The Unwaba Revelations

by Samit Basu

  As the sun set over Kol, lights were lit all over the city, as shelters were emptied and people trickled out, trying to convince themselves of the enormity of what had happened.

  The Chief Civilian hovered on a carpet above the ruins of her palace. The swan-shaped akashrath had fallen there, and its head, still undamaged, seemed to mock her as it lay, resplendent, powerful, broken, on the centre of her power, its neck trailing off into thick metal cables, twisted and still spitting sparks. She looked skywards, at the vroomsticks rushing through the air above the devastated city, at the surviving Champions League heroes, led by Arathognan, treating themselves to a well-deserved victory lap, at the slow-moving land-barges of the freshly dead and the spellbinders scurrying about, healing the wounded.

  She turned to Amloki and Roshin, on vroomsticks by her side.

  ‘Well done,’ said the Civilian. She smiled. ‘Now have this mess cleaned up.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Kirin awoke to find himself high above the earth, floating effortlessly above snow-capped peaks. Other people might have found this mildly disturbing, but Kirin merely smiled, and looked at himself. He was in human form. He hadn’t gone to sleep wearing the Gauntlet, so this came as no surprise either; it merely meant he was dreaming.

  He looked above him and flinched slightly. The sight of a gigantic black dragon, shining snake-like body looped casually across clouds, looking down at one with liquid white eyes each the size of an adult elephant was bound to produce at least an involuntary muscular reaction.

  Qianzai, Mother of Darkness, guardian of the world, had summoned him.

  Kirin looked at his friend and protector and exulted in the feeling that being near her always gave him; that there were so many things great and beautiful in the world, that his own trials did not really matter that much. That in some way, everything was all right, or at least not all wrong.

  But Qianzai’s eyes were full of tears.

  It’s so good to see you, said Kirin.

  Qianzai said nothing. A huge puff of smoke escaped her nostrils and floated between their faces for some time before drifting away, and Kirin saw tears running down the great dragon’s leathery muzzle.

  What’s the matter, Qianzai? asked Kirin. Why are you crying?

  I was thinking of your father, she said. And how sad he would be to see his son now.

  I tried to be Dark Lord, Qianzai, said Kirin. I failed. I tried to stop the war, but then I learned that it could not be prevented – that the powers that created it were beyond me. I have not abandoned Imokoi. The task that now lies before me is greater than Imokoi, greater than anything my father attempted. I have been forced to walk a different road. Had my father been here, I think he would have done exactly the same.

  Qianzai snorted, and anger bubbled and swirled in her eyes. This is what you always do, is it not, Kirin? You blame others for your failures. You are merely a victim of circumstances. Every single time! I wish I had seen it before. I was blinded by my love for your father. Just as he was blinded by a father’s guilt. If he had known what you were truly like, I do not think he would have let you take his place.

  Kirin almost woke up in shock. What do you mean? he asked.

  Do not feign innocence, Kirin, or I will burst out of the ground beneath you and eat you.

  But I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Qianzai, said Kirin. What have I done?

  What have you done? Qianzai’s eyes burned in rage. Who summoned every dragon in the world to fly to Kol’s aid? It was not me.

  The ravian airships needed to be destroyed.

  So the Dark Lord sent his strongest slaves to do it.

  I never saw the dragons as slaves. They were simply the only ones capable of fighting the airships.

  Were you not aware that we were already fighting a war with the creatures of the underworld?

  Yes. And if I had not called the dragons, Kol would have been destroyed, and in a few days, every other city in the world.

  Did you consider the consequences of this? Do you know that two vaman strongholds have been destroyed because the dragons were not present to fight their destroyers? That the dragons whose lives you threw away in your blindness could have protected the world and its creatures for centuries more? More importantly, do you have any idea how much damage has been dealt to the earth itself because of your war-games?

  It was no game, Qianzai, snapped Kirin. Kol was my home. I did what I had to do to defend it. As Danh-Gem himself would have.

  Qianzai’s eyes softened, fury yielding place to sorrow.

  How little you know, she said. The failure is mine as well. I did not see how thoughtless and foolish you are.

  Enlighten me, then, said Kirin, his voice as cold as the snow below him.

  Your father had many flaws, but the dragons loved him nevertheless, said Qianzai. Unlike you, he understood what being a dragon meant. Why did the dragons prefer the rakshases to the ravians in the Great War? It was because the ravians saw us as powerful beasts, creatures to use and exploit, monsters to slay. The rakshases, on the other hand, respected us and honoured us. Their king, your father, wore the Gauntlet that bound all dragons save me to his command; I could have killed him and destroyed it had I wanted to, but I did not. We were lords of the earth and sky who had pledged our service to him, not his slaves.

  That’s very convenient, said Kirin. Suddenly, history changes, and the dragons turn out not to have served Danh-Gem at all. I don’t suppose the dragons had anything to do with killing untold numbers of people in the Great War. The dragons did not help create the Bleakwood, or Danh-Gem’s Wasteland. All dragons are but noble gardeners of the living earth. Tell me more.

