by Samit Basu
They were interrupted by the vaman Dun Pampo, one of the richest and most feared moneylenders in Kol. He asked Kirin for a Nose-hair Clippin. Kirin had been telling everyone the shop was closed for the night and they could get their Stuff later, but it was best to give Dun what he wanted. As Kirin and Dun started to haggle furiously, Maya pushed her chair back and sat silently, watching the two-century-old stranger she’d spent so many years with.
It was Maya who had started making the Stuff, in her very first year in the University. She had been looking for someone to sell it for her, and that was how she had met Kirin. When they had become friends, she had started to get him to help her make it. It was then that she had discovered that Kirin had a natural aptitude for things magical, and could grasp complex spells astoundingly fast, faster than most trained spellbinders. Magic was incredibly strong within him, as it was within her. His powers, though, were different from hers. He had strange powers, powers he was probably not even aware of. Sometimes, doors would swing open as he approached; small objects he was reaching for would slide to his hand. Maya had noticed that this mostly happened when he was completely occupied in doing something else. Thrilled, she had started smuggling him into the University’s huge library, and had been training him in the magical arts for about four years. In four years, Kirin had gone through magical texts and treatises with amazing speed. He now made the Stuff all on his own, though he shared the profits with her.
As Dun left, somewhat disgruntled, because Kirin had pointed out to him that he was not going to sell Stuff cheap to anyone as rich as Dun, Maya leaned forward again.
‘So when did you realize you were a ravian?’
‘Good evening to you too. Well, I was reading about them one day, and I suddenly started seeing things. Then I found I could do some of the things ravians could. But I was sure when I read the histories of the ravian heroes, and found my parents’ names. And then I remembered many other things, but they were all so confusing – I wanted to tell you, but it was all too much to take, and I was afraid.’
‘What did you remember?’
‘I remember living in the forest, being trained to fight and hunt by a band of roving ravian warriors. We lived in simple halls, secret and very well guarded, because the woods were full of the Enemy’s spies. We kept moving, shifting, running.’
‘Were these hunters your family?’
‘No. I remembered my mother’s face. She was very beautiful, but she was never there, but I remember her smile. My father – nothing. The ones who brought me up were my mother’s friends and guards, I think. And there was a city, a huge, enchanted city, in the forest, which must have been Asroye. I was never allowed to enter, but they took care of me at the camps near the gates whenever my guardians had to enter the city.’
‘Why weren’t you allowed to enter Asroye?’
‘You’ll understand. Let me finish. I read about the Departure–and then I remembered actually being there. I had visions, Maya, I was allowed to enter the city once. I saw a sea of faces, people shouting, the smell – a lot cleaner than Kol, I can tell you. Anyway, someone told me a great victory had been won, the Enemy was dead. And my parents were dead too. A priest came to me, blessed me, he was smiling, crying, he told me all was forgiven and that we were all going to the next world, a world of peace and plenty that we would never be able to hurt anyone.’
‘So if you were there for the Departure, why are you here? Why aren’t you with the other ravians in this world of peace and plenty?’
‘I don’t know, Maya. That’s what I’m trying to find out. There was a light, a bright dome of light. It spread from a huge temple in the centre of the city. It was like a wave, over castles, roads, avenues, fountains, over lines of warriors in shining armour and sorcerers, all standing still. And then the light reached me. The next thing I felt was a great weight on my foot, and I woke up and saw Spikes.’
‘Must have been a bit of a shock.’
‘Not what I thought the next world would be like, certainly.’ He took a deep breath.
‘And nearly two hundred years later there I was in the library, reading my parents’ names, remembering being told tales about their valour in ravian voices. I’ve forgotten the stories, but I remember the names. And when I read them and remembered so many things, I knew I was a ravian.’
‘And what were the names?’
‘Isara and Narak.’
‘What?’
‘Which is what I said, aloud, in a dark corner of the library. Woke up the librarian.’
‘So let me get this straight. You’re saying you are the son of the Demon-hunter and the princess of the ravians?’
