“Garudas never die, gurudev.” All eyes turned in the direction of the speaker, an old, wrinkled deva standing on the sidelines. “Other than our summons, nothing can get to the heights the garudas fly at. No spear or arrow has been crafted that can soar as high as a garuda can. No spell can reach those limits of the sky; no curse can climb to where the garudas circle.”
“Yet they are falling faster than ripened berries,” said Narada.
“Could it be a plague that has afflicted them?” This time, it was a young deva from the far end of the courtyard.
“Plague or pestilence, we cannot rule out the hand of the asuras,” the diplomat replied. “Neither can we rule out their intent.”
A glum silence, lacquered with fear, fell over the courtyard. The gigantic deva on the platform stepped forward. Built like an ox, he rose treelike into the air, his muscularity all gnarled and massive and solid. A light brown beard reached halfway down his torso, and brown hair fell to his waist in two heavy plaits. He bore a large iron shield and a thick iron mace, its weighted, bulbous head moulded to resemble a horned demon skull.
Holding the shield to his chest, the deva twirled the mace over his head and brought it down hard across the face of his shield. The impact of the blow made him rock back on his heels, the thunderclap of metal on metal so loud that its echo crashed and bounced off the surrounding cliffs, and even appeared to erupt out of the very depths of the abyss.
“Hear me, brothers,” he roared, his voice drowning out the last of the echoes. “It matters not how the garudas are dying or what is killing them. Whatever it is, it is bound to come down and reveal itself to us. When it comes, we have to be ready to give it death. I, Manyu, Keeper of the Palace, Slayer of Foes, am ready for it. Are you?”
A murmur broke through the courtyard. The giant swung his mace again and banged it on his shield.
“I am ready to give it death, brothers,” he hollered. “Are you?”
Picking up strength and momentum, the murmur rapidly turned into a rumble, a swell of voices and raised swords and fists, everything yelling back the willingness to take on the hidden threat to Devaloka. Narada’s spirits lifted, and looking across, he saw respite on the chamberlain’s face as well.
The diplomat waited for the frenzy to settle. Raising his voice, he said, “Return to your divisions and prepare them for battle. By sunset, I want fires lit all around Amaravati, and on the cliffs around the palace. I want all eyes scanning the sky for the first glimpse of threat – that is where the attack is bound to come from. I also want word…”
Narada paused as a flutter of excitement washed over the assembly. The devas were looking behind him, toward the entry into the palace, and he caught the word ‘fireborn’ uttered in awed whispers. He turned to find a graceful, exotic figure attired in loose orange robes emerging from the doorway. The figure’s head was shorn of hair, but from the softness and angularity of the face – the colour of ebony, with a plain silver nose ring on one nostril – it was plainly an apsara. Small flames licked the hem of her robes, and as she walked onto the platform, she left a fine trail of white ashy footprints in her wake that quickly blew away in the wind.
“Agneyi, my greetings,” the diplomat’s eyes sparkled with relief and delight as he bowed. “Thank you for answering my summons and joining us.”
“I couldn’t decline a brother’s request,” the apsara replied, returning the bow. Transferring her gaze to the chamberlain, the twins and Manyu, she added, “My greetings to Guru Brihaspati, the Ashvins and to the Keeper of the Palace. May I know what is wanted of me?”
“Amaravati is under an attack of some sort. We don’t yet know what to expect, but we know it is coming for us. From above.”
“You want me to weave a web of fire over Amaravati, brother?” Agneyi looked at Narada for confirmation. “It will be done.”
“Thank you. Devaloka will remember to repay this debt.”
Agneyi withdrew and the diplomat addressed the gathering once again. “By the fireborn’s grace, we will have both light and fire in the sky overhead. But I still want fires on the cliffs and all eyes on the sky. Also, ask the Maruts to come into battle. Now make haste – the sun is already dipping to the west.”
The courtyard emptied rapidly. As palace hands came out to clear the yard of the dead garuda, Narada turned to those on the platform.
“I trust you will see to the defence of the palace and the drawbridges, Manyu,” he said, looking up at the towering figure of the keeper.
