Tantrics Of Old

by Bhattacharya, Krishnarjun

  Adri did not argue and stamped out Gray’s squeaks of protest. What followed was not something to be remembered fondly—Fayne led in complete darkness, Gray carrying Maya in the middle, and Adri bringing up the rear, guiding Gray the best he could based on the Wraith’s whispered directions. Nothing was smooth though—Gray and Adri bumped into pillars and walls, tripped and stumbled and tried to mask their cries of pain the best they could, for every word they spoke would echo in the darkness for minutes altogether. They moved through flats and garages, down horizontal lift shafts, through destroyed art galleries and dry swimming pools, all fused together underground in an unnerving swirl. Gray could not carry Maya for the entire way, and Adri took over whenever Gray could not take it anymore. They heard nothing, except for the scurrying of rats in the darkness around them. Surprisingly enough, they did not run into any more witches even though Fayne was leading them into the very Heart of the Hive.

  All I have to do is give you spirit vision and you will be able to see everything.

  The Wraith did keep talking throughout their journey. It told Adri how he should have come clean about its presence, and how its capabilities were being wasted. It also kept telling Adri about its past; the complete silence in the Hive did not let Adri shut him up and the Wraith took full advantage of that.

  Maya had turned away, and now when Adri came out wearing just his jeans, she saw the recent cuts and all the dried blood crisscrossing his frame—all of which would become scars. He lit a cigarette as she looked on, and although she realised she was getting used to Adri smoking all the time, it troubled her to think that he had started so early. This wasn’t really a good habit, although people around him seemed to have gotten accustomed to it. Victor evidently had, and Maya did not like that. She did not know what to think about Victor anymore; her opinions had changed drastically over the last few days as she read the diaries, realising that he wasn’t that perfect a hero when it came to taking care of a family, raising a son. She had seen, however, in Victor’s eyes, that he had tried—she had seen the tired resignation that can only come after a lot of trials, after regret and attempts without fruit towards making good on one’s mistakes. She had caught a glimpse of the father in Victor when he told Adri to go and rest, moments ago. Victor was also conflicted, and terribly so. His face though, would remain a mask to her—stealing diaries was not one of her hobbies, and thus everything she would gather about Victor would be from Adri’s memories, distant and scattered as they were. It was dysfunctional, this father and son relationship. It was lost, disintegrated, fraught with friction. Both of them suffered in their own way. In silence. Maya realised that the only thing that had united them, or would ever unite them was the portrait of Adri’s mother in the hall. When they had stood looking at it, Adri and Victor were father and son. They had not needed words. There had been an understanding, one Adri broke when he attacked his father for information. Victor resisted firmly, like a stone.

  Adri was clearly a loner. There were no signs of a lover, or even a friend, in his room. Yes, there was angst. His clothes. His scars. Maya, however, could not sense an outlet, a release. Anger and confusion, and no listener. No one to share Adri’s pain. Even with all his power and his immense capabilities as a Tantric, Adri was alone.

  Maya could not blame him. If Adri kept secrets from his diaries, it was a different thing, but going by what she had read, and was presently seeing, Maya wished she could have been there for him. As a friend. As a listener. As someone who could’ve helped him. Adri was very strong, something she had realised a long time back. None of his entries had ever spoken of him crying or breaking down; nor had she ever come across dried tears on the pages. And now that he was alone, and the door behind him was locked, he still did not break. His face was impassive, cut out of stone, bearing a constant expressionless expression as he made his way to his bag and withdrew a leather satchel.

  Maya inched closer. This was a memory, she reminded herself. There is no way he will be able to sense you. Or harm you. Maya knew she was scared of Adri. She was only just beginning to realise what Adri was actually capable of, and how little of his true self he guardedly displayed. However, she did not want to forget him. She did not want to leave him to his confusions and flee. No, Adri still intrigued her, and if nothing else, a mixture of sympathy and curiosity would keep her at the young Tantric’s side.

