Torn By War: 4 (The Death Wizard Chronicles) (17 page)

WHEN MALA HAD stepped onto the balcony of Bakheng the previous summer in the noble city called Dibbu-Loka, Sister Tathagata had never felt such fear. The monster was disgusting to behold, but that was not the only reason for her terror. The High Nun discerned something in the Chain Man’s expression that frightened her in ways she could not rationalize. It was as if she could see Yama-Deva screaming for help from behind Mala’s eyes, a wildfire of madness pinning his sanity into a corner of his own mind. The encounter continued to haunt her long after its occurrence.

Now Tathagata understood why. Like Yama-Deva, insanity had also overpowered her, and though a small part of her still remembered whom she was, a force far greater had taken control of her mind and body. When she had eaten human flesh, her rational mind had been forced to taste it. As she moved northward through Barranca, full of wicked hunger and murderous intent, her rational mind was dragged unwillingly along like a victim of kidnapping. The
undines
squirmed within her flesh by the tens of thousands, each of the demonic creatures containing a tiny brain psychically interlinked like the druids of Dhutanga. The
undines
controlled her, but they permitted a portion of her former awareness to survive. Tathagata had been a genius, and now the monster that she had become was using her intelligence as a source of nourishment, growing into a thing of unspeakable evil.

The fiend who followed her was anything but clever. He stumbled behind her as if blind, tripping over jagged rocks more often than stepping around them. Still, she admired his persistence. Hunger drove him, but it was not so much a need for sustenance as it was a desire for disgust, which the
undines
considered the tastiest of provender.

More than a league before Tathagata could see more humans, she could smell them. Now it was near dusk, and she had not fed since early morning. Already her strength was declining, which enabled the annoying voice trapped within her mind to resist more forcibly.

Her new eyesight was almost as great as her sense of smell. From a mile away, she recognized a man, a woman, an older boy, and two younger girls gathered around a fire over which three large rattlesnakes roasted on skewers. Even their meager belongings were visible in the gloom: a drinking bowl, a goatskin, and a few tattered rags to use as bed covers. There also was a live goat tethered to a post a dozen paces from the fire. Their only weapons appeared to be a flint-tipped spear with a warped wooden staff and a pair of flint daggers.

Tathagata knew that her clumsy follower would make too much noise and alert the prey, but at least he still was far enough behind to not yet be a factor. She crept from boulder to boulder, crawled on hands and knees, slithered on her stomach. The goat was her main concern. Its alertness was superior to a human’s. Before being spotted, Tathagata needed to get within sprinting distance.

Just as she was preparing to leap up and give chase, a fiery agony erupted inside her skull. Tathagata grasped her temples and moaned loud enough for the goat to hear. The alarmed doe stomped her forefoot and made a high-pitched sound that resembled a sneeze. Immediately the man sprang up and grabbed the spear, while the others scrambled behind a wall of boulders.

Tathagata barely noticed. The pain grew in intensity, causing her to scream. Suddenly she stood up, waved her arms, and howled loud enough to be heard from afar.

The man crouched low and faced her, afraid to approach any closer but obviously curious. For all he knew, Tathagata needed assistance—and the sinister part of her mind recognized his emotional frailty. For the first time since leaving the Tugar camp two days before, she uttered intelligible words.

“Helllllp me,” she screamed in the common tongue. “It’s chasing me! It wants to kill me.”

The man did not go forward, but neither did he retreat. Tathagata could hear the other members of the camp begging him to flee. But just when it seemed like he might heed their pleas, the follower came into view from behind, snarling and slavering. The timing could not have been more perfect.

Tathagata screamed again, but this time it was no act. The pain returned with a vengeance. She begged it to cease, even promising to leave the humans and go on her way, if only it would depart. This caused the pain to lessen slightly. But when her hunger for flesh raised its ugly head, the pain re-intensified almost beyond tolerance.

