Horsemen of Old

by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

  Gray stepped out of the train into blinding sunlight. He felt hot. His cloak was long gone, but even the traveller’s clothes he wore seemed to burn right into his skin. He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked around. Sand. Only sand, a desert, like the ones described in the stories. He recognised it, yellow, dust-like but thicker, gathered in dunes shaped by the wind, glowing gold in the cruel sun, punctured with heaps of shrubbery, pale plants that seemed to wither in the same winds. There was a path, and in the distance, a structure, a large, large establishment, shimmering like vapour. He looked left, the way they had come, half expecting to see lobos running at them in the distance.

  Gray knew lobos. They had given up in the night, yes, but that did not mean they had given up in entirety. He lowered his hand and adjusted his bag, the only bag they now had. Zabrielle looked unaffected by the heat, then again, she came from across the River. They said it was hot there. Fayne stood straight ahead, on the path already, a metal rod in his hands.

  Gray thought the weapon looked extremely out of place with Fayne—a weapon for breaking bones, sending out a message, a dull make-do utility for gangsters and unconventional heroes. Fayne had obviously found no sharp objects on the train, nothing but firearms. The assassin did not use firearms. What worried Gray was the way Fayne was hunched, reminding him of the days before Frozen Bombay, Fayne being slow and weak. He had not fed for days.

  Gray and Zabrielle walked up to Fayne as the train started to move once more, leaving them there. ‘Are you all right?’ Gray asked him.

  ‘The curse is in its final stages. Will not be . . . long . . . now.’ Fayne struggled to complete his sentence. Gray glanced at Zabrielle with worry, but she guided them onwards. ‘The Alabagus grounds are beyond the fort. Let us proceed, and quickly.’

  Gray had heard tales of the fort, the old fort of Jaisalmer. It was a line, a long horizontal line, a giant golden wall in the sun and the sand. Gray peered again. The wall had battlements, large cylindrical tower-like breaks in the wall, and as they got closer, Gray spotted embrasures, arrow slits. But they could spy no figures over the walls, no shadows in the watchtowers. As the desert winds blew around them, and the sound of their rustling footsteps echoed clear and rather loud, it seemed to them that the fort might be deserted.

  It was not what the stories said, walls of gold and the famous endless archers of Rajasthan, the breathless; too many stories of valour, too many stories of riches and revenge. They approached the tower warily, and now they could see the architecture more clearly—the balconies and the windows above the walls, the famous jharokhas, the arch-like supports, the curved beams, the domed minarets on the watchtowers. The windows on the fort wall were different, made for war—simple holes, nothing but darkness within. Occasionally they spotted a cannon peeking, but nothing moved, and the cannons did not fire. A silent mass of yellow sandstone, seemingly waiting for them.

  ‘There are no birds,’ Gray said suddenly.

  ‘The sky holds something deadlier,’ Zabrielle replied.

  Gray peered at the clear skies, cloudless, the sun raging. Nothing, no flicker of movement. Nevertheless, he felt slightly nervous now that Zabrielle had mentioned that the sky was not safe; that they may seem like rats scurrying towards a hole. The path snaked its way into a road, a wide stretch of broken tar winding its way up the hill in a large, lazy spiral that took its time to reach the fort. In a few hours they had scaled the hill, and Gray looked back down for a minute at the view, the forest of shrubs, the dunes beyond. Nothing stirred. The large gate of the fort lay ahead; they could see the twin spiked doors shut fast.

  ‘What now?’ Gray asked, as Zabrielle drank from her goatskin. They were standing in the shade of the door’s arch, Fayne crouched in a corner, panting. ‘Should we knock?’

  Without waiting for a reply, he picked up a stone and rapped loudly on the door. It made a dull, almost inaudible noise, and it did not echo as he had hoped. He knocked again, louder, with more force this time.

  ‘We’ve got to pass through,’ Gray muttered. ‘Maybe you can climb inside and let us in, Zabrielle.’

  Zabrielle nodded, and was about to say something when a soft voice spoke, seemingly out of thin air. ‘Who are you?’

  Bodiless voices did not affect Gray the same way as before. ‘Travellers,’ he said, ‘Weary. We want to go to the Alabagus grounds.’

  ‘Are you tired of living?’ the voice asked politely.

  ‘Uh . . . you know, you might just be right. I’m tired of a lot of things,’ Gray said.

  Zabrielle was looking at something, and Gray noticed it too. A small hole in the stone, next to the gates. A speaking tube. He crept towards it and slowly put his ear against it.

  ‘I’m opening the gate,’ the voice said. It sounded crystal clear, as if the speaker was standing right next to him. He jerked back from the wall. The giant gates did not open, instead, a small door hidden in the large one did. A girl, a little girl. She stood inside, looking at them with pale, vacant eyes.

  ‘Um, hello,’ Gray said from where he stood.

  She couldn’t have been more than ten years old, or twelve at the most. Her face was calm, composed, betraying no emotion. Her hair was long and dark, tied in a series of bands behind her. She wore a yellow sari and a darker blouse, made specifically for her tiny frame.

  ‘Greetings, travellers,’ she spoke. ‘I bid you welcome to the house of kings, and the kings before them, and the sons that descended them.’

  Gray nodded. ‘I’m Gray, that’s Zabrielle, that’s Fayne. And what is your name?’

  ‘I am the Queen,’ she said.

  There was a pause. ‘I thank you for opening the doors, my lady,’ Zabrielle said.

  And in they walked.

  The stories were true. There was a great city within the walls—a courtyard beyond the gates, a wide chowk with overlooking houses, buildings, streets leading off in various directions, stairways and ledges, parapets and more battlements. But not a soul in sight.

  The little girl walked through streets she knew well. There were clotheslines, empty, enclosures for animals, abandoned, doors unlocked.

  ‘What happened here?’ Gray whispered to Zabrielle, as Fayne struggled to keep up with them, grunting and heaving. The Demon mage shook her head slowly, taking it all in as the little girl led them through the walled city, a long walk, to the other end of the fort. There, they stood before the back gates.

  She turned. ‘I am gracious to those who pass through my domain,’ she said in her young voice, sounding surprisingly moody. ‘There are two things that might happen now. The Alabagus grounds lie beyond this gate. If you leave now, they will tear you to shreds; it is a death that you walk to.’ She paused airily. ‘Otherwise, my hospitalities dictate you spend the night here. Tomorrow, when I feed the Alabagi, they will be distracted, and you may cross the grounds without harm. The choice is yours to make.’

  ‘Feed the Alabagi?’ Gray repeated, stunned. He suddenly saw an image of the girl throwing herself to some shadowy beast.

  ‘I am Queen and Steward of the Alabagi,’ the girl said shortly.

  ‘We accept your offer and your overbearing generosity, my Queen,’ Zabrielle said. ‘We would be honoured to spend the night within the protection of these walls.’

  A little smile crossed the girl’s lips. ‘I am pleased,’ she said, ‘that you are no strangers to reason. I shall show you to your quarters.’

  And she was off once again. Gray was temporarily displeased about wasting time, but he did not know the Alabagi, and what they were capable of. The little girl could be right, and Zabrielle had perhaps taken a good call.

  They hastened to follow the queen as she led them through abandoned passageways and staircases up to their quarter, a room in a tower. No one had entered here for years, but the girl walked calmly through the cobwebs as if they were invisible.

  The room had no beds, nothing but dust, but they bowed to the girl graciously, and she nodded and left, saying that she
would be back in the morning to guide them out. Gray shook his head and went to the balcony, where a magnificent sight awaited him. He could see the entire countryside from here against the setting sun, and most importantly, the Alabagus grounds. It was an area dry like the rest, but suddenly, almost magically, in the heart of it was a lake, a small lake with clear water that twinkled in the dying sun. In the middle of the lake was a small island with a large tower, climbing as high as their current residence—the Eiwa Jarwa, without a doubt. There were some giant objects scattered in the grounds, but Gray could not make out what they were from the distance.

  Zabrielle joined him. ‘A royal view,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Something’s not right and you know it,’ Gray said.

