Grandmaster (A Suspense and Espionage Thriller)

by Molly Cochran

  The doors of the Sacred Chamber, usually locked, were flung wide. Rakhta was the first to pass it, the first to see the white-draped bier in the center of the room. On top of the bier, high above the heads of the observers who rushed in after Rakhta's warning, lay Saraha. She was dressed in a sari of white brocade. Her hair had been combed into a formal style, with silver ornaments. She was not breathing.

  Justin stood staring in horrified silence until Duma gently took his arm. "We shall go now," she said.

  "Did Varja kill her?" Justin asked when they left the Sacred Chamber.

  "It is not death," Duma said fiercely. "It is life-in-death."

  Justin was puzzled. Life-in-death? That was what the monks practiced. It was the state in which he had first seen Sadika, before the old leader permitted his spirit to leave and his body to crumble to ash. But only the most experienced practitioners of yoga could accomplish the feat of stilling the life processes for more than a week. Saraha was twelve.

  "But life-in-death is a voluntary process," he said. "It could not have happened to her against her will."

  Duma turned to him quickly. Her eyes were red-rimmed and feverish. "It is not we who practice life-in-death," she choked. "This is Varja's punishment on Saraha for wanting to leave the palace."

  "But how..."

  "You wanted to know what happens to us when we grow old?" she raged. "You have seen it! And there is more. There is much, much..." She sobbed.

  Justin put his arms around her. For a moment she sank against him with relief, but she pulled herself back. "No. Do not touch me. Varja is a jealous goddess. There is danger for both of us. For all of us, now."

  "Duma..." He looked at the somber faces of the women. They seemed to edge away from him in a group. "Please tell me. What do you call life-in-death?"

  After a silence, one of the older women spoke. "It is the way Varja keeps us eternally beautiful," she said evenly. "We are made to sleep. And when Varja determines that we sleep no longer, we wake."

  "And we are always beautiful," another girl said.

  "I don't think that's true," Justin said simply.

  "It is! There have been those among us who have been restored after life-in-death. When they awaken, they are no longer wicked. They are obedient to Varja. They carry her magic with them."

  "Who among you?"

  "They are not permitted to remain after they are brought back," Duma said.

  Justin had no more to say. The women had seen the victim of an irrational vengeance, yet they accepted and defended Varja.

  "Soon the night of your rite of passage will arrive," Duma said.

  On the thirtieth day of his visit, Justin was escorted at sunset into the Sacred Chamber of Varja.

  He had been permitted no food or drink that day, and the hunger and thirst accentuated his fear of the goddess.

  His preparations had begun at dawn, when Duma came to wake him. She was again wearing the heavy veil, and her movements were stiff and formal.

  "Our sister Saraha has been removed from the Sacred Chamber," she said.

  Saraha's body had remained on view for three days, since the morning when the lifeless young girl was found. Justin had watched the body many times, looking for the inevitable decomposition of death. But there was none. The girl had remained as fresh and lifelike as she had been when she was living among them.

  "What has Varja done with her?" he asked.

  Duma shrugged. "We do not see the punished ones. But it is said that sometimes the goddess prepares the minds of those who live in death to assume a new life outside this place."

  "How does she prepare their minds?"

  "We are mortals, Patanjali. Perhaps you, as the son of Creation, can understand how the goddess transfers her thoughts to another, but I cannot. All we know here is that the unfortunate ones who have displeased Varja appear to die, but do not die. They remain forever young; that is all we know."

  "But what happens when the women here grow older?" Justin asked.

  Duma turned her head. "No one grows old here," she said quietly. "Saraha's turn came early, but her fate would have been the same ten years from now."

  Justin could hardly believe his ears. "You—you all..." He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought.

  She took his hand. "It is not painful. No one has ever cried out. There are no marks. And perhaps there is another life, after the time of life-in-death, as the stories say."

  "I won't let her do that to you," Justin said.

  Duma smiled. "It will not happen to me. I am not worthy of life-in-death. Because of my ugliness, I will be the first among us in the palace to leave."