The giant nodded and lumbered off, mace hoisted over one shoulder.
The diplomat addressed Nasatya and Dasra. “The Ashvin brotherhood will assume charge of protecting the cliffs. Your arrows will take down everything that comes out of the sky. Don’t let anything get past you and alight on the palace.”
The twins turned to depart, but Narada placed a restraining hand on Nasatya’s shoulder. “And whatever happens, don’t let fear take control the way it did in Sindhuvarta.”
“We won’t,” Dasra replied. Appraising the diplomat shrewdly, he said, “You have summoned the fireborn and asked for fires to be prepared everywhere. What if what is up there isn’t willing to wait until sundown?”
“It had all day; it would have showed itself by now if it wanted to.” Narada gazed skyward, his face grim. “Whatever is up there is waiting to surprise us at the right moment – when the darkness is absolute and blinding.”
* * *
Bathed in an even, luxuriant blue light, Amaravati rushed up from the surrounding darkness to meet Chandasura.
Glimpsed even from this height, the sight awed him. The city spread below him for miles in every direction, and twinkled in every conceivable corner like a superbly cut gem. Countless shapely spires rose a mile high from the ground, and geometrical boulevards crisscrossed the city, creating deceptive, illusory patterns in the eye. Buildings, statues, parks, bridges – wherever he turned, Chandasura could see exquisite examples of art and architecture. Though the black crystal palace, which housed the Court of the Golden Triad, was a marvel of corresponding eminence, Chandasura surmised that nothing in Patala quite matched Amaravati in the extent of its grandeur and beauty. Seated the way it was in the night, the capital of Devaloka reminded him of a turquoise diadem set against black satin.
This was their father’s city, he thought as he speared down on the back of his screeching vyala. Then, correcting himself, he thought, this was the city where their father had been born and raised.
This was no longer their father’s city.
He and Amarka had grown up hearing Shukracharya tell of how Amaravati had come into being, planned and built painstakingly over many years under the watchful eye of the master architect Vishwakarma, when the ancient town of Devaprastha had become too small to accommodate a growing population. Those were the days of concord, when the devas and asuras had lived together as one big family. Their father, the noble Sage Kashyapa, had envisioned Amaravati as a place where devas, asuras, kinnaras, yakshas, apsaras, kimpurushas, nagas and all other beings could live in harmony, which was why the city had been built on such a scale.
As always, fate, however, had other plans. The rivalry between the cousins flared even before Amaravati was fully constructed, and both devas and asuras were soon locked in an intransigent tussle to rule the city and Devaloka. The details of what transpired thereafter varied according to which side was telling the story – the devas blamed the sorceress Diti, Kashyapa’s second wife and mother of the asuras, for trying to stoke a rebellion; the asuras accused her sister and the sage’s first wife Aditi of trying to engineer a coup on behalf of her children, the devas.
In an effort to settle this bitter quarrel, a heartbroken Kashyapa proposed the division of Amaravati and Devaloka among his feuding wives and children, but fortunately for Amaravati, the thought of partitioning the city appealed to neither the devas nor the asuras. So the sage came up with a new formula for peace: one side would inherit Amaravati and Devaloka, while
the other would have to leave and find new lands to claim as their own – the catch being that Kashyapa himself would join the side that chose to leave Devaloka. The devas picked Amaravati without a moment’s hesitation, while the asuras, seeing value in being guided and mentored by their father, opted to depart. Thus had Kashyapa, Diti and their brood left Amaravati’s gates and eventually gone on to rule Patala.
Yet, the allure of Amaravati had neither dulled nor diminished with time, and as he descended through the inky blackness over the charmed city, Chandasura could see why the asuras still coveted it. But the fascination with Amaravati was not limited to the asuras, Shukracharya had often reminded him and Amarka.
“Amaravati is everything to the devas,” he remembered his father saying. “They allowed their own father to walk away with the asuras so they could keep Amaravati. Kashyapa wanted Amaravati for everyone, but the devas wanted it entirely for themselves. Look at it – the asuras are now in Patala, the yakshas have been exiled to Alaka, and the kinnaras and nagas have been slowly pushed into the mountains along Devaloka’s borders. Only the kimpurushas still remain in Amaravati, but their status is no better than that of slaves. The devas have ensured they are the only ones left to enjoy the pleasures of Amaravati. Destroy the city, and you destroy all that the devas hold dear.”
