Forged In Death, Book 1 of The Death Wizard Chronicles (15 page)

The interior of the tower was dark. He willed Obhasa to glow, providing enough light for him to view a steep, spiraling stairwell. He started up. Peta did not follow.

“Will you not come?” Torg said.

Peta bowed her head. It was obvious that something disturbed her.

As Torg stared at the ghost-child, he saw movement behind her. The undead had returned. Thousands were in the courtyard, watching but not approaching. This time he disregarded them. Whatever was at the top of the tower now consumed his attention. He strode up the slippery stairs.

At the top was another locked door. It was no more capable of stopping him than the first. He blasted through it and entered the chamber. It was small with a low ceiling, and it glowed with a sepulchral light.

Peta lay on a stone pallet in the center of the room, her body untouched by the passing of time. If it weren’t for the stillness of her chest, Torg would have believed she was sleeping. She wore the same dress as her ghostly form, and her face was just as beautiful. If she had been allowed to grow to womanhood, she would have been splendid.

Torg hunched over and approached the pallet, which barely came to his knees. He looked down at her. A tiny gold amulet lay on her chest, and it shimmered and purred. Torg could sense it was a talisman of great power, perhaps created by some long-ago demon or sorcerer to preserve flesh. Peta’s body was unmarred, but Torg somehow knew that the little girl had lain in the tower for thousands of years.

He took the amulet in his right hand. Its thin chain snapped off her neck. Instantly Peta sat up and opened her eyes, which were pure white, without iris or pupil. She screamed, and her body flailed. For the briefest of moments, she again was alive.

Then her flesh began to curl, hiss and disintegrate. The little girl writhed in unimaginable agony.

“Kill me,” she screamed. “Hurry! Pleeeeaaassseeeee
 . . .
”

Tears filled Torg’s eyes. He could not bear to harm her, but neither could he leave her like this. He closed his left hand around her tiny throat and broke her neck with the slightest shift of his thick fingers.

Peta stopped moving. Silently her flesh withered, and her bones turned to dust. Her body was gone. When Torg left the tower, the ghost-child was gone too. He wept.

Afterward he departed Arupa-Loka. The undead followed him to the outer boundary of the city and watched as he slipped into the wilderness. For a month Torg wandered in bitter cold. North of the Gap of Gamana, the Mahaggata Range split into the shape of a Y. Torg headed northwest. In this far realm, the mountains were a jagged jumble of rock and ice. Torg had never felt so lonely.

Though he studied the amulet, he could unravel none of its mysteries. He decided to destroy it, so that it would never again perform such a heinous deed. But the amulet’s power was too great. He could not even scratch its smooth surface. Finally he chose to hide it.

On the peak of Catu, the northernmost mountain on all of Triken, Torg discovered a hidden cave. He crawled deep inside on hands and knees and covered the amulet with a shaving of granite. It was a relief to leave it behind.

Soon after he left the cave he witnessed a strange occurrence. A shadow had crept across the sun, consuming it bit by bit until the day became as dark as night. Torg had stood and watched in amazement. Two weeks later, as he’d journeyed back to Anna, the same thing had happened to the full moon.

With startling suddenness Torg’s thoughts returned to the present moment. He was back on Mount Asubha, trapped at the bottom of the pit, desperate to find a way out, and eager to rid himself of the corpse that had fallen on top of him. He looked the dead sentry in the eyes. He needed to have a little talk.

During Torg’s imprisonment in the pit, all of his teeth had fallen out, so it was difficult to enunciate the syllables he had learned from his visit with Peta to the Realm of the Undead.

But it would take more than that to cause him to falter.

“
Yakkkkha
,” he said.

The dead man’s eyes sprang open. “You’re not leaving me alone. I’ll soil my pants.”

“You’re
not
alone,” Torg said, his speech slowly improving as he grew more used to talking without teeth. “And I’m sorry to say that you’ve already soiled your pants. But I need to ask you some questions.”

“Who am I?” it said.

“You are who you were
 . . .
but that doesn’t matter. I need to ask you what you know.”

“I am no longer. I am gone. I will never kiss her.”

