Tantrics Of Old

by Bhattacharya, Krishnarjun

  ‘For the soul was a unique one—it was the soul of a God. The only God who ever had a mortal soul had siphoned it off on a mere whim and sent it to the Keeper, and had then forgotten about it. But a soul is not a piece of clothing to be simply removed and thrown away. For a mortal it is everything—the very existence, but bodiless—for the God concerned, however, he had no problem surviving without it as they were mighty beings of a time long past; they created the rules and were not bound by anything. The soul in question, however, carried a lot more with it than the God could have ever suspected. It held the very secret of creation within itself, and when it whispered this fact to the Keeper, he arranged for the soul to be taken away from his Library.’

  No one breathed in the pleasant afternoon under the tree’s shade. Everyone hung on to the storyteller’s words, even Aurcoe who knew the story well.

  ‘Inside a large unknown mountain, deeper than where the liquid fires of the earth run, a fortress was carved. The best metal, the best wood, the best magic, and the best architects were used for this purpose, none of them of mortal origin. This fortress was called Ashil Heob, the fabled impenetrable place—and once every single kind of magic was used to cement its foundations, its protectors were chosen. The protectors had to be perfect—they would not need to sleep or eat, they would be alert every moment of the day and the night, of the month and the year. They would be unconquerable, and they would carry weapons and wear armours forged in the armoury of Nedrashish itself, the forge of Dominion.

  ‘Four brothers were chosen for this role. They were not of mortal origin and their father had offered them for service willingly. They had been trained and trained well. The brothers were first outfitted with armours and steel as they saw fit; then, out of the best stables in the Plane they selected four steeds of varying degrees of power and skill. And then, they retreated into the heart of Ashil Heob, to start their blood-bound duty of guarding the soul which had been locked in the deepest vault that the fortress had to offer. The vault was controlled by the four brothers, and could only be unlocked by all four together, as each brother knew a separate phrase that needed to be whispered into each of the four locks for them to open. Each brother hid his own phrase from the other brothers; and since this was considered duty, it did not lead to any disagreements or conflict. They loved one another and lived well for hundreds of years, serving as the most capable guardians of all time.

  ‘But just as the Keeper had feared, the dark presence did sense the soul in time. He was a vicious creature—a fiend, a murderer, a trickster and a thief who had many names. He was Abaddon, the Father of lies and the Angel of the Bottomless Pit; he was Belial, the accuser and the tempter, the Prince of Darkness and the Serpent of Old. He sensed this power, this power he now realised he must have. He knew of the fortress too, and knew it had no weaknesses. He tried forsaking this treasure, but he could not; it ruled his thoughts, the possibilities of what could be his robbed him of sleep and hunger and lust. And he sat in the shadows and hatched a plan that would get him this object he so coveted.

  ‘The four brothers did not leave the fortress except when they went horse riding, for they loved their steeds and they loved the open air. They were true to responsibility, however, and only one would go riding while the other three would stand guard, and this was always the rule they followed.

  ‘Abaddon observed them and soon became wise to their habits; and one day, while a brother was out riding he called out to him in the voice of a small girl. The brother was a warrior by nature and hearing an innocent in danger he rushed thoughtlessly into the forest from which the voice came. In the darkness of the woods, Abaddon overpowered the brother and made him his prisoner. When the brother did not come back, the other brothers waited for a week before another brother rode out to find the first. The deceiver called out to him as someone robbed of everything; being a guardian of peace with a strong sense of justice and right, the second brother rode into the woods as well, and was taken prisoner. The third brother rode out after another week, and this time the voice that lured him was a diseased one. Being a healer and a holy knight, he sped to help the voice he heard and was unwittingly trapped in Abaddon’s trap.

  ‘Abaddon was happy that his plans had almost succeeded. All he had to do now was wait for the fourth brother to show up. But the final brother never rode out. Abaddon waited for days, which then turned into weeks and then years, but the last brother did not leave his guarding post. The dark one was angered, but he still did not dare face the brother head on, and so, he guided cries for help towards the fortress, cries in the voices of the other three brothers.