  "To whore for some man you don't even know," Justin said with disgust.

  Duma's eyes were level. "If that is Varja s wish," she said softly. She got to her feet. "Come. The ritual of your manhood will begin tonight. This is your last day with us."

  Justin was stunned. "My last... How do you know?"

  "The goddess Varja sent for me. She is pleased that you have refused to take other women into your bed. So she will be the first," Duma said dully.

  "But I want you to be the first! I've been waiting for you!"

  "It was not to be," Duma said. She spoke breathlessly, whispering over the catch in her throat. "You were sent not for me, but for Varja. When this night is over, you will return to your life, and I to mine. Nothing will have changed. Our destinies are not to meet."

  "No, Duma," he said, clasping her tightly by her shoulders. "It was always you. I stayed only because of you. I wanted so much for you to like me...

  "Stop," she gasped. She pried his hands loose. "You will not look on me again. It is best." She left the room quickly.

  Duma alone was absent from the Sacred Chamber as Justin arrived. The other women stood with their backs against all four walls. Each was dressed in her finest clothes and wore a small transparent veil over the lower half of her face. In the center of the room, where Saraha's funeral bier had been, now stood a huge cube of white silk that billowed with the softest breeze.

  When the room was utterly still, two of the women drew apart the thick flowing fabric of the enormous cube in the middle of the room, facing Justin. Behind it was a bed of embroidered silk pillows, heavily scented. A woman lay in the center of it. Justin had no doubt about who it was. He was seeing the goddess at last, and the sight filled him with disgust.

  Varja was painted like a ceremonial doll. Her face and body were covered with intricate patterns in red and black. Small gemstones swirled in lines from her chin to her temples. In the center of her forehead was painted a realistic third eye, unblinking and terrifying. Not an inch of bare skin surface showed.

  The terrifying abbess he had seen for the first time at his own investiture had been breathtaking; now Justin realized that her beauty had come from her externals—the shimmering jeweled robe of crimson, the palanquin in which she rode, which was worthy of a goddess. But up close, was she a beauty? He could not tell because the artful painting hid her face and body from his eyes.

  The cushions she lay on were supported by a large, flat, black-lacquered platform. On it, around the edges of the bed, was a collection of artifacts— polished bronze bottles, jade and silver bowls, golden statuettes.

  As the curtains parted, the women lining the walls dropped to their knees, their heads bowed almost to the ground. Justin stared at her sullenly, refusing to kneel to Saraha's killer. The moment was tense. Varja, in her submissive position, edged upward slightly, her painted eyes narrowed. The women along the walls tensed, shifting their heads to look at the boy who defied the goddess.

  Justin swallowed, feeling his face flush, but he did not move. Varja was no deity as far as he was concerned. She was an obscene, painted grotesquerie who lay exposed in front of him like the cheapest harlot, and he would not bow to her.

  Then he felt a soft brush of fabric behind him, and a scent he recognized, sweet and gentle as spring. He didn't have to turn around to know it was Duma. Her lo
ng fingers rested on his shoulders with gentle authority, and when they pressed him downward, he did not resist. The goddess Varja was a slut, not worthy of even his attention; but for Duma, he would do anything. He knelt, but his eyes never lowered, and never lost the look of contempt they held.

  Her pride satisfied, Varja lay back down on the mounds of silken pillows and gave a signal with a flick of her two-inch-long fingernails to the woman closest to her. The woman was the oldest of the group. She acquiesced with a bow, then reached into the folds of the cloth surrounding the bed to extract a bowl of gleaming gold. Handling it carefully, she passed the bowl to the next in line, and so it progressed until it reached Justin. He stared at the bowl for a moment; then his gaze shifted disdainfully back to Varja.

  Duma accepted the bowl. "You must drink this," she whispered.

  "What is it?" Justin growled, his eyes never leaving Varja.

  "It is the cup. It is part of the ritual."

  "What's in it?"

  Duma sighed. "I do not know. But it is very important. If you do not drink, it will offend the goddess."

  "She offends me," he said.

