The Weapon of the Devas

by Nanda Gopal Guruswamy

  “It’s plenty,” I replied

  She gave me a cup of coffee. “Did you find anything?” She asked seriously.

  “Oh, what? I was just browsing and checking emails,” I said looking up from the laptop. That bought a little smile to her face. I didn’t say whose emails though. “Can I ask you why you needed all those items—the salt, chilli powder and the other stuff?”

  “That. I like my food extra spicy.” That got a laugh.

  “Can you tell me what you’re going to do next?”

  “I have to go the graveyard.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight at midnight.”

  “Midnight? Are you mad? Why? Is this related to my husband’s problem?”

  “Maybe.” I was being cryptic on purpose. No need to frighten her before confirming the fact. My suspicions would simply keep her awake. Or give her nightmares. I wanted neither.

  “I’ll tell you everything once I’m sure.” That seemed to satisfy her for now.

  There was some more small talk and then she left. Around 11.30 p.m., I got ready to leave after a send off from Palak and Adi. He was still shaking his head and muttering under his breath when I started the bike.

  I reached the graveyard. It was huge. I parked my bike and got off. The wind was howling and the trees were roaring and swaying in the wind. It was completely dark. There’s a big difference between dark in the city and dark in the villages. The city always has a light source from somewhere. The villages are pitch black with not a flicker of light. Nothing and no one around for miles. Well, that is if the corpses don’t count. Dark shapes of the trees look sinister and one can feel the mist roll off the skin like a soft touch. It was really cold even in my jacket.

  My watch was beeping that it was midnight. As if on cue, a dog howled, another one picked it up. Soon they had an orchestra going. I stood outside the graveyard with a torch in my hand, one of those huge metal ones that can also be used as a weapon. I hesitated, can you blame me? Outside here, I was marginally safe. Inside there would be no guarantees, I might not walk out of this graveyard. And if I was right, the graveyard would be the least of my problems. I took a deep breath and pushed the small metal gate. The touch was cold as ice and it made loud creaking sounds. If this was a movie, then the guy watching it would say, ‘No, don’t go in, you idiot. That’s where the bad guy is.’ I turned on the torch and could now see thick mist over the headstones.

  I took a deep breath and stepped in. It got colder in here and it had nothing to do with temperature. I shone the powerful beam of light around and took a few steps in. My heart was banging against my chest. Wizard, I may be. But there are few things that even we don’t mess with. This was way beyond my league. I smelt something. I groaned inwardly. I was right. I was dreading this meeting more than anything else in my life and was seriously considering running, