“Even the gods fear the Devi. That’s what Ghosha says.”
“That old witch. She makes my skin crawl. It’s the middle of the night! And it’s cold. At daylight it would be easier to find the shrine.”
Dhara gripped her friend’s arm. “So you’ll come!” At last, Sakhi was showing some courage.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did so say it.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it.”
“We should go now.” She pretended not to hear Sakhi’s protestation. “Otherwise the shepherds will see us when they take the goats out. Dhavalagiri will light our way to the forest. It will be light soon. She wants me to come! I can feel it.”
“Who?”
“The yogi Mala.”
“Dhara! Don’t go to the cave.”
“I’ve never forgotten the day she came through the village.” Dhara sprang out of bed. “I’ve felt connected to her, somehow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sakhi watched as Dhara began to wrap her legs warrior-style with a long woolen antariya, then bind her small breasts and torso with another. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to the shrine.”
“Alone?” Sakhi’s eyes were round.
“Not if you come with me.”
Sakhi shook her head. “Oh, no. Not me.”
“Please.” They stared at each other in the darkness.
“All… all right.” Sakhi gave a reluctant nod.
Dhara tossed her a padded jacket and hugged her fiercely. “You won’t be sorry.”
The haunted shrine
It was still very dark when they turned off the trail. Sakhi had prayed that they would not find the path, but Dhara picked her way with confidence through the undergrowth.
It wasn’t long before they came to a little grove of fine-needled hemlocks. Dhara stooped under the dark boughs of an old fir. The tall tree creaked and swayed in the last gust of night wind. All became silent. Sakhi hung back, then reluctantly followed as Dhara plunged on.
They came to a small clearing where a crude stone image with fat breasts sat squat and round-bellied, its thick legs bent and splayed apart. The stone image was so ancient she must have seen all the evils in the world. Sakhi’s neck prickled.
Set before the shrine were a bunch of dried herbs, a leather sack, some eagle feathers good for fletching arrows, a length of hemp rope. Sakhi wasn’t sure what she expected to see offered, but certainly not such ordinary things.
A little flask was nestled between the thighs of the stone image. Dhara knelt and reached for it.
“Don’t!” Sakhi cried. Dead leaves rustled. She jumped. With frightened chirrups a pheasant burst out of its hiding place and disappeared into the fir’s high boughs.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dhara snapped. She was frightened, too.
Sakhi craned her neck, looking for the bird. Above the treetops the dawn goddess had flung her silver robe over the sky, but shadows still clung to the grove. It couldn’t get light soon enough. “You—you shouldn’t take the offering. Someone left it for the Devi. Maybe one of the hunters—”
“What if I’m thirsty?” Dhara straightened her shoulders. “The Devi would share it. Your father shares the meat when the whole clan sacrifices a boar to Indra.”
“He’s doing what he was taught by his father, who heard it from his father and all his father’s fathers back years and years to when the gods learned the sacrifice from the First One. This is different.”
“This shrine is even older than all the rites of your father’s precious lineage.”
“What did you say?” Sakhi’s voice quavered.
“Sorry.” Dhara’s careless apology stung Sakhi worse than the insult to her ancestry. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what’s forbidden by the gods. This is the Devi’s shrine.”
“You shouldn’t take it.” It seemed blasphemous to take gifts meant for the Devi without asking her blessing, the way her father asked Indra’s blessing to share the boar.
Dhara touched her forehead to the ground and began a prayer. “Om, Devi, jai, jai Ma. Victory to the Great Mother.”
Dhara reached for the flask and held it up toward Dhavalagiri’s proud peak, then put it to her lips.
Sakhi had a sudden premonition. “Don’t drink it.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“What if it’s soma?”
“Who would leave soma here?”
“I—I don’t know, but only a Brahmin can drink it,” she whispered, “and only during the sacrifice. You know that!”
“Your father isn’t the only one who drinks it.”
Sakhi suddenly knew. The shaman’s wife had brought it. “Have you tried it?”
A mocking smile twisted Dhara’s lips, very different from the half-teasing, half-daring grin that signaled she was up to mischief. “No. But now seems like the right time.”
Sakhi’s heart stopped. This was far more serious than Dhara’s usual pranks, like stealing honey cakes or daring a suitor to dive naked into the river, or even taking off on her father’s stallion, for which she’d been ordered to sit at her weaving for seven days. This would have far worse consequences than a tangled loom.
Sakhi must stop her, but her arms seemed pinned to her sides and her feet rooted to the ground.
Dhara sipped at the flask. Her nose wrinkled in disgust, but she took a brave gulp, gagged, and swallowed.
“You see, it’s nothing,” she laughed, coughing and wiping her forearm across her mouth.
“Oh, Dhara.” Sakhi wrung her cold hands. In moments the soma trance would begin. When her father fell under the sacred drink’s spell, the gods sent terrifying visions as often as blissful ones. Sometimes it took him days to recover.
Nothing moved; not a bird welcomed the dawn, not a squirrel scampered from branch to branch, not the slightest breeze whispered through the trees. Sakhi shook with cold and fear. Dhara knelt before the Mother’s image, sightless, waiting for the visions that would soon come. When the soma took Bhrigu he howled like a hyena or spoke in strange tongues, but his guru had trained him from his youth for the inward journey. There was no doubt he would return bearing messages from the gods. Dhara had no training and no guide. Her soul might never come back to her body.
In the darkness just beyond the clearing a dead branch cracked. There was another snap, then a low growl. Sakhi’s heart squeezed painfully. “Dh—Dhara.” Her throat was so dry she could only speak in a hoarse whisper. She stumbled toward Dhara and took her arm. “Get up! We must go.” Dhara did not respond. “Let’s go!” She gave a desperate tug.
A twig broke, very close. A ghostly shape moved through the trees, slow and deliberate.
A magnificent white tigress appeared, terrifying, beautiful, nearly the size of a horse—but that was not the most awesome thing. On its back rode Durga, the Devi in her warrior form, clad in a deerskin, a bow slung over her shoulder.
Durga dismounted. Sakhi stood and staggered backwards, tripped over a tree root, and fell flat on her back, the wind knocked from her.
For a long, painful moment, Sakhi struggled to breathe. At last she gasped. The air burned her lungs. With a groan she rose to her knees, compelled to face the goddess.
Durga was no longer. In her place stood the yogi Mala.
She was more sinewy, and her hair fell in stiff tangles to her waist. There was no looking away from the eyes that stared from the face smeared with white ash. Whatever truth Mala had found in her solitary cave had brought her no peace.
Mala joined her palms at her heart chakra and bowed. “Namaste, Sakhi,” she said in a hoarse voice.
“N-namaste, Mala-ji.” Sakhi pressed her hands together and bowed. The familiar greeting slowed her heart’s pounding a little. “Y-you remembered my name.”
“Of course. You’re Bhrigu’s�
��” Mala stopped. “She drank it?” Mala went to Dhara and took the empty flask from her hand.
Dhara had not moved, but her face now wore a horrified grimace. Sakhi scrambled to her side.
Sakhi began to babble. “Oh, Mala-ji, I told her not to! It’s only for priests like Father. What if her soul has wandered to the hell realms?” She gulped back a fearful sob. “Please, please, bring her back to me.” The yogi must have this power. She must.
In tears, Sakhi embraced Dhara.
“Hush. Crying won’t help. But I can.” At that moment there was a low growl. Sakhi nearly jumped out of her skin. “Rani and I will take Dhara.”
“You’ll bring her to the village?” Sakhi went weak with relief. “You mustn’t bring the tigress! The hunters—”
“Not to the village. Dhara’s karma and mine are entwined.”
“You must!”
“Silence!” Mala commanded. Sakhi shrank. “No one can change karma’s unfolding,” she said, more gently. “It is what Dhara wanted. To learn yoga with me.”
No. Mala was taking away the sister of her heart, her dearest companion. Sakhi’s lower lip trembled.
“Go tell Dandapani she is safe.”
“He will send men after her—”
“He won’t. He knows she will come to no harm with me.”
At that Mala stood. She collected Dhara in her arms and sat her on the tigress’s back the way one would set a child on a pony when it is just learning to ride. Through all this Dhara had not shown any sign she knew they were there.
Gathering up the sack and adjusting her quiver, Mala bowed once more over her joined palms. “Namaste, Sakhi. We will meet again.”
Soma
She had no memory of anything before the moment when the hideous, many-armed demon leaped out of the terrifying darkness. She did not know her name or lineage or that of her opponent; she did not know how she had come to this hell; but she knew she must keep fighting or evil would triumph forever.
He raised a sword and aimed at her neck. She parried his downward blow with a raised arm, but before she could spring back he wound his tail, long and thick as a python, around her middle. He opened his mouth, revealing long, pointed, yellow teeth, and laughed. His stinking breath made her gag.
He held her so tight there was no escape. His whirling arms held lightning bolts, huge silver axes, clubs tipped with the bloody skulls of humans and animals, but he came at her with a knife, simple but deadly at this range. She deflected the stab with a speed that would have dazzled any of Indra’s fearsome Maruts, then gripped the beast’s bony wrist with two hands and twisted it so that it broke, and he dropped his weapon.
She struggled endlessly against the many-armed demon. There was no sky above, no earth below, only palpable, suffocating darkness lit by the demon’s red eyes. Again and again she slashed at her opponent, but his limbs seemed to grow back as fast as she severed them from his torso.
Weariness and despair were closing in on her. She sought deep within until hope surged. Where before there had been too many arms to count, there were now ten—her knife flashed like lightning—nine, eight, seven, six, five—she parried and sliced—four—three, and now only two of his infinite hands remained. The demon dropped his last weapons and tightened his claw-like fingers around her throat. With her other arm, she tried to loosen the creature’s tail from around her waist, where it was squeezing the very life from her.
Her knife was wet with the demon’s thick, foul-smelling blood. It was slipping out of her grip. If she dropped it all was lost. They both panted and strained, locked in their eternal struggle. Her breath came in hoarse gasps. Her lungs burned. His claws squeezed. Her fingers, slimy with his blood and her own sweat, could not hold the weapon much longer. It was now or never. If she could just plunge it through the creature’s green breast into his heart, the battle would be won.
The hilt had slipped, but now she held it at a perfect angle for an upright thrust between the beast’s ribs. With her free hand, she managed to pry his chokehold loose enough to take one ragged breath and gather her strength. Upward she thrust with all the force her slender arm could manage. The green demon went white. The sharp teeth and red eyes melted into the darkness.
The creature disappeared. In its place rose a beautiful face, male or female she could not say. The being wore a serene, radiant expression. It had a third eye on its brow; its knot of matted hair was crowned by a crescent moon. Then all became a mist. The mist became clouds, the clouds spun into swirling lights, the lights became stars in the dome of heaven. Dhara was floating—no, someone was carrying her in gentle, strong arms. “Dhara,” the being said. Yes, now it came to her, she was Dhara, daughter of Dandapani, the chief of the Kolis. She knew who but not where she was or how she came here. Then the strong arms put her on the back of an ash-colored tigress with coal black stripes.
The wind took Dhara and the tigress above the mountains into a dark blue sky. The stars were close enough to touch. Their cool fire would not hurt her. She was like the goddess, indestructible and immortal. The stars glittered all around, enormous, gorgeous jewels fit for a celestial crown.
She would wear the one over there, an enormous ruby that winked and sparkled red-gold and close enough to grasp with one hand. She leaned over the tigress’s neck, tightened her legs around its middle, and reached for the star.
