“Why are you doing this?” I asked again, hanging on to Neel’s arm for balance.
“Why, because of the Ouroboros, of course!” Sesha said this in a loud, booming, game show announcer way. On the screens, there was that image again, the snake eating its own tail. “I’ve been watching that TV show from your dimension—Shady Sadie the Snaky Lady! And I’ve learned quite a bit about the study of alchemy. That’s where I found the story of the Ouroboros. If the head of the great serpent—that’s me—eats its own tail—that’s you, my youngest child—why, I get to do it! I get to cheat this annoying cycle of life and death and rebirth! I get to be as wide and all-powerful as the galaxies themselves! I get to live forever!” He cackled evilly and rubbed his hands.
Sesha really was such a cliché. A cliché that was going to kill me, yes. But still a cliché.
“And all this nonsense about the Chintamoni and Poroshmoni Stones? What about them? Were they just a distraction?” I sputtered, even as I exchanged a panicky look with Neel.
“Oh, no, that’s the best part of all!” Sesha gave a shrill whistle, then laughed in an über-movie-villain way. “I can’t just kill you outright to fulfill the Ouroboros spell. I must kill you in a special way—with the power of two neutron stars!”
“I was right,” I breathed. “The stones are neutron stars!”
“Not just yet. Not in this form.” Sesha wiggled his finger at me. “Right now they are simply jewels. But through the alchemical power of all four rakkhosh clans—a quadruple power held by only the Rakkhoshi Queen—they can become stars! Get on out here, my trusted henchman!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” The person who walked out onto the dais handed the Serpent King two shimmering stones—one white and one yellow. It was the Thinking and Touch Stones, the two jewels that would be changed, through the power of the Rakkhoshi Queen, into two neutron stars. They were the two objects that would kill me and give Sesha immortality.
You would think my attention would be on those stones, the cause of all this drama and misery, the weapons with which my birth father would very soon try to kill me. But I barely paid them a glance. Instead, I was staring openmouthed at the person who brought them in. The TV audience gave a collective gasp too.
“It was remarkably easy to convince the Raja that the Poroshmoni Stone should be given to his son for safekeeping,” drawled Sesha as he took the two jewels into his ringed hands.
But I still wasn’t listening. I was too slack-jawed with shock at who had brought Sesha the jewels. I couldn’t. Bloomin’. Believe it.
“Brother!” exclaimed Neel. “I knew it!
“Lal?” I practically screamed. “How could you?”
“How could I what?” drawled Lal, his handsome face unrecognizable in its malice. “Fool you? Very easily, my dear. Have my brother get put in detention? A bit trickier, but it was manageable. I just wish I wasn’t caught up in that farce of a second test, and could have stopped you from talking to K. P. Das.”
I narrowed my eyes. Wait a minute, Sesha had known—he’d been watching—when I went to speak to the old demonologist. And he had wanted me to dive under the Honey-Gold Ocean of Souls to rescue Neel all along—he’d even set up this gladiator arena for it. Then what was it that Lal didn’t want me to find out from his old teacher? That’s when it hit me. Raat’s strange reaction to Lal, Lal’s own weird lies about not liking demonology, how the crown prince never called me Just Kiran like he used to.
“You’re not actually Lal at all, are you?” I said slowly, the pieces all falling together in my head.
“What are you talking about? Has your lurve for me melted your little brain?” Lalkamal sneered. “Or are you angling for more canoodling? More stolen kisses and hugs? Don’t be shy just because my big brother is here!”
“Canoodling?” repeated Neel. “Kisses and hugs?”
From the TV screens, the audience started laughing.
“There was no canoodling!” I sputtered. “That was all that stupid propaganda machine. Anyway, I mean, gross! Besides which, that’s not Lal!” I said this last part through gritted teeth.
“What are you talking about, Kiran? Of course that’s my brother,” Neel snapped. “Have you lost leave of your senses?”
The viewers on the TV screens all seemed to think so too. They frowned at me now, and one snake woman even seemed to be wagging her fingers at me. That was all I needed. To be shamed by a green-skinned snake woman watching me on an intergalactic TV game show.
“Enough with this!” Sesha pointed at Neel. “Get him, Prince Lalkamal! Kill your brother and be rid of his polluting, rakkhosh presence in the kingdom!”
