‘He’s alive. Still alive. The wound was cauterized by the monster.’
Zabrielle gave the smallest of nods.
‘We should leave,’ Maya said, putting Gray’s remaining arm across her shoulder, painfully hoisting him up.
‘Our bags,’ Zabrielle said. ‘There.’ The three bags lay, one after the other, in a greasy corner. They seemed unopened, except for Maya’s bag, which had had the gauntlets of Daan stuffed in them, now peeking. The Demon walked to the bags, wore two across her back, and slipped the last one around her shoulder, the Sadhu’s Shotgun still hanging from its side. Maya gazed at her with weakness.
‘How are you still this strong?’ she asked.
‘What do you want to do with it?’ Zabrielle asked back, gesturing at the frog man who hadn’t moved. The blade still hovered.
‘Kill that bastard,’ Maya rasped. Zabrielle nodded and raised an arm, but before she could gesture, Dry Boot spoke.
‘The soul gem,’ it whispered, eyes wide. ‘Kill me and you’ll never find it.’
Zabrielle stopped and looked at Maya. Maya looked at Zabrielle, then at the frog man with burning hatred.
‘It is of importance to you, yes?’ the kahuna spoke further, confidence slowly entering its voice. ‘I know where it be, the object of power, moon artefact wrapped around it and all.’
‘Where?’ Zabrielle asked quietly, hand still outstretched. Maya seemed too livid for words.
‘I want to make a deal. A deal with you,’ the kahuna said with repulsive pleasure in its voice.
‘Which is?’ Maya spluttered out, though she knew what was coming.
‘The soul gem is at the bottom of the lake,’ Dry Boot said. ‘You let me live, and I’ll give it to you.’
Maya turned to Zabrielle. ‘I want this swine dead,’ she said.
The Demon looked back at Maya seriously. ‘We need the gem, Maya,’ she said.
‘I shall need your word of honour,’ the frog man spoke.
Zabrielle looked at Maya, her eyes grim. Maya, standing under the weight of Gray, gave in. ‘Damn you, Adri!’ she shrieked. ‘Damn you to hell, you bastard, damn you for doing this! Damn you, damn you, damn you!’ The outburst weakened her, and she and Gray staggered for a second. Then she regained her stance, and venom pouring from each pore, she looked at Dry Boot. ‘You have my word,’ she hissed.
‘It is done, then!’ Dry Boot exclaimed, clapping its hands together in a hop. ‘Outside, friends! I shall give it to you there. This way! This way!’ It moved off into the tunnel, ignoring the green blade, and out of sight.
Zabrielle dropped her arm, and the blade disappeared. ‘We have no choice,’ she told Maya. Maya nodded with disgust, and looking around one last time, she saw Gray’s arm on the spit again—and this time she puked on the dirt floor, dropping Gray.
Zabrielle watched her, then walked to the arm, picking it up in a smooth move, her hands unaffected by the heat. She deftly plucked Ba’al’s ring out of the charred finger and let the arm drop.
‘Is there . . . is there any way? Any magic?’ Maya spoke from the floor.
‘The arm is beyond attachment,’ the Demon spoke. ‘I’m truly sorry. But Gray is not beyond danger yet, his wound will contract infection if not tended to. We have to seek help, and rest. You must get up. We must move.’
Coughing and controlling her retches, Maya got up, picked her brother up again, and they moved into the dark corridor where the frog man had disappeared. They emerged from the small entrance soon, blinking, blinded by the sudden light. It was evening, and the sun was about to set. They looked around, taking in the dry forest. Then they saw the lake, and Dry Boot waiting beside it.
‘If you try something,’ Zabrielle said, curt, ‘we will break our word.’
‘No, no, I respect deals,’ Dry Boot said. ‘I’ll be right back with your bauble.’
‘If you’re not back,’ Maya said softly, barely containing her hatred, ‘I swear I will wait here on this bank until the day you come back out.’
‘Be right back, missy. Trust me, kahuna does not lie,’ Dry Boot said. Giving a last, agonizing grin, it waded into the water, and then dived.
They waited on the shore. Minutes passed. An hour. ‘Gray needs help,’ Maya whispered, more to herself than Zabrielle. ‘You better be back soon.’