Though she was probably not much more than a shadowy silhouette in his range of vision, the man seemed to sense something in Tathagata that made him distrustful. But when her follower came within a few paces of her, the man’s courage overcame his reluctance. He charged forward and flung the spear into her follower’s belly. Then he stopped a few paces from where Tathagata stood to see if she needed assistance. Tathagata made the most of it, ignoring the pain long enough to pounce on her prey and chomp down on his neck. Almost immediately, the pain receded, as if vitality had chased it away. In the meantime her follower yanked the spear from his belly, clambered forward, and joined her in the feast.

The other humans fled in a panic.

Tathagata left the man’s body for the other to consume and gave chase. Of them all, the older boy seemed to be the only one capable of outrunning her, but he was brave enough—or foolish enough—not to abandon his companions. When Tathagata came near, he stopped, turned, and slashed at her with one of the daggers, slicing her across the top of her suddenly swollen breasts. Tathagata caught his arm in the follow-through and bit into his bicep. Then she slapped his face hard enough to knock him senseless.

Screaming in terror, the woman and two girls continued to run, but they were making little progress. Tathagata caught up to the woman first and bit the side of her face, then approached the girls more slowly. One of them held a dagger, but she dropped it from a trembling hand and whimpered. Tathagata ate her sweet flesh with relish, giving the youngest girl time to escape.

Not long after, the boy and the woman soon joined Tathagata in the feast. Now her followers numbered three.

TWO BELLS BEFORE dawn, Asēkha-Tāseti came upon the carnage. She found two skeletons, both picked as cleanly as the one she had discovered the previous morning. There also was a tethered goat, which had raw marks on its neck from trying to pull off its restraint. Tāseti broke its rope collar with her powerful hands and set the goat free. It scrambled past the smaller of the skeletons and disappeared within a conglomeration of boulders about a quarter-mile away.

Something about the goat’s determined sprint piqued Tāseti’s curiosity. Though the warrior was in a desperate hurry to catch up to Tathagata, she allowed herself the time to explore the rocky tangle. The goat was nowhere to be seen, but something else attracted the Asēkha’s attention: the sound of whimpers. Soon after, Tāseti discovered a girl huddled in a crevice too small for a Tugarian warrior to enter. She called to her, and the girl responded, slithering out and leaping into Tāseti’s arms.

Tāseti, who was childless despite having been alive for more than two centuries, held the girl awkwardly as she sobbed. The terror she must have endured broke the Asēkha’s heart. But at the same time, Tāseti became worried that the girl would slow her down. She didn’t have time to feed or comfort her, but neither could she bring herself to abandon her.

“My name is Tāseti. What’s yours?”

The girl would not answer.

“You don’t have to tell me until you’re ready,” she said, stroking the girl’s scraggly hair. “Are you hungry?”

The girl shook her head no, then vomited. Afterward she said, “Thirsty.”

Though the water in her skin had been boiled, Tāseti was hesitant to give it to her new companion. The Asēkha called the camel over and coaxed it into sitting beside the girl to comfort her. Then she rushed back to the campsite, hid the skeletons as quickly as she could, and searched the surrounding area. Tāseti found a goatskin of water and the skewered rattlesnakes, which had withered but remained edible. The girl surprised the Asēkha by grabbing one of the skewers and taking a bite before swallowing several gulps of water.

“Monsters came,” she said suddenly. “They ate my daddy and Thuna.” The girl’s eyes leapt to-and-fro, as if she expected the fiends to return at any moment. “When they left, my mommy and Huta went with them.”

Tāseti guessed the girl had seen no more than seven summers. After what had occurred, how could she hope to have any kind of decent life?

“How many monsters?” Tāseti said, her voice purposely lacking emotion.

“Two. A really big lady monster and a little man monster.”

“You mean a big man and little lady?”

“No!”

This puzzled Tāseti. Not even a child would describe Tathagata as big. But since the previous morning, the trail signs had baffled the Asēkha. She had continued to find numerous footprints, but none had been small enough to belong to the High Nun.

“How big was the lady?”

“Bigger than you. And after she ate my sister, she got even bigger.”

