Aru Shah and the Song of Death

by Roshani Chokshi

  She knew who she would have to face in the Ocean of Milk.

  She was ready for Surpanakha. But there was someone else, too…Takshaka, the naga king.

  He had lost his wife in the Khandava Forest fire because of Arjuna and also, apparently, Agni. Arjuna hadn’t acted alone, of course. In the stories, the god Krishna always fought beside him. But Aru didn’t understand why Takshaka’s friends and community had had to die in those flames. Why hadn’t the gods spared them if they hadn’t done anything wrong? It was unfair, and even though she was mad at the serpent king, she also understood why Takshaka would want to take everyone down.

  “What’s up, kid?” asked Agni, raising a knowing eyebrow. “You look confused. You’ve only got one opportunity, so you might as well ask me your question.”

  Aru checked her friends. Brynne seemed mildly irritated, but she bowed her head as if to say Go ahead, if you must. Beside her, Aiden and Mini nodded encouragingly.

  Aru turned back to Agni, who showed no traces of his former raging self. Now the heat radiating from him was as comforting as a roaring hearth in winter. His expression was warm and lively, exuding a coziness that draws families and friends together, and his eyes flickered with the kind of light that inspires stories.

  Aru took a deep breath before asking, “Why did Arjuna kill Takshaka’s family?”

  Agni leaned against one of the golden trees that only minutes ago had been a pile of ash.

  “That’s not the real question you’re asking, kid, but I get it. Here’s the truth. A long time ago, I got really sick. When I get sick, everything gets sick.”

  “You don’t say,” Brynne said drily.

  Agni ignored her. “I’m a sacred part of every prayer! You know at weddings, there’s a holy fire that the bride and groom walk around? That’s me! So it’s not good when I’m not well. And when nothing could cure me, I went straight to Brahma himself. He told me that I had to eat the Khandava Forest. Only by doing so would the universe be in balance again.”

  The universe being out of balance definitely didn’t sound good…. “But what about—?” started Aru.

  “Let me tell you another tale. Ever heard of Jaya and Vijaya?”

  “No?”

  “They’re, like, attendants to the god Vishnu, aren’t they?” asked Aiden.

  “How do you know that?” asked Aru.

  “My mom used to tell me their knock-knock jokes. They’re really bad. Trust me.”

  “Ah, yes, your mother,” said Agni, stroking his chin. “It’s hard to forget the famous apsara dancer Malini. Tell her I finally mastered the salsa. She taught me, you know.”

  “You could tell her yourself?” tried Aiden hopefully.

  “Against the rules,” said Agni, shaking his head. “Malini gave up her connection to the Otherworld when she married a mortal man. They made an exception for you, though.” Agni shrugged. “Hope it was worth it for her. Anyway—”

  Aru snuck a glance at Aiden. He was standing there, stricken, and Aru wasn’t sure what to do. Brynne reached out to hold his hand, and Aru looked away, feeling as if she’d been caught spying.

  “Jaya and Vijaya are the doorkeepers to Vishnu,” Agni continued. “One day a group of four sages shows up. Only problem is, they look like kids. Jaya and Vijaya don’t know they’re sages, so they tell them to get going, because Lord Vishnu is sleeping. Well, the kid-sages don’t like that, and they curse them to live human lives—”

  “How come living like us is always the curse?” asked Aru.

  “Yeah! What’s so bad about being human, minus the allergies, politics, death, illness, reality TV shows—” Mini stopped. “Never mind.”

  “Ahem. Anyway,” Agni went on, “Jaya and Vijaya are horrified by their fate, naturally, so Vishnu offers them two choices. Either they take seven births on Earth as good, pious devotees of Vishnu, or they take four births on Earth as Vishnu’s sworn enemies. Which do they go with?”

  “Seven births,” said Mini. “Who’d want to be the enemy of Vishnu?”

  “I agree,” said Aiden.

  “Four births,” said Brynne. “I’d just want to get it over with.”

  Aru pointed at her. “Yup. Same.”

  “Jaya and Vijaya agreed with you,” said Agni, nodding at Brynne. “One of the most famous lives they lived was as Ravana and his demon brother.”