“Kiss her? Who?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Never mind,” Torg said. “Just listen to me and answer my questions.”

“Let
me
go to the warden.
You
stay here and watch.”

“Why do you want to go to the warden?”

“That nasty wizard is making noises again. He’s crawling out of the pit.”

I must have shouted when I returned from death
, Torg thought. It was probable that others had already been alerted.

“Was anyone else with you when you heard the ‘nasty wizard’ make noises?”

“Yes. And the bastard stuck me.”

“Where did he go?”

“I didn’t see.”

“Who else is up there?”

“Up there?”

Torg realized the man must have been dead before he fell into the pit. The memory that remained in his corpse still thought it was on the surface. But at least he was newly deceased. His recollections would be strong.

“Who else is near the pit?”

“No one. There was just the two of us.”

“Is Mala somewhere close?”

“The Chain Man? Yes. And he’s fearsome, I tell you. I soiled my pants around him more than once.”

“And Invictus, the sorcerer? Is he nearby?”

“No. I heard the warden talk about him, but I’ve never seen him. They say even the Chain Man is afraid of Invictus. But I don’t believe it. How could Mala be scared of anything?”

“Is there any way to escape the prison?”

“Escape? Ha! If there were, don’t you think I would have done it?”

“What if you
had
to try? Where would you go?”

“There is nowhere to go. All the walls are watched. More than just sentries are on guard. And even though he’s small, the warden is almost as dreadful as the Chain Man. It’s hopeless. There is nowhere to go.”

Torg sighed. The corpse had told him little, other than to warn him that it was likely the pit would be guarded if he were somehow able to climb out. Torg struggled to his knees and, with great difficulty, stood up. In order to fit within the pit’s cramped confines, he had to lift the dead body up with him. He now stood almost face to face with the corpse, though Torg was more than a span taller. The claustrophobia was intense, but Torg resisted its contagious effects.

“I ask you again: If you had to
try
to escape, where would you go?”

“The only place would be over the cliff,” the corpse said. “There is no wall there. But if you didn’t slip and fall into the abyss, then the birds or the spider would get you. I’d rather fall.”

“Where is the cliff? Is it near the pit?”

“Yes
 . . .
too near.”

Now at least, Torg had something to work with. He released the dead body. As it collapsed to its knees, its head again flopped against its chest.

“Good luck in your next existence,” Torg whispered. “May you be healthy, happy and peaceful. After what you’ve been through, you’ve earned it.”

The corpse began to sizzle. The acids and poisons in the walls of the pit had eaten through the uniform and now were working on the flesh. Within a short time, the body dissolved into bloody slush before finally vaporizing and vanishing. The smell was terrible. Torg might have vomited, but he had not eaten or drunk for almost a month. His stomach was as empty as a dragon’s heart.

Torg’s tissues were far more durable than the corpse’s. Perhaps no living creature could have resisted the pit as long as he. All the same, touching the walls was painful, even to him.

At least the floor of the pit was ordinary rock. A prisoner could lie at its bottom and not immediately perish. Invictus intended to extend the suffering a bit. In Torg’s case, it had worked even better than planned.

He ran his hand along his body. His skin, once tanned and flawless, now felt mottled and hairless; and in addition to his teeth, his fingernails and toenails also had fallen out. He could only imagine how hideous he must look. Probably even worse than Mala.

Torg didn’t believe he could escape the prison. His return from
Sammaasamaadhi
had recharged his body, but he still was a reduced version of his former self. If Mala were waiting for him on the surface, Torg knew he could not defeat him. If Invictus were there, Torg would be even more helpless. He clung to one slight hope: If he could climb out of the pit and somehow get over the side of the cliff, he might catch them off guard. Torg had visited the snow giants more than once in his long life, and they had taught him how to climb and descend difficult cliffs without ropes or other devices.

The pit was three cubits in diameter. Torg was four and a half cubits tall. He flattened his bare shoulder blades against the spongy wall. Acids flared. Poisons seeped down his spine and buttocks. The toxins chewed on his skin like a million voracious mouths. He cried out. The pain was abominable, but his flesh did not turn to slush; it was too great, even for the might of this malignancy.