Tāseti arched an eyebrow. “Hmmmm . . . well, I’m very sorry about what happened to your family,” she said, unable to come up with anything more comforting.

“Me too,” the girl said. “But why would my mommy and Huta go with the monsters? Why didn’t they try to find me?”

“I don’t want to scare you or make you feel bad, but I don’t want to lie to you, either. Your mommy and brother are no longer. The monsters have taken their bodies.”

The girl sniffed, but tried to sound brave. “You’re a Tugar. Whenever a Tugar came around, my daddy and mommy felt safe. Are you going to kill the monsters?”

“I’ve been chasing them for a long time. I’m afraid they might get away. But I don’t want to leave you here alone. Will you ride with me on the camel? Maybe we’ll get lucky and run into friends who can protect you.”

“My family didn’t have many friends,” the girl said with sad eyes. “But I will come with you, anyway. I want you to
kill
the monsters that hurt my family.”

As they rode off, Tāseti saw the goat emerge from the boulders. Its eyes looked sad. Then it went on its way to wherever its fate might lie.

THREE DAYS INTO their march, Asēkha-Rati and the band of noble ones had traveled less than halfway across Barranca. Now it was well past midnight, and a sliver of moon had just begun to rise in the eastern sky.

“Tomorrow night, the moon will be dark,” Rati said to one of the twelve Tugars who had remained with the company.

“As dark as our hearts,” the warrior said.

“I have never seen the noble ones so disturbed,” Rati agreed. “I’m not sure what troubles them more: the loss of six score of their order or the ruination of Sister Tathagata.”

“They’re not even meditating,” the warrior said. “They barely take food. And they remain frightened of the water. They only drink whatever water they watch us boil, and even then just a few sips. Other than what we carry with us, we won’t find fresh water for at least five days. If only it would rain.”

“We both know it rarely rains here this time of year,” Rati said. “In my lifetime, I have counted only two days of rain on the first new moon of spring.”

“How do you remember such things, Asēkha?”

Rati shrugged.

They continued their ponderous march. Tugars could easily cross twenty-five leagues of wasteland in three days, but it would take the noble ones almost a week. Barranca was a somber land, a great carpet of crumbling rocks, its monotony broken only by abrupt ranges of jagged peaks, some more than a thousand cubits tall. The wastelands that bordered the desert harbored scant life, other than a few birds, reptiles, and insects. In most ways, the sand sea of Tējo was more hospitable. People and animals thrived there, wandering from oasis to oasis, some of which covered hundreds of hectares. In Barranca, a patch of gnarled bushes or a pool of rain water trapped in a bowl of stone were the closest things to paradise.

Before dawn, they stopped and made camp on an unbroken floor that lay beneath sloping limestone cliffs. There was barely room for all, especially after the camels bullied in to escape from the rising sun. Summer was two months’ distant, but this spring was unseasonably wicked. The daytime temperatures were becoming insufferable, especially to the monks and nuns who were used to meditating indoors during the worst of the afternoon.

The Tugars built a fire away from their resting place and boiled enough water to quench several hundred thirsts. Even so, it took a third of the day for the water to cool enough to swallow. Rati admired the monks and nuns for how little they complained, but he could see in their eyes a hopelessness that had never existed before. It saddened him and fed his guilt, which grew larger with each breath. Finally, he could no longer resist the urge to address them.

“There are rumors among you regarding what occurred and why,” Rati said. “Allow me to dispel them. It was I who brought the horror of the
undines
into your midst.”

A senior monk named Dammawansha stood gracefully and came forward. Rati knew him well. He was second in rank to Tathagata, and far more affable.

“Asēkha-Rati, you are not to blame,” said Dammawansha through lips that were parched and peeling. “Do not mistake our dismay for reproach. Our beliefs are different than yours, but we are not without ‘common sense,’ as your Vasi masters like to say. We comprehend that evil exists in the world. We just define its causes differently.”

“Your words warm my heart, High Monk,” Rati said. “Yet the noble ones have shown few signs of recovery. If reproach is not the cause of your melancholy, what is?”