He had expected it to be noxious, nauseating, toxic, like the cobra venom.
It was the very opposite – it was the sweetest, most intoxicatingly delectable thing he had ever consumed in liquid form.
And the instant it touched his lips, tongue and palate, its potency was undeniable. This was not mere milk. This was magic, sorcery, asura maya ...
It was like drinking liquid power. And as it flowed through his body, he felt himself electrified and seared – as if struck by a bolt of lightning.
He cried out, tearing his mouth away and falling back on the floor. The cloud that had come across the moon, leaving them both in darkness, had passed on, and he could see Putana, still standing with her back to the verandah, silhouetted by moonlight.
He felt his senses warp and burn, his nerve endings flare and fire, his veins and arteries roar as the Halahala coursed through them, entering his heart, his lungs, his brain, his vital organs ... He felt the divine poison infiltrate his very bones, his flesh, the cells of his body, felt it wash through him like a flash flood through a long-dried river bed. His consciousness exploded and altered, and the world around him blurred into nothingness as he transcended to a different plane of awareness.
Kamsa returned to his senses to find Putana standing in the verandah, leaning on the balustrade and staring at the horizon. The faint light of a new day was visible in the eastern sky, which told him that he had been lost to the world for the latter half of the night. He lifted himself on his arms and was surprised at the ease with which he was able to get to his feet. Not merely the ease born of well-exercised muscles and a magnificently chiselled body, but something else. He felt himself fuelled by the power of the Halahala as it continued to work its way within his body, catalysing enzymes and engendering new growth. This was not like his earlier power. He felt more powerful, yet in a completely different way.
He decided to try and expand himself and strained for several moments, without success. Damn it! He tried again. And again.
Putana heard his grunting and straining and turned. She came to the doorway and stood leaning against the jamb, watching him. A faint expression flickered around her mouth. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything.
‘The compound Jarasandha has had you consume these past months will have altered your metabolism drastically,’ she said. ‘I doubt you will ever be able to regain your powers. Apart from everything else, he is a formidable vaid and knows his herbs and mixtures well. He once gave a pregnant woman—’
Kamsa raised a hand.‘Spare me.’
She shrugged. ‘Also, the Halahala is a poison. You did know that before you chose to consume it, didn’t you? And the quantity you consumed ...’ She shook her head deprecatingly. ‘I have killed entire tribes with less than half as much, simply by mixing it in the well from which they drew their drinking supply. They were wiped out within the day.’
He grunted in response, dropped to the floor and began doing push-ups. He was frustrated by his inability to expand and had energy to burn. Two hands proved too easy, so he switched to one, then to a fist, then to the tips of four fingers, three, two, and finally, he was pushing himself on the tip of a single finger, using the pressure caused by the awkward angle to work his abdominal and back muscles as well. He pushed past a hundred-count and kept going, and felt he could continue doing it all day and still not be tired.
She watched him speculatively.‘On the other hand ...’
He looked up at her from the floor. ‘What?’ Speaking seemed no harder than it would have had he been seated and talking. He continued pushing.‘Three hundred ...’
‘The very fact that you are still alive and clearly not harmed by its effect ...’
‘Yes? Three hundred and forty- four ... forty-five ... forty-six ...’ He was moving faster now, switching to a different finger with every ten-count, barely an effort.
‘Suggests that there is something else going on inside you that even I cannot wholly understand. What exactly was it that you desired when you called me here last night?’
‘To consume the Halahala, regain my powers,’ he said. Four hundred and two, three, four ... Faster, now, must go faster ...
She gestured at him. ‘Looking at you, I’d say you’ve gained something.’
He grunted in frustration and pushed himself off the floor, hard. He rose up but instead of being pushed to a standing posture as he had desired, he found himself rising up, up, until his upper back and head struck the ceiling, ten yards overhead, and broke the plaster coating, sending a shower of white powder and chunks raining down. Returning to the ground, he landed on his feet as easily as if he had jumped just an inch. But the marble slab underfoot cracked with a deafening groan and the vibrations seemed to ripple through the entire chamber.
Putana looked around, then at the ceiling which now bore the shape of Kamsa’s skull, then down at the cracked marble floor. ‘Interesting. There has clearly been some effect.’ She walked towards the entrance of the chamber.‘I shall be taking your leave now, Prince Kamsa. It has been an enlightening and interesting experience, which is more than I expected. And in case you fail to comprehend the subtext, that is a compliment I rarely pay men.’
And even though the distance between them was over fifteen yards, he was at her side and grasping her shoulder before one could blink an eye. She raised her eyebrows, reacting to his speed but not commenting on it.
‘What does it mean, these changes occurring to me? Where will they end? Will I be restored to my former powers or ...? Give me some answers before you go.’
She shrugged his hand off with surprising ease. He was startled by the power in her limbs, which was even greater than his newfound (and growing) strength.‘I don’t know how you learnt the truth about me but I suspect you are not intelligent or worldly-wise enough to have gained such knowledge on your own. No man is. Therefore, it must have been imparted to you by someone of a far superior stature. A deva or a devi perhaps, for reasons best known to them. Or a saptarishi, for it is their job to know such things and they do have reasons to resent us.’
She looked at him closely, watching for his reaction. He was careful not to reveal any trace of an expression. Finally, she shrugged.
‘It doesn’t matter who it was, or what the purpose. I think it has to do with you rather than me. I was merely a tool serving your purpose in this matter. I’ve served that purpose. Now I shall take your leave.’
She began to move away.
He began to reach for her again but she said sharply,‘Touch me again and I’ll break your hand. You may think you’re strong but don’t forget where that new strength came from!’
‘I only wish to know more about my condition,’ he said in as non-threatening a tone as he could manage. The old Kamsa would not have been able to carry off that pretence; the new Kamsa achieved it, by a hair.‘What other changes can I expect?’
She looked back at him.‘Ask the person who advised you to call on me. If you do not know, that person surely does. That’s why he or she advised you to do this, isn’t it?’
And she left.
six
After Putana had left, Kamsa prowled the corridors of his private quarters, growing steadily more agitated. Like a heavy meal eaten late at night, he could still feel the Halahala being processed inside his body, working its way through a series of transformations. He had no idea what the eventual result would be, and that simultaneously excited and frightened him. His frustration, fear and impatience found expression in sudden bursts of energy. Striding up and down the empty corridors, deserted at the early hour since his personal staff was accustomed to his waking around mid-morning or even after noon, he suddenly found himself leaping several yards at a time, then flying through the air fast enough to land feet-first on the opposing wall, propelling himself back and bouncing off one wall to the other, until he lost his balance and crashed into a pillar, shattering it almost in half and landing in the debris,
grinning stupidly at his own newfound st
rength and vigour. He was suddenly overcome by a great thirst and felt as if a great fire raged within his veins and he must quench it at once. He sought out the pot of water in his bedchamber and lifted it with one hand, emptying it down his mouth, spilling much of it on himself. When it was drained, he tossed it aside to smash against the far wall, then went in search of more water. He ended up at the drinking trough by the stables, freshly mucked out and filled with clean water. Well, almost clean. Or water as clean as one could expect horses to drink. He emptied most of the contents of the trough, then paused. He looked down at himself. His belly wasn’t distended, nor did he feel the normal full feeling that accompanied the consumption of so much fluid. He patted his abdomen; it felt as flat as ever, he could feel the ridged muscles moving beneath his palm. Where had all that water gone?
He sat on the edge of the trough and thought about what to do next. Narada’s advice had been more effective than he had expected. Certainly, Putana had provided the much-needed catalyst he had been desperately seeking. Suddenly, he was eager to see if the rest of the sage’s advice would prove as fruitful.
He needed a place to try out his new abilities. To learn for himself what they entailed. Could he actually fly? Or merely leap higher and higher, only to land with successively more destructive force? He had to find out! And his strength. How would he measure it, test it to its limit?
He thought of going to the palace akhada, a huge semi- enclosed space where the palace guard and most of the senior military officers exercised between shifts. But he did not wish word of his new powers to spread. He had to keep this a secret from Jarasandha. At any cost. And since Jarasandha had eyes and ears everywhere in Mathura ...
He took a horse from the stables. The old syce, Yadu, looked at him with his usual unnerving expression when he asked for a mount, but somehow had the wits to bring him the biggest and strongest in the stable, a massive battle charger accustomed to carrying men with full battle armour, shield and weaponry. It was a choice Kamsa would be glad for by the time he returned, though he did not know it then. He took the horse, mounted it in a single leap, and rode off at an instant canter, breaking into a full-fledged gallop in a few dozen paces. The horse seemed glad for the exercise and did not complain or turn its head when he rode it off the training field and up the hill bordering the palace complex, and onward through the woods.
He took himself a good three yojanas out of Mathura, far from prying eyes or ears, and found a box canyon deep in the woods where he had once been as a boy. It had only one point of ingress and due to the high walls and peculiar acoustics, any rider or pedestrian entering the canyon would be heard easily long before he came into sight. The forest above the canyon was dense and the overhang too sloping and slippery from the recent rains for anyone to watch from above. Here, he could do as he pleased with nobody to witness or report back to Jarasandha. Not without him spying the spasa himself, in which case, he would make sure that the only thing he would find worth reporting was an alarming descent into annihilation.
Kamsa began with some brisk running, warming up to leaping off the walls of the canyon. He bounced from one rocky wall to the other, a distance of a hundred feet or more, dislodging rocks at first, then punching holes as his speed and intensity increased. He experienced a great exhilaration as he flew from wall to wall, bouncing like a wooden stick in the danda game. As his feet hit the canyon walls, he found the impact to be greater with each step, as if he was growing heavier. When he finally stopped, the high sloping walls, rising a hundred and fifty feet above ground, were pockmarked with holes left by his pounding feet, some a yard or two deep. Rocks and rock dust lay everywhere; it looked like the aftermath of a landslide.