Torg pressed one bare foot against the side of the pit. The disturbance caused the noxious surface to splutter. He jammed his other foot against the wall. Golden flames flared angrily. The effort paid off—his quivering body was suspended a cubit above the floor. For the first time in weeks he was not at the deepest depth of hell.

Torg flattened his hands against the sides of the pit. His fingers sank into the wall, which had the same texture as a gooey mass of worms. The large muscles of his back, shoulders, and thighs pulsated, and his biceps and forearms shivered. Where the acids and poisons oozed onto his flesh, golden flames erupted. Torg moaned. He had climbed only one cubit.

The pit was two hundred cubits deep.

He slid his shoulders up another cubit, dragged one foot upward, and then the other. Now he was two cubits above the floor, his knees bent, his buttocks facing downward. The last surviving hair on his body, a single black curl on his left big toe, burst into flame and disappeared in a tiny puff of smoke.

Three cubits. Five. Ten. Frustration caused Torg to shriek. He wriggled like a tortoise flipped onto its back.

Just one hundred and ninety cubits to go.

Torg sighed. It was obvious that his physical strength would not suffice. Instead he needed his magic. Though his body was drained, he still was internally aflame.
Death Energy
roared through his flesh.

The power inside Torg obeyed his will like a loving servant. His ability to wield it had been refined over many centuries. He could spray it like a rainstorm. Or launch it like a bolt of lightning. He could heal with it. Or kill. He could build with it. Or destroy. And now he would use the power within him to save his own life.

Torg enveloped his body in death’s broiling might. The golden flames flickered out; the acids and poisons retreated. Blue flames burst from his back, resembling the fiery tail of a comet. He began to rise, slowly at first, but ever quickening.

Ten more cubits.

Fifty.

One hundred.

Far above, Torg saw a trickle of radiance, and he roared in delight. For a moment it didn’t matter what happened once he reached the surface. Escaping the pit was his only concern.

Like lava racing upward through a fracture in bedrock, Torg surged toward the surface. When his body catapulted from the hideous hole, all of Asubha seemed to tremble. The pit—as if ashamed of its failure to contain him—exploded.

Then it collapsed upon itself and was no more.

Torg soared into the air, somersaulted, and fell a long, long way as if in slow motion.

He struck hard stone and lay still.

A short time later,
he shook his head and struggled to his knees. A storm raged all about him, a combination of wicked winds and snow-choked air. Through a brief gap in the clouds, he caught a glimpse of the moon, which was waning crescent in the midpoint of the sky. As a desert dweller, Torg was well-acquainted with the phases of the moon. Now he truly comprehended the duration of his confinement. He had been in the pit more than three weeks.

Torg shook his head and struggled to his knees. Dawn approached, and with it streaks of jagged light. He scanned his surroundings. He felt as if he were witnessing the end of the world.

Asubha rumbled. Torg’s emergence from the pit had awakened the mountain’s inner violence. The stone split and shattered, as if crunched by the hand of a god. As the ground beneath him buckled, he was thrown against a low stone wall. He grasped it and managed to stand, looking eastward into the first glow of the rising sun.

Despite the tumult, Torg could make out the silhouettes of several dozen guards teetering at the edge of a cliff. One of them started to fall, but even before he disappeared from Torg’s view, a condor swept out of the sky and seized the guard in midair. Then it soared over his head, with the screaming victim in its huge beak.

Torg recalled the words of the dead sentry;
the only place was over the cliff. There is no wall there. But if you didn’t slip and fall into the abyss, then the birds or the spider would get you.

Torg had seen one of the birds. Would he also encounter the “spider” before much longer?

A dreadful voice boomed through the hysteria. Instantly Torg recognized it, for he had spent more than six weeks learning to hate it. Mala stood in the center of the prison, waving his arms and bellowing at anyone within range.

“Stay away from the cliff, you stupid donkeys. Come to me!”

Another massive quake shook the prison. Buildings shuddered and began to crumble. Torg was tossed to-and-fro. He had expended almost all his remaining strength during his escape from the pit, but he wasn’t ready to give up. Now, with the mountain threatening to explode around him, he crawled shakily toward the cliff.

It was his last chance.