by Jim Melvin
In the meantime, Dhītar had rushed forward, flanked by Maynard Tew. She ran to a pair of chained gates and shook them. “Mother! Father! Are you there?”
Large bronze doors fronted the manse. In response to the countess’s calls, they swung open. A silver-haired woman limped out, supporting herself with a tall oaken staff.
“Dhītar, is that you?” came a voice still proud.
“Mother!” Dhītar screamed. “Mother!” The countess shook the gates. Rati took a step forward, grasped the chain in his hands, and broke it. Dhītar rushed through and sagged into the older woman’s arms.
“I can’t believe you’re still alive,” Dhītar said between sobs. “But where is Father?”
The silver-haired woman sighed. “Just a short time ago, the great warrior with the flashing sword took your father’s head. He was outside the gates . . . with the others. Did you not see? It is a blessing that his misery is finally ended. It haunted me to watch him from the window.”
Paying the price
20
AS VEDANA LAY IN the utter darkness of Undeath, her mind swirled with possibilities. Peta’s demise complicated things, but in truth, the ghost-child had already served her purpose.
As a result of Peta’s guidance, Laylah’s child had been conceived—the child that would free Vedana, once and for all, from her black prison.
“Who would have thought that my great-grandson would become my salvation?” the mother of all demons said out loud, causing the efrits to chitter and the sirens to sing. “Why, it was Peta who thought it, of course. Are you going daffy?”
The immensity of the effort it had taken to release so much Undeath Energy through the portal of Kauha had thoroughly exhausted Vedana, forcing her to withdraw, temporarily, into her own realm. The Death-Knower had had the assistance of Peta and the Vijjaadharaa, the rulers of karma, when draining Death Energy into the Realm of Life. Yet no one had helped her. Per usual, Vedana had had to do everything herself. And it had nearly broken her.
But it would be worth it. Oh, how they would pay. Each and every one.
A new Sun God soon would be born. Only this time, Vedana would be able to control him. Peta had said as much, before she disappeared. Vedana could remember her words so clearly, it was almost as if the ghost-child still were with her.
When she finally recovered enough to reincarnate into the living world, Vedana went straight to spy on Torg and Laylah. In the form of a raven, she huddled in the underside of a ridged gable in Senasana, hidden from view of even the most wary eyes. Even for her, there was danger in following so closely. If Torg or one of the other Tugars were to recognize her, a carefully aimed bead could destroy her physical incarnation, which would result in a weakening of her demonic essence. If this were to happen, she might become temporarily vulnerable to her jealous competitors in the Realm of Undeath. Though the chances of any of this occurring were slim, Vedana remained wary. She was too close to achieving her dreams to ruin them now. Caution was the better part of valor, as the ridiculous Vasi masters were fond of saying.
The demon cared naught for the countess, her mother, or the fiends. At this point, she wasn’t even concerned about the Death-Knower and his Tugars. Instead, it was her granddaughter who consumed Vedana’s attention. Laylah contained the key that would unlock the door to Vedana’s prison. The raven stared at the sorceress’s stomach with obsessive fascination.
To Vedana’s eyes, Laylah’s body was a cataclysm of color. Part of her granddaughter was crimson and white. These colors were joined by blue from Laylah’s recent Death Visit. And the Vijjaadharaa also were present—invisible to the living but not to the undead—flooding the sorceress with green fire. Still, Vedana wasn’t interested in crimson, white, blue, or green. Sizzling on the sorceress’s stomach was a layer of gold, and it was there that Vedana focused her formidable gaze.
The being that grew within her granddaughter’s belly was already beckoning Vedana. There was damage there—to the infant brain—that would play into Vedana’s hands, exactly as Peta had foretold. Once freed from his mother’s womb, the boy would grow large and strong in an extraordinary hurry. But his mind would be dull, his demeanor compliant. This time, Vedana would not fail in gaining full control. Isn’t that right, Peta? You had better not have been lying!
Vedana would be freed.
Her excitement was so great, she could barely resist squawking.
