Tantrics Of Old

by Bhattacharya, Krishnarjun

  ‘I’m off, then,’ Adri said. His stomach felt a bit queasy. He had no spirits, and summoning them would take a while, a luxury they did not have. But then again, maybe he should summon spirits before he entered. He did not know of a single Tantric who had braved a protected tomb without a spirit’s shield; except, of course, his father. Yes, his father had done it. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be able to. Adri walked up to the door. The handle was the first trap and the easiest one to avoid. He pressed a flat hand on the door. A vampire hunter, eh? Maybe nord. He moved his fingers on the surface of the door, drawing a certain invisible pattern. Nothing happened when he finished. Glesh, then. Adri’s fingers moved again, and nothing happened again. Wait, he thought. Why was he thinking defensive? The most powerful offensive sign against vampires was what he needed to try here. The cross. Quickly he drew it, imbibing it in a circle, and as soon as he finished, a low rumble started. Adri stepped back as the door began to shake, bits of dust and dirt dislodging themselves. Finally the hinges found life, and the door swung open. And then all was still.

  Fayne’s eyes darted in every direction, trying to catch sounds of movement, any evidence of anything which might have heard the rumbling. But nothing else was heard, the stillness was back. Adri did not look back, but at the darkness before him. He dropped his backpack, and withdrew his hip flask with the flammable liquid. Fayne understood his purpose and quietly climbed out of the pit. By the time Adri had decided which shirt to sacrifice, Fayne was back with a large dead branch. Adri wrapped the shirt around the dead branch, soaked it with the liquid, and set his makeshift torch on flame. Then, not picking up his bag, he entered the darkness of the crypt.

  This whole torch business was so much easier with a spirit around, Adri thought. He walked softly and slowly, being extremely careful before he would plant a step. He was walking through a tunnel which led down, into the earth; the sides of the tunnel were cut straight out of rock, roughly, and without detail or workmanship. Adri’s torch burnt fiercely as he burned down old, gigantic cobwebs, but he knew the torch wouldn’t last too long, he had to hurry up. Yet one false step could be his last, and he checked for trapdoors and switches the best he could as he walked gingerly down the tunnel.

  Physical traps weren’t the deadliest of things in crypts; magic was. Protectors and protective charms, blood curses and enchantments, these were what he was looking out for. Most crypts, however, weren’t designed keeping Tantrics in mind. It would be the occasional grave robber that the traps were actually meant for. Adri was counting on his ability to sense magic to keep him out of harm’s way as far as magical things were concerned. But one never knew, a lot of buried folk had a fancy for giant spikes, lethal sharp blades and big boulders rolling downhill; Adri would certainly have to be on his toes.

  He was slowly getting nervous. For some time he’d been hearing a low grating noise somewhere in the darkness behind him. He suspected the presence of a golem, but as he made his way further and further down into the tunnel, he faced nothing. The queasy feeling in his stomach, however, only increased. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, the absence of any noise, the dead quiet coupled with the apparent absence of any resistance was getting to him. He looked behind him many times, but nothing appeared to be following him. What also plagued him was the thought of how he was going to get the dead body all the way back up. But that was something to worry about later. He was here for the owner of the crypt, and he would not leave without him.

  His mental state did not improve as he continued walking downward for the next twenty minutes. The corridor was endless; it stretched, took turns, had slight drops and climbs, all as it headed steadily downwards. The air got thinner, and Adri was beginning to have breathing trouble. He began to wonder if there was even a crypt here. Perhaps that door was simply a decoy of sorts. But he could not go back up, not without the body, not until he could walk no more and Fayne and Gray had to come down to check on him. Adri began to tire as he descended, and slowly his mind began to offer explanations.

  An endless tunnel. Couldn’t be. Nothing was really endless, unless this was some Demon’s illusion on him. He would’ve been able to sense the magic faintly if that was the case though. He closed his eyes and stopped for a moment, concentrating. There was nothing. No magic. He continued walking. The branch had begun to tremble in his hand, ever so slightly, but he could feel it. It worried him. He realised then that he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten in a long time now, completely ignoring all the warning signs from his stomach because they couldn’t have afforded to stop and eat. Now that nothing was really happening, his attention began to come back to his own self, to his tired physical and mental state. Yet he walked on. It was too late to stop—he could not possibly climb all the way back.