Lal ran at Neel with his sword drawn, almost faster than the eye could see. At the last minute, Neel raised his sword to block his brother’s, his face shocked. “Lal? Bro? Stop! What are you doing?”
The two brothers clashed weapons, swirling and slashing at each other. Lal was attacking and Neel was on the major defensive. He stumbled as he walked backward, blocking his brother’s incredibly strong blows. “Lal! It’s me!” said Neel, his voice strangled. “You don’t want to do this!”
I had to do something, and now. Neel wasn’t going to attack his brother, and that was going to get him killed. Sesha was paying attention to the princes’ fight, laughing and cackling in delight. With everyone’s eyes off me, I dived across the arena to where Naya’s Lola Morgana thermos had come spilling out of my backpack before. Before anyone could understand what I was up to, I twisted the lid open.
“If you’re the human being you claim to be, Prince Lalkamal, then you should be able to get into this thermos, right?” I shouted, remembering how K. P. Das had tried to get me to do the same thing. “You should be able to get into this easy as pie!”
“Stop!” sputtered Sesha. “Don’t listen to her!”
The viewers on the screens leaned forward eagerly, their eyes shining with anticipation as they waited to see what happened next.
I held my breath too, not sure if he would fall for it. But the challenge seemed to appeal to the crown prince’s vanity. He stopped attacking Neel, and lowered his sword.
“Of course I can get in there! I’m a human being, aren’t I?”
“Well, that’s the question!” I taunted, waving the thermos. “Are you a human being? I have my doubts! You’re going to have to prove it by doing something only a real human could do! Get in this thermos!”
“You doubt me?” The prince’s eyes grew an unnatural red. “Just watch!”
Transforming into a burst of vapor, the creature pretending to be Lal shot himself into the Lola Morgana thermos. As soon as the ghost was in, I shut the thermos with a resolute bang. Neel looked absolutely—as Buddhu might say—gobsmacked.
The audience went wild. They obviously thought this was all a part of the show. “Princess Demon Slayer! Princess Demon Slayer!” I heard someone begin to chant, and hundreds of voices from all over the kingdom joined in. I held up the thermos like a trophy and took a little bow, shooting Sesha a sly grin as I did.
The Serpent King wasn’t having any of it. “Oh, shut up, all of you!” he snapped, turning the volume off all the TVs.
“If that was a ghost who stole his form, then where’s my real brother?” demanded Neel.
“That’s for me to know and you never to find out!” snapped Sesha.
But from inside the thermos, a faint little voice called out something. I couldn’t make it out until I held it up to my ear. “A peanut where my garden grows. A pike all the way from my toes to my nose!”
Of course! Thank goodness ghosts couldn’t resist riddles! I could have kissed that Lola Morgana thermos. I could have even kissed ghost Lal (well, okay, maybe not).
“New Jersey!” I told Neel. “The real Lal’s stuck in a tree trunk somewhere in New Jersey!”
Neel stared at the thermos, finally getting that the guy he thought was his brother had actually been a ghost. He looked up at me, mouthing the words thank you.
The T
V screens, all muted now, were a flurry of visual activity. People were jumping and pointing and screaming and fainting. Some had left their stands and others had crowded up to the camera and seemed to be yelling into it.
I saw why. Sesha had lifted the white and gold stones above his head, one jewel in each hand. There was a tremendous light shooting off them, like a laser beam, right in my direction.
I thought I was a goner for sure, when another familiar voice echoed throughout the arena. “Let my grandchildren go, you snake!”
Sesha lowered his arms and turned around to see, as did we all.
It was Ai-Ma, joining us in the hallway, tall and strong with protective love. Right behind her was an army of pink-sari’d girls on skateboards, all rakkhoshis, including Naya, looking fiercer than I’d ever seen her.
“Your Highnosity!” Naya waved. “We’re here to help!”
“Um, hi, Naya!” I looked over her shoulder for Mati, before I realized the dive would have been too dangerous for any of the human PSS, or for Tuni.
The flying fangirls gave me a little cheer, their faces apologetic. “Princess Kiran, strong and true! Don’t you worry, we’ll save you!”