He tried punching the wall next, and found that he could punch his way through solid granite rock without harming himself. Again, as his efforts and concentration intensified, he felt the same sensation of growing heavier. But each time he checked himself, he found he was still the same size as before.
It took him the better part of the morning to understand: his ability to expand had not returned. But the corresponding increase in weight as he expanded had come back.
Earlier, if he grew from his normal six feet height to, say, sixty feet, his weight would grow proportionately as well. Now, it seemed, his weight increased if he concentrated hard, and with that, he gained the ability to pack much more power in each punch, kick or blow. But he stayed the same height and size.
He examined his fist after punching a large boulder to smithereens. Apart from the red dust of the boulder, it had no other marks, not even a scratch.
Apparently, he could increase his weight by concentrating, but not his size. He guessed this was a side effect of the compound Jarasandha had had him fed daily for the past several months.
As the day wore on, he felt the Halahala continue working, changing him from within in ways he could not fathom, but he could see no other visible signs of his transformation. He looked the same, remained the same size, and was much the same apart from the considerably increased muscular strength and density.
But it was enough to start. Yes, more than enough.
In the days that followed, he continued to explore the extent and nature of his newfound abilities. He was somewhat disappointed to learn that he could not actually fly, that in fact, one his body grew denser, it grew harder to leap too high or too far. Initially, he had been using more strength without increasing his body’s density. Now he realized that his increased density turned his flesh and bone and skin harder, heavier, denser to the point where bone became iron hard and heavy, flesh grew as solid as stone, blood and muscle and tissue and tendon grew as tough as ironwood, and even his skin became impenetrable as oak. He practised turning from normal flesh, blood and bone to this new state until he could achieve full transformation in moments.
Once transformed, he could not only punch a granite boulder to smithereens, he could drill through it with precision if he desired, or pound an entire hill into dust. The proportional increase in weight that came with this gain in density was remarkable. It was difficult to estimate exactly how heavy he turned after these transformations. There were no weighing scales designed to weigh such heavy loads, after all! But after several successively higher leaps, he tried jumping off the top of the canyon’s highest ridge and found himself boring several yards into the ground, through solid packed earth and rock!
He had never been very good at numbers, but as he clambered out of the hole, he thought that he must surely weigh as much as several elephants – perhaps even several dozen. He had once seen a dozen-odd war elephants driven off the edge of a cliff and when they landed below, they did not make a crater this deep or large, merely a wide depression in the ground. He suspected that his greater density and smaller size made the impact greater. His ability to focus his power increased and over time he was able to punch neat fist-sized holes in even the hardest boulders, all the way to the end of his shoulder. Then when he slowly pulled his arm out of the hole, the boulder remained intact. One particular rock was left looking like a large fruit into which numerous worms had bored holes.
After each practice session, he was left with the same desperate thirst. Even two or three water-bags, enough to slake a company’s thirst for days, was merely a few gulps to him in his new avatar. He went in search of a more plentiful source and on the second day, found it – an old well, its mouth half- covered by overgrown brambles and bushes, probably fallen into disuse when some trade route changed in the past. The bucket was cracked and leaked out half its load before he could winch it up. Frustrated after three or four such half-bucket-loads, he leapt into the well, his thirst making him too desperate to think beyond the immediate need. The water was wonderfully cool and refreshing, if somewhat heavy with minerals. The last suited him perfectly, because mere river water seemed unable to quench his new epic thirst. He drank to his heart’s content, then found himself easily able to climb up the moss-lined brick walls by the simple expediency of punchi
ng his fingers into the brick and creating handholds and footholds for himself.
This became his routine each day after his training session in the canyon. Each time, no matter how much he drank, his body seemed to miraculously absorb every drop of the water, leaving him as lean and empty-bellied as when he had leapt into the well. He thought it had something to do with the new way his body’s muscles and cells had grown denser and heavier. Although not growing larger in size, he was nevertheless growing denser, perhaps even as dense as the giant he used to become earlier, and the water he consumed was absorbed into the denser body mass somehow.
He did not understand the philosophy or science behind such things and did not really care. All that mattered was that he was strong again. Strong enough to fight the Mohini Fauj, or even Jarasandha’s champions. And soon, some day, he would be strong enough to face the Slayer without fear and destroy his nemesis. But first, of course, he had to find that elusive foe.
Despite his newfound confidence in his abilities and his burning desire to avenge his humiliation, Kamsa was careful to keep his practice secret. What success had been unable to teach him, failure had schooled him in quite diligently. He knew better than to show his hand too soon or at the wrong time and place. Even if he no longer feared confrontations with the Mohini Fauj or the minions of the Magadhan, he still knew better than to think he was strong enough to take on Jarasandha himself. The martial skills of his father-in-law were more greatly feared because they were largely unknown. The effects of his great massacres had been witnessed several times, but nobody had actually seen him in full battle mode during one of those legendary slaughters. The reason was that Jarasandha rarely if ever permitted any survivors to remain to tell the tale.
KRISHNA CORIOLIS#2: Dance of Govinda Page 16