  And then, the burial chamber.

  His mind was still in a limbo, as it had been for most of the last part of his walk. He had to force his mind to focus back on the things in front of him, to make it face what his body was facing now. His mind, however, refused to budge, and stayed on in that space he had created for it, comfortable. A small part of his mind talked to him.

  This was the trap of the crypt; it wasn’t physical danger, it wasn’t even magical. It was something else, something which was playing with his mind—that’s what the whole walk down the length of the tunnel had been about—it had simply set his mind up for this trap. But his younger days in Old Kolkata were so much more pleasant to think about. The time he spent alone. The relationships were not worth remembering at this point They had made him face many problems many things he was rather happier without But the time he had spent alone. there were pleasant moments, very pleasant moments. The afternoon sunSomething else was happening here; hismindwasrefusingtomovewhenheaskeditto. It was as if his mind was getting a mind of its own, thinking what it wanted to, even protecting itself through pleasant thoughts onlyLike the hammocks and the books a few days again lonely but yes well spent And it was right here. in his mind that was all he needed. Ah the sunTHE BIRDS the sight of the fishermen catching fish early in the morning while Father made coffee in the kitchen. The fish the fish the fishwould go wild WILD in their attempts to escape?but the fishermen were strict and clever—the net would be pulled from one end of the pond to the other. The fish had no chance, no chance, a chosen few who were too small could pass through the net, other energetic onestried to jumpthenet as it came for them. Adri would love watching a successful jump, a successful escape. Escape, he needed to. What did he need to escape from? MYTH castle? No, he had done that already. fishermen. fish. er. men. There was something that he wasn’t realising. he didn’t need to realise. His mind was happy, was content; he could just sit here thinking thinking—but something was wrong. NO. Something was wrong somewhere. If only he could put a finger on it. If only he could know; there was a word he needed to get back to. get back to. Get back. Escape, yes that was it. Escape. He needed to escape. He needed to escape from this; from his mind. He needed to push away, he needed to break free. He needed to JUMP over the net asitcameforhim—

  ‘Yaargh!’ Adri screamed and fell on all fours, panting. Gingerly, he reached into his mind with a simple thought—and it responded as it should. Panting, he slowly sat upright and looked down at himself. His right hand was still firm around the torch, but his left—he had needed to burn himself in order to help his mind snap out of whatever it was caught in. He looked at his left palm and saw angry red burns. Nothing to be done now; he looked around and for the first time saw where he was.

  The burial chamber was circular. It was a simple construction, without any fancy carvings or statues guarding the coffin, as tombs usually had. This one, like the tunnel, was roughly cut, purely out of the rock, with a high, domelike ceiling and rough pillars in a circle supporting the roof. In the centre of the chamber, on a raised pedestal, was the coffin. Adri’s eyes went to the sides of the room, to the skeletons there—roughly seven to eight of them, who, by the looks of it, had simply starved to deat
h, wrestlingwiththeirminds. They lay decomposed and dried, cobwebs amidst their bones and insects running in and out of their eyes, weapons lying useless near them, supply bags ignored in dusty piles. They didn’t bother Adri as much as the one other skeleton—this one was impaled against a pillar with a spear in its heart.

  Hunger didn’t do that. Adri’s hand instinctively went for the shooter by his side. Almost immediately the lid of the coffin began to shift. A horrible grating noise filled the chamber as the lid shifted to one side, and then fell to the stone floor with a deafening thud. As the echoes gradually faded away, Adri stood where he was, shooter pointed at the open coffin. The coffin was only a few meters away from him, yet Adri could not see within it. He could, however, immediately smell the fetid odour that began to fill the room—something rotting, something vile. It reminded him of something; almost like a revenant’s smell, only they smelled much worse, he knew. No, this wasn’t that.

