Aru Shah and the Song of Death

by Roshani Chokshi

  The girl smacked her hands down. The moment they touched, Aru felt a shock, as if a live wire had snaked between them.

  Wind stirred the dirt. Then it rose up in a cyclone around the other girl, lifting her off the ground.

  Honestly, if it had been Aru, she would’ve started screaming. But this girl just smiled and raised her arms. Aru really wanted her to say, All shall love me and despair! But she didn’t. Maybe she hadn’t seen the Lord of the Rings movies.

  A pale blue light burst around the Pandava. A flag—the symbol of Vayu, the god of the wind—rotated above her head. It was, Aru had to admit, epic. And the girl didn’t even seem surprised that she’d been claimed! She didn’t blink once when she was lowered back to the ground and a glowing blue weapon that looked like a caveman’s club thudded next to her. She just picked it up, swung it over her shoulder, and started marching toward Aru.

  Whoa, thought Aru. How come she automatically gets a celestial weapon? Aru and Mini had been forced to trudge all the way through the Kingdom of Death before their weapons turned into more than a Ping-Pong ball and a compact mirror.

  That was…that was completely unfair.

  Only then did Aru notice they had an audience. On the outskirts of the Night Bazaar, shoppers and store owners pressed closer, eager to get in on the drama.

  Mini raced in front of Aru and held up her hands. “Listen, sometimes people make mistakes, which you clearly did back there…. But we saved your life! You can’t be mad at us!”

  “I am mad,” said the girl, not breaking her stride. “You stole the bow and arrow. Where are they?” Her stomach growled loudly. She paused, adding, “And I’m hungry.”

  “Maybe you’ve got hypoglycemia—very common, and probably makes you irritable,” said Mini, talking fast. “Want a Snickers?” She pulled a full-size bar from her backpack and held it out in front of the Pandava.

  Aru was really glad Lord Vayu had placed his soul daughter a good distance away from the two of them. Even so, when the girl swung her club like a baseball bat, wind exploded around Mini and Aru. They both dug in their heels, but the gust lifted Mini into the air. The Snickers bar fell on the ground as she was carried off, shouting, “But I offered you candyyyy!”

  Aru waited until she saw Mini safely, though rather unceremoniously, plop onto the ground a few feet away.

  “You could’ve hurt her!” said Aru angrily.

  “So? What are you going to do about it?” demanded the daughter of Vayu.

  Vajra turned into a lightning sword. Electricity crackled down the blade.

  “Oh, so that’s how you wanna play it, thief?”

  “You’re the thief!”

  Hanuman and Urvashi raced toward them, shouting, “Okay, girls, there’s no reason to fight!”

  Someone off to the side shouted, “Catfight! Catfight!”

  Someone else goaded, “Grab her by the horns!”

  Another chimed, “She doesn’t have horns!”

  “STOP IT, BRYNNE!” shouted Hanuman. “Father will not be pleased.”

  “ARU, PUT THAT SWORD DOWN!” hollered Boo.

  And then a blast of wind shot Aru straight up into the sky. Her arms started pinwheeling. She glanced down—that was a huge mistake. Everyone looked like really catty ants.

  As she fell, the last thing she saw before blacking out was a pair of giant hands reaching to snatch her out of the sky.

  Aru Shah: Demigod and Hamster Impersonator

  Aru woke up floating among the clouds in a gigantic glass bubble. A hole opened up beneath her, and Aru’s stomach lurched. Hundreds of feet below, she saw the colorful (though torn-up) tents of the Night Bazaar and the last wisps of smoke from the epic fire. She scuttled backward in her bubble before looking up. Nothing but clear sky. Hanuman had dropped her in there as if she were a misbehaving hamster.

  Fine, thought Aru, I’ll be a hamster.

  She started running, trying to get the sphere to move. In the distance, a thunderstorm let loose a low growl. Aru couldn’t help but think it was the tiniest bit of scolding from her divine dad.

  “She started it!” protested Aru.

  The thunder growled again. It sounded like it was saying Oh, really?

  A dusky cloud unraveled in the wind, allowing Aru to catch sight of two other giant bubbles floating just a couple feet away from her. One of them carried Mini, who was sitting cross-legged and reading a book. When she saw Aru looking at her, she gave a small, sad wave. In the bubble next to her was Brynne.

  “Let me out!” shouted Brynne, but it sounded muffled. She beat her fist against the glass, and spiderweb cracks bloomed on the surface.

  Well, if she can do that, I definitely can, too, thought Aru. She slammed a fist against the bubble. Pain shot through her arm. “OW, OW, OW, OW!” she shrieked, clutching her hand.

  In the other bubble, Mini raised her eyebrows.

  Aru tapped into their telepathic Pandava link. Usually, she only felt a connection to Mini’s brain. This time, though, she sensed the presence of a second pathway. If Mini’s link felt like velvet, this other path was thorned. It had to belong to the other girl, and there was no way Aru would tap into that link.

  Did you see that?

  Did I see you almost break your hand? Yep.

  HOW DID SHE DO THAT?

  I think she’s the reincarnation of Bhima the Strong? She could probably bite through a steel beam. But she shouldn’t try. Might be dangerous without a tetanus shot….

  Aru’s mind went elsewhere. Bhima the Strong was the second-oldest Pandava and the son of Lord Vayu. That meant she was Hanuman’s half sister. Which explained why Hanuman had said Father will not be pleased.

  Aru recalled that Brynne hadn’t been the least bit surprised when her soul dad swept her up into the air. She’d looked so…graceful. Like a real Pandava. And Aru hadn’t forgotten how she’d fought. Like a fully trained hero.

  A pang of jealousy shot through Aru, followed by a strange memory. Just before she’d gone unconscious, she’d felt a cold, smooth hand against her forehead and the unsettling sensation of someone rifling through her memories like files in a desk drawer.

  Who’d done that?

  She plopped down in the middle of the hamster ball. It couldn’t have been Mini. Though they shared a Pandava mind link, she could block her friend’s entry if she wanted to. This person had rudely barged in and made themselves right at home, and Aru had been powerless against them. Maybe it was Brynne, Aru thought with a flash of fury.

  Aru gazed over at Mini now and saw her urgently pointing and mouthing Look down!

  About fifty feet below them, the Council of Guardians was gathered in its elaborate Court of the Sky, a flat plane of marbled clouds where a semicircle of golden thrones and a round table floated in eerie splendor. Aru hamster-jogged until her glass bubble drifted nearer to them—close enough so she could get the gist of what they were saying.

  As usual, not all the Guardians were in attendance. There was the beautiful Urvashi. She took an angry swig from her water bottle, and Aru saw through the semitransparent plastic that it didn’t contain water, but sunshine. Beside Urvashi, Boo was perched at the top of his throne, squawking loudly. Hanuman was there, too, dressed in an all-white tuxedo. A fourth seat was occupied by King Jambavan, the giant bear, whose crown, Aru could now see, looked like small constellations knitted around his forehead.

  All of them were arguing with whoever was seated in the fifth throne. Aru couldn’t see who it was, because a cloud was in the way. She pushed one end of the glass bubble, trying to steer it as best as she could, until the person came into view: the ancient naga woman.

  Most Otherworld beings appeared eternally young or at least aged super slow. The nagini’s bronze skin was shriveled. Her mouth had a hard set to it, as if she’d forgotten how to smile. The lower half of her was obscured by the table, but Aru knew that somewhere mid-torso, the woman’s human body melded with that of a serpent. On her head, the naga woman wore a tiara of mo
onstones and aquamarines. It made sense that she had so many jewels. Nagas were treasure guardians, after all. But it was strange that she didn’t have the customary jewel in the middle of her forehead.

  “—a seriousss offense!” the nagini was saying. “They stole the bow and arrow from the naga treasury! None can do that save for someone with extraordinary power. Someone like a Pandava. No one else can get past Takshaka. Trust me. He does not need his sight to sense everything around him.”

  The naga woman gestured to a male naga who was standing at her side. He looked immortally youthful, but he had an ancient and powerful aura. Serious burn marks roped across his brown chest and face. His eyes were milky white with blindness. A dark blue jewel gleamed at the center of his forehead. Supposedly, each naga’s jewel was tied to their heart or something. That made it all the weirder, thought Aru, that the nagini had no jewel on her forehead. All Aru saw there was a hollow dent, marked with a white scar.