Then a bubble surfaced, and they sat up straight. A piece of driftwood had floated to the surface, within reach. Something was tied to it with tattered rope. Maya waded in the lake and picked it up. The soul gem, the Ai’n Duisht secure around it. The frog man had kept his end of the deal. Maya waded back out. ‘He’s not coming, obviously,’ she said. A great relief, and a great weakness was slowly washing over her. ‘Let’s get out of here, Z.’
‘Let me help you with Gray,’ Zabrielle said.
‘Where are we headed?’
‘This is Lake Damrier,’ Zabrielle replied. ‘And the sun sets that way. One knows where we are. There is a place we can rest. Not far, not far.’
‘Good.’ Maya finally relaxed, as much as she could with Gray’s weight. His arm was gone, but he was alive, for the moment. They all were. ‘For what it’s worth, thank you, Zabrielle,’ she found herself saying. ‘Without you, we couldn’t have. We just couldn’t have.’
Zabrielle managed the ghost of a smile. ‘Please, Maya. Call me Z. No one’s called me that before. It sounds—elegant and strange.’
The forest devoured them as night emerged.
7
There was once a man named Asheem Chakravarty, and he was a merchant by profession. When one talks of the days when Asheem lived, one must also understand that the world was a less dangerous place back then—the monsters kept to themselves, the great wars had not begun, monarchy was merely beginning to fall, the idea of democracies just about ripe. Thus Asheem became one of the founders of the Wanderers, the men struck by endless wanderlust, the merchants and declared adventurers who would see the world in its entirety. The Wanderers saw a lot of support back then, in the heights of their fame—people loved them, their tales, the curious and beautiful objects and clothing they would often carry from one exotic land to another.
They were not warriors, the Wanderers—only Shiba, the famed sell-sword gained her popularity, or notoriety, depending on how one sees it, as a fighter. No, true to their name, the Wanderers would simply wander and see sights, hear music, read books and partake in festivals and merry making. Often, some of them would find a place to be loved and settle down, raise a good family. Others would continue to wander, becoming cartographers, musicians, artists, writers, and poets in their endless travels, entertaining masses and acting as agents of cultural transmission.
Asheem Chakravarty had a dream, a dream that gained skins of reality as the world became a more hostile place and the Wanderers started dying off, broken, mauled, murdered. Asheem dreamed of safe havens in the darkest of places, lights to guide lost souls home. Wanderer Lodges, he called this fantasy, protected places for travellers, all for free, for the love of travel. He never married, and died a lonely man, but there was a bastard child, Shulobh, who claimed the Chakravarty family name for himself and his aging mother, and tried to reignite the Wanderer movement, the only legacy his father had left him. He failed miserably, and his small army of supporters died off. Shulobh retreated to a small, unknown place in the Old Country and married a woman from the same town. It is said that he found love, and Shulobh and Naina had a son, Dhritiman. Dhritiman grew up in the quiet, hidden town where his parents were, content and happy until he chanced upon his grandfather’s diaries, books his father had gathered through great pain.
When Dhritiman came of age, all he wanted was to become a Wanderer. His father warned him of bitter consequences with bitter words, but Dhritiman did not care. He sought the blessings of his mother and left the secret village to face the world. His initial attempts at wandering did not go well, and it is said that he spent the next two decades aging away in a lone cell in Moonless Dilhi. When he was finall
y let off, wiser and older, he journeyed south, working as a trader between the settlements of Old Kolkata and Frozen Bombay. He worked hard and fearlessly, and in another decade, owned several caravans and a fleet of four ships, an extraordinary feat.
Dhritiman, however, had other plans. Just as he was beginning to taste the wealth of trade, he sold it all, everything he had, and moved to the Shadowlands. There, in several dreary places, he built and opened Wanderer Lodges. These places were walled in, with armed men on the perimeters, and acted as safe havens for passers-by, as his grandfather, now so long dead, had once dreamt. However, the dream hadn’t come entirely true. These lodges were not free, and for every night spent, he charged silver, to keep the lodges running, if nothing else.
Thus stayed these lodges, strewn in several godforsaken corners of the Shadowlands, the only remnants of what had once been the proud and beautiful Wanderers.
