by David Hair
Hemant’s short bony wife fussed curiously over the boys, while their tiny children gawked. There were seven of them, ragged and dirty, all below ten years of age. They were too shy to speak, but the youngest tugged at Amanjit’s sleeve and then climbed on to his lap, nestling there like a king on his throne.
Three of the Meghwal elders came after breakfast. They were uniformly stooped and white-haired, one woman and two men. They stared intently at Vikram and Amanjit, while Hemant’s wife herded the children outside.
‘So, this must be where you reveal that there is an ancient prophecy that two heroes will come and you must help them,’ Amanjit said eventually, into the awkward silence.
None of them laughed, or even smiled. ‘We do not have such a prophecy,’ Hemant said.
‘My friend watches too many movies,’ Vikram commented. ‘But you must have some reason for taking an interest in us?’
The elders looked at each other, and then at Hemant. ‘A man came among us, several weeks ago. He told us that if two young men, one a Sikh, the other from Maharashtra came here, we were to contact him. There would be a rich reward, he said: many lakhs. He told us names, but said that these fugitives—that is his word—may use aliases. He said they are wanted for murder, of a famous actress.’
‘Have you gone to the cops?’ Amanjit growled.
‘No. We did not like the look of this stranger. Or his smell. The dogs feared him. His shadow was strange in the firelight. But we thanked him politely, and let him go on his way. I followed him, and he vanished near the ruins.’
‘He was a demon,’ the woman added, nodding emphatically. ‘A Rakshasa.’ The others mirrored her nod, as if such things were a commonplace part of their world. Perhaps they were.
‘You are the young men he spoke of,’ Hemant stated.
‘We have committed no murder,’ Vikram replied firmly.
The three elders went quiet. Hemant picked at his fingernails. Finally he spoke again. ‘We say of ourselves that we are the descendents of the slaves of the old people, the Sinathai. That name is not known outside our people any more. They were the first people of Kotara—what you call “Dholavira”. We rebelled against them when they turned to evil. We helped the men of the east, the Suryavanshi, to kill the Sinathai king. Many of us settled here afterward. We have watched the ruins a long time. We know the signs. The evil ones have returned. They raid our cattle, when we cannot afford to lose even one. They take our children. Seven have disappeared this year already. Sixteen last year.’
Vikram and Amanjit nodded sympathetically, wondering what the men saw in them. It felt as if they were awaiting some sign, some portent that would confirm their loyalty. He sighed softly, took out an arrow from his bag, and spun it gently on his fingertip. ‘I am hunting Asuras. So is my brother-in-law,’ he added, indicating Amanjit. ‘Will you show us the way?’
They all swallowed as one, and looked at each other. Then Hemant bent at the waist. ‘My Lord,’ he breathed, tears in his eyes. Then he grinned, just like his pet langur. ‘This is the part where we say that, even though we have no prophecy about this, nor a movie to guide us: we will help you, as we can. We are the sons of slaves. “Monkeys”, the demon-king called our forebears. For that insult, and for your sakes, we will aid you, even unto death.’
A week later, just after dawn, Vikram led Hemant and the men of his Meghwal colony to a gateway he had constructed, about a mile north of the ruins, in an empty wasteland. They were all labourers. They brought hidden caches of weapons. Hemant said that more would come in the following days, as word spread.
The gate Vikram had made was just a door in a ruined barn. It led from nowhere to nowhere, at first glance. The posts were carved with symbols to hold the energy he had poured into it, to open a path from the real world to the mythlands. Amanjit herded the ragged men, armed with machetes and rifles, towards the ruin, where they peered curiously through the doorway. It seemed to lead into the barn as normal.
Vikram touched the posts and exerted his will. The symbols he had carved crackled and the men gave a collective gasp. Through the gateway now they could suddenly see a thinly wooded flat, with trees pressing up against the opening. The men made frightened noises.
‘Be calm,’ Hemant told them. ‘These are good men, come to free us from the Asuras.’
One of the Meghwal came forward, his voice dropping to an awed whisper. ‘Who are you? Rama and Lakshmana?’
‘Just Vikram and Amanjit,’ Amanjit replied. ‘We hunt Asura. Are you with us?’
Some of the men knew their names, and murmured slightly. News of the manhunt for the killers of Sunita Ashoka had reached here. Hemant spoke up though. ‘Yes, we will aid you. The Asuras have our children.’
Vikram and Amanjit led the way through the gate and into a wet forest, freshly doused in rain. Dark clouds swirled above. The villagers gasped when one looked up and swore he could see the Sun-God in his chariot, in the midst of the sun. They fell silent at Hemant’s command. After half an hour or more clambering through the thinly forested terrain, they emerged on the forest’s edge, to overlook green pasture land and paddy fields. Crook-backed beastmen waved whips over the head of bent and scurrying slaves. And beyond, presiding over it all, was a walled city. They all stopped and stared in silence and wonder.
There was an outer wall, and within, the roofs of the common people, the orderly layout of the city evident even at this distance. The stone caught the sunlight and glowed in shades of honey. Towering above it, with a thirty yard tall curtain wall, lay the Citadel, crouched in the morning light. Towers rose from within. There was smoke from cooking fires in the city, and armoured Asuras strode the battlements. It looked solid as the earth beneath their feet, this place of legend.
They had found Lanka.
Let Us Be Married
Lanka, 29 July 2011
She lay on her side beneath the silken sheets, beneath the weight of her lord’s chest. Their bodies touched, filling them with mutual need, igniting their passions. He kissed her, and she returned his kiss with hunger and worship, moulding herself to him, as—
‘Mistress? Wake up! Wake up!’ Kaineskeya bustled into the room, her face pale and scared. ‘Mistress, you must get up. The Ravan asks to see you.’
Rasita, her face flushed red, unpeeled herself from the damp sheets. The dream lingered in her senses. On her ceiling the painted characters of the murals continued to kiss. She looked away sharply. In the dream, she had been Halika, in bed with Ravan Aeshwaran. The images still lingered like cobwebs, tangling her thoughts.
‘Keke? What is it?’ she asked, her face burning.
‘Mistress, there has been an attack. People have been killed. The king asks for you.’
Rasita blinked dazedly. An attack? Here? It made no sense.
Then it hit her, in the pit of her stomach.
Vikram and Amanjit! They had come for her at last!
It was only a few days since she had come so close to giving herself to Ravindra. Her dreams were intensifying, and they were no longer just fantasies of her overwrought imagination. They were memories. Halika’s memories, and she couldn’t suppress them. She was frightened that she was going insane.
The fact that she was not complete and never would be until Deepika came to Lanka was beginning to hit her. And she could feel those others inside her, Halika, Jyoti and Aruna, battling within her for supremacy, feeding on her doubts, trying to rise up and possess her. It terrified her that one day she may lose control of her own body to these other presences. She had to complete this process, to save her sanity.
And now the boys were here, to rescue her. Their quest now seemed absurd, a side issue, a petty rivalry. She didn’t want rescue! She needed healing: to find the ghost of Darya and be made whole. To become who she was destined to be, Manda of Lanka! There was nowhere on Earth she wanted to be but here where that could happen. There was nowhere else where could she unravel these twisted, knotted threads, and heal herself.
S
he entered the Ivy Room, as Ravindra called it, glancing at the bench where she had almost surrendered to him with a guilty longing. He greeted her with an ambiguous expression. ‘My queen, thank you for coming.’
At the table were gathered the leaders of the Rakshasas, watching her with suspicious eyes. Lavanasura, his faceted eyes as always unreadable, bobbed his reptilian head. Surpanakha, her ruined face like a weeping sore, stared at her stonily. Meghanada Indrajit, huge and bull-like, glowered. Atikaya with the eagle head chirruped aggressively. Ravindra’s uncle Khumb, normally jovial, blinked at her unhappily. There were others she didn’t know, who watched her silently.
They all think I’m the obstacle to their success. They would all rather kill me, than risk defeat.
She turned, and found herself wanting to take Ravindra’s hands and kiss them, and soothe away his anxiety over this attack. Look at me! Can you see: I’m turning into your Manda. And I don’t care! ‘What has happened?’ she asked.
‘The Rama and the Lakshmana have come again,’ growled Meghanada, before Ravindra could speak. ‘They have come for you,’ he added accusingly.