  Perfect silence brewed. Adri did not dare to breathe or talk as he stood, revolver raised, clutching it with a hand, the other holding the torch pointed towards the coffin. He stared at the dark, open coffin, not blinking, not moving. Nothing happened, but Adri could sense a slow change in the chamber—the light was dying, softly. Shadows were increasing and the fire was flickering more and more. He risked a glance at the torch and saw that the cloth had almost burnt itself out. Though he was carrying the flammable liquid with him, there was no time to make a new torch. Something had moved the lid.

  He took a step towards the coffin, slowly. Then another. Then one more. The torch flickered more and more. It began wavering wildly now, crying out in pain and protest, living out its final few moments of flame. Adri’s brain was threatening to shut down; he had no clue what was in there inside the coffin, but it lay still and unmoving as he approached. Another step. One more to the coffin. The smell, stronger than ever. The torchlight dimmed rapidly. He had no more time. In rising panic he took a last hurried step towards the stone pedestal and gun raised, looked down into the open coffin.

  The torch gave out then.

  Complete darkness. Adri looked down at complete darkness. Then two eyes opened beneath him, two eyes—bright blue and burning with inner fury. The creature laughed, a symphony of three different voices laughing together. Something hit Adri. A bright blue flash. He flew from the mouth of the coffin to a wall across the room, landing painfully on his back. The creature rose from the coffin and climbed down. It was the body of a human being, male, now pulsing with a paranormal energy; blue fire burned in his eyes and open mouth, and invisible waves seemed to dance around him. As the creature stood, dressed in a spoilt tuxedo, Adri could see that unlike his clothes, his skin was unblemished, fresh as the day he was buried.

  Adri rose to his feet, realising several things. One, his shirt had been charred instantly and he was now bare-chested, his tattoos glowing a bright electric. Two, he had just been hit by a spirit bolt, and the mystical protection woven into the tattoos had saved him. Three, the creature was a Wraith and his ballistic weapons were, thus, useless. Four, the Wraith, surveying him with a smile lingering on its face, had obviously expected the spirit bolt to wipe him out. Adri looked at the Wraith and raised his hands. ‘Not fighting. And I haven’t come here to steal anything.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the Wraith replied in its collection of voices. ‘Grave-robbers come in all shapes and sizes.’

  ‘Oh come on, Mazumder,’ Adri snapped. ‘You used to hunt vampires once, and now you’re so desperate in your undead bloodlust that you kill anyone who walks in?’

  The Wraith was taken aback. It stared at Adri. Its aura could not harm Tantrics who, after their tattoo ceremonies, were immune to spirit energy. Only physical damage could harm them. But then again, no one had talked directly to it for a while now. Come to think of it, this was the second Tantric who had ever visited. ‘What do you even know of me, Necromancer?’ it asked. ‘Look at you, big talk and no weapons. I sense no other spirits, who I would have scattered like dust, by the way, but still, you walk in without armour, like the fool that you are. You pose me no harm.’

  ‘I mean you no harm,’ Adri said. ‘I know Wraiths cannot be exorcised without the place of release; and this isn’t your place of release, is it? This is your place of entombment.’

  ‘An exorcist too, I see. My, my, you know quite the lot for your age.’

  ‘I know enough, yes.’

  ‘So why do you walk into my crypt?’

  Adri was silent. ‘The Ancients,’ he said finally.

  Blue fires erupted from the Wraith’s eyes and mouth. It flared as it roared, ‘WHAT about the Ancients?’

  ‘They are holding my friend hostage,’ Adri said grimly. ‘And they want your past body in exchange of her life.’

  ‘And you think I will part with my body, Necromancer? Or did you perhaps leave your brains behind as mortgage to pay for those fancy tattoos?’ The Wraith’s reply was mocking, yet it held a serious note of finality.

  ‘You are done with your body, Mazumder,’ Adri replied, unaffected. ‘There is a young girl who will die unless you let her live.’

  ‘Like I give a damn.’ The Wraith shook its head and started walking back to its coffin. ‘You disturbed my rest for this?! I can’t believe it. Go back, Necromancer, today, I let you live.’

  ‘Life is not yours anymore!’ Adri spoke loudly.

  ‘Your stabs won’t get me. You want to see a magic trick?’ the Wraith asked, turning to Adri again.

  Adri paused, his mind working furiously.

  The blue fire was gone. The human body stood on its own and darkness took over. ‘I care,’ a lone voice spoke. Then the Wraith was back in the body. ‘Now I don’t care!’ it shouted gleefully, waving its arms. ‘Voila!!’

  Adri stared. ‘You fond of that body so much?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve preserved it with my magic. What could that possibly be for?’ the Wraith cried. ‘Now, honestly? Stop fooling around. I’m not helping you. Get lost.’

  ‘I don’t get it, Mazumder,’ Adri said softly.

  The Wraith listened with interest, which it tried hard to conceal. Adri did not speak. ‘Don’t get what?’ the Wraith blurted out finally.

  ‘I thought you were a vampire hunter, I thought that’s what’s keeping you here on earth as a Wraith, that burning hatred. Wraiths are empty shells devoid of their former selves, sure, but I thought some of that vampire-hate would still remain, some of that desire for a chance to payback the vermin who did this to you, and all the vampires you couldn’t kill. But what I find instead is a Wraith who’s concerned with repairing its human body with magic, with killing inexperienced grave robbers. Strange how this all works out, eh?’

  ‘Clever, Tantric. Quite clever, you playing on my hate for the Ancients. But tell you what—honestly, I don’t feel the need to stay here anymore. This crypt bores me, and the eternal sleep is even more drab. I’m refusing you on two counts.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘One, the Ancients will destroy my body which I’m not agreeable to. I’m sure you’re aware that I cannot exist independent of a body; my very nature is symbiotic. And two, I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with Ancients before, Tantric, but let me tell you that your pretty little thing is already dead, probably turned by now.’

  ‘I shot her with a corruption,’ Adri replied calmly. ‘Whoever bites her bites the dust. That’s one problem solved right there.’

  ‘Clever,’ the Wraith said. ‘Then you must be clever enough to also know what I’m leading towards, and what I will want from you if you do take my dead body back to those vampires.’

  Adri knew. One was perhaps the death of the Ancients, the Wraith would not stand for anything less. The second, though, was the tougher one, the tricky one. According to his father, and a million other books, it should never be done. Being symbiotic in nature, the Wraith always needed a host. ‘You want possession of my body,’ Adri said.

  ‘Possession and control,’ th
e Wraith grinned.

  ‘You’re not getting control, you piece of filth,’ Adri swore.

  ‘Was worth a shot. Fine, only possession, then.’

  ‘Only till your place of release,’ Adri said. ‘Where is it?’

  The Wraith looked at Adri with calculative eyes, burning blue. ‘Howrah. There is a small place there where I killed my first vampire. It is there that I want my release.’

  Adri raised a hand. ‘I will bind you to these words, spirit’ —‘Please don’t insult me,’ the Wraith spoke—‘so that when we visit this place that you mentioned, you shall leave the carrier that is my body and take your place in the higher Plane.’

  ‘I doubt it’s up there that I’m going,’ the Wraith laughed.

  ‘Fine. The next Plane or across the River, wherever. Are you okay with the binding of the words?’ Adri asked irritably.

  ‘Yes, whatever it takes for you to get over your tiddly little human insecurities.’

  Adri performed the hand gestures and murmured a spell. The Wraith was bound to its word within ten minutes, throughout which it kept distracting him with a string of comments and remarks. Adri knew the risks of what he was doing, yet he did it anyway. There were too many things already spiralling out of control, and here he was making a deal with a Wraith and offering partial possession. Bodies were not cabs—they couldn’t just ferry souls here and there. There were always repercussions and problems; the body functions changed and health issues always cropped up because of the presence of another soul. It also required a tremendous amount of willpower to keep the spirit in check; a strong spirit could very easily take over a weak body—a phenomenon popularly known as possession, dealt with by Tantrics who also carried a degree in exorcism. What was very simple Tantric law was to never wilfully allow a possession; Adri knew the law, and Mazumder knew Adri knew the law. What’s more was that the Wraith didn’t strike Adri as being the particularly righteous kind or the kind that stuck to its word honourably. With all due respect, Adri thought the creature was slimy and seemed treacherous. And powerful. Which didn’t add up to a very good combination.