  I hope for your sake that your words are born out of your ignorance, said Qianzai. How dare you presume that all dragons are one, that they are driven by the same desires? Many dragons are warlike; most of the Skuan clans have always been, and they were happy to burn and destroy at Danh-Gem’s call. Several of my brood obeyed his commands with joy, and scorched the earth with no regret while fighting his battles for him, but only when they chose to. There were several occasions when his wishes were not acceptable to us. He never forced us to obey him then, even when doing so would have won greater victories for him. If the dragons had unleashed the full extent of their power and executed Danh-Gem’s commands without question, do you think the ravians would have won the war? But Danh-Gem was not the monster that drove my peace-loving, earth-tending children to their deaths. That monster is you.

  Qianzai looked away, and pain filled her gentle white eyes. Kirin could think of nothing to say; he hung his head and waited until Qianzai spoke again, her voice trembling.

  Perhaps Danh-Gem’s respect for the dragons proved to be his undoing. Perhaps if we had served him better, we would not have spent two hundred years imprisoned in spirit-cages, enduring unimaginable pain side by side with the rakshases, waiting for magic to grow again and break our bonds. If we had simply annihilated the ravians as he had asked, the world would have been different. Without dragons present to guard the balance, the earth itself grew rebellious, and the strange beasts that seek to kill it from within were born. The dragons might have prevented that. Or perhaps not. I do not know.

  What I do know is this – even in his darkest hour, on the edge of madness, your father did not treat us as you did. He did not use us as pawns, as expendable lives that existed only to serve his whims, as pieces that could be sacrificed at will. He did not stop us from performing our most sacred duties to squabble over buildings. I do not know why you did what you did, Kirin. But in doing so, you have failed. You have betrayed us. And the love that I felt for you is now dead.

  But they would have destroyed Kol, said Kirin. I could not let them. I only did what I thought was right.

  And it burns me to think that I helped you do it – that the power of my blood, that flows through your veins, strengthened your ability to command my kin. In one night, you proved yourself greater than your fat
her, and in the same breath, worse than he ever was. What powers you wield, Kirin! What a great emperor you would make, with your ability to rule, the strength of your will! The monks who made the Gauntlet did so out of fear, hoping to protect their monasteries from warlike dragons, never even dreaming of influencing more than one at a time. They did not know what they created, and most killed themselves when the Xi’en emperor took it from them, and when it then fell in the hands of the greatest power this world has ever known.

  But even in his greatest hour, Danh-Gem could never have brought every dragon in the whole world to heel as you did. Or perhaps he could have – perhaps he chose not to. Perhaps it is your ravian blood that gives you this ability, and fills you with disdain for those you command. Your father knew how it felt to be considered inferior. Perhaps it was this that made him greater than you.

  She looked at Kirin, at his shocked, helpless face, sighed, and looked away.

  What should I do now? asked Kirin.

  Do not look to me for advice, said Qianzai. Forget I exist. Understand it is only the promise I made to your father that holds me back from seeking you out and killing you now. Use the Gauntlet as you will, but know this; you have already released me from my vows. And while I loved your father, I love my own kind more.

  Kirin’s jaw hardened. Very well, he said. There are some things you should know, in that case. If I ever told you my mistakes were not of my own making, it was because I thought you were a friend, and I thought you would understand. Since we are friends no longer, I have no hesitation at all in accepting full responsibility for all my deeds. I respect and admire the dragons and their pride, and I accept I wronged them by forcing them to carry out my commands – but I did not have time to be polite.

  Kol is more important to me than these nameless beasts you fight. Were I a hero, I would need a home to return victorious to; even though I am not, Kol is the only place I could call my own. I belong neither to my father’s tower, nor to my mother’s secret city, and I felt I needed to do whatever I could to save the only place I truly love. Does that satisfy you?

  No, said Qianzai. It only shows how petty you are. Kol is not your home, and will never be. You will never belong anywhere, in this world or any other. I thought your existence, your mixed blood, was proof the world could live in harmony. I believed your past had taught you to think of matters larger than your own desires. That faith cost me my children, and put the world itself in greater peril.

  Tell me if there is anything I can do earn forgiveness, said Kirin. I will do it, whatever it is.

  I did not come to ask anything of you. Some wounds will never heal, said Qianzai. But the next time you throw away the lives of my children, we will meet again, and I will ensure that you torment dragonkind no more. Remember that, and be prepared. There is nothing more to say.

  And Kirin woke up, sweating and trembling, and sat in silence, watching Asvin flit silently from tree to tree as he patrolled the camp, until dawn filled the Bleakwood with a pale, grey light. He woke Spikes, and asked for the Gauntlet of Tatsu. He looked at the red clawed hand, which still called out in his mind, a shrill, harsh voice echoing across mountains far away, asking him face his destiny, seize the sky and fill the earth with the ashes of his enemies. He cradled the Gauntlet close to his heart, and put it on, shuddering slightly as power coursed through him, red-hot fingers of fire tingling in his veins as dragons all over the world hissed in welcome and awaited his command.

  Then Kirin pulled the Gauntlet off and returned to Spikes, and leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Why?’ asked Spikes.

