to make sure that you are not harmed.”

  “You’re breaking my heart,” Palak said. “Now . . . move!”

  “YOU KNOW HOW much I hate giving you credit for anything, but once again I have to admit that you were right,” Vedana said to Peta. “Look at the fools. They’re actually going in.”

  “Bravery can blind people . . . good people, at least.”

  Vedana cackled. “And you certainly know all about the blind part.”

  “You believe your cruelty hurts me?”

  “Yes . . . I do.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Oh, pooh, wrong again . . . but so what. You’re not going to ruin my good mood. The morons are going in. This is going to be so much fun to watch.”

  “Please tell me you don’t really mean what you just said. Even you can’t be that despicable.”

  “Here we go again with the too-good-to-be-true crap. Even you can’t be that despicable. All right, Miss Perfect. Go warn them. I won’t stop you, I promise.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Do what? Prevent them from sacrificing themselves for the common good? Why not? A few words from you, and they’ll back out of Kauha like frightened sheep.”

  “Don’t insult me. Laylah and Torg are already suffering too much to undo everything now.”

  “Ha! See? You’re just as willing as I am to sacrifice others to achieve your goals.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No? Are you so certain?”

  Peta was—and at the same time was not.

  MAYNARD TEW HAD been frightened a lot of times in his life—too many times—but this might have been the worst of them all. Even back when he had been near Mala wasn’t as bad as this. The marsh was no place he wanted to be, and if he managed to get out of it in one piece, he promised himself he’d never go anywhere near it again.

  Tew feared even more for Dhītar than for himself. Though he had not yet been with her in the ways he was craving, he still had grown to care about her like no other woman he’d ever been around.

  Madiraa and one of the scary conjurer guys were leading the way, though how they knew where to go was beyond Tew. From the start, it felt like they were walking in the wrong direction. After just a few hundred steps, the swamp changed from ordinary wetlands into the weirdest place he had ever seen—and that was saying something, ’cause he had seen a lot of weird places.

  Strange bushes grew all around them, their bony branches forming a canopy as dense as the ceiling of a cave. It quickly became pitch-black, though the pirate reasoned it was that way all the time, not just at night. If not for the magical staffs of the conjurers and the hairy Pabbajja guys, nobody would have been able to see a single thing. And it wasn’t just the air that was black; the branches and leaves were black, and even the water was black—and cold as a mountain stream. At least it was shallow. Only once had it reached past his knees, and for the most part it rarely went past his ankles. He didn’t think he could stand having to swim in it. He’d sooner fall off a boat in the middle of the ocean and splash around with the sharks.

  “How far have we come?” he heard the pretty queen say to the conjurer guy.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Indajaala said. “We’re moving slower than snails.”

  “A
league, maybe less,” Palak offered. “But with the angle we took, we should already be within two leagues of the northern border of the swamp. My guess is we’ll be free of this horrid place by midafternoon, as long as the water remains shallow.”

  But it didn’t. First it went past Tew’s knees, then up to his waist, and to make matters worse the bottom got so gooey it became difficult to take a step without losing a boot. The Pabbajja could barely keep their noses above water, if their noses were where Tew thought they were.

  The pirate heard all kinds of grumbling from the people around him. Even a couple of the black knights were worried. Walking four abreast, their company extended back maybe a quarter mile, so those near the front, such as Tew, had little idea how those in back were faring. For all he knew, ghostly beasts had already gobbled up half of them—though they had heard no loud screaming, thank the stars.

  Then there were some shouts from the back, and a couple of the conjurers came wading over fast as they could. Some new guys were with them, holding torches they had somehow made out of the reeds. When Tew finally got a look at one of their faces, he was amazed to see that the newcomers were Tugars. In the old days, the appearance of a desert warrior would have made him wet his breeches, but now it made him feel jolly. If bad things came, the Tugars would be better at dealing with them than just about anybody.

  “Princess Madiraa,” said the biggest of the big guys. “You and I have met before, but you were much younger and might not remember me. I am Asēkha-Rati and am accompanied by nineteen other Tugars. What brings you to such a foul place?”

  “Asēkha-Rati,” Palak said, “Madiraa is no longer a princess. She should now be addressed as queen.”

  There was enough torchlight to illuminate Rati’s face. Tew saw him arch an eyebrow. “My apologies,” the Asēkha said. “We have come from Anna and know little of what has occurred in the rest of the world.”

  “I take no offense,” Madiraa said. “Titles mean nothing here. But Rati, you underestimate your charms. Of course, I remember you. On my tenth birthday you helped me count all my dolls and arrange them on my bedstand. I still keep them the same way, though Nissaya is lost, and I will never see them again. As for why I am in such a dreadful place, I could ask you the same question.”