PRINCE OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  His feet found bottom with a gentle impact that he barely felt. He felt weightless, as if he could begin to float up at any moment, or be buffeted aside by the slightest current. But there were no currents in a pool. The water was still here, and startlingly clear. He had expected mossy murkiness at the bottom, obscure darkness even. Instead, he could see for several dozen yards in every direction. He could see an assortment of natural objects on the floor of the pool. Boulders and rocks mainly, of all shapes and sizes. Gleaming yellow-gold fish darted through hollows in the rocks. The floor itself was surprisingly regular and firm rather than soft and muddy as he might have expected. After peering down closely he discerned that the reason for this was simple: it was a man-made surface, slightly weathered by millennia beneath water but otherwise as unbroken and regular as stone. That struck him as odd. After all, if this were the sage Gautama’s hermitage, how would it have a stone floor? He probed with the toe of his sandal and found that it wasn’t stone at all, just a bitumen coating over a thatch-mud surface, like the floors of most ordinary Arya homes. The stillness of the pool had prevented it from decaying much.

  He marvelled at the thought that perhaps two thousand years ago, human hands had laid and carefully smoothed this floor, applying layer upon layer until it formed a surface almost as strong as woodplank to walk on. Then had used the shakti of Surya, direct sunlight, to bake the surface hard. And eventually, the same hands had raised walls made of the same material and a roof of thatched straw over it all. Which raised the question: what had happened to the roof and walls of the ashram? After all, if this was the floor of the original hermitage, then the rest of the structure ought to be–

  He looked up then and had the first real shock since his descent.

  The swirling colours he had descended through, the ones that had seemed to dance playfully just out of his reach, were still there. They filled the pool in every direction, forming a dense wall that had evidently opened briefly to allow his passage then closed ranks once more.

  The colours were indeed breathtaking and beautiful, mesmerising in their pattern of sway and swirl, turn and twist. It was the most amazing display in nature he had ever seen. As gaily decorative as a Holi festival or a troupe of Marwari folk dancers.

  But they were neither rang-colours nor gaily hued mirrorworked fabric.

  They were snakes.

  Rama reached for his sword, remembering too late that he had no sword. No bow and arrows. No weapon at all. He could only stand and look up at the incredible profusion that teemed just yards above his head.

  Water serpents. Thousands upon thousands of them, all of different hues and tints. The swirling dance was a result of their ceaseless writhing. They formed a thick carpet, the bottom of which was perhaps ten yards above the floor of the pool. He had been unable to see them properly while descending because the light was too dim. But standing here on the floor of the pool, the Brahman stones gave off enough light to illuminate them clearly.

  The thickness of the whole group was impossible to discern from where he stood, but based on the time it had taken him to descend through the colours, he deduced that they formed a mass perhaps fifteen yards from top to bottom. Each serpent was at least three yards long, while several were ten times that length.

  Their thicknesses varied with their lengths, some as thick as his fist, others the size of his head, and a few enormous ones as wide as his chest. Their mouths opened and closed, releasing bubbles constantly, which meant that they breathed air and must rise to the surface periodically to take in fresh air before descending again. He wondered how long they could breathe at one go, and if they were venomous.

  He had always heard that the bites of water serpents were deadlier than those of their landlocked brethren. The thought of his bare skin passing within lunging distance of those fanged mouths made him want to scream. He stayed still and watched the serpents dance; unable to believe he had descended safely through their midst. Yet he had, somehow. That must mean they were benign. Or that he wasn’t their natural prey. Either way, he was here, unharmed, and they seemed unconcerned or unaware of his presence. Their dance continued, the colours swirling into obscure patterns and combinations of hues, a mesmerising interweaving and mingling that demanded to be watched. He had the impression that if he didn’t exert his will and look away, he could stand here and watch them for ever. He forced his eyes down. He had a task to perform.

  He knelt down and picked up two of the Brahman-infused stones, gripping one in each fist. They felt warm and soft to the touch, like something living rather than dead stone. The instant his hands touched them, they glowed brighter, turning almost blueish-white in the intensity of their effusion.