Lavanasura nodded. ‘Raiders with astras attacked the supervisors in the fields, killing five Asuras and stealing many slaves.’
‘The fields are worked by captives,’ Khumb added. ‘Thus it has always been.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Meghanada is right. They come for you. Because you withhold yourself from the king, they feel they have licence to come and plague us for your return.’
Ravindra slapped the table. ‘If the queen absents herself from my bed, that is her business and mine’ he said sternly.
‘It is all of our business if we are to be attacked because of it. These two young men use astras, my lord. They are deadly, even to us. Our soldiers are frightened.’ Khumb looked about for support, and the other Rakshasas murmured agreement. ‘A king would—’
Surpanakha interrupted in a harsh voice. ‘A king would not be so preoccupied with his manhood and some woman,’ she spat. ‘A king would have hunted down these youths and slaughtered them by now. Instead of cowering and pushing Valentine’s Day cards under his reluctant queen’s door.’
Ravindra’s eyes blazed. ‘You ignorant sow! You know nothing of the forces in play!’
‘I know enough to see that this woman has rejected you and continues to do so. Her life now endangers us all. We are not blind. We can see what is happening—the Ramayana is hunting us down! If you die at the hands of the Rama, we all perish, and forever, this time!’ She hammered the table. ‘The girl rejects you. You must give her back or kill her, so that the Ramayana cannot be fulfilled!’
‘Aye,’ Meghanada Indrajit growled. ‘Send her hence, or kill her now!’
The call was taken up around the table.
Ravindra gripped Ras’ hand. ‘She is under my protection,’ he warned.
‘Which means what, precisely? That you’re prepared to let her mock and reject you, and risk all our lives?’ Khumb snarled. ‘Where is the king I have waited for all these centuries? Has he become a weakling in his absence from here?’
Ravindra stood. ‘I have power beyond all of you! Your arguments are the ignorant yapping of dogs, got by feeding on scraps of information dropped from my table. You know nothing! Nothing, I say! The resemblance to the Ramayana is illusory. What matters is only this—that we slay the Rama and the Lakshmana. Naught else matters, including my relations with this woman.’
‘Then take her, lord! Prove it! Claim her!’ Atikaya snapped, his shrill voice threaded through with desire for a spectacle. ‘Take what you want from her, or give her to us and we’ll do it.’
Meghanada Indrajit coughed, and leaned towards her. ‘Give her to me, father,’ he growled. ‘I’ll have her mewling for mercy in short measure.’
Ras looked up at Ravindra, her mouth dry, heart pumping almost painfully. No, he wouldn’t …
Or would he? Was Surpanakha right? Once he became convinced that she would not sleep with him, then perhaps it was strategically better to simply despoil or kill her, to prevent Vikram from victory? It would be like sweeping a hand over the chessboard and scattering the pieces on the floor … It’s the logical thing to do …
He looked down at her. ‘Manda,’ he called her. ‘You have heard them, my darling. What do you have to say?’
Manda.
Something welled up inside her. Deepika is already dead, you know this in your heart. Her ghost is coming home to me, and then I will be whole. We will be as one. Aeshwaran was my husband, and Dasraiyat the usurper. Vikram has Sue Parker: his Kamla. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t even know me. I will never be the one he wants.
And Ravindra … I can heal him, with one act. And maybe save the world in doing so.
She found herself standing. ‘My Lord Ravan,’ she said in a quavering voice. ‘This situation endangers your soul, when redemption is so close at hand.’ She heard the Rakshasa lords suck in their breath. ‘Your soul is precious, Lord. Let me save it. I will give myself in love to you. To end this state of eternal war, and restore you and I to all we once were. Let us be married, and united as one.’
Ravindra’s eyes filled with sudden wonder. He looked like a child at Diwali. First he smiled like a teenage boy. Then he became as grave as a millennia-old king. ‘Manda. My love,’ was all he said.
The Rakshasas let out their breath. Then they hollered with triumphant joy. Except one.
Surpanakha climbed to her feet, her ruined face livid. ‘She’s lying! She’s lying, to buy time!’ She stamped her foot. ‘You know her love is reserved for Vikram Khandavani! We all know it!’