“Henchmen!” Sesha yelled into the air. He sounded just like a movie bad guy. “Intruders in the fortress dungeons! Get them!”
The TSK hench-snakes flooded down the hallway from behind Sesha, falling upon the rakkhoshi skateboarders. At the same time, a recovered Naga took aim at Ai-Ma herself.
“Ai-Ma!” Neel called as he leaped forward with his sword raised. “Look out!” Turning to me, he yelled, “Please, Kiran, protect my mother!”
I stayed where I was, protecting the Demon Queen’s body. Long distance, I fired arrow after arrow at Naga. But still, he headed toward Ai-Ma.
“You think you’re a match for me, you sad old bag of bonesss?” Naga hissed and lunged but Ai-Ma brushed him aside with a magical sweep of her hand.
“Naughty boy! You must show more respect for elders!” Neel’s grandmother cackled, her three teeth gleaming from her slobbery grin. “Shame, shame, puppy shame! All the donkeys know your name!”
Love had made Ai-Ma into a phenomenon to behold. She whirled and struck out at Naga, her arms such a blur, it looked like she had as many arms as he had heads. The seven-headed snake moaned, all fourteen eyes goggling in surprise as Ai-Ma tied the seven cobra necks together like a giant birthday bow. “Grandma to the rescue!” she declared as she put the vicious snake out of commission.
But now it was Sesha’s turn to lunge at Ai-Ma. “Stupid cow, you think you can save anyone? Stupid like your demon daughter! You came to save your daughter and grandson, is it? Well, you can keep them company in death!”
Like it had before, the hotel tried to fight dirty for its master, making the floor and walls shift in ways as to throw the rakkhoshi off balance. But Ai-Ma was sprightlier than she looked, and scampered up the walls and onto the ceiling, like the witches before her had done. She stayed one step ahead of the living fortress. She and Neel now had Sesha on the defensive for a moment, but then the hotel redoubled its efforts, warping and burbling its walls, floor, and ceiling to throw everyone but Sesha off their stride. The skateboarders, including Naya, who had been leaping and wheeling over snakes—and getting the advantage over the slimy reptiles—were now put on the defensive by the aggressive moves of the evil fortress hotel.
“Did you disgusting vermin actually think you could stride into my property, again, and destroy it? Did you actually think I wouldn’t destroy you first?” Sesha snarled. “No, it’s time for me to taste immortality! It’s time for evil and good to stop being in balance! It’s time for me to win!”
That was when I made a horrible mistake. The dungeon hallway buckled and thrashed, throwing Neel off his feet and to the floor with an audible “Ouch!” He looked weak after his weeks in the dungeon detention center, and so tired. I saw Sesha raise his hands, as if to finish the prince off right then and there.
“No you don’t!” I left the rakkhoshi’s side to run and help Neel to his feet. But right at that moment, Sesha grabbed his chance, aiming the two stones in his hands not at me, but at the fallen Rakkhoshi Queen! The light coming out of the stones—golden and white—united and flared, streaming in a laser-like beam toward Neel’s mother’s fallen body.
As the light hit her, the Demon Queen screamed. At her piercing cry, all of us—snakes and skateboarders, Ai-Ma and Sesha, Neel and I—froze in place. Naga had no choice, since he was still tied up like a giant bow.
Neel’s mother had her eyes open now, and she was thrashing about on the ground, a thick silver smoke coming out of every pore. “Stop!” I cried, trying to run back to her. “Please, Serpent King, stop!”
“Why? Not long now before these mere stones are transformed into stars! And then, my last-born child, I will use them to kill you! The head of the serpent shall swallow the tail, and immortality will be mine forever!”
On the screens flashed rapid-fire images—a snake encircling the world, a snake churning up life from a cosmic ocean, a snake winding its way up from the bottom of a meditating monk’s spine, up, up, up to the heavens until it became a constellation. Then came the Ouroboros—the snake biting its own tail. Its eyes glowed bright and fierce—one yellow and one white—expanding out and out until their energy merged together in fierce fireworks of intergalactic power.
Neel’s mother was floating up off the ground now, her glowing body losing its form, becoming water and then fire, earth and then air, over and over again. She was the Demon Queen, and so had powers from all the clans. Why hadn’t I paid more attention to that passage from K. P. Das’s book about the demon clans and their connection to alchemy? If only I’d understood. It was all connected: my fate, the fate of demon-kind, the fate of serpent-kind, the fate of humankind, all of it. The all was one.
