Healed by Hope Read Online Free

stone glowed dimly, yet there was enough illumination to create a temporary oasis in the otherwise disconcerting darkness. Down they went, cautious yet curious.
    Tew and Dhītar approached Rati, each bearing a smoking torch.
    “I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes,” the pirate said. “The tower was too strong to fall. Who has this kind of power?”
    Rati shook his head. “I have no idea. But let’s hope the sorcerer fell along with it.”
    They walked among the glowing chunks of crumbled stone, searching for signs of survivors. Amazingly, a lone and mighty tree remained standing amid the rubble, as if too stubborn to be uprooted by the upheavals. Eventually, the Tugars and Pabbajja, seven thousand strong, gathered around an enormous slab of gold-coated stone that must have weighed more than a hundred tons.
    Yet something beneath it was great enough to cause the slab to quiver.
    “Chieftain, do we dare move this obstruction?” Rati said. “What if the sorcerer is trapped beneath?”
    Podhana chuckled ruefully. “The sorcerer would not be hindered, even by this.” Then he held his arms aloft. “Tugars! I have a task for you.”
    The desert warriors pressed against the slab and slid it aside with relative ease, revealing a misty stairwell clogged with debris. From the battered darkness arose a being far larger, in stature, than Invictus.
    “Yama-Deva,” Podhana said.
    The snow giant looked about—and then smiled, revealing fangs that Rati did not find threatening.
    “I have decided that I’m not quite ready to die,” Deva said.
    “I am more than pleased,” Podhana said. Then in almost a whisper: “ The Torgon ? Was he here?”
    “He was. I know naught where he has gone, but I believe he still lives.”
    Podhana sighed. “And Invictus?”
    “He is no longer.”
    There was a collective gasp. Then the chieftain knelt at the giant’s feet and pressed his face against the valley floor—in obeisance.
    Unabashedly, Rati joined him.
    As did seven thousand others, including the rascally pirate.

4
    ALMOST TWO WEEKS had passed since Rati and the nineteen Tugars had departed Anna in their quest to unveil the meaning of the High Monk’s vision. Since then, Aya had noted that several events of significance had happened in and around the Tent City in the desert Tējo. First, the Simōōn had been rebuilt, and for this there was rejoicing. But two days later, on the eve of the quarter moon, Gutta had sensed his ascension to Asēkha, an occurrence that had brought little pleasure to anyone in the Tent City, including Gutta himself. Somewhere, another Asēkha had fallen.
    “Rati, are you with us no longer?” Gutta had wondered. “Or has one of the other Viisati perished in a far-off land?”
    Not long after, all of the Tugars remaining in Anna, including Aya, had been dealt another blow. In unison they experienced the demise of The Torgon , casting the inhabitants of the Tent City into despair. Those who had been blinded in the battle with Tathagata seemed to suffer most of all. Even worse, they knew neither how nor what had occurred, surmising only that their king had fallen at the hands of Mala or the sorcerer. Who else had the power to commit such a heinous crime? And who now would lead the Tugars? Kusala was the obvious successor, but it was even possible that he was among the fallen and the reason for Gutta’s ascension. It was as if the citizens of Anna had been cut off from all news of the outside world. The times were dire, indeed.
    The peculiar darkness that came next had caused even more distress. Near dawn, the cloud had approached from the northwest like a rushing tide, flooding the sky with blue-blackness as opaque as stone. Most of the inhabitants of the Tent City already were awake and beginning their morning ablutions when the darkness appeared, throwing the lesser among them into a state of confusion. It had been difficult for Aya to gather everyone together, even with