‘Straight out of the legends, he walks the earth.’
‘You’re a ravian prince. That’s difficult to digest, Kirin. This is big news. BIG news. This is going to amaze the magical community.’
‘Not a prince, Maya, you haven’t been studying hard enough. My mother was exiled from the Hidden City when she married my father, remember?’
Maya laughed aloud.
‘My best friend is a two-hundred-year-old stone-statue-turned-ravian. And yesterday you were rolling around under the table. Not very ravian-like, you know.’
‘Don’t remind me. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?’
‘My father, he knows more about ravians than anyone else.’
‘I don’t want to, Maya. Now that you know, you have to find out why I’m still here. I’ve been through so many books about ravians–there was even a book which mentioned me, Ravian’s Peerage or something like that, but there was no legend or anything about one ravian being left behind. If I’m here for a reason, I wish someone had left a note.’
‘More research. Just what I need,’ said Maya.
‘I’ll do anything…anything. I’m begging here. Name your price.’ Kirin grinned.
She grinned back. ‘Come over to the University tomorrow around lunchtime, and I’ll let you into the library. Now walk me home, I’ll fall asleep on my feet in a minute.’
‘Thanks, Maya. You’re incredible.’
‘I know.’
‘Last Rounds! We’re closing!’ bellowed Leftog, and that section of the Underbelly’s clientele that was still conscious and thirsty (or got caught in the mad stampede) rushed towards the bar. White-apron-clad waiters from Too Many Cooks descended and began to rouse people who were napping under the tables. The ones who wouldn’t get up were picked up and thrown out gently. Gently, that is, by pashan standards, which meant that most of the important parts of the body remain attached to the general mass. Yarni’s helpers were pulling people out by their ankles, four at a time. This was also their extremely effective way of mopping the floor.
Kirin and Maya watched as the last drinks were downed, and a few customers who were teetering on the edge of sobriety collapsed into happy drunkenness. Houstarr was trying to woo three or four young women at the same time, with his usual degree of success. The centaur was being persuaded to leave by Yarni himself, and small bunches of people stumbled and fell as vamans pushed their way out. Kirin and Maya watched Triog holding a man upside-down to help him find coins in his pockets; the appearance on the floor of a small, unidentifiable animal corpse seemed as good a signal to leave as any.
Chapter Eight
Vanarpuri, the great city of the vanars, was about three hundred miles away as the crow flies, and the crows were flying very fast. Some king of a long forgotten civilization had built a magnificent palace of pink marble, of soaring arches and stately domes, in what was now north Vrihataranya. Time and the forest had conquered and razed the city, but the palace was mostly still standing, though covered with creepers, lichens and moss. Right in the centre of the highest dome, now green with moss and cracked open, a gigantic banyan tree had thrust its branches through. Its giant creepers draped over the walls like some grotesquely large octopus and its branches towered above the dome, making it impossible to see the palace even from the sky. The great hall of the palace w
as also filled with huge trees but the vanars had cleared the middle. The ceiling, once covered with beautiful frescoes, was now a wild tangle of branches and leaves, slowly making cracks in the roof and forever pushing outwards and upwards.
In the centre of the hall, in a huge, ornate, moss-covered marble throne set between two mammoth roots of the giant banyan sat the great and terrible Lord Bali, mightiest of the vanars and self-proclaimed Lord of Vrihataranya. The vanar city was a well-kept secret. It had been a few centuries since the vanars had ventured out of the forest and most of the world had forgotten about them. The other inhabitants of the jungle, human or animal, kept away from Vanarpuri. For Vanarpuri was in the very heart of Vrihataranya, where the Sun God himself feared to tread, where immeasurably tall trees strove amongst themselves for possession of the earth and their very roots were man-high.
Into this hall now marched Ulluk the hunter, right up to the throne of Bali, and flung his prey down on the root-covered stairs in front of the throne.
‘You asked for a stork, my lord,’ he said.
Gyanasundaram spluttered into consciousness and opened his eyes. He counted his toes. All eight intact. Then he looked around and saw the Parliament of Vanarpuri.