The glowing bright Demon Queen hovering above us was everything in the universe and the universe itself all at the same time. She was power and vulnerability, she was mother and monster, she was life and she was death. I saw the direction of the beam change and realized the stones were sucking away her magical life powers. They grew—in size and brilliance—even as she diminished.
“Mother!” Neel cried, trying to get to her. “No!”
We stood there in stunned silence as the Rakkhoshi Rani dimmed, becoming dark as an ocean, still as a beginning place. It was sad, but it was also beautiful. She was creating a celestial power. She was giving birth to twin stars.
That is, until her mother Ai-Ma leaped at her. “No! I won’t let you do this to my daughter!” As she jumped, Ai-Ma called to me, “The jewels, my num num! Break the connection and get those jewels!”
I knew it was useless to try to fight Sesha directly, and so I ran over to Naya, jumping on the skateboard behind her. “Let’s fly, girl!” I pointed at the dais.
Naya gave a huge whoop and let her wings unfurl. I had the skateboard in my hand as she flew me toward Sesha and then let me drop. I landed right next to him on the dais with so much momentum I practically bowled right through him on Naya’s skateboard.
“What?” he exclaimed as I picked him up on the board too. He was so topsy-turvy he dropped the jewels.
“Neel!” I shouted. Neel dived for the halfway-to-star stones, which he tossed at Ai-Ma with one ferocious throw.
I saw one of the screens come to life with the words, Prince Neelkamal being recruited by both the intergalactic cricket and rickets leagues on account of his fantastic bowling arm. Princess Demon Slayer a possible skateboard athlete in this year’s X Games.
Ai-Ma caught the glowing stones in midair. She was right next to her daughter’s floating body when she brought the yellow and white jewels together over her head in a resounding thunder crash. The light of the stones dimmed again, their power flowing back into the Rakkhoshi Rani’s body. But that’s when the strangest thing happened. We all—me, Neel, Naya, Priya, and the other PSS—got sucked toward Ai-Ma as if by a tornado. In the swirlin
g, whirling force of the storm, I saw reflections of other faces as well: Mati, Tuni, the real Lal, my parents, even Zuzu and Jovi. What was going on? I looked down at my body to realize I too was losing my borders and boundaries, I too was becoming one with the others—until the distinctions between us all seemed to dissolve. It didn’t matter who was rakkhosh and who was human, who was hero and who was monster, who was near and who was far. We were all connected. We were all creators and destroyers. We were all children and we were all elders. We were all mortal and we were all stars. I remembered the lines of the rakkhoshi’s poem. Elladin, belladin, Honey-Gold Sea. Who seeks immortality?
We were humming with the promise of the universe’s mysteries. We moved and danced around the Rakkhoshi Rani, like the stars in Shady Sadie the Science Lady’s video had done, spinning faster and faster in their cosmic dance. But then I saw Ai-Ma again—distinct from the mist that we were all now lost inside. The powerful old grandmother brought the Chintamoni and Poroshmoni jewels together over her head again, with the words, “Thought and Touch, stones of space, free my children with your grace.”
A light—blinding and hot—shot out from inside of me and from around me. We sparked and glowed, exploding out everything that had come before. Exploding out old ideas, old habits, old prejudices. My body was mine and it wasn’t mine anymore. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was a star that was dying or one being born anew.
“Neel?” I called out. I was afraid and reached out for his hand.
“Here, Kiran!” I heard but didn’t see him. “I’m here.” I felt his firm hand in mine.
“Naya?” I called next.
“I’m here, my friend!” said the girl’s voice, and I felt someone grip my other hand.
“The all is one,” I heard Ai-Ma’s voice call. “The one is all.”
I don’t know if it was the magic of the jewels or the magic of all our interconnections or even if it was some otherworldly magic only possessed by grandmothers, but Ai-Ma flung us all out of the light, throwing our dizzy and crumpled bodies to the floor. As she did so, the room exploded in a shower of golden and silver sparks. We were ourselves again, parts of stars no more.
Game of Stars Page 22