  Aru knew that name. “Ravana? Like, the demon king who stole Rama’s wife?”

  “The very one.”

  Ravana was an enemy and a villain, but, as Aru’s mom had always told her, sometimes villains can do heroic things and heroes can do villainous things, so what did it mean to be one or the other? And now Ravana’s sister, Surpanakha, had stolen the bow and arrow. Aru’s head was beginning to hurt.

  “But I don’t understand how this story answers my first question,” said Aru.

  “Oh, but it does,” said Agni. “You think what happened in the Khandava Forest was unfair, and maybe it was. It goes to show that, as with Jaya and Vijaya, bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. Sometimes life isn’t fair—but that doesn’t mean things happen without a reason. We just don’t always know what the reason is. The world is inscrutable. It doesn’t owe you answers. You should only concern yourself with doing your duty. Understand?”

  Aru would have found it more understandable if she had cut open an apple and found orange pulp inside.

  “Not even a little.”

  “Good!” said Agni. “If you understood, you’d be omniscient, and trust me, that’s a real headache.”

  Aru stood there, her confusion wanting to give way to peace. Maybe, by retrieving Kamadeva’s bow and arrow, she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing. She didn’t have the god Krishna by her side the way Arjuna did, but she had her family and her instincts, and if at the end of the day she could say she was doing her best, that had to count for something…right?

  “I’m ready,” said Aru, even as doubt coiled low in her stomach.

  Agni smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. You’re going to need to be ready for the fight that’s ahead,” said the god of fire. “You know, the last time Arjuna and I hung out, I bestowed him with gifts. For tradition’s sake, I think I should do the same now.”

  Aru, Brynne, and Mini made identical sounds that meant OhmygodpresentsIhopeitsshiny.

  Aiden rolled his eyes.

  Agni cupped his palms together and held them out to Mini. When he opened his hands, there appeared a beautiful burning rose with black petals.

  “To the daughter of the god of death, I give a Night Flame,” he said. “You will never be lost in the dark.”

  Mini paid her respects to Agni by touching his feet. When she took the Night Flame, it turned into a black hair barrette that she immediately used to keep her bangs out of her face.

  “Much better,” said Mini. “Thank you.”

  “To the daughter of the god of the wind, I grant your mace the power of flame,” said Agni, waving his red hand over Brynne’s weapon.

  The blue mace now had a red stripe. Brynne grinned, then swung the mace to try it out. Fire flashed in the air.

  “To the daughter of the god of thunder, I grant you this….”

  Aru could barely keep it together. Please be a flaming sword! Not that she would really know what to do with one…She was a lot better with spears and other thrown weapons whenever Hanuman led their battle training sessions, but still. How cool would that be? Also, toasting marshmallows would be a cinch.

  But Agni didn’t hand her a flaming sword, or a flaming anything. Instead, he gave her a gold coin that read IO(F)U.

  Um, RUDE? thought Aru. Also, not very subtle….

  “Incendiary Offers for Future Use,” clarified Agni.

  “Oh.”

  “I have an arsenal of weapons that you will have need of, daughter of Indra,” said Agni. His voice sounded rather distant, as if he had glimpsed something of the future. “When that time comes, call on me.”
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  Aru pocketed the coin, feeling the slightest dig of disappointment. “Okay, well, thanks,” she said.

  “I’m not quite done,” said Agni, pointing at Aiden.

  Aiden’s eyes widened. “Me? I’m not a Pandava—”

  “Yes, yes, we know,” said Agni. He pointed at Aiden’s camera. “May I?”

  “But Shadow—I mean, my camera—is really old and—”

  “I merely want to enhance it,” said Agni.

  Reluctantly, Aiden held out the camera. From Agni’s fingertips erupted a ribbon of fire that encircled the camera and made it glow. When Agni handed it back, it was free of the scuffmarks and fingerprints that it had accumulated on their trip.

  “I added a fire battery. The power will never run out, and the camera will always have enough memory.”

  Aiden’s face shone. “Wow…thank you!”

  “Be careful out there. The golden dome over the labyrinth is known to deactivate all celestial weapons.” Agni inclined his head. “See well, Pandavas.”

  Aiden automatically said, “I’m not a—”

  But the god of fire had disappeared, leaving only a burning ember on the spot where he’d once stood.

  But Real Talk, Where Are the Cookies?

  Aru worried that passing under the arch would mean falling headfirst into a huge glass of milk and some giant confusing her with an Oreo. But the portal didn’t work that way. The moment the four of them stepped through, they found themselves standing on pale sand. Suspended above them, stretched out like a creamy sky, was a rolling sea. The Ocean of Milk.

  On the one hand, being so close to it was overwhelming. All around them were the scattered remains of the huge cosmic event when the Ocean had been churned for the nectar of immortality. The stories said that hundreds of precious treasures had leaped out of the waves when the gods and asuras churned the sea, and Aru could see the proof. Jutting from the smooth white sand were thick, sparkling branches the size of towering oaks. There was only one tree they could’ve belonged to: Kalpavriksha, the wish-granting tree. Aru touched a branch cautiously, feeling the rough-cut crystals that were embedded in the wood. She felt a muted pulse of magic under her fingertips and drew back her hand.

  “Wow,” breathed Brynne, pointing at the massive structures haphazardly surrounding them. It looked as if someone had chopped up the Great Wall of China and scattered it across the sand. “It’s Vasuki’s skin!”

  Gross, thought Aru.

  Vasuki was the naga king who had allowed his body to be used as a rope when the ocean was churned—after that, he lived as a necklace on the god Shiva. Now that Aru looked closely, she could make out the pattern of iridescent scales, bright as peacock feathers, on the pieces of snake skin.

  Everything was so…massive.

  It made sense—these were the treasures of gods. Seeing Agni change in size had reminded her that whenever gods fit in her field of vision, they were just humoring her.

  Aru had never felt smaller in her life.

  There was no sound except the gentle swish of the ocean above and the constant click of Aiden’s camera.

  Mini said, “I thought it would smell different. Like cereal or something.”

  “Yeah, me too,” said Aiden. He sniffed the air. “Kinda smells like an ice cream truck parked outside of a Hindu temple.”

  Yup, thought Aru, that. The smell of cold and cream and wafting incense.

  “And I didn’t think it would be quite as see-through,” added Aru, glancing up at the milk/ocean/sky. “Looks like skim milk up there.”

  “At least I don’t have to worry about lactose,” Mini said with much relief.

  “I don’t know why there can’t be an Ocean of Cookies if there’s an Ocean of Milk,” reasoned Brynne. “I feel like that should be illegal.”

  “Truth,” said Aiden.

  Of all the kinds of oceans they could be walking under, Aru was glad it was an Ocean of Milk and not something weirder, like an Ocean of Kombucha, which tasted like stewed socks and soy sauce.

  The broken tree branches and huge pieces of treasure cast long shadows that threw them into darkness. Mini’s Night Flame barrette now looked like a lilac halo around her head. Off to the right of them, Aru could just make out a faint golden glow.

  “Look!” said Aru, pointing at the glimmer. “Do you think that’s the dome of the labyrinth?”

  “Must be,” said Brynne. “But we don’t know who’s guarding the outside…. I’m going to scope it out.”

  In a flash of blue light, Brynne changed into a sapphire-colored hunting dog. She snuffled the ground.

  “Follow me!” she said, pointing her paw to the left. “I can smell stronger magic about five kilometers southeast—”

  Mini gasped. “You’re so cute as a dog!”

  Aiden snapped a photo.

  Brynne growled at them all before bounding off into the shadows.

  Mini put her arm across her nose. “I hope I’m not allergic to her. I’m out of tissues, and I don’t want to have a runny nose when we fight!” She raced after Brynne, calling over her shoulder, “We’ll take the front, you guys patrol the rear!”

  “Got it!” said Aru.

  The whole place felt a lot quieter without Brynne and Mini, and Aru’s thoughts wandered back to what Agni had said. See well.

  He wasn’t the first person to say that to her. The first was Varuni, the goddess of wine. Only she’d slurred through a sort of prophecy before she’d given that advice…. Aru pushed herself to remember, until the words floated back to her:

  The girl with eyes like a fish and a heart snapped in two

  will be met in battle by a girl named Aru.