  ‘The last brother had the gift of granting life; he had been troubled by the disappearance of his brothers, but he stood firm by his duty, ignoring all else for years. His will, however, was curbed when he heard the voices of his dying brothers who he knew he alone held the power to save. The voices seemed close and perhaps a quick rescue was possible. The last brother rode out, the voices guiding him into the woods, where he fell for the sinner’s deception and was trapped like his brothers.

  ‘Abaddon rejoiced and sped into the now unguarded fortress to claim what he so ardently sought, only to find four locks guarding it, locks such as he had never seen before. He tried for a year and a day to break the locks with physical and magical force, but they would not give way. Knowing that only his four prisoners knew the secret of opening them, he whisked them away to the Abyss where he imprisoned them, on four sides of one hall, and tortured them. He tortured them for millennia, it is said, but they would not yield. The brothers had a grim sense of satisfaction from Belial’s torture; they had been fooled once and they considered this pain their redemption. They accepted the pain as a part of their lives; they would be tortured forever but they would not be fooled again. They kept their mouths shut, and their minds were better fortresses than the Ashil Heob, and the sinner could not breach their thoughts.

  ‘Abaddon was bereft of ideas. He did not know what to do; he was so close and yet so far. He could not kill them for their secret would die with them, and no amount of the most extreme torture would work on the brothers. He felt the power of the object every day, tempting him, luring him in, and he realised he could not give up.

  ‘The vile idea of how to break the brothers came to him one day after eons, while he was bathing in blood. He separated them. The brothers were not kept in the Abyss anymore. They were moved to vile tombs of torture—one in the deserts, one in the mountains, one in the islands, and the last in the moors. And then the torture began again. It went on for hundreds of years, and finally the brothers broke, not being able to take strength from each other as they had. Each whispered his secret word to Abaddon, who combined the four and opened the lock. The soul, at last, was his, and the power of creation along with it.

  ‘He did not sit idle. He started creating—he created evil thoughts and emotions, vile mindsets, and spread his dark teachings through these. He shaped his own personal universe far underground, and then created creatures to fill the space and do his biddings. All sorts of sins were embodied into these creatures, who were then let loose in a dark, cruel universe where Belial played his twisted games with everyone. His gaze moved to the mortal Plane soon enough, but before he could break through, the Gods blocked him, placing seven seals between him and the mortal Plane—seven seals that protected mortals from all that was unholy. The dark one, however, figured out a way to break these seals.

  ‘He realised in his amusement and his drunkenness over his newfound powers he had forgotten the four brothers completely. He visited their prisons and found, to his delight, that their failure in their duty had cost them heavily—millions of years of torture coupled with the collapse of their blood-bound duty had transformed them into living corruptions, horrors that were still bound in their unbreakable chains, time eating away into their bodies and minds. Belial washed them in his dark power, cruelly giving them lordship over the very thing they had fought against when they had bee
n fair and noble; turning them into darker shadows of their former selves. Then he bound them in the greatest of curses—one that did not allow the four brothers to find each other. There was always a way to break the curse though, Belial assured them; and for that, all they had to do was to break the first four of the seven seals in his path. He was confident about breaking the last three.

  ‘The four Horsemen follow the curse. It is said that every seal has four souls, four specific souls that will unlock it. They forever hunt for these souls, for the brothers want to ride together once more. And it is said that when the Horsemen do ride, the end of the world shall come along with the sound of their hooves. The Serpent will rise and usher in a new era of blood and darkness.’

  The old man ended quietly and looked into the distance, his eyes soft and brimming with expression.

  ‘The Apocalypse,’ Adri said gently. ‘The end of all things. I have read three names Death has taken. My soul is the last soul it needs.’

  Gray looked stunned. He leaned back against the tree wordlessly. Fayne said nothing, his eyepieces occasionally reflecting sunlight.