  “The girl was holding the bow and arrow of Kamadeva,” the naga woman continued. “She must be held accountable.”

  Kamadeva. Aru knew the word deva meant god. So that meant the bow and arrow was a celestial weapon. No wonder Vajra and Dee Dee hadn’t worked. Celestial weapons couldn’t battle one another. Aru fought the urge to point at Brynne and go: You are in serious trouble. HA!

  “Aru had nothing to do with it!” exclaimed Boo.

  Wait, what? ME?

  Aru glanced up at Brynne’s bubble. The girl was taking a savage bite out of a candy bar. She grinned evilly at Aru, but it vanished with the Council’s next words:

  “Aru is to blame, and so is Brynne,” said the naga woman. “Both of them were seen in the Otherworld with the bow and arrow.”

  “How much could one really see?” demanded Boo. “There was a fog of magic concealing the whole of the Night Bazaar. I bet a rakshasi was behind this. After all, the thief was a shape-shifter. Surely you noticed that, Queen Uloopi?”

  Uloopi? Aru knew that name from the stories. In the Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem about the war between the Pandavas and their cousins, Uloopi was not only a famous naga queen, but also one of the wives of the Pandava Arjuna. Supposedly, she brought him back to life after he was killed on the battlefield. But Aru didn’t know what happened to her after that.

  You were his favorite queen! Trust me, I know. I’ve got his soul! Aru wanted to say. Please don’t kill me?

  Clearly Uloopi’s devotion to Arjuna didn’t transfer to his reincarnations.

  “Oh, I know what I saw,” said Uloopi darkly. “And I do not put my trust in anyone, particularly you, Subala. Your nickname was once the Great Deceiver, was it not? Perhaps now that the Sleeper is awake and building his army, we need to question your allegiance to the devas….”

  Boo squawked and ruffled his feathers indignantly. Aru and Mini stood up in their respective bubbles at the same time, wearing twin expressions of fury. Uloopi’s accusation wasn’t fair. Boo had changed since the days he was the devious Shakhuni, king of Subala. He’d proven it by being a loyal friend to Aru and Mini.

  Hanuman leaned forward in his throne. His tail whipped behind him. “That comment was uncalled for, Queen Uloopi. Besides, when the Otherworld alarm first went off, I was training the young Pandavas. They couldn’t have stolen the bow and arrow.”

  “The alarm went off when we discovered the breach in security,” said the naga man beside the queen. “Not at the moment of theft. For all you know, their training session with you was designed to provide an alibi for their whereaboutsss.”

  Hanuman glowered and started to speak again, but Uloopi cut him off.

  “Takshaka raises a worthy point,” she said. “Things are shifting. None of us has been able to locate the Sleeper, though he is undoubtedly to blame for the recent spike in demonic activity. Perhaps the one who stole the bow and arrow of Kamadeva is his accomplice. For all we know, these Pandavas might not even be our true allies! As has been foretold, nothing will be as it seems when the inevitable war breaks out.”

  “We have always known that the Pandavas awaken only when danger is present,” said Hanuman in his deep, booming voice. “But they are on our side.”

  “Are they?” mused Takshaka. His blind gaze turned to Aru, and guilt surged through her. For a moment, she thought he was going to say it was her fault the Sleeper was stirring up trouble. The problem was…it would be true. She was the one who had let him out of the lamp in the museum. She’d stumbled in their last confrontation and accidentally allowed him to escape. Now the demon was at large, who knew where, still hell-bent on his mission to bring down the gods.

  She’d failed everyone.

  Even so, how could the Council think she and Mini were their enemies? Their Saturday goals were simple: imitate potatoes on a couch. Instead, they ended up fighting dentist zombies, and this was the thanks they got? Rude.

  Urvashi raised her hand and twirled her wrist. Aru lurched forward as her glass bubble was pulled downward.

  “You have spoken long enough, Uloopi,” Urvashi said. “You heard the testimony from all sides. You witnessed the girls’ memories—”

  “I tried to,” cut in Uloopi. “But because they are Pandavas, their minds are harder to access. There are gaps! Enough to make it difficult for me to believe they are innocent.”