Gray was walking in a place that had high towers. Shadows were cast as the sun swept around on a whim, shadows that shifted and danced as he walked. He noticed he held the weapon of bone once again, a casual observation. Shapes moved atop the towers, flittering and gathering like ghosts, like memories. Gray noticed them, but he was not worried as he walked. They would not harm him.
He kept walking until he found what he was looking for. A ring, placed on a pedestal before him. The ring was white, made from ivory, and unlike the ring Ba’al had given him, this one was carved delicately, intricately. He slowly picked it up, admiring it in closeness. There was an etching. The same eye, with its iris a spiral. He slipped it on his right hand alongside Baal’s ring, and waited for something to happen.
A song slowly drifted towards him. A man’s voice. It was coming from the furthest tower, he realised, the tallest tower. The song was slow and mournful, and in the same tongue as the one in which the trees had sung out to him.
Forever and ever we wait
For that which we may never hear
The horn that summons us to fate
Aye, that sound which feels so near
Gray turned and started to follow the song, walking towards the tower. The voice was soft in its sorrow.
Convince me, all of us here
Buried we were, buried we remain
Look at our cut and scar and bruise
Nay a wound suffered in vain
Oh, I sing to you alone
Captain of my men turned
Men once men, willing to accept
Lessons deep after painful death learned
Robbed of sleep we are
Under your fair heels, my master, your horde
Awaken us so we may rest
Every sharpened sword
Gray stopped walking. Someone was blocking his way to the tower. The old man. ‘Not you again,’ Gray said, and opened his eyes.
He was on a bed, with a thick, clean blanket covering his entire body. He sighed and looked around the room, trying to remember the song from his dream. The room was small, wooden, and extremely clean. A lantern hung in the middle, casting a sombre light. On the other side, facing a giant window, was Zabrielle.
‘Hey,’ Gray called, trying to move.
Zabrielle turned around. ‘Hello, Gray. Do you feel all right?’ Her tone was tender.
‘Where are we?’ Gray asked, and tried to sweep his hair back. His hand did not respond as it should have. Gray felt, immediately, that something was terribly wrong. Flashes came to him, disturbing flashes, of a creature with a wide face and huge eyes, raising something sharp and heavy. His arm, tied to something hard with chains. ‘What-what is this?’ Gray murmured, beginning to panic. With his left hand, he whipped the blanket off.
Zabrielle watched silently as Gray screamed. In horror. In disbelief. This did not seem real to him, the absence of his right arm. A bad dream, a bad dream surely, one from which he needed relief. He scrambled out of bed, walking around, staring at the bandaged stump, at all that remained of his arm. He shouted with alarm, with panic. He screamed until he could scream no more. He did things, said things he would not remember later. Then, spent, he burst into sobs, sitting on the bed.
Zabrielle came to him and quietly held his hand. Gray turned to her and hugged her, crying. ‘Too great a price,’ she whispered, running a hand over his head as he wept.
‘It was that kahuna,’ Gray said, when he could talk once more.
‘Yes.’
A long pause. Gray removed his head from the Demon’s shoulder, not meeting her eyes. ‘Where is my sister?’
‘Safe. She could not bear to see you like this, see what you would do when you came to. She’s out, but close by.’
Gray lapsed into silence once more. The Demon sat next to him on the bed, looking at him with her green eyes, not talking, respecting his silence.
‘I-I suppose there was no way to re-attach it?’ Gray asked, after an hour or so.
Zabrielle shook her head gently. ‘It was late. Your arm was too damaged.’
‘Did you kill the frog man?’
The Demon shook her head again. ‘We did not. There were complications.’
‘What will happen to me now?’ Gray asked, on the verge of tears again. ‘I could not defend myself before, what now?’
‘There is time for these questions, young Gray.’
‘I’m a cripple now, Zabrielle! Baggage!’
‘The panic is the most difficult part,’ Zabrielle said. ‘You must not give in to it. You are strong. You have come this far.’