It scorched her palm. The sky fell away. She slipped off the tigress’s back and tumbled through darkness toward Dhavalagiri’s jagged peak. She would die on the rocky slopes, broken and crushed by the fall, but as she fell, tossed and rolled on the wind like prey dropped from an eagle’s talons, gratitude filled her. It was a good death, to defeat a demon and then fall from the heavens. For an instant in this life she had felt she was a goddess. Perhaps in the next she would be.
The ground rose up to meet her.
Dhara sat up with a gasp. Clutched in her hand she held a red-gold ember. She uncurled her fingers and stared at it for a few seconds, unable to toss it aside in spite of the searing pain.
A woman knocked the ember away. “Your hand. Give it to me. Quickly.”
Dhara stared in mute stupefaction at the three horizontal lines of white ash drawn across the woman’s brow. Her oiled, dark skin gleamed in the flickering firelight. She looked up and fixed her gaze on Dhara, large and black and searching.
“Mala!” Dhara gasped. It could be no one else. “Mala-ji! Where am I?”
“In Dhavalagiri’s sacred cave.”
“Where is Sakhi?”
“Safe.” Mala spat on the girl’s burnt hand, then reached into the darkness behind her for a chipped little jar. She dipped a finger inside and spread a glob of foul-smelling fat on Dhara’s stinging palm. Dhara jerked her hand away, whimpering.
“Foolish little girl, to drink soma without a guide.”
“Soma.” Dhara had drunk the soma. That was for priests, not for any other caste, and especially not for a girl. Not even a warrior like her father dared to taste it. She had dared to do the forbidden.
Mala fixed her with a fierce gaze. “The first time, it makes you feel like the Devi herself.” Her brow was furrowed in anger and she shook her head. “What did you think you were doing?”
“I… I was fighting a demon… ”
“Don’t mock me, girl. Tell me what possessed you to drink the soma.”
“I… I was thirsty… ”
“You are not just a fool but a liar. You wanted to taste it. You want to know why it’s forbidden.”
The words stung deep. Dhara lowered her head.
“It is forbidden because it can drive you mad. One taste and a demon can seize the mind and never let go. You were reckless.”
“But I fought the demon! I won.”
“You seem to have awakened from the soma trance with your wits intact.” Mala paused. “You are reckless, but you have s
trength and courage. If you focus it on yoga, you will have more power than any ordinary weapon could bestow.”
Wondrous. More power than an ordinary weapon. Dhara was dizzy and nauseous and couldn’t stop the cave’s spinning. The fire flickered and snapped in a stone basin, and she stared, jaw hanging open, briefly amazed at how such a heavy thing had been moved into the cave. She tilted her head back to follow the smoke as it disappeared upward into the shadows. She nearly vomited.
At that moment, a cool whiff of air from the cave’s mouth touched her cheek. She turned her face to it and took a few gulps. Beyond the entrance, the sun was rising.
Mala studied her. “This is your new home.”
“My new home?” Her heart stopped. She hadn’t really thought they would succeed in finding the yogi in her cave. The walls of living rock contracted in the dying firelight, closing in on her. Every instinct said to run, to bolt down Dhavalagiri’s slope to the village, rush into her father’s hall and feel Dandapani’s arms around her and his lips kissing the top of her head. She would sit at the despised loom with her mother, no matter how tedious it was to pass the shuttle back and forth, and listen to Atimaya’s sermons on proper behavior for Kshatriya maidens.
No. She would not go back. She was meant to be here. She’d known it since the day Mala told the story about the Sakyan prince and the prophecy. The yogi had planted a seed in her that night, a seed she must grow and make flower.
Against her will, her eyes drooped as a relentless tide of sleep washed over her. Holding her wounded hand close to her body, she slumped back down onto the antelope skin and into darkness with Mala’s low laugh in her ears.
The pyre
Before Sakhi had a chance to bow in return, Dhara, Mala, and the tigress were gone. Sakhi stood stunned, uncomprehending. The grove was filled with oppressive silence. Dawn was coming; the birds should have begun to sing, but her ears rang in the soundless stillness.
The Mountain Goddess Page 5