Chandasura was in no doubt that Shukracharya despised Amaravati. The city had rejected his father, made him into an outcast, and forced him to make Patala his home. It embodied deva arrogance and pride in Shukracharya’s mind, and for that, his father craved its destruction.
Looking at Amaravati anew through his father’s eyes, Chandasura found the city a lot less attractive. The ostentation of the city’s structures was suddenly rude and offensive, the comforts they offered, crude and amateurish. This was a place that his mother’s people had a right to, but instead they had had to roam the wilderness before lowering their roots in Patala. The thought filled him with rage, and he flicked the vyala’s reins with renewed vigour.
Chandasura had figured that the blue light over the city was a spell, and as he drew closer, he observed a fine, shimmering web stretched across his path, suspended all the way across the city like a protective dome. Recognizing it to be the handiwork of a fire-wraith, he noted that the web’s purpose was not just to cast a light but also serve as a fiery shield against intruders.
Chandasura smiled to himself. If the devas were thinking of mounting a defence with a mesh of fire, they were in for a very rude shock.
All around him, vyalas were dropping like stones, and the first one to make contact with the web was a little to Chandasura’s right. He watched with interest as the web sparked and blazed briefly at the spot where the vyala struck it, the vyala’s wings seemingly catching fire as it entangled in the mesh. However, the next moment, the beast had torn through the web’s constricting filaments and continued its plunge, leaving a charred, tattered hole in its wake.
In hardly any time, the rest of the vyalas had also ripped past the fire-wraith’s web, coming out unscathed, stronger and more cacophonous as they descended on Amaravati. Emerging from the mesh, his vyala’s wings sucking in and absorbing the flames from the web as they slipped through, Chandasura glanced down at the city they were about to invade – and gasped in disbelief at the spectacle that met his eyes.
He then broke into a laugh, marveling at their good fortune.
Looking at it from far above in the web’s blue light, the city had appeared to be twinkling with a multitude of lights, far too many even for a city the size of Amaravati. Chandasura had put it down to his eyes playing tricks in the dark – or another of the city’s numerous eye-pleasing illusions that he had heard spoken of – but now he saw that the lights were real, and were coming from hundreds of fires that had been lit all over Amaravati.
The devas had been right in assuming that the attack would come under cover of darkness. In order to see the approaching enemy better, not only had they got the fire-wraith to cast its web, they had also lit fires everywhere. The strategy could not be faulted, Chandasura conceded. It might even have worked in the devas’ favour, except for a minor detail which the city’s defenders couldn’t have factored in. The vyalas.
Bred and nurtured in great secrecy in the lava pits of Patala, the vyalas drew their sustenance, their aggression – their very nature – from heat and fire. Fire and heat was their essence, and that was what Amaravati had served up so richly that night, a veritable feast for the grisly beasts. He and Amarka couldn’t have planned the assault better.
A shower of arrows sailed into the air to greet the diving vyalas.
The long shafts whizzed past the asuras and their mounts. Quite a few arrows found their marks – out of the corner of his eye, Chandasura saw one ill-prepared asura tumble off his perch and fall, limbs cartwheeling as he crashed out of sight. But the arrows that struck the vyalas just glanced off their hard, scaly bodies.
The beasts, of course, didn’t take kindly to the arrows. They counterattacked by opening their beaks and shrieking and squawking with even greater vehemence, each vyala setting off the other, raising a din that struck fear in the deva archers’ hearts, making them drop their weapons and cover their ears in alarm. Then, in response to some invisible signal, the vyalas unfurled their tongues and spat balls of fire at the cringing, cowering archers. The fireballs sped in a flat trajectory and hit the devas square, each ball setting groups of devas on fire. While the victims screamed in agony and fell, their mates scattered and ran, abandoning position in a bid to seek cover. The vyalas’ heads, however, sought out the fleeing figures and set them aflame with the next torrent of fireballs.