  Adri had withdrawn a small piece of parchment and was scribbling on it furiously with a black fountain pen. Maya leaned forward to read what he was writing but he was already done; he rolled up the parchment into a small tube and Maya caught the word Keeper, before Adri withdrew something more interesting from his bag. She recognised the object instantly—a small metal dragonfly powered by a sliver of a magical artefact. Adri put the parchment into a hollow on its tail and let it fly. Its tiny metal wings whirred into sudden motion in mid-air and cutting a deep arc, it swished out of an open window. Adri had just sent a message. But to whom? And about what? Maya did not know. It was not something he had mentioned in his diaries, nor had the word Keeper ever been mentioned in what she had read so far. But how could she see it if this was just a part of his diary memory? As Maya dealt with her revelation, Adri took out a small black book—something Maya was all too familiar with—and started to write.

  Maya watched, fascinated. Adri was writing his diary, describing everything she had just been through—he was making her present happen in the past. But her new doubts about what had just happened assailed her, and she sat on Adri’s bed wearily and watched him write.

  ‘Light,’ Fayne spoke under his breath.

  Adri had seen it too, in the distance. Flickering light, reflecting off puddles of water and pieces of broken glass. Silent light; they could still be heard, their whispers still shouts.

  ‘Where are we?’ Adri whispered.

  ‘We are where you wanted to be,’ Fayne said. ‘At the Heart of the Hive.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Adri breathed. ‘Not one witch so far.’

  ‘I chose a route that made this possible. Do not doubt my abilities, Necromancer.’

  ‘How many times have you been here?’

  Fayne paused. ‘I was born here,’ he replied at length. ‘These passages have not seen me for ages, but I have not forgotten them.’

  No one said anything as they looked at the assassin standing silently facing them. The eyepieces of his mask reflecting the faraway light. His long hair still against his shoulders.

  ‘Son of a witch,’ Gray spoke softly.

  ‘So your sight in complete darkness, it’s a gift,’ Adri said.

  ‘I am not proud of my parentage,’ Fayne said. ‘It is something to be discussed later, if at all.’

  He turned around and started moving towards the light. ‘Up ahead,’ he continued, ‘there will be witches, and lots of them.’

  ‘Don’t they, err, cut you some slack?’ Gray asked.

  ‘After the hundreds I have killed? Khabashud. I think not.’

  As they got closer, the silence began to leave. Voices crept into their ears now. Old voices. Withered voices. Chanting.

  ‘I led us around the back. They will not be guarding this entrance,’ Fayne said as they found the source of the light: a circular door at the end of a dirt tunnel. An entrance. The Heart of the Hive. They were overlooking a cavern, a giant underground hollow, brightly illuminated by torches. Witches, of course, did not need light to see, and hence the fire was being used for—

  ‘Cooking? Are they cooking?’ Gray asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ Adri replied.

  There was a gigantic stone cauldron in the middle of the cavern, a cauldron about fifteen feet tall and around the same size across. A stew bubbled within. The door they were crouching at was at a height, and they had a vantage point of almost the entire cavern before them; it also meant, unfortunately, that they could see what was cooking in the cauldron—apart from the occasional human limb and head that floated and submerged, crows and bats, snakes
still alive, wiggling, strange and peculiar vegetables and other unrecognisables. Unmentionables. The brew was a thick and murky yellow. Red. Green. A circle of smaller cauldrons surrounded the big one, all with something cooking in them. After these visions, the smell that had been there seemed to hit them with new force—partly nauseating, a thick stench of blood along with various different smells.

  ‘They are in human form . . .’ Adri said absently to himself, his mind working furiously.

  There were about thirty Dynes in the cavern. Old women who looked very, very old and hopelessly out of place; their clothing was strictly in various shades of grey and black, and their skin, old, wrinkled, and scabby, seemed unclean and weathered even from a distance. They cackled and laughed and talked loudly, their dirty hair moving about as they went around stirring the brews, adding more and more ingredients. The big cauldron had a ladder that led to a wooden platform above it. No one seemed to bother with stirring—it was simply too big.

  There were other exits to the cavern, Adri noticed. Since this was the Heart of the Hive, it was connected to every other area of the Hive. Which practically meant that if alerted, Dynes could come out of everywhere. He counted four ground routes, seven in the walls, one in the ceiling.

  ‘So, what now?’ Gray asked. He was apprehensive. Watching old women, clad in dark hues and laughing in unearthly voices gave him the chills. It wasn’t tough to believe these women could transform into the merciless creatures that witches were.