But resist she did. Now was not the time to get sloppy. There was far too much at stake.
21
THE DEMISE OF Invictus should have filled Jord with joy—or at least what level of joy a Faerie was capable of experiencing—but she was aware of too much of what was yet to come to take any satisfaction in what already had already been achieved. This was the trouble with knowing even small portions of the future. It took the fun out of the present.
In her incarnation as Sakuna, the Faerie flew above the eastern peaks of Mahaggata, the air cold but not as frigid as it had been when the darkness had encompassed the world. Even early in her existence on Triken—back before she had acquired some of the emotions of the living—she had enjoyed the sensation of flying. To a creature her size and strength, it was effortless and peaceful, offering a wide vista from which to view the world.
By dawn she had reached Nissaya, and she circled the massive fortress from high above. Now that the dracools were gone, the black-feathered hawks had dared to return to the skies, hunting the voles, snakes, and songbirds that inhabited the crannies in the stone. The hawks paid Sakuna little heed, sensing no danger in her presence. And indeed, she had no interest in them other than to admire their grace and beauty.
The Faerie sensed that Ugga was no longer at Nissaya, but traces of his essence remained, and she followed them from above. The sparkly trail the bear had left led her back to the mountains, and by noon she found him, lying on his side next to a fallen tree that a bolt of lightning had long ago split asunder—just as Peta had described.
Sakuna landed and transformed into Jord, naked and pale. As she walked toward Ugga, she was surprised to find that her eyes were filling with tears. The emotion called sadness was one of the most difficult to endure, yet living beings did just that countless times over countless lifetimes.
A rattlesnake as long as Jord was tall had bitten the bear on his only vulnerable spot—the jugular vein. The remains of the snake were strewn nearby. Ugga had managed to chomp it in half before collapsing. But too much damage had already occurred. The bear lay in a heap, panting heavily, his bodily functions succumbing to the venom he had absorbed. Now Jord was crying . . . sobbing, really. And she knelt and pressed her face against the bear’s snout.
“Oh, Ugga,” she said. “I am so sorry. I could have prevented this, but Peta told me it would be better for you if I did not.”
She kissed the bear on his nose. Ugga’s small eyes opened in recognition.
“I love you, Ugga,” Jord said. “I always have. And Bard too. Even when I’m gone from this world, some part of me will remember both of you. I promise you that, my dear . . . friend.”
Ugga lifted his head just a bit, but it was too much effort to hold it up for long. His tongue—smeared with dirt—dangled from his mouth, and his eyes were glassy.
“Ugga, my dear,” she managed to say between sobs, “I have a gift for you. It’s something you once told me you wanted. I’d like to give it to you now, if it pleases you.”
The bear snorted. Blood sprayed from his nostrils onto the dirt, and his eyes closed.
“When Bard died, I was strong in my heart . . . but now I’m not. I don’t want you to die. Please stay with me just a little longer. I love you too much to see you go. I can’t stand it!”
But even as she spoke, green sparkles popped into being in the air above them, quickly multiplying until there were thousands. The sparkles spun around the bear like a v
ortex, lifting the massive body from the ground. Ugga made a coughing sound and then went limp, but he continued to rise.
“No!” the Faerie said. “No! Don’t take him . . . yet!”
Jord jumped and tried to pull the bear back to the ground, but a portion of the sparkles spun away from Ugga and swarmed upon her. She was lifted, twisted, and consumed.
When the Faerie vanished, the bear fell to the ground with a thud, his eyes now lifeless. Ugga was no longer.
A moment later, Jord reappeared in the air. She hung there for a moment, staring down with a stricken expression. Then she also fell.
Still sobbing, she crawled naked on hands and knees to Ugga’s carcass and buried her face in his fur. There, she lay . . . for a long time.
Eventually, she regained her senses. Now that Bard and Ugga were dead, Jord knew that her time on Triken was about to end. Soon she would be called back to the Vijjaadharaa, where she would spend the rest of her existence. No longer, nor ever again, would her essence reside within the flesh of a physical being; the pleasures and pains of the living would not be hers to endure. It was bittersweet, to say the least. At the same time, it was the natural course of her kind. The Faeries began as watchers but spent most of the countless eons of time as guides. It was Jord’s turn to guide.
Though not quite yet.
As Peta had foreseen before the ghost-child had passed from this world, Jord still had a role to play in the Realm of Life. Despite the fall of Invictus, the fate of Triken—and perhaps the universe itself—was still very much in flux. The ghost-child had described two possible scenarios, neither of which was more likely to occur than the other. One would threaten the fabric of existence. The other would restore order and stability. The latter, of course, appealed more to the Vijjaadharaa.
Unabashed by her nakedness, the Faerie strode into a stand of trees and began to collect deadwood, carefully choosing fallen branches from several different species—poplar, oak, maple, pine, and hemlock—and then constructing a large and elaborate pyre. Jord’s physical form was far stronger than it appeared, and though the bear weighed more than ninety stones, she was able to lift him, carry him several paces, and place him on the pyre. Then she knelt and rested her pale forehead against one of the logs.
“Ugga . . . I loved you,” she whispered. “But I know that your next life will be better than this one. You will be a fine man who performs many deeds of derring-do. And though you won’t know it, I will watch over you and Bard from afar.”
Then she began to cry again. “When Bard died, I didn’t have time to grieve—there was too much still to do. To be honest, I didn’t even know that I could grieve. Now I grieve for you both. As long as I exist, I’ll hold you dear in my heart.”
The pyre burned past dusk, consuming the bear, bones and all. All through the night, Jord watched the cinders wink out, and by morning the fire was cool. Little but ash remained. Even then, the Faerie did not depart.
Jord rubbed the ash on her pale flesh. Sakuna worked it into her feathers. Bhojja rolled in it. Like a Warlish witch in the frenzy of transformation, the Faerie changed again and again, until all of her incarnations were coated with Ugga’s remains.
Then she transformed into Bhojja, her original incarnation on Triken, and ran westward toward the place where Bard had been cremated. Before doing anything else, she would pay a final visit to that site. The handsome trapper—who so many thousands of years ago had been a frightened, helpless boy—deserved nothing less.
22
AT FIRST, BEING around Burly had made Elu feel uncomfortable, reminding him of what it was like to be small. But the enchanter’s perpetual good nature was infectious, and the Svakaran found himself enjoying Burly’s company more and more, as did everyone else. The Asēkhas laughed uproariously at everything he said, and Essīkka oohed and ahhhed over him. If Burly had not been so small, Elu might have become jealous.
During their tedious march from Nissaya to Senasana, they all got to know each other. Vikkama, the senior Asēkha among them, told many tales, including some that occurred long before Invictus was born. Burly enthralled them with an epic version of his life story made even more fascinating by his vivid descriptions of Kincara. And Elu found the courage to re-tell the horrid tale of the vines. All the while, Essīkka watched the Svakaran with adoring eyes, and any remnants of jealousy faded away. She had grown to love him, and the feeling was mutual.
Near dusk of the fourth day since leaving Nissaya, they came upon a score of fiends wandering in the Gray Plains west of the merchant city. The Asēkhas rushed forward and dispatched them with ease, making Elu feel slow and ineffective in comparison. Though he had been magically restored to his former size and strength, he still was no match for an Asēkha—or even an ordinary Tugar.
Burly sensed his discomfort. “They are the greatest of the great,” the enchanter said wisely. “And it’s not like you haven’t performed worthy deeds of your own.”
Elu smiled. “Perhaps if I had one of their swords I might be more dangerous than I am.” Then he drew Sōbhana’s dagger from a scabbard tucked into his boot and showed it to Burly. “But I do have this.”
The enchanter’s eyes sprang wide, and he asked Elu if he could hold the dagger. In his tiny hands it looked like a longsword.
“This is a magnificent blade,” Burly said, “but not just because it was made by Tugarian craftsmen. A woman’s courage lives on in this metal.”