  ‘How are these four souls chosen?’ Adri asked the storyteller. ‘Is it random, or is it something else?’

  ‘I do not know,’ the old man said. ‘This is all of the legend of the Horsemen and their origin.’

  ‘The Apocalypse is real, then,’ Adri said. ‘If the Horsemen are real—and if Death wants my soul—then everything is real. Then I might be the only thing standing between Death and the Apocalypse.’ He got up and looked into the distance.

  ‘That might just be the case, assuming the other Horsemen have broken their seals,’ Aurcoe said. Adri started to walk out into the park, his steps slow.

  ‘Your father was removed because he might have known this,’ Gray said slowly. ‘Or perhaps he may have been able to help you to a massive extent.’

  Adri continued walking away from the tree saying nothing.

  ‘The Apocalypse is not the end of all things,’ Fayne said. ‘It is a new order. Things will change. The government will fall and almost all living creatures will either be enslaved, or hunted down and killed. We call it the Age of Suffering—it has always been hypothetical and a part of legend, of course.’

  ‘Like he said,’ Aurcoe spoke, ‘if the Horseman is real, chances are the Apocalypse is too. And it makes sense. There has been a strange vibe in the air, a strange feeling. Something is about to change and now we know what.’

  Adri had walked a bit away from the group.

  ‘I’m glad this came to light,’ he said. He was perfectly audible in the afternoon silence. ‘Now I know what exactly it is I have to do.’

  He turned around and faced them, the destroyed, burned park behind him, collapsed buildings and a broken over-bridge beyond, looming in the distance—everything empty and quiet, devoid of life.

  ‘I’m going to have to kill Death,’ Adri said.

  ‘You made it sound like you were going through something actually dangerous,’ Adri said. ‘You just found an old man and solved this.’

  ‘Don’t even think of going there, Sen,’ Aurcoe smirked. ‘The forbidden texts of Quish’iar resemble no newspaper to be read over a hot cup of coffee. It’s one of the best guarded text pieces in the world, and little old me had to get past all those marvellous death-traps and things that guard that place just to go through that damn document as it had a reference, a mere passing reference to the Horsemen. This was a process, Sen. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Old Kolkata sure as hell wasn’t.’

  ‘Is our deal at an end, then?’ Adri asked. ‘Or do Angels still make deals?’

  ‘You have tortured me long enough, Sen,’ Aurcoe said, beginning to frown. ‘I have upheld my part of the bargain.’

  ‘Not quite. You still don’t know who is behind this,’ Adri said.

  ‘What do you mean, who?’ the Fallen barked. ‘You know the Horseman is after you because your soul is the last one he needs to break his seal.’

  ‘My father has been removed from the board for a purpose, Fallen. And someone is paying for Maya’s protection to counter the same. We are pawns, a part of something bigger here. Someone is watching me, and I want to find out who that is.’

  ‘Wasn’t part of the deal. I don’t know if you’re imagining the whole conspiracy thing here, Sen, this does sound a bit farfetched. But regardless, all this has happened and I’m still willing to look into it after my transformation. For a price, of course.’

  ‘You’re quite the slippery bastard, aren’t you?’ Adri said, smiling grimly. ‘What will this price of yours be?’

  Aurcoe grinned. ‘Depends on what you can offer, Tantric.’

  ‘How about this?’ Adri said. ‘I will not give away your source of return to the Angel Order. They will not know that the blood came from a fellow Angel; you can lie about doing your great deeds of good and noble self-sacrifice that are usually the path to growing back those wings.’

  Aurcoe’s grin faded. ‘You play dirty, Sen,’ he said. ‘And it’s a hard bargain, but you have the knowledge of how the Angel Order works and the fact that you brought the blood does tell me you are capable of what you claim. Fine. I will find the players of this game and bring them to your attention; do not expect me to help you in any fights, of course.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. But I will need to hang on to the pendant until I figure this out.’

