“We have the Healer, raj-guru,” the king exclaimed.
The chief councilor frowned. “I still think it would be good to have Dhanavantri around.”
“He will be gone for what – a week? We can manage, I’m sure. And Kunjala and the other court physicians can always assist the Healer if the need arises.”
Grudgingly, the Acharya inclined his head. “Very well, I shall send word to Dhanavantri. It would be good if he left today itself.”
Dvarka
What do you mean we shouldn’t start a war?” the lord of the devas stared at Narada, his rage barely contained in his cold, blue eyes.
“Look at this beautiful city of ours,” Indra flung an arm over the railing of the balcony where he and the diplomat stood. The balcony was set high on one of the spires of the palace, and commanded a magnificent view of Amaravati, still wreathed in great skeins of sooty-grey smoke. “Look at it, defiled and laid to waste by the asuras. Look at it, Narada. The war has already started. And I wasn’t the one to start it – though I have every intention of finishing it.”
“I urge you to reconsider, my lord. In my…”
“There is nothing to reconsider,” Indra overruled, his voice quivering with outrage. “What do the asuras take us to be – deer in the forest that they can come and hunt as they please? Does Hiranyaksha think his army can invade Devaloka and we will do nothing in retaliation? Inform the Ashvins, the Maruts and the fire-wraiths to prepare the deva divisions for battle. Have a message sent to the kinnara lord Tribhanu – he is to spare us as many divisions of kinnaras as he can. And summon Takshaka. Tell him Devaloka is in need of the assistance of the nagas. Make haste. The sooner we are ready, the sooner we can set forth for Patala.”
“If we leave for Patala, we will be playing straight into Shukracharya’s hands, my lord. It is exactly what he wants from us.”
The lord of the devas peered at the diplomat dubiously. “Shukracharya wants us to attack Patala?”
“Not exactly, but his intention is to keep us distracted from the Halahala,” Narada replied. “That was the only purpose behind the attack on Amaravati.”
Seeing the incomprehension on Indra’s countenance, the diplomat nodded. “The attack was brutal, and we were fighting with our backs to the wall, my lord. Yet, the battle lasted less than half the night, and the asuras left as unexpectedly as they came. They had us cornered, but instead of pressing home the advantage, they made no bid to claim territory, here or elsewhere in Devaloka. Why relinquish a position of strength after such an elaborate and effective assault, my lord? What purpose would such an attack serve?”
“It would keep our minds engaged on things other than Veeshada’s dagger,” the light slowly dawned on Indra.
“Precisely. We would spend our time worrying about the vyalas, or we would plot retaliation and retribution.” Narada shook his head. “We can’t afford to dwell on those things, my lord. The dagger is our primary concern – we can have all the revenge we want once we have secured it. But if we shift our attention to waging war on Patala now, we dilute our efforts at claiming the Halahala, and Shukracharya would achieve what he wants.”
“We do nothing then – after all the havoc that the asuras have caused?” The idea clearly affronted Indra.
“I suggest we strike a truce with the asuras, my lord.”
“A what?” Indra’s eyes bulged as he glared at Narada, scarcely believing his ears. “What absurdity is this!” he exploded, throwing his hands into the air. “They invade my city and burn it to the ground, and you expect me to negotiate a truce with them? Have you gone insane?”
“It is a way of making sure we aren’t distracted by any more asura attacks, my lord,” Narada kept his tone calm and even.
“Since when have the devas become so weak to be incapable of defending themselves from asura attacks? You speak as if we live in mortal fear of them. Have you forgotten I wield the mighty vajra?” Indra turned contemptuously away to face the city, crossing his hands behind him. He shook his head, his mouth slanting at the corners in disdain. “You disappoint me, Narada. Cowardice has caught up with you in your old age and…”
“A truce with the asuras is not a sign of fear or weakness, my lord. It is an instrument to buy us time. And a way to keep a close watch on the asuras so we know what they are up to.”
“And why would Hiranyaksha and Shukracharya even entertain the idea of a truce?” Indra’s lips twisted with scorn. “Are they fools not to see through our motives?”
“Both devas and asuras share a common enemy in the defiant human king, and a common objective – the king’s defeat. Vikramaditya has thwarted us both. Instead of fighting one another, it is in the interests of both sides to join forces against him.”
“Surely you are not saying there is no other way of defeating the human king?” Indra blinked at Narada narrowly.
“I think both sides realize the Omniscient One has chosen well, and that the human king will not yield to anyone readily,” the diplomat shrugged. “Under the circumstances, I’m inclined to believe Hiranyaksha would see sense in the devas and asuras uniting.”
A light drizzle had begun, rendering the already grey afternoon over Amaravati even greyer. Indra watched the needle-like drops fall as he weighed the diplomat’s argument.
“Even if Hiranyaksha agrees to a treaty, I refuse to give up our efforts at finding and taking Veeshada’s dagger,” the lord of the devas was firm.
“Oh absolutely, my lord. And we can be sure neither will the asuras. The treaty’s only purpose is to keep off each other’s toes while we bring about the human king’s downfall.”
* * *
“Set me free of these ropes, deva. I have done as you bid me. Show an old kinnara some mercy, please.”
Jayanta gave no sign of having heard the piteous words, turning his back on them as he surveyed Ujjayini with a cold and detached expression. The city’s lights were blinking and multiplying as twilight swept the plain, and though the hill on which he stood was well beyond Ujjayini’s walls, the prince could make out the palace even from this distance, a bloom of radiance in the middle of the shimmering lake. To most observers, such a pleasing sight would have held more than a bit of charm, but the beauty of the moment was lost on Jayanta’s dark and brooding mind.
The prince knew that the task he was about to accomplish was risky, and would consume every ounce of his energy. Yet, he drew satisfaction from the fact that at the end of it, he would have put everyone who had laughed at him and dismissed him in their proper place. Ahi was his revenge on everyone around him – and it mattered little if that revenge meant the destruction of the city that now lay across the plain from him. One miserable human city was nothing in front of the eternal admiration and gratitude Jayanta hoped to earn from his father.
“What have I done to deserve such treatment, son of Indra?” the plaintive voice persisted. “Have I not kept my word? Have I not delivered you to the land of the humans as promised? Is this how you reward me for having risked bringing you this far?”
With a sigh of vexation, Jayanta turned to assess the speaker, a centaur with the head and torso of a man and the hindquarters of a horse. The kinnara had a mop of unruly grey hair, while a scraggly grey beard sprouted on its chin. Its body and arms were scrawny, the ribcage sticking out through its shriveled, yellowing chest, and its face was haggard, the eyes old, colourless and weary. Yet, its four equine legs were long and strong, and the tan coat covering its back, belly and flanks shone with youth and vigour. The kinnara’s wrists and forelegs were bound with stout ropes, tightly knotted over, and a rope passed around its neck as well, tethering the beast to the trunk of a nearby tree.
“This may not look like a reward to you, kinnara, and rightly so,” Jayanta replied irritably. “But believe me when I say it is no punishment either. It’s a simple precaution I am taking so you don’t run off by yourself when the fancy strikes you.”
“Why would I do that, deva?” the centaur protes
ted. “I have given you my word that I shall take you back to Devaloka, and you know very well that a kinnara holds his word dear.”
“I doubt neither your word nor your intentions. What I do mistrust is your instincts when faced with fear.” Noticing the puzzlement on the kinnara’s face at the mention of the word fear, the prince added, “But let me assure you that no matter what you see or hear, you have nothing to be scared of. As long as you are here with me, you are safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“I myself don’t know,” Jayanta shrugged and looked over to Ujjayini, which was now nothing more than pinpricks of lights in the darkness below. “But we shall find out soon enough.”
“You… you don’t mean to harm that city, do you?” The kinnara’s voice rose in alarm as it caught the subtext in the prince’s words. When Jayanta didn’t reply, the centaur became even more agitated. “You told me that you had to come here to deliver a secret message on behalf of the lord of the devas. That is why I agreed to bring you here.”
“Don’t expect me to fall for that one,” the prince scoffed, fixing the exotic beast with a harsh glare. “You brought me here because I promised you a mansion of your own in Amaravati and privileges at the royal court. Don’t take me for a fool, kinnara. Now stop making a fuss and think about what you should do to earn that mansion and those privileges. It’ll help keep your mind off other things.”
Jayanta spun on his heel and strode toward a flickering rectangle of light that defined the entry to the old, abandoned woodcutter’s hut that he and the kinnara had chanced upon earlier that afternoon. The hut was a ramshackle affair, but it was ideally suited for the prince’s purpose. It was secluded, hidden from view among brambly trees, yet it offered a panoramic scene of Ujjayini – a perfect location to oversee and orchestrate Ahi’s destruction of the city.
Inside the square, windowless hut, on a bare spot on the mud brick floor, a large mandala was drawn using charcoal, flour and vermillion. Seven lamps arranged in a pattern along the floor illuminated the hut, their light falling on the contours of the mandala, revealing a crude outline of a snake consuming its own tail. Stacked in the middle of the mandala was a small pile of palm leaves, next to which sat a heavy, wide-brimmed copper bowl topped with water.
The prince approached the mandala, stepping cautiously over it so as not to smudge its lines. Squatting by the palm leaves, he drew a small knife and a lemon from a satchel. Muttering incantations, he first sliced the lemon in half and squeezed seven drops of its juice into the bowl of water. Then, using the knife, he made an incision on his right thumb, causing the blood to well up.
Holding his thumb over the copper bowl, Jayanta let seven drops of his blood flow and dissolve into the water. Stirring the lime, blood and water into a solution, he poured a few drops of the concoction into each of the seven lamps. As the solution mixed with the oil and caught, the light of the lamps changed colour – from golden-yellow to a fiery red – and burned with greater intensity.
Jayanta returned to the centre of the mandala and sat down, crossing his legs under him. He set the bowl in front of him and reached for the palm leaves, permitting himself a deep conspiratorial smile, one that was full of hatred, anger and vindictiveness toward a callous, unforgiving world.
* * *
Dvarka was burning.
Yet, the city’s defenders could only stand and watch, horrified and helpless, as the Huna ships ceaselessly rained balls of fire down on them.
Vararuchi and Manidhara, riding at the head of a hundred horsemen who included the fourteen samsaptakas, had sighted the blush on the western horizon around nightfall, but both men had initially ascribed it to a prolonged afterglow of sunset. Only when the glow persisted – pulsing and becoming more pronounced, leeching higher and higher into the night sky – did the warriors riding from Raivata see it for what it really was.
By the time Dvarka came into view an hour’s ride later, flames had engulfed large sections of the city’s waterfront, and thick stacks of smoke were rising above its rooftops. On nearing the eastern gate, which connected the port to the rest of Sindhuvarta, the incoming riders saw the citizenry streaming out and taking to the neighbouring countryside in panic.
“We are too late,” Manidhara had screamed with understandable angst, digging his heels into his horse and picking up speed. “Faster, men… faster. Dvarka needs us.”
Their charge into the city had, however, been slowed down by the evacuation underway, and though it caused Manidhara to curse and fret, in hindsight, the delay had its advantages. For one, a hundred-odd riders suddenly pouring through the city’s gates could have confused Dvarka’s defenders into assuming the newcomers were Huna horsemen – an avoidable misunderstanding with potentially catastrophic consequences. The second outcome of the delay was that Vararuchi and Manidhara were able to learn from a city guard that while Dvarka was under attack, the Huna army was still out at sea and had not yet laid foot on land – so while there was need for hurry, they had time to meet Yugandhara for counsel.
The third and possibly biggest benefit was that in their rush, they might well have blundered into a wrong smoke-filled street and died of asphyxiation.
“The smoke clouds are causing as much harm and havoc as the fire,” said Yugandhara, his anxious eyes darting across the waterfront and the bay beyond before returning to Vararuchi. “Eighteen already dead, by the last count. Heaven knows how many more are trapped, dead and dying, in the smoke.”