The hall was lit by torches in the walls, weaving an eerie web of shadows through myriad creepers and ferns. Trees filled most of the hall, and in the branches of the trees at the outer rim of the circular hall sat monkeys of every kind imaginable. There were titis, sakis, uakaris, wise-faced capuchins, macaques, langurs, baboons, mandrills and hundreds of monkeys and apes Gyanasundaram had never seen before, their eyes glowing red in the firelight. In front of the trees, making a huge border to the cleared circle, sat the anthropoids–orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and gibbons. Guarding the great doors of the hall, sitting in the ring of crudely fashioned wooden seats arranged in a wide circle around the throne and standing inside the ring of anthropoids were the vanars.
The Kol Zoological Society had recently advanced the extremely controversial theory that the anthropoids were the ancestors of men. Vanars, they contended, if they still existed, were what man would have been if he had never come down from the trees.
If, on the other hand, man had been created in any of the nine hundred and forty-two ways documented in the Kol Religion Office’s library, the benevolent Creator, when creating vanars, might have given instructions to his assistant (call him Sambo) somewhat like this:
‘Take a man, Sambo, a very hairy man. On the lines of Petah-Petyi’s unlucky first husband – yes, good. Broaden his shoulders, shorten his neck, make his muscles large and powerful. Make him stoop just a little bit. Keep the face, make the eyes smaller, make the mouth protrude just a little bit but keep the lips thin. Hold it. The arms slightly longer, I think, and a slightly egg-shaped head. Yes, good. Whats that? Still looks like a man? All right, then. Make the fingers really long, and the toes too. Prehensile? Opposable? What? I said long, Sambo. Long, see? Get it? Good. Of course he can hold things like a man, what sort of fool question is that? Still looks human? Oh all right, very well. Make him bigger. A little more. And give him a tail. Yes, Sambo, a tail. A tail. Now, next. No, I said next, not necks. Oh, Me!’
Gyanasundaram saw there were four types of vanar. The orangutan-vanars were nearly all clad in long flowing robes, the baboon-vanars were hairiest and naked and the rest wore light steel breastplates and caps above human-like clothes. There were vanaresses too, slender and less hairy, clad in short robes, though some were in armour. Nearly all of them carried daggers, though some of the gorilla-vanars bore huge heavy metal maces. Their eyes were small and cunning. Bali was one of the gorilla-kind. He was tall, broad, immensely strong and alaemingly bright-eyed. A mighty ruler of a mighty folk.
‘Then let the great council begin,’ said Bali. ‘I am glad you are all here, my brothers, because tonight we shall learn a lot that will aid us in the years to come, and will give us part of what we need to achieve our ultimate destiny–to be the lords not of the mighty forest, but of the whole world.’
The monkeys started to cheer, and were silenced.
‘My sister-son Ulluk and my friend Kraken, lord of crows, have brought into the Great Hall of our fathers a stork. Why a stork? You may well ask. The answer to that question is a long one, but at this great council you will hear it.’
Ulluk dragged Gyanasundaram to the edge of the inner circle. The vanars listened in silence as Bali told his tale.
He spoke of his secret journeys to the far north, beyond Imokoi to Skuanmark, and of his meetings with the ruthless and fierce Skuan chiefs. He spoke of the gathering bands of asurs, of secret societies in the Artaxerxian deserts that he had heard of, of rumours of people in many lands who wanted Danh-Gem to return, and of his desire to unite them under the leadership of the vanar-lords. He spoke of human prejudice, of the fact that humans did not take vanars seriously, thinking him to be dull-witted, like a lowly asur or pashan. As the darkness outside deepened and the torch-fires flickered, he spoke of his alliance with Kraken and the crows, and how everyday his winged messengers brought him news of strange and mysterious beasts coming to life all over the world. As he spoke, a strange undercurrent of excitement, of fear and anticipation in the air grew in the draughty old hall. Gyanasundaram felt it too: here was a true leader, an absolute ruler of infinite conviction and resourcefulness, a ruthless visionary, someone who could, and probably would change the world, for better or for worse. Probably for the worse.