  But take care what you do with a heart so broken,

  for uglier truths will soon be spoken.

  You, daughter of Indra, have a tongue like a whip,

  but be wary of those to whom you serve lip,

  for there is a tale beyond that soon you shall see…

  But all that depends on your surviving the sea.

  Who the heck was the girl with eyes like a fish?

  Heart snapped in two could mean Uloopi, whose heart jewel had been stolen and hidden by Takshaka all these years. Or maybe it was Surpanakha?

  And that last part…surviving the sea. That gave Aru chills.

  “Is an ocean the same thing as a sea?” she asked Aiden.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Wait, was that a really dumb question?” asked Aru.

  “Huh, what?”

  Aru took Vajra out of her pocket and held it up to Aiden’s face. Even though the ball’s glow was weak compared to Mini’s Night Flame, she could see him clearly. And he was clearly upset. His mouth was pulled down, and he was gripping his camera so tight that his knuckles had turned white.

  All thoughts of the ocean disappeared. “You okay?” she asked.

  He glanced away from her quickly, but not before she’d scanned the rest of his face. He still had soot marks on his cheeks and nose from when he’d run into the fires of Agni, but otherwise he didn’t appear…badly off. Then again, he was the son of a famously beautiful apsara. And it showed. Aru felt her face turning red and quickly looked elsewhere.

  “Yeah,” he said finally. “Kinda wish I’d had Agni’s eternal memory stick before now. I could’ve used it at home.”

  “Oh, for like…taking pictures of stuff around the house?”

  “Yeah, and, um, my parents. We used to have a lot of family photos, but Mom put them away. I don’t know where.”

  Aru remembered how stricken Aiden had looked when Agni mentioned his mom. Because she married a mortal man, she’d given up all connection to the Otherworld.

  Hope it was worth it for her.

  Aru understood how awful that felt. Like it was somehow his fault that his own mom wouldn’t get to be part of the world she grew up in…And Aru hadn’t forgotten the nightmares that plagued Aiden because of his parents’ divorce. His mom wondering if having him was what caused t
he breakup…

  “Aiden?”

  He looked up from his camera. “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay? Like, really okay? It’s fine if you’re not….”

  Aiden took a deep breath. Then he said quietly, “It’s my mom…. What if she regrets her life? She gave up everything for my dad. And then he leaves her to marry a girlfriend he met while he was still with my mom. And—”

  His voice broke, and it took him a moment to speak again. “What’d she get out of it?”

  Aru put her hand his shoulder. “You.”

  She thought of all the times she’d seen Mrs. Acharya with Aiden. She was always protective of him, always brushing the hair out of his eyes, and smiling at him even when he didn’t see it. Aru knew that the next thing she said was not a lie. “And she’d say you’re worth it.”

  Aiden really looked at her then. His eyes were wide and dark, but not pure black. There were flashes of blue iridescence in them, like in Urvashi’s eyes. Maybe it was an apsara trait. It made sense to Aru. Apsaras spent so much time dancing in the night skies that maybe their eyes eventually mirrored them.

  Aiden took a deep breath, and Aru drew back her hand.

  “I like you, Shah.”

  Aru’s eyebrows shot up. Her heartbeat jittered and she felt a not unpleasant swoosh low in her stomach, like butterflies taking wing.

  Aiden panicked. “But not like, uh—”

  Aaaand all the butterflies died.

  “Like friends,” finished Aru, her voice sounding a touch too bright.

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Like friends.”

  Aru would never say no to having more friends, even if she thought, for a second…Well, it didn’t matter.

  “Just so you know,” she said, “being friends with me means that on Wednesdays we wear pink.”

  Aiden sighed and muttered something under his breath. It sounded a lot like I need to get more guy friends.

  By now, the landscape had shifted. A tunnel made of pale-green sea glass rose out of the sand. Beyond it appeared a flat, shimmering wall of magic. It looked like a recent addition to the Ocean of Milk, something intended to hide activities from sight. Aru and Aiden saw someone racing toward them from inside the tunnel. They instinctively held out their weapons, but it was just Mini.