  "Please, Patanjali." Her face was covered, but the pressure of her hand around his expressed her urgency. "If you displease the goddess, she will punish us all."

  He turned to face Duma. "Tell her I'll drink if you can remove your veil."

  A small gasp escaped Duma's lips. "Patanjali, I cannot..."

  Before she could finish, Justin took hold of the veil himself and raised it. "So that the beauty of all incarnations of Saraswati may please Brahma," he said formally.

  Varja's eyes flashed with an evil glance at Duma's face, but she said nothing. Then Justin nodded curtly and drank a small sip from the golden bowl.

  The taste of the milky liquid was bitter and pungent. He swallowed it with difficulty. As he gave the bowl back to Duma, Varja smiled. It was a tight, evil expression, her jaws strained and her eyes hard. She nodded once, slowly, and the women began to leave, bowing as they rose.

  "Not you," Justin said, taking Duma's hand.

  "Patanjali, I cannot..."

  He didn't hear the rest of what she said. He was reeling, stumbling to remain on his feet. His vision blurred. The drink. Whatever was in it was having a powerful effect. He clasped Duma's hand more tightly. "She stays," he said, forcing himself to speak Hindi. The volume of his words surprised him. He could not control his voice.

  Varja took her eyes off him and shifted them toward the girl. There was malice in them, but she said nothing. Instead, staring intently at Duma, her tight-lipped smile like a cat's, the goddess pulled aside the silk covering over her lap and spread her thighs wide.

  Duma lowered her head. She was shaking. On the inside of Varja's thighs were painted a hundred figures depicting couples engaged in sexual acts. Justin felt a shudder of revulsion.

  "Very well," Varja said at last. "She may stay." They were the first words Justin had heard her speak, and they were filled with a perverse triumph. "Come," she commanded.

  Justin looked at Duma, trying hard to focus on the girl. The room was swimming around him. "Please do as she says," Duma whispered. With some difficulty, Justin mounted the bed.

  The cup. Swimming around the soup of disjointed images in his head was the cup Tagore had given him to present to Varja. It sat on the low ledge that surrounded the bed, along with many other artifacts, some very old—a staff, jeweled and gilded, and a rock that glittered ... the stone of Dinrath. It had belonged to the monastery at Labrang. Tagore had told Justin that the monastery had burned to the ground. Soldiers, he said. Fire.

  Mixed with the swirling, vague sights in the room was a sudden remembrance of a dream. A dream of fire, burning the Tree of the Thousand Wisdoms, burning it all to the ground....

  But fire melted gold. The stone of Dinrath should have vanished in the flames.

  They give their relics to Varja. They worship her.

  Something was wrong, very wrong. The monks at Labrang did not worship Varja any more than those at Rashimpur did. Tagore had told Justin that the stone had been stolen.

  Stolen?

  "Show me your manhood," Varja commanded.

  Justin looked down, confused, at his limp member. The stone of Dinrath. Fire. Something in the drink. Fire to come. He gasped involuntarily as he spotted another relic on the ledge. It was a golden vessel from the monastery at Pemiongchi. Also burned.

  "You stole them," Justin said groggily. "You led the soldiers to the monasteries to destroy them. You took the relics from their rightful place."

  Varja ignored him, looking with contempt at his groin. With a flick of her hand, she commanded Duma to prepare him.

  He felt the girl’s slender, trembling fingers untie the cord at his waist, then touch his bare skin.

  "Duma," he said softly. "Duma." He felt himself harden at her touch. It was all so confusing. There was a woman in front of him, tattooed and leering, her legs opened in invitation. There were the relics of the lost holy places surrounding the ugly, wanton thing, focused, it seemed, around the unblinking third eye in the center of her forehead. There was the misty unreality of the chamber, and a feeling of nausea in Justin's stomach.

  Tagore should never have sent me to this place, he thought. The monks didn't know. Varja is evil, a ragged, smelly, contemptible thing.