  He blinked and held them up, away from his eyes. They cast a wide swathe of light several yards in every direction, lighting his way more effectively than a pair of torches would have illuminated the forest above at night.

  He began walking slowly, unaccustomed to the strange experience of meeting resistance at every step. It was oddly pleasing yet frustrating. If he moved one side, one limb, too forcefully, his entire body twisted and he found himself corkscrewing around, feet leaving the floor of the pool. He forced himself to walk slowly, with gradual sweeping movements rather than short quick ones as he would have used above ground. After a few yards, he began to move more efficiently, and soon he was able to make fairly good progress. He glanced up once and saw that the mass of serpents still hung above him, at the same height.

  He had a sudden insight: the fauna of the pool consisted of creatures living at varying depths. The serpents occupied the lowermost level short of the floor. At that depth, they probably filled the entire circumference of the pool. He had a sense that every few dozen yards the fauna changed in species and variety. He recalled the powerful waves that had buffeted him soon after the start of his descent. What had those been caused by?

  Something large and powerful certainly. And if his theory was right, then what dwelled at the very bottom of the pool?

  The Brahman stones clutched in his fists, he walked on. After a few yards, the landscape of the floor changed. It had been damaged here, and a fine spiderweb of minute cracks were splayed across the hand-smoothed surface. He knelt down, still holding the stones. It took him only a moment to see that the cracks had been caused by the impact of some enormous object. He looked around. The area was clear of boulders and rocks. Only a few under-water plants struggled to sustain themselves in the cracks. There were no fish or crabs to be seen here either. Not a living thing moved. He rose slowly to his feet, puzzling over this mystery.

  The first warning he had that something was amiss was from the water serpents.

  A flicker of movement caught his eye. He held the stones to his side and stared up.

  The serpents were fleeing.

  They were moving in agitated circles completely unlike the slow, sensual swirls he had seen earlier. Moving upwards. Frantically spiralling away from him, from the bottom of the pool. For yards in every direction, the same thing was happening, spreading in ripples, as if the message was being passed on, beginning at the centre where he stood, and travelling outwards.

  He felt a tremor beneath his feet. It grew into a series of vibrations, blending into one continuous pounding rhythm. The small plants poking out of the cracks in the floor swayed and shuddered with the impact.

  Above ground, he would have said at once that a bigfoot was approaching. From the intensity, spacing and measure of the successive impacts, he could have estimated the size of the beast, its distance and the speed with which it was coming. A Kshatriya’s life depended on his ability to make such judgements. He could even have distinguished a rhino herd from a hippo herd simply from the difference in the way they moved–rhinos thudding flat-footed clumsily, hippos high-stepping almost gracefully.

  But here at the bottom of a hundred-yard-deep pool of water, all he knew was that something was coming. Fast. And it was either one massively enormous beast or many smaller on
es. But not too small, judging from the impact.

  He looked around for something to use as a weapon, anything that might provide a defence against that numbing moment of first contact. If he could only stand long enough to tell what manner of foe he was facing, he could figure out how to fight it–or how to flee if it came to that! After all, even Brahman shakti wouldn’t turn his fingers into blades or his arms into maces. To fight, a warrior needed a weapon.

  There was nothing of use in sight.

  He was still searching when the first of the creatures appeared, thundering across the bottom of the pool as it came into the circle of Brahman light cast by the stones in his fists. It never paused or hesitated, never stopped to examine him or judge his strength warily. It just came on, barrelling at him like a herd of raging wild boar.

  Close on its heels, swarming like a small army, came its fellows. He counted at least a dozen of them, maybe many more. But their numbers didn’t really matter.

  Just one of them was large and dangerous enough to deal with him on its own.

  Rama tightened his grip on the stones and stood his ground, bracing himself for the impact of the leading beast’s onward rush. As it approached, he found himself raising his head to look up at its gaping maw and gelid eyes. It was at least three yards high at the head. And its head was the lowest part of its body.