He was also beginning to realize what he was going to be asked. And that he would be killed if he didn’t tell them.
‘And so,’ said Bali, ‘things stand. If I am ever to successfully lead armies that can overthrow the lords of men, it is clear what I must do. I must raise Danh-Gem. We vanars cannot challenge and overthrow any of the human nations through armed might alone. Only Danh-Gem possessed power of that magnitude. Not aligning with him was the biggest mistake our forefathers made. Our objective, therefore, is to bring him back.’
Gyanasundaram looked at the vanar council and saw, with horror, that none of the vanars looked shocked, or even perturbed. Bring back Danh-Gem? Bring back the Age of Terror? Have the War again? That was sheer madness! The great Rakshas had died two centuries ago! They were all mad! He looked around wildly, seeking a means of escape, but Ulluk’s grip on his neck never slackened for an instant.
‘But until we know how to bring him back, we must ensure that the faithful are united. Humans will help, but will not easily be led by vanars. Not unless the vanars are the ones who bring Danh-Gem back. Is that not so, Djongli?’
Bali looked at the circle of anthropoids and Gyanasundaram saw something he had not noticed till then. Sitting between two immense bull gorillas was a man. He was naked except for a leopard-skin loincloth, and a hunting knife slung across his shoulder with a leather belt. His hair was wild and matted. He stared back at Bali angrily, but said nothing.
Bali continued. ‘Men will never unite. Those that will join us will only declare their loyalty openly when they see Danh-Gem’s other vassals united under us. Rakshases are waking again, but they do not fight in groups. Dragons died out after the War. Asurs will join any venture that would help Danh-Gem, but they already have a leader and Bjorkun Skuan-lord is in Imokoi, speaking with him. The undead and the ice-giants are of no use. This leaves only the pashans. I told Bjorkun I would get to the heart of this matter, and I will.’
Gyanasundaram’s heart sank.
‘Pashans! Those big, ugly men of stone. None of you have ever seen them, my brothers, but I have. And they seem to have forgotten completely that they ever served Danh-Gem, that they were among his most fearsome followers. They live in contentment with men in the so-called Free States. Some of them, I heard, work for pay – for human masters – in Kol and other such cities. Heart-sick, I decided to come home, but then, when I was crossing the grey mountains of East Imokoi, I met a pashan and spoke to him at length.
‘He was a granite man, hard and black-strea
ked. He was going to Kol, he said, to earn a living. He had never even heard of Danh-Gem. I was aghast. I asked him why his parents had never taught him the history of his kind. He replied he had never met his parents. I was amazed, and asked him how he was orphaned. He seemed confused. He said the storks had brought him. He would not stay, saying he would be late for work. I met many other pashans during my travels–muddy brown swamp pashans, huge limestone pashans and other kinds–all traveling to human cities to look for work–and I asked them how they were born, and they said storks had dropped them. They knew nothing more, or would say nothing more. When I tried to tell them about Danh-Gem and that pashans had served him, they said simply that he must have paid good wages. Not only were they unmoved, they were unconcerned. But the legends speak of pashans as bloodthirsty warriors, completely dedicated to Danh-Gem. I am convinced that pashans are, in some way, the key to the whole mystery. And once we learn how to unite the pashans we will learn how to bring Danh-Gem back.
‘And when I returned, a few days ago, I met Kraken. And when I told him the tale of my journetys, he told me a truly strange tale. A tale about storks. I had not taken the ramblings of the stone men seriously, but when I heard Kraken’s tale I was intrigued, and realized that a mystery worth solving had presented itself to me.
‘He told me he had once seen forty-five storks flying over the forest, very slowly, in formation, and that the leader of this group wore a black sash that bore a strange emblem upon it. And that he had seen this happen at around the same time of the year the previous year, and the year before that. Storks and pashans, pashans and storks. Why? So I said to Ulluk, get me a stork and I will solve this mystery before the whole council. And here we are today. And here is the stork.