  Do it, said Kirin.

  ‘I hate it when you do that,’ said Spikes. ‘Are you sure? It seems like a very bad idea to me.’

  I think this is something the gods might notice. And I’m not sure I have the strength to do what needs to be done.

  Spikes looked at him closely, and then shrugged. He carried the Gauntlet to a nearby clearing and laid it on the ground.

  And then he pounded it with his stone fists until it broke.

  A red light seemed to pulse through the sky when the Gauntlet cracked, and an angry, hot wind blew through the Bleakwood, snapping dead branches, and Kirin was afraid; had the dragons found him already? Were they attacking?

  The Gauntlet burst into flames and slowly blackened and crumbled. The wind gusted for a few seconds, and then all was still again.

  Spikes strode calmly across the clearing, his arms stained black and red. If he felt any pain, he hid it well. ‘You’re going to regret this,’ he said.

  We will not forget you, said a dragon’s voice in Kirin’s head, but what that meant Kirin did not know.

  * * *

  The day had clearly not started well; it showed no signs of getting any better. They were travelling eastwards, heading towards the Kol-Ajaxis highway that connected Kol and the Free States to Psomedea. Asvin walked ahead, his head held high, his feet dragging only slightly. His horse walked by his side, carrying his scythe. Spikes followed, trying to look inconspicuous and, as always, failing spectacularly. Kirin and Maya, covered in the kind of attire that would have caused even the most gullible man in the world to regard them with deep suspicion -- giant hoods and cloaks that they had removed from some over-ambitious bandits –- shuffled along behind them in sullen silence.

  After several days of waiting in the Bleakwood for the unwaba to wake up, Asvin had announced that he was going to carry on with his task, alone if necessary. When the others had pointed out that it would be difficult to find people in the Bleakwood, because of which it would be difficult to inform the masses of the world’s impending doom right then, Asvin had decided to set out at once and keep going until they were no longer in the Bleakwood, thus cunningly solving the problem.

  Kirin had offered Asvin the use of his chariot; Asvin had refused to abandon his horse.

  They were in open country now; the road to Kol was just a few hours ahead, and fresh green leaves on healthy young trees around them tried their best to lift their spirits. But it was a losing battle; as Asvin passed, the leaves turned yellow and floated to the ground.

  Maya looked at her fellow companions, and wished she were anywhere else. Kirin had barely spoken to her since Asvin’s arrival, and she could not blame him. Actually, she could, she thought defiantly. The unwaba had already told her more than she wanted to know about the way Kirin felt about her; she’d stopped him several times, because it was unfair to everyone concerned, but the little chameleon was both stubborn and irrepressible. If he were to be believed, Kirin had loved her since they’d met; in which case, all this was his fault. This whole Asvin situation wouldn’t have arisen at all if Kirin had only summoned up the nerve to tell her how he really felt at any point during the five long years when everyone they knew in Kol had assumed they were a couple. If Kirin had come with them to Bolvudis instead of running away to meet vanars and leaving her alone with Asvin. If he would only say something now, instead of avoiding her eyes.

  She wished she could tell him how happy she had been when they met in Vrihataranya; how time had rolled back for an instant and it was as if they were still in Kol, when the most dangerous quest in their lives had been getting Kirin into Enki University’s library unobserved. And she had seen the look in his eyes when he had realized it was really her, and had felt nothing but joy in knowing he loved her still; it was as if everything in the world had fallen in place for him.

  Or it might have been a trick of the light, she thought. Blindly believing everything the unwaba had said would not do at all.

  She wished she could convince herself that she had never really been in love with Asvin.

  It would have been more convenient, she thought, if she had done this while Asvin was alive. And now, she was already thinking about Kirin. And if that was not enough cause for guilt, Asvin was right there, all the time, looking noble and sad and reproachful, and ridiculously attractive for a zombie. She looked at the unwaba, sleeping peacef
ully in his pouch, and wondered yet again whether all this was some elaborate deception, whether somewhere, the gods were watching the three of them and laughing their heads off.

  She reminded herself that Asvin had been unfaithful to her, that she was just one of the many women he had loved, that she would have left him if he had been alive. But he had died while trying to find her: had she been the love of his life?

  The unintended cruelty of the question took her breath away. This was no time to think of romance, she told herself severely. There was work to be done. There was a world to be saved, and given the tangle their personal lives were in, saving the world was probably a relatively easy task.

  The sun was high in the sky when they reached the road, and encountered several large wagons heading towards the Centaur Forests, loaded with salted meat and sour-looking Olivyan farmers. Asvin informed the occupants of these wagons that the end was nigh; they ignored him and rolled serenely southwards. Asvin was enraged, and wanted to chase them and cut them down to size with his mighty scythe, but Spikes intervened.

  ‘Since you are clearly looking for something useful to do,’ said Spikes, ‘let us discuss our plans.’ He nodded and winked, pointing upwards as he said this; a truly gruesome sight.

  ‘Are you sure we should do that out in the open like this?’ asked Asvin. ‘Did not your all-knowing lizard, whom I have not had the privilege of meeting yet, instruct you to keep everything secret?’