PRINCE OF DHARMA
Page 94
Then the aftershock struck Bejoo, even as the wave itself was still rolling across the asura armies, and he lost consciousness.
***
From the vantage of the Sage’s Brow, the two princes of Ayodhya, Rajkumari Sita and her father, and the bodyguard Nakhudi all watched. They saw the deep blue wave of Brahman ripple outward from the tower itself, rolling harmlessly over humans and their animal friends and the city and its structures. But when it reached the asura armies massed on the south bank of the Sarayu, the effect was numbing.
The dense black hordes of asuras disintegrated as the wave touched them, turning into powder, like the dust-cloud their tramping hoofs and paws had raised on their northward march.
An instant later, as the aftershock hit, the powder itself disintegrated into nothingness. Here and there, particles of coloured light, red, purple-black, green, lingered in the air for a moment, then faded away as well.
In the sky, the asura bird-host was falling to attack when the wave hit them. Sita saw the leader of the host, a man-vultureshaped being, buffeted by the first ripples and thrown in an arcing sweep across the bowl of the sky. The rest of the host suffered the same fate as their ground-borne asura brethren: powdered and then disintegrated.
A moment later, the last echoes of the wave faded away, leaving behind a silence as deafening as the wave itself.
The entire asura army had vanished from the south bank, leaving no trace that they had ever been there.
Except for the dark hanging mass of the dustcloud that was still visible in the dusky twilight light. That was the only sign that remained to mark that the great alien army had ever existed.
Brahmarishi Vishwamitra had kept his face averted as the wave struck.
Now, he turned and looked southwards, at the vanished army. Then he raised his gaze to Rama and Lakshman, who stood, staring together with identical expressions of shocked numbness. The blue light of Brahman was gone entirely from their faces, making them appear oddly naked.
‘It is done,’ said the brahmarishi.
To Sita’s surprise, the seer-mage’s eyes welled with tears. He stepped forward and embraced both the princes at once, his large bony arms encircling the two slender young torsos easily. He hugged them tight, as tightly as a father bidding his sons goodbye.
‘You have done the impossible,’ he said at last, tears flowing freely down his lined, ancient face. ‘You have rid the world of almost all the evil of Ravana. Never again will he be able to assemble such a vast army. Surely, he has a large number of wretched asuras still extant on his island-fortress of Lanka, but he will never again be able to assemble a force vast enough to invade the mortal realm. Even his vast fleet, asura-polluted as it was, is gone, destroyed by the Brahm-astra.’
Rama’s voice was hoarse, choked with his own emotion. ‘Is it truly over then? The asura threat to our people? Is it finally ended?’
Vishwamitra released them both and turned away. Only Sita saw the seer-mage’s face clearly as it looked away from Rama and Lakshman. The anguish on those ancient features was unmistakable.
‘The threat is ended,’ the sage said.
But there was no joy on his face, or in his voice.
The epic adventure continues!
THE RAMAYANA SERIES®
PRINCE OF DHARMA
PRINCE OF AYODHYA & SIEGE OF MITHILA
PRINCE IN EXILE
DEMONS OF CHITRAKUT & ARMIES OF HANUMAN
PRINCE AT WAR
BRIDGE OF RAMA & KING OF AYODHYA
KING OF DHARMA
VENGEANCE OF RAVANA & SONS OF SITA
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