  NINETEEN

  Sumitra slapped the serving girl. The girl stopped screaming and tearing at herself and stared blankly at the Third Queen.

  ‘Get a hold of yourself,’ Sumitra said firmly. ‘Screaming won’t help. We have to find a way out of here. I have to warn the royal family.’

  The girl continued to stare dumbly. After a moment, she began crying. The tears flowed down her face like rain, but her mouth moved, talking incessantly, as if she wasn’t aware that she was crying. She confessed everything to Sumitra. About the eavesdropping at different doors. Spying on various members of the royal household, including Maharani Kaikeyi’s at times. Sumitra blushed when she heard about Kaikeyi’s midnight escapades with strange men in nameless taverns. The girl went on relentlessly. About how she had accompanied Manthara on her trips to the houses of tantriks, sorcerers and other unsavoury, even criminal types. About the daiimaa paying to have Brahmin boys kidnapped for her gruesome yagnas–again, Sumitra shuddered and avoided looking back at the chaukat. About how the daiimaa bullied, tortured and beat her own mistress, and took especial pleasure in inflicting even greater pain on the maidservants, guards, cooks, stable boys and other menial staff who served under her.

  About how, from time to time, a serving girl or cleaning boy who had displeased Manthara more than usual would abruptly vanish, and about how the rest of the staff would rationalise aloud that the poor wretch had been unable to take more of the hunchback’s abuse and had simply run away, but of course, they all knew what had truly happened: Manthara had gone too far and ended up with a corpse instead of a badly beaten employee.

  The litany of horror went on and on, until Sumitra found herself wondering if she was trapped not in a secret chamber but in someone else’s nightmare. How could so many atrocities have been perpetrated under the very roof beneath which she slept? How could nobody have suspected? The answer was painfully obvious: nobody had thought to read the signs. Each of them had their own section of the enormous palace complex– their own palaces to all intents and purposes–and it was easier to live your own life without prying incessantly into the affairs of your neighbouring queens. Besides, it didn’t pay to look at Kaikeyi too closely.

  As the half-hysterical, half-drunk girl droned on in an epic fit of remorse and guilt, Sumitra found herself understanding one thing that had misled them all. They had always assumed that Kaikeyi was the royal troublemaker. And so she was. But it was Manthara who was the truly rotten apple. A very fetid, corrupted, worm-riddled apple. And because they were so busy casting blame on Kaikeyi, they had never thought of looking at Manthara. That had been a grave mistake. One which might cost Sumitra her life now.

  She tried to ignore Sulekha’s babbling, tried to think her way through this situation. She couldn’t escape, that much was clear. She couldn’t communicate with anyone outside. So what was she to do? Simply wait here until the daiimaa returned from wherever she had gone and let the hunch-back do with her as she willed? Was she to share the same fate as those tragic boys?

  There was only one thing she could think of in the end. That was to wait for Manthara to enter the secret room and attack her the minute she came in. The element of surprise might win her a moment or two. And in that moment, she might be able to slip out. Her heart sank as she recalled how suddenly the wall had opened and closed each time, like a tissue-thin cloth being ripped apart, then sealed shut as if the rip had never been made.

  It seemed impossible. And the daiimaa knew black magic. How could Sumitra fight sorcery?

  But she had to do something.

  Her hair had come loose in the fall into the room. Now she tied it up tightly, keeping her face and eyes clear. Then she stood up and forced herself to look around the chamber for something she might use as a weapon of sorts. Anything.

  Her eyes came to rest on an object lying beside the chaukat. And at the exact same instant, for some inexplicable reason, the faces of her twin sons flashed into her mind. Lakshman and Shatrugan. She must survive and escape from here for their sake. Exposing this conspiracy at the heart of Ayodhya could save the entire kingdom, perhaps even tilt the balance in the war. But patriotism and citizenship apart, she had to do it for the sake of her sons. She picked up the loose folds of her sari and knotted them tightly to keep her legs free.