The war council had gathered on a small hillock a little to the north of the wharfs and docks of Dvarka, much of which was already on fire. The spot was upwind and far enough from the waterfront not to let the heat and smoke affect them, yet adequately close for Yugandhara and his commanders to oversee the action and issue quick instructions to Dvarka’s soldiers.
“What is in those infernal fireballs?” asked Manidhara, scrunching up his nose at the thought of the searing, pungent smell that had hit them as they had made their way through Dvarka. Even now, as the breeze shifted, it floated up to their nostrils, foul in form and intent.
“I have no idea, but whatever they are filled with is doing a great job of setting my city on fire and smoking it dead,” Yugandhara’s handsome face was pale as he took in the sight of small groups of soldiers and townsfolk struggling to contain the flames.
In every street, it was a futile, unequal battle, as a sustained barrage of fireballs crossed the bay and landed in the city, setting something new on fire and forcing the defenders to scatter and retreat. Shouts of pain and fear rose with alarming frequency, the city slowly falling back on itself under the onslaught.
“I smell oil and sulphur,” said Udayasanga, lifting his head to sniff the air. “And something else that I can’t quite place.”
“Mustard,” Vararuchi pointed out. “Anyone who’s been in a kitchen knows the smoke from burning mustard seeds can be irritating. If used in appropriately large quantities, the same smoke can be extremely toxic. It is sometimes known as the soul-hunting fog in the Southern Kingdoms.”
“I’m amazed they are using an agnikantaka from the deck of a ship,” said Manidhara, peering at the lights clustered in the darkness of the sea, which, according to Yugandhara, marked one set of Huna ships. “Who taught these savages such tricks? I thought they couldn’t even row a boat.”
“We believe there are two agnikantakas on those ships, not one,” said one of Yugandhara’s commanders with a dark frown.
“What countermoves have we made so far?” Vararuchi looked from Yugandhara to his commanders. “You must have tried to engage the Huna ships and get to the agnikantakas?”
“We did, but with little success, councilor,” the Anarta chief admitted. Pointing to the sea, he explained, “A tight ring of ships protects the vessels that have the agnikantakas on board, and we have failed to breach that protective ring three times. To compound matters, there are rows of Huna ships in the flanks to the north and south. When our ships move out toward the ring,
they close in from the flanks like pincers, attacking us from three sides, forcing us to back down. Two ships we sent out haven’t even returned.”
Vararuchi let out a low whistle that was part amazement and part admiration for the Hunas’ tactics. “How many ships do they have out there?”
“Probably twenty-five or thirty,” a commander answered. “They moved in after dark, so it is hard to say.”
“And how many do you have?” the councilor asked. “Around thirty, here in Dvarka. There are a few more along the coast, and another ten-twelve on their way from Bhrigukaksha, but those won’t be here until tomorrow mid-morning.”
“You have thirty ships here?” Udayasanga gaped at the Anarta commanders. “We are evenly matched, so what prevents us from launching a full-fledged counterattack?”
“That,” said Yugandhara, pointing at the flaming waterfront.
“Pardon me, but I don’t get it,” Vararuchi was blank-faced. “More than half of our ships are moored out in the bay,” the chief said. “To reach them, our soldiers need to be rowed out in smaller boats… which are either already on fire in the wharfs, or inaccessible because of all the smoke down there.”
Vararuchi followed a flaming ball lobbed up by one of the flamethrowers in the Huna ships. It traced a loopy arc over the intervening stretch of water, a burning orb with a flaming tail, before descending into the waterfront and hitting the edge of a stone embankment. It broke into two pieces, one falling into the water beneath with a hiss, the other rolling onto a pathway, spewing sparks and tentacles of noxious fumes that licked the air, as if seeking out prey.
“See what I mean?” said Yugandhara. “Even if it burns nothing, it spreads its slow poison. As long as those fireballs are hurled our way, our men won’t be able to step into any of the streets that lead to the wharfs and the boats.”
“And Dvarka will keep burning,” Manidhara added on an ominous note.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 19