They were now skimming low over the city, and Chandasura noticed its defenders lining up with javelins and swords in hand, expecting the asuras to make a landing. The vyalas stayed airborne, though, just out of reach of the javelins, screeching and directing fire at buildings now. There was so much fire all around, Chandasura wasn’t certain which ones had been started by the vyalas, but he saw a mansion and three watchtowers go up in flames.
“Their heads, their heads,” he heard a voice shout over confusion. “Shoot at the creatures’ heads.”
Chandasura turned to see a group of deva archers clustered on a broad terrace. The group was looking the other way at four vyalas, the speaker in their midst, pointing and shouting out instructions. Chandasura instantly wheeled his vyala around and made for the terrace. The speaker was making sense, issuing the right instructions. He had to be silenced.
Flying low, he came up from behind the archers as they braced themselves and took aim at their targets. Balancing himself carefully and taking a firm grip on his mace, he swung the heavy weapon at the deva as the vyala swooshed over his head. The mace’s flanges smashed into the back of the deva’s helmet and dug into the metal, shattering his skull. The deva pitched forward, struck the terrace’s low stone railing and keeled over it, dead before his body hit the ground many floors below. Meanwhile, the vyala’s razor-sharp talons caught one of the archers in the back, hooking him under the shoulders, squeezing him in a vice-like grip and lifting him up into the air.
Startled and disoriented by the unexpected attack, the archers on the terrace loosed off their arrows at Chandasura. The arrows had been shot in a hurry and were poorly aimed, so they missed Chandasura as he pulled away and soared into the air. Only one arrow hit something – their fellow archer, whom the vyala had plucked off the terrace. The deva, already in agony over the talons biting into his back and shoulders, screamed even louder in pain as the arrow buried into his fleshy thigh. The scream choked and died suddenly, as the vyala’s claws pierced the deva’s armour and punctured his heart. The beast then let go of him in mid-air, and he fell without a sound.
The opening assault had been spectacular in its intensity and impact, but Chandasura could see that the surprise had worn off and the devas had begun rallying. More and more arrows were being shot at the vyalas’ heads, and even though they were difficult ta
rgets to fire at, the move was meeting with some success. One arrow thwacked into one of his mount’s necks, skewering it and making the head droop and loll. However, an asura passing by instantly moved in and severed the head and the embedded arrow free, allowing a new head to replace the old one.
Chandasura acknowledged the asura’s assistance with a nod of thanks. “Where is Amarka?” he shouted through his visor. It was time to make their next move.
The asura pointed. Chandasura looked over his shoulder to see his brother directing his vyala over a forested park where deva archers sat concealed in trees. Amarka’s vyala spouted a stream of fire, setting the forest and park aflame, incinerating the hidden archers.
Chandasura maneuvered his mount and approached as Amarka completed his attack and began an upward climb. Seeing his brother, Amarka reined his vyala into an easy glide.
“We must move toward the palace,” Chandasura hollered, jerking his arm in the direction of the towering pinnacles that rose in the distance.
Amarka nodded and banked his vyala, deftly changing course to head for the pinnacles. Chandasura cast one sweeping glance around him, taking in the circling vyalas as they vomited fire over Amaravati. With a satisfied flick of the reins, he swung around in a wide arc and followed his brother’s path, summoning more asuras to join him as he flew, making straight for Indra’s palace, the seat of deva power.
* * *
Pallavan could not help noticing that the three pairs of eyes evaluating him in the light of the lamps were remarkably alike in one aspect – they were grey in colour, a tone otherwise quite rare in Sindhuvarta. That was where the similarity ended.
Asmabindu, the legal adviser, was a tall man with a heavy, salt-and-pepper beard that flared in all directions and seemed to weigh his head down, imparting him a permanent stoop. Diganta, an expert at trade relations, was also tall, but had just a thin moustache on his lean, narrow face. Bhaskara – whom Uttama had introduced as ‘recently retired from the palace’ – was a dark, thickset individual with a square, manicured beard the colour of snow.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 13