  The assassin looked around keenly. ‘Place hasn’t changed,’ he grunted.

  ‘If you are a Tantric, why the hell are you always travelling without spirits?’ Gray asked Adri.

  Adri made a face. ‘Let’s see—perhaps because the time involved in summoning could be better used for saving your sister, yes?’

  ‘You are the one who took your so-called responsibility!’ Gray spat.

  The eternal debate, the Wraith hissed. I’ve heard this so many times it’s not even funny anymore.

  ‘We need to figure out a way to procure the Aujour,’ Fayne said. ‘Where can we find it?’

  ‘I’ve already spotted the damn thing,’ Adri said. He pointed into the distance, amidst the smaller cauldrons and the witches, to a small wooden trunk stuffed to the brim with every kind of ingredient one could imagine. ‘Behind the lobster claws, poking out. The red herb.’

  Fayne looked at it and nodded.

  ‘I heard assassins make great thieves,’ Gray said.

  ‘You heard wrong,’ Fayne replied. ‘Tantric, what’s the plan?’

  ‘Is there one?’ Gray asked. Adri looked at Gray in a way that Gray didn’t like.

  ‘Have you ever done any sneaking, Gray?’ Adri asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. First time for everything, then. You’re going to leave Maya here and sneak all the way to the Aujour and bring it back. While you do that’ —Adri groped in his bag, while Gray’s eyes widened in horror—‘I will create a smell distraction.’

  ‘It’s a barren cavern! How am I supposed to sneak past the witches?’ Gray protested.

  ‘They’re Bahzeeradynes,’ Fayne replied, looking down at the cavern. ‘Only the elders are allowed in the Heart of the Hive.’

  ‘Elder witches are blind,’ Adri added.

  Gray looked. It was true. The Dynes did not have eyes, just hollow, sunken sockets. They seemed to know the area extremely well though, and not once did they stumble while going around. They knew every ingredient by touch, and did not need to examine anything closely while they cooked. It was tough to believe that they could not see. Gray did not find much solace in this newfound revelation.

  Adri held a glass orb in each hand. ‘I will give you about ten minutes of smell which will keep them busy. Get to the chest, grab the red herb, and get out of there.’

  ‘Why me?’ Gray asked.

  ‘Both Fayne and me are marked,’ Adri said. ‘We don’t want the entire Coven rushing in here, do we?’

  ‘But what if I get marked?’

  ‘Elder witches don’t do the marking. They do the cooking; you’ll probably end up as an ingredient.’

  Gray Kebab, the Wraith suggested.

  Adri didn’t say it. Gray looked nervous enough.

  You had planned this, hadn’t you? You were planning to use her brother here. For this, the Wraith whispered as Gray took his bag off, glancing nervously at the cavern below him. Adri did not reply, busying himself instead with taking out a length of rope from his bag.

  Quite the manipulator you are.

  ‘The last thing I want is you to be my conscience. All right?’ Adri snapped softly. Gray strung the Sadhu’s Shotgun over his shoulder and looked at Fayne and Adri.

  An innocent lamb, headed for the—

  ‘Let’s do this, then,’ Gray said, looking at Maya’s still frame.

  Fayne took the rope. ‘I’ll lower you down to the floor,’ he said. After tying the rope securely around Gray’s stomach, Fayne started to lower him down. Gray had barely descended an inch into the cavern when the assassin stopped. ‘Myrkho. Gray,’ Fayne said.

  ‘Yes?’ a curious Gray asked, looking up.

  ‘No matter what, do not eat the cookies.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The cookies. Do not eat them.’

  ‘Umm, all right.’

  Fayne continued to lower Gray down.

  Adri threw the orbs. He aimed them away from where Gray was, as far as he could possibly manage. They shattered as they hit the floor, releasing an immediate, pungent odour. Gray hit the ground and watched the witches as they reacted. It was fast. Their heads whipped around, one after the other, towards where the orbs had landed. They did not, however, move.

  Everything was silent. ‘Why aren’t they moving?’ Adri whispered.

  ‘Quiet,’ Fayne said.

  Gray was beginning to sweat. There was absolutely no sound, and he was right near the witches, flat on the hard, cold ground, half-hidden in the shadows. Not that the shadows would help.

  ‘Who’s there?’ a Dyne asked, in a high voice that trembled.

  ‘Who disturbs the brewing of poor blind women?’ asked another.

  No one spoke. ‘Something is wrong,’ a witch whispered.

  ‘The smell keeps changing too rapidly,’ another complained.

  ‘Sisters?’ a witch cried. ‘Maybe it is someone with honour. Someone who can free our souls from the curse.’

  ‘You’re right. Are you an adventurer, a brave adventurer?’ another witch started. ‘You can help us. You can help us helpless old hags.’

  Silence again. Gray’s heart raced.

  ‘No one falls for that one, Uskula,’ a witch said with a sudden savage snicker.

  ‘Not true. That time that young boy offered to help, remember? He was hiding. And then he emerged and asked us how to break the curse,’ Uskula said.

  ‘He tasted funny,’ a witch murmured.

  ‘Yes, but he still counts, doesn’t he?’ Uskula screeched. ‘And you, Veela, your fat mouth just gave it away in case someone is hidding here!’

  ‘Bah,’ Veela dismissed. ‘Let’s just go and see what the smell is.’

  All the witches moved together and started walking towards the smashed orbs. The distance wasn’t too great, and Gray, even from his position, knew he would have to move fast, which he did, scuttling towards the trunk as fast as he could. He could see the damn thing clearly now, just a short distance away. He went from cauldron to cauldron, using them as cover, keeping a wary eye on the witches. Then the witches went beyond his sight, disappearing along the big cauldron in the centre, and Gray hurried to the trunk as fast as he could.

  Fayne watched the witches moving past the big cauldron; they had almost reached the shattered glass. ‘How long does the smell last?’ he asked.

  ‘Long enough. Gray has more than enough time to grab the Aujour and sneak back to the rope,’ Adri replied, his eyes roving from the witches to Gray. Gray, however, was not moving. He was st
anding in front of the trunk. Standing perfectly still.

  ‘What is he doing?’ Adri hissed.

  ‘It’s the cookies,’ Fayne replied.

  ‘What? What cookies?’

  Fayne looked at Adri. ‘You haven’t been in the Heart before, have you?’

  They looked at Gray, looking down at the trunk motionlessly.

  ‘I didn’t spend my childhood playing hide-and-seek among these cauldrons, no,’ Adri said.

  Fayne ignored the crack. ‘Cookies are the Coven’s mantraps. They’ve been using them for a long time now, the elders.’

  A loud murmur went up among the witches just then, drawing their attention.

  ‘Trouble,’ Adri said quietly.

  ‘Broken glass, my sisters,’ a witch exclaimed. ‘Broken glass and a changing smell.’

  ‘Toys of a Tantric,’ Uskula grunted.

  ‘So is there a Tantric here?’

  ‘A filthy dead-talker?’

  ‘The glass could not have arrived by itself.’

  ‘Perhaps a sister brought it here, perhaps it’s a little joke?’

  ‘A joke by Tantrics, then! No one of the Coven would dare do this to the elders!’

  ‘But Ailiya was rather mad the last time she did not get her share. Would she resort to such devilry?’

  ‘Ailiya is not like this, sister! No, I sense trickery here. Tantrics!’

  ‘This just might be something else, my sisters. This might be a simple ploy.’

  ‘A distraction, perhaps?’

  All the thirty witches turned their heads together. ‘I would say a Tantric hides in these shadows,’ one rasped. ‘Separate the smells, sisters. We will find him.’

  Gray was on his knees now. He was reaching towards the trunk.

  ‘Too late. They’re going to turn,’ Adri cursed, going for his revolvers.

  Ooh. Fun.

  Fayne, saying nothing, stood up from his crouched stance.

  It wasn’t Gray’s fault. Adri had never known about the cookies. A casual last-minute warning from Fayne had not been enough. They were right there, the cookies, in a small basket amidst the ingredients. Right in front of him. The cookies. Various colours, from a rare light shade of brown to the darkest dark chocolate. Looking right at him. Begging to be eaten. They smelt warm and heavenly, and Gray could see each individual crumb. He stared at them for a long time, taking in the sight, the beauty, the overpowering, thick smell. He picked one up and ate it.