“Do you jest?” Elu said.
“Not at all,” Burly bellowed. “I would never joke about such a thing.”
“But you’re always joking,” Elu said.
“True,” Burly admitted. “But this time, not so.”
Portions of Senasana lay west and east of the Ogha River, but the bulk of the city had been built on its eastern bank. Though it did not rival Jivita in grandeur or Avici in scope, the city was wealthy and filled with lavish manses and palaces constructed mostly of red limestone gathered from the quarries near Dibbu-Loka and framed with white oak hauled from the forests that grew on the borders of Kolankold.
But as they entered the city from the west, what they saw stunned them. Porches, doors, and wooden fences had been splintered and burned—and almost every visible window was shattered. As far as Elu could tell, not a single structure had escaped unscathed—nor it appeared, had a single human inhabitant of the city. All that remained of a citizenship that had once numbered more than fifty thousand were occasional piles of bones, so white and glistening it appeared that rats and vultures had picked them clean. Fiends still wandered the blood-stained streets, and when they saw Elu and his companions, they snarled and attacked. But they were spread out and ill-equipped to do much damage, even when they came in large numbers.
“It is obvious that Senasana fell weeks ago,” Vikkama said, while matter-of-factly flicking blood off the blade of her uttara. “Most of this damage is old. And the fiends are putting up even less of a fight than I would have expected. I believe they are weakened. Left to their own devices, might they not perish on their own?”
“I don’t know the answer,” Burly said, “though I agree that they appear sluggish. And there are fewer than I would have thought, considering what must have gone on here. Are tens of thousands wandering the plains?”
“If so, let us hope that they do perish on their own,” Vikkama said. “Otherwise it might take years before we can hunt them all down.”
By the time they reached the stone bridge that spanned the Ogha and led to the eastern portion of the city, it was one bell before midnight. Now it was so dark they were forced to carry torches, which they found in abundance inside the storage rooms of a few of the larger manses. It mattered naught that the light revealed their presence. It seemed the fiends could smell even better than they could see.
One of the Asēkhas let out a sudden shout, and Elu braced himself for
another attack. Then he noticed the warriors sprinting heedlessly onto the bridge, and other dark forms, also carrying torches, rushing to greet them. Burly came beside the Svakaran and tapped him on the knee.
“It appears we’ve found friends,” the enchanter said to Elu and Essīkka.
“Some of the citizens have survived?” Essīkka said.
“No, they aren’t Senasanans,” Burly said. “Can’t you tell by the graceful way they move? Tugars have come.”
This amazed Elu, but it also pleased him. Would Torg be among them? He ran to greet the desert warriors, as if he were one of them.
Finally he found the wizard and hugged him unabashedly.
“Well met,” Torg said. “It pleasures me to see you again, my friend. But where is Ugga?”
Elu shook his head. “He became wild and disappeared into the wilderness.” Then his eyes filled with tears. “I doubt any of us will ever see him again.”
Torg’s eyes also grew wet. “It is for the best.”
But the wizard sounded unsure.
23
SEVERAL TIMES DURING the nearly two hundred years of his life, Ukkutīka had ventured within the borders of Java. Usually it had been to hunt down monsters that had been terrorizing the merchant route between Senasana and Nissaya. Though Tugars tended to linger within Tējo during times of peace, they routinely sent companies abroad to keep tabs on the goings-on. Whenever there was trouble that the black knights couldn’t or wouldn’t handle, the merchant guilds would appeal to the Tugars for help.
But Ukkutīka had never found reason to venture much beyond the evil forest’s outer fringe, and now for the first time he stood at its heart. Though it was early morning, the thick canopy of strange, gnarled trees kept out most of the light. Even so, hundreds of yellow beams found exposures and streaked through them to the forest floor like loosed arrows. Kithar and thirty score Tugars were at the Asēkha’s side, and more than two thousand Pabbajja encircled them. This had once been the Pabbajja’s territory, but they had not ventured into Java’s interior in an eon. Now it was almost as unfamiliar to them as it was to the Tugars.