  Zabrielle’s smile left her. Gray felt momentarily guilty, but he knew they could not afford to slip up.

  ‘Steward of the Alabagi?’ Gray continued in an urgent hush. ‘What the hell does that mean? Look, Zabrielle, I don’t want the three of us to end up as some kind of ritualistic sacrifice for the Heart Eaters.’

  ‘Of course we do not sleep tonight,’ Zabrielle said.

  ‘But what do you make of this?’ Gray poked. ‘I mean, she’s creepy, this girl. All alone in a city like this . . . did you sense any magic about her? Any weird smells?’

  ‘None. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the situation. No, I fear we find ourselves in the middle of a history.’ She sighed.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Nefashish el Semish mehn. History lives in the present. Of course something has happened here, Gray, you are correct in your assumption. But it is not over, it is never over, it keeps replaying itself in the present. The history of this place continues to happen, even now, and we might be witnesses to it all.’

  ‘But what? What happened?’

  ‘Inconsequential. What is important is that we must be able to step out of it, leave it behind. One has a feeling it could trap us here.’

  ‘I don’t know what exactly you mean, Zabrielle. But the warning makes sense. I—’ Gray was interrupted as something brushed past his face. He jumped back as the flying object made a full circle inside the room and headed towards him again. It was inches from him when Fayne grabbed it out of thin air. Breathing heavily in the following silence, the assassin opened his palm. It was a messenger dragonfly made of black metal, not something any of them had seen before; there were a pair of metal pincers on its front, now crushed. Zabrielle picked it up, unscrewed the back, and extracted the parchment.

  ‘It’s for you,’ she said, holding it out to Gray.

  Who would send him a message? Gray opened the parchment and read it, and then dropped it. He trembled suddenly, violently, and Fayne gripped his shoulder.

  ‘What is it, myrkho?’

  Gray was drained of colour. He was trying to talk, but the words wouldn’t come. Zabrielle picked the parchment up and read it. It was a handwriting that she hadn’t seen before.

  I come for you, Gray Ghosh. Hide. Run. Cower.

  There was nothing else, no signature, but Gray did not need one. He felt a chill run down his spine, a certain cold that seemed to stop all bodily processes, an irrational fear of everything. Gray felt afraid of the dark, of the wind, of the height, and of the sound of hooves.

  25

  Maya spent a month on the island. Before she started exploring it, she conquered her hunger by discovering a small group of guava trees, huddled together, almost hiding, laden with fruit. Once she had eaten, she felt better, and then she proceeded to find a stream or a pond, a source of drinking water. Once both food and water were temporarily scrounged, she went back to the mirror. Nothing happened. She struggled with it the entire day, then the next day, and the day after that. Then, finally losing her patience, she started to explore the island.

  It was mostly forests, though Maya discovered the giant white courtyard soon. The towers she could not enter, and the Forgotten Door she could not find—and after finding the giant footprint, she kept well clear of the area. She found a good stout stick for defence, and though she would not be able to wield it expertly, it was good for a rap on the head and she kept it with her at all times. She would often hear roars in the forest and would scramble up a tree immediately—she had never climbed trees before but fear was a good teacher. There were large predators which roamed the forests—things shaped like jungle cats, but thorny, spiked. She did not know what they were, but they made a lot of noise and were easy to avoid.

  Maya did not build anything like a shelter; she did not plan on staying out here for long. Whatever the mystery of the mirror was, she would solve it, and she returned to the mirror for a good hour every day without fail.

  It started to get a little disheartening after the first week. Maya was proud of herself, proud of how she was able to make small fires from flints and literally live off the earth, but the mirror frustrated and disappointed her to no end. Daan was gone, and there had been no sign of him since.

  At times Maya got mad thinking about Ward, about the fact that he did not come looking for her. She hadn’t expected it, and she knew the Leviathan had grounded him, but he had figured a way to beat the Leviathan in the past, and it angered her that he didn’t care, that no one did, not even her brother, wherever he was. She could have died here, died hungry, and no one would know. Her anger ebbed out soon in her loneliness, in her lack of company, and she realised even being around people had mattered to her. Perhaps she should have talked to them more.