‘I—just cannot not panic. My arm is gone! Gone! I took it for granted all my life and now it’s not there! I’ll never play the violin again! I’ll never play the violin again.’ Gray slumped back on the bed and lapsed into silence once more. Even lying down felt strange, the fact that his right arm wasn’t touching the bed. There was no one who would understand. No one. He wanted comfort now, more comfort than this Demon could offer—old friends, family. Maya was not here. Why was she not here, when he needed her the most? He did not know how to feel, or what he should be feeling.
‘Zabrielle, I’d like to be alone,’ he said after a while, looking up at the ceiling.
‘One will be in the next room, should you need me,’ Zabrielle replied, and left the room, closing the door on her way out.
Gray lay on the bed for the rest of the night, looking at the ceiling, not moving. Towards dawn Maya crept in. ‘Gray?’ she whispered.
Gray said nothing. She walked to the bed and saw that he was awake.
‘I’m sorry, Gray,’ she said. Her voice rang with a terrible pity.
‘Sorry for what?’ Gray asked. ‘That you weren’t here when I woke up? Or that you couldn’t do some magic, save my arm?’
‘I wasn’t here because I need to stay strong, little brother,’ Maya said. Her tone was so subdued, Gray could barely hear her. ‘I can’t possibly see you in pain and give up on our journey. I can’t try to run away someplace safe with you. Because I know I’m capable of that. I’m still capable of that.’
‘Leave me alone,’ Gray barked. ‘You don’t understand what this is like.’
Maya looked at him, looked like she was about to say something. But she didn’t. She left the room without a word.
‘Where the hell are we, anyway?’ Gray asked aloud to the empty room, not having moved his eyes from the ceiling. He slept off, slowly, and did not dream of the old man. When he woke up, he found the sun shining on his face. Slowly, he got out of bed and made his way to the window. He was in some sort of a compound. There were high walls, and the building he was in ran along and around. Armed men patrolled the walls. He tried to pull the shutters, and realised he was trying to do so with his missing hand. Somehow, he felt like it was still there, only it wasn’t. He pulled at the string with his left hand in anger, and the shutter came crashing down.
Gray turned around to survey the room he was in. To his left was the exit door, and beyond the bed to his right he could see another door. The bathroom, probably. There was a small metal trunk at the
foot of his bed, and a closet stood next to the large window he had just shut. Everything was dark now, with the shutters down. Gray walked up to the hanging lantern and pushed the artefact in—the lamp caught light immediately. He slowly walked past the bed, into the bathroom, and looked at the mirror.
He was wearing boxers and nothing else. He looked at the arm then, the arm no longer there. A stump, a swollen protrusion from the shoulder, wrapped in bandages, outright ugly. He hated the sight of it. Perhaps he was still in a dream? With his other hand, he slowly undid the bandages. Pain, real and precise. The remnant had swelled up, dark and reddish in contrast to the rest of his skin. No more violin. One-armed photography. Autofocus. The edge that had been chopped off had curled back within itself like a vulgar piece of flesh, like clay. He continued to stare at it with disgust. Horsemen and Victor Sen and Dynes and Demons, yet this had been caused by a frog man, a damn kahuna. He tried to laugh at the irony of it all, but couldn’t. It wasn’t funny. His own arm.
A sudden sound in the room caught his attention. He peeked out of the bathroom, feeling vulnerable, not wanting anyone to see him like this. But the room was empty. Gray stepped out, gingerly. A tray was sitting on his bed. Bowls and a plate, covered. An aroma, lovely. His stomach grumbled. Gray slowly walked to the door, locked it, and settled down to eat. He discovered, over the course of the meal, how difficult it was to manage eating with his left hand. Gray felt sudden rage and smashed a bowl.
He did not sleep well that night. Nothing felt important, nothing. No Adri, certainly no Apocalypse. Not even Maya. He felt alone, grieving the loss of a very special friend. His sister knocked in the morning. She called out for him to open the door. Gray responded with silence. She went away after a while, which suited him. He walked around the dark room, dark in the day.
Days passed. A doctor came in once, to check on his wound and change the bandages, an elderly man who did not talk much. Gray did not ask him anything, merely played statue as he came, checked the wound, and left. His meals were left in the room by a thin, pale faced boy in some sort of uniform. Gray gathered that he was in some sort of a rest-house, a hotel.
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