  And then there were the soft white hands on him, hands that smelled of kindness and desire. Duma was touching him, and Duma became all there was in the strange, convoluted world of the milky white liquid he had been made to drink. Duma, I have always wanted you. I will always be yours. The man you were promised for will never own you, I promise. I will kill to prevent it, if I have to; I will even leave Rashimpur. But I will never let you go because I love you as I have never loved anything. I love you, Duma.

  "Come to me." The woman's voice was deep and passionate and wet with experience.

  The tumescence between his legs was unbearable. He leaned forward, searching. "Duma," he sighed. "Duma, it was always you." He opened his eyes. And there, in front of him, lay a three-eyed monster with foul breath and paint melting from the sweat on her face.

  Then Duma screamed, and Justin saw the knife at his throat. One of Varja's hands was clasping the amulet around his neck while the other brought down a razor-sharp blade.

  In an instant Justin was in the air, not fully realizing what was happening, his mind still murky from the drug, but following the instinctive commands of his body. He had been trained to respond quickly, without thought, at a sign of danger. In that blinding moment when he saw the three-eyed woman lunge for his throat with the jeweled blade glittering in her hand, he ceased to remember that she was a goddess, or that he was in her presence at the request of his mentor, or that the knife might be a painless part of the ritual. All he knew was that someone was trying to kill him.

  He responded by first knocking the blade out of Varja's hand, sending it clattering to the floor while the goddess watched its trajectory with amazement, and then slapping Varja hard across her face with the back of his hand. She reeled as she let go of the medallion around Justin's neck.

  Duma propelled herself backward, aghast. She struck the wall behind her. Her face was ashen, and the fingers she raised to her mouth were shaking with fright.

  Biting the inside of his cheeks to stay alert, he grasped her by the arm and forced her toward the doorway.

  "Leave. Now," he said.

  "I cannot," Duma answered breathlessly. "You struck the goddess..."

  "Your goddess tried to kill me for my amulet, and she won't think anything about killing you."

  "Patanjali..."

  He threw her bodily into the hall. In the same motion, he whirled around to return to the bed where Varja still lay, stunned, the paint on her face smeared. He picked up the bowl of milky liquid that he had been made to drink. There was still some of the concoction left in the bottom. With a sound of utter disdain, he flung the liquid in Varja s face.

&nbs
p; "You're no goddess," he said with disgust. "You're nothing more than a pillager of monasteries and a killer of men and women." His anger had cleared his head. Every other emotion had been replaced by a searing rage. He pulled back his arm to strike her again, then let it go. No violence would bring back Saraha. No matter how strong his hatred was, it would never restore the monasteries that Varja had looted and destroyed. All he could do now was to save Duma, because she would surely be Varja's next victim.

  Duma was sprawled on the floor in the corridor outside the Sacred Chamber. "I'm sorry," Justin said, picking her up as deftly as he could manage. "Let's get out of here."

  "But the others. My home—"

  "I will tell the monks at Rashimpur. They will help the others. But your home is with me." He pulled her through the garden and out into the open fields.

  The night sky was swirling with stars. Despite his fear and concern for Duma, he could hardly keep his eyes open. He tripped over a stone, landing painfully on his face. "So clumsy," he said, struggling to right himself.

  "Even Patanjali is not completely immune to life-in-death. But he is very strong." She stroked his face with her long fingers. "I suspected that Varja meant to kill you with the drink she offered, but I could not believe she would do such a thing. Now I believe. Oh, Patanjali, will you ever forgive me? I should have known."

  Justin smiled. "How could you have known?"

  "The drink. It was the same as one I remembered."

  Justin was startled to alertness. "She gave it to you?"

  "Not me. Another." Duma put her arm beneath Justin's to help him walk. "When I was quite young, perhaps six or seven, I tried to escape from this place. There is something evil in Varja's palace. I could almost smell it. I cried myself to sleep every night after I was brought here. Then one day a friend—an older girl who was kind to me despite my ugliness—ran away, through the garden, just as we came. I begged her to let me come with her, and she allowed me."

  "Where did you go?"

  "Far away. To the west, it seemed. We traveled for many days. But Varja found us."