  But then reality would bite, mostly when Maya would inadvertently cut herself on something, a thorn, a bit of bramble, an odd branch, a stone. Watching herself bleed caused her considerable disquiet. She needed to get off this rock, one way or another. This could not possibly be—she shuddered to think of it—a life sentence.

  Sometimes she spent the days solely with the mirror, with it being nothing more. She attempted different things. Everything. Nothing.

  She never explored the island at night, contenting herself to sleeping on a high branch of a select tree, a sash binding her to the trunk. Another area Maya refused to explore were the caves. The island had many cave systems, and she had walked some of them with Daan, but she did not go back there. She was sure to feel claustrophobic, and besides, just about anything could be lurking in the caves. But after she had explored the ruins on the western end, there was seemingly nothing else on the island to discover. So, she decided to go back to the white courtyard—this time noticing dry bloodstains on certain parts, but nothing else, no clues to help her with the mirror.

  How she hated it! She tried to kick it off the cliff too many times, but it was invincible. It would not move, it would not break, and all it did was reflect. Just as her fourth week on the island came by, and Maya began plans of constructing a raft, Leviathan be damned, a hailstorm caught her by surprise.

  She was well familiar with the island by now, having divided it into clear sectors in her mind. She was in one of the southern sectors when a large chunk of ice landed near her with a dull thud. Maya froze and stared at it. A hurried rustling of leaves, a swoosh, and another one landed inches from her. It was a translucent block of ice, wet and glistening, large as a watermelon. Before she could react, more hailstones started to fall, ripping branches off trees, denting the very earth, splintering into millions of pieces against boulders.

  Maya started to run. She knew a single hit on her head could kill her on the spot, or cripple her if the hail was generous enough. She thought of a plan furiously, fighting her panic, ignoring this sudden wrath of the gods. She could not go to a tree, she needed a roof. Damn it, the caves. She paused for a moment to figure out where she was—a hailstone landing a mere feet away—and ran again. Rain descended all of a sudden, drenching her, a series of electric shocks. The cave mouth came into sight soon, this was a tricky one, she remembered, hidden behind large bushes, and praying for luck, she ran headlong towards it, the ice crashing everywhere with greater ferocity with the rain.

  Once i
nside, Maya collapsed, catching her breath. The island kept her on her toes all right. It was different, different from Old Kolkata and Frozen Bombay. Zaleb Hel could be another world, existing in another universe. She cursed the hailstorm and all of the gods, cruel bastards. The plants at the cave entry blocked her vision, but she could hear the forest protesting as it was ripped apart by the ice, the sea roaring in the distance from the barrage. A piece of ice hit an inner cave wall and slid towards her, and Maya realised she should back away some more.

  An uncomfortable feeling crept upon her, like a spider crawling up her leg. She fought it. This is not the Kahuna’s cave. This is NOT the Kahuna’s cave.

  She was wet, her clothes dripped. Cold, she felt cold. A fire, a fire. She missed magic, she thought, slowly taking her makeshift bag off. There were some fruits inside, but more importantly, the flint stones. Looking at her stick, she bid it a small goodbye before positioning it against the cave wall and kicking down. Striking the flints, she lit a small fire, something that took her the better half of an hour. The rain was now a storm, a fierce hurricane that had come out of nowhere. She wondered about its cause, but not for long. The warmth felt good as the feeble flames slowly grew.

  She took off her clothes, glancing once within the cave—a dark tunnel that led somewhere inwards. There was no way she could hang anything out to dry, so she simply bundled them on her bag and sat with her head against her knees, soaking up the fire. Her nakedness bothered her for some time, she felt vulnerable, like a victim, but she reassured herself that the island was deserted. There was no one here. She hoped Daan wasn’t watching her through some magic device—that would be extremely creepy. With time and warmth, and no sign of the storm passing, she felt strange and different in the nude. It felt curiously good. Liberating, even. A new birth of some sort, a victory. She was a survivor, she had survived a murderous rain. Gradually, she loosened up with her posture and relaxed with her back to the cave wall.