  A cold prickle traveled down Aru’s spine. So it was Uloopi she had felt rummaging through her brain. Her face flamed. Did that mean Uloopi had seen Aru singing “Thriller” and doing the shoulder-dance move in the bathroom mirror?

  “I have heard quite enough from everyone,” said Uloopi.

  Urvashi looked outraged, but even she deferred to the great naga queen.

  “Including the other witness…” added Uloopi.

  At this, the naga beside her—Takshaka—shifted. A scowl appeared on his face, but it disappeared so fast Aru wondered if she had imagined it. As her hamster bubble kept descending, Aru looked around the court (half checking to make sure there wasn’t some magical screenshot of her singing in the mirror), but she didn’t see any other witness present.

  Her glass bubble gently bounced on a carpet of mist before dissolving around her. Slippers magically appeared on her feet to protect her from falling through the patchy white clouds. Way up here, where the Court of the Sky hovered, the air was thin and cold, and it burned in Aru’s lungs. The two other glass bubbles landed on either side of her and dissolved, too, leaving Mini on her right and Brynne on her left.

  Brynne was no longer smug. Instead, she was looking at Aru as if she’d sprouted a second head that had just introduced itself as Kathy with a K.

  “You’re the other Pandavas?”

  Aru made jazz hands. “Ta-daaaaa!”

  Brynne frowned at her, then at Mini. “But I saw you steal….”

  “And I saw you running through my neighborhood with a bow and arrow that I’m pretty sure weren’t yours.”

  “Are you calling me a thief?” said Brynne.

  “Well, I know for a fact I didn’t steal it.”

  Brynne gave her a head-to-toe look and smirked. “Actually, I believe that. The thief I was fighting actually seemed like a Pandava. You, on the other hand, barely look trained.”

  Oh no she did not.

  “We are trained!” said Mini.

  “We are seriously deadly,” added Aru.

  “Yeah!” said Mini, taking a step toward Brynne.

  At that moment, Mini stumbled. She would’ve fallen face-first into a cloud without her enchanted slippers, but instead she just vibrated in place like a plucked guitar string.

  Brynne rolled her eyes and deadpanned, “I’m screaming.”

  “You know what?”

  “Girls!” hissed Boo.

  All three of them snapped to attention. The round table had disappeared, and the Council of Guardians’ thrones were now fanning out around them. On the one hand, Aru was glad she wasn’t wearing pajamas this time. On the other hand, she really wished her backpack weren’t b
right purple with HAKUNA MATATA! spelled out on it in huge letters.

  “You have all been judged,” said Uloopi.

  “But wait a minute—” said Aru.

  Takshaka’s tail whipped out, stirring mist off the clouds as he hissed, “Keep quiet when your elders are ssspeaking!”

  Even Boo shot her a disapproving look. Aru had a horrible feeling of acid spreading through her veins. Red-faced, she hunched her shoulders and looked at the naga queen. Up close, she was even more intimidating. Uloopi sat high on her throne, her emerald serpent tail coiled beneath her like a cushioned seat.

  “The theft and misuse of Kamadeva’s bow and arrow will have serious consequences in the mortal world,” said the queen.

  Duh, thought Aru angrily. People would start screaming Zombie apocalypse! and lose their minds, and the Internet would probably crash, and then it would really be an apocalypse.

  “The thief is kidnapping human men at an alarming rate, turning them into those slack-jawed creatures you saw in the Otherworld.”

  That was not what Aru expected to hear. That meant all those zombies weren’t zombies at all…but kidnapped victims. Her stomach churned.

  “If the bow and arrow are not recovered soon, the effects on those men will be permanent. They will be Heartless for all eternity.”

  Heartless? Aru gulped, remembering the weird scars on the zombies’ chests. Had someone actually…?

  Uloopi interrupted her thoughts with a declaration. “The Pandavas must prove their innocence.” She leaned forward, her crown glittering so brightly that Aru couldn’t look at it straight on. “You are hereby charged with retrieving the bow and arrow in ten mortal days’ time. If you fail, there will be a cost. Your memories of the Otherworld will be wiped. You will not remember you were ever Pandavas, and your Pandava souls will go dormant. Furthermore, you will be banished from the Otherworld. Forever.”

  We Literally Just Went on a Quest

  Aru couldn’t breathe.

  Memories wiped…