Rasita looked back at the demoness, and shook her head in denial. ‘No. Vikram is nothing to me now.’
The other Rakshasas turned on Surpanakha and hissed, shouting her down, before resuming their backslapping and congratulations. Ravindra clasped Rasita to him as Surpanakha shuffled forgotten from the room. ‘My Manda,’ he whispered. ‘I will give you eternity.’
Death from Above
Lanka, 29 July 2011
Vikram crawled behind Hemant towards the wall of the Citadel, as the twilight deepened. There was a point they could reach, about a hundred yards from the walls, without being observed. He heard Amanjit slithering behind him. The trio reached the vantage—the intersection of three fields beneath a banyan tree, and peered about them.
After the pre-dawn raid, the Asuras had pulled back to their walls. Vikram had freed eighteen slaves, some of whom they had soon realized had been slaves taken centuries before. They were all adult, and mostly male. They were now in a staging camp near the gate, but still in the mythlands. They had told them much about the layout of the city and Citadel and the nature of the Asura: beast-men and slave-holders, more violent and childlike than evil. Not precisely what they had expected.
They had wanted to hold on to the element of surprise, but they also knew they had to gain insight into what lay within the walls, and what manner of beings they faced. So the morning raid had been necessary, though it had put the Citadel on alert. Now the question was how to proceed. They had quickly found that modern weaponry seemed to fail in the mythlands. This created a grave problem. The normal Asura soldier was stronger and faster than a normal man, and was formidable even to elite soldiers. The Meghwal men had no training in warfare, and were small and often malnourished. Without guns they were no match for the enemy. Only surprise, and the boys’ astras, had enabled this morning’s success. In a straight-up fight, the Meghwal would be slaughtered.
The Rakshasas were something else altogether. The magic-wielding demon captains could mesmerise their opponents, or fire astras of their own, more deadly then bullets—more damaging and far more accurate. Only Vikram and Amanjit could face them. So rushing the walls would get them all killed. They needed a better strategy. For that, some scouting was required. They had spent the afternoon on a circuit, seeking weak points, finding few. This was the last point of their circumnavigation of the fortress.
&n
bsp; ‘Let’s face it, man,’ Amanjit said as he slithered up beside him, continuing the argument they’d been having all afternoon. ‘We’re outnumbered. Normally you need to outnumber people if they’re in a stronghold, right? Even I know that! We’ve got fifty guys and we can’t use guns. There are several thousand Asuras, and two dozen or more Rakshasas. We’re going to get slaughtered, man. The Rakshasas have spent the last few months killing regular army for fun!’
‘The army was surprised, disarmed, and didn’t know what they were facing. Here, they’re on the defensive, and we know what we’re up against.’ Vikram pulled a face. ‘Beyond that, you’re totally right.’
‘I mean, with tactics,’ the Sikh went on, ‘like sniping at them and penning them in, we might force them into a rash charge, unleash a few astras, maybe bring down some of the big boys. But if they knew how few we are, they’d overrun us in minutes. And if we try a rush, we’ll get minced.’
‘I know. Shush.’ He indicated Hemant ahead of him. ‘Not in front of the troops, man.’
‘Him? He knows, he isn’t dumb.’ Amanjit tapped his nose. They crawled up to Hemant. ‘What do you think, Hemant?’
The Meghwal chief grinned. ‘That we’ll get “minced” if we rush them,’ he said, mimicking Amanjit’s words. He tapped his ear. ‘Not deaf or dumb, my friend!’
Amanjit rolled his eyes. ‘So what do you think?’
‘I think when your enemy are stronger, but tied to one place, then you hit and run.’
‘That’s my man!’ Amanjit agreed.
Vikram cupped hands over his eyes. ‘I’m not sure. We don’t know what’s happening in there. There are too many other balls in play. We don’t know how Rasita is doing. I want to arrange a parley and talk to Ravindra. I might be able to see if I can read what the situation really is.’
‘Like he’s going to tell you anything but lies and what he wants you to think,’ Amanjit objected. ‘Truces are so last century, man. We should just unleash hell, like that dude in Gladiator says.’