  Then she walked over to the chaukat and picked up the blackened, blood-encrusted trident that Manthara had left behind. She hefted it, forcing herself to ignore the reek of human remains that came from it, thinking of it only as what it now represented to her. A weapon.

  She spoke a silent prayer, and picked a spot in front of the wall, sitting on her haunches and waiting for the daiimaa to return. The trident lay clutched in both hands, its trio of sharply tipped tines pointing at the wall, ready to strike.

  After a moment, Sulekha stopped her babbling and calmed down, staring at Sumitra then at the trident. She seemed to be wonderstruck by the implication of the object in the Third Queen’s hands. Finally, her mouth worked and she spoke three words with surprising confidence.

  ‘Jai Mata Di,’ the girl said. It was an invocation to the devi in her avatar as avenger of the wronged and the innocent. In that particular avatar, the devi was usually portrayed with a trident in her hands. To the girl’s addled senses, Sumitra probably resembled the devi’s avatar. It was a startling thought and one that almost made Sumitra blush and put down the trident. What in the world was she doing anyway? Using a weapon stained with the blood of sacrificed children to attack a hunchback wet-nurse who might or might not be a spy for the Lord of Lanka?

  To hear it described that way, it sounded ridiculous. She, Sumitra, was going to attack a witch who was empowered by the most powerful asura in the three worlds? Her hand trembled and she began to lower the trident.

  Then she remembered her sons again. For Lakshman and Shatrugan’s sake.

  Sulekha’s invocation stirred an idea within her brain. Something better than just a trident. Something that could make that crucial difference between a successful surprise attack and just an attempt at an attack.

  She turned to the chaukat and forced herself to look at it properly for the first time. Yes, everything she needed was right there. With the grace of the devi, her idea would work just long enough for her to gain the upper hand over Manthara.

  ‘Jai Mata Di,’ she said, striding over to the chaukat and bending down before it.

  ***

  Sita had downed six of the vetaals and was struggling to fend off the remaining four or five when they stopped dead in their tracks. She slashed one’s arm off at the elbow, her sword slicing through it as neatly as if cutting a sugarcane stalk.
The amputated limb gaped blackly, oozing a thick syrupy goo. She observed with revulsion that in place of flesh the creature had a kind of mushy purplish-black substance that had the approximate texture of flesh when covered with skin but was altogether different when viewed in cross-section.

  She fought down her rising gorge and plunged the tip of the sword into the vetaal’s chest. It released a throaty rattling sound and fell to the ground, corkscrewing to land face-down. She turned, ready to deal with the others, and was shocked to see them skulking away.

  For one surprised instant, she thought she had scared them off. Then she saw more silhouetted shapes ambling through the woods around her. Several came from behind her and went past without giving her a sideways glance. She was horrified to see how many there were. Dozens, maybe even hundreds. If they had all attacked her at once, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. As it was, she had been hard pressed to defend herself, keenly aware that the greatest danger she faced was not being brought down and killed but simply being bitten. One nick of those razor-sharp teeth and she would be no longer able to resist.

  She followed them, curious to see where they went. They were shambling silently through the woods, carelessly walking through poisonwood bushes that ripped their skin and tore at their eyes. Pain was pleasure to a vetaal. Wounds healed in moments. Such was the nature of their existence.

  She emerged into the clearing just as Bejoo appeared, a few feet away. The Vajra captain seemed startled to see her. As if he had forgotten that there were others here besides him. For an instant he looked as if he was about to rush her, then recognition dawned on his face and he lowered his sword slowly, nodding a cursory greeting. She returned the nod just as sharply.

  She had no idea what individual horror the captain had faced in the vinaashe thicket but she thought she understood how he must feel at this moment. While fighting those creatures in the dark, she had felt utterly alone. Part of that had been the lack of Nakhudi. But another part had been the odd silence in which the vetaals fought. It was like fighting ghosts. Except that her sword could cut these ghosts down at least. Thank devi for small mercies.