  ‘Yes, fine. Now the blood!’ the Fallen snarled.

  He was desperate, and Adri thought he had squeezed all he could out of the situation. He reached into his pocket and brought out the vial; even in his hand he felt it pulse with raw power. Temptation seized him for a wild second, a crazy second. The thought of all that power being given away, it was not fair. Then he snapped out of it and handed the vial to Aurcoe.

  Aurcoe almost leapt as he grabbed it and in doing so dropped his human guise. Gray stared in horror at the entity before him—at the white and blue shredded, burnt skin; at the sunken grey eyes; at the stumps with scars where the wings had once been; at the odd angles the feet were placed in; at the overall damnation the creature was. Aurcoe did not care about anyone watching him. He stared at the vial and at the blood within. His hands shook.

  ‘You have done the impossible, Adri Sen,’ he whispered, looking at the blood with pure desire, with ambition and the desperation of happiness. He did not waste time; he uncorked the lid and drank the blood immediately, not leaving a drop in the vial. Then he threw it away and waited, looking first at the others and then at his own arms and legs. Everyone waited with baited breath for something to happen, but nothing did. The Fallen was nervous, and he began to lose his patience. Breathing faster, he looked over his back again and again to check for feathers, but saw none; he palmed his raw head for hair, but felt nothing.

  He looked questioningly at Adri. ‘This was supposed to—’ he began, and then it happened. His skin started changing. At first it was colour, but then his muscle fibres started transforming; everything was developing, changing. His complexion was becoming creamier from white. His shoulders were starting to expand. While everyone watched, fascinated, his chest widened and bones rearranged themselves—his legs grew more muscular and taller than they had been. Hair sprouted magically from his head and his eyes changed colour as his face changed structure. A nose grew out of nowhere. His clothes were a tighter fit now. Finally, the wings. At first, mere feathers. Then suddenly, the process sped and the entire wing cartilage spread wide in opposite directions with swift promptitude. Two giant, powerful Angel wings, raining wispy feathers everywhere.

  Adri looked at him. Aurcoe now looked like the human guise he used to keep, except that his body was now better built than before. Angels were created ready for war.

  ‘You still have a paunch,’ Adri said.

  ‘I am beautiful,’ Aurcoe said. ‘I am everything I wanted to be and your cheap comments cannot possibly take that away.’ His wings flapped and he rose into the air, effortlessly.

 
‘Find out,’ Adri said with finality.

  ‘Yes. And if you are still alive after your little escapade, I will find you,’ the newborn Angel replied, and then flew up, skirting around the tree branches. They watched him fly away and out of the park and towards the MYTH camp.

  ‘That is the way to travel, huh?’ Gray said, fascinated.

  ‘Well, he’s an Angel now,’ Adri replied.

  ‘You gave him an easy way out,’ the old man said.

  Adri turned to him. ‘He has done as he had promised.’

  ‘He did not rightfully earn the wings he now wears,’ the old man replied. ‘And you know it well.’

  ‘I would keep my word even with filth like that,’ Adri said.

  ‘You did blackmail him though,’ Gray shrugged.

  ‘Aurcoe is dangerous. He’s best kept under weight than let free,’ Adri observed.

  ‘Your wisdom guides you well, I can see that,’ the storyteller said. ‘The path ahead is not easy for you. Your rewards will be much harsher earned than Aurcoe’s.’

  Adri looked seriously at the old man. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Dadu?’

  ‘The legends say that the Horsemen are not mortal,’ the old man said.

  ‘That doesn’t mean they are immortal.’

  ‘But the way you choose is foolish. There is no sense in confronting Death without the knowledge to end him.’

  ‘Do you know how I must confront Death then?’ Adri asked.

  ‘No. But I can do something else, I can guide you to someone who might know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘There is a banished Tantric who is now a sadhu. No doubt you have heard tales of him; he is called Kali. His specialty, when it comes to open combat, is always weakness—he studied weaknesses to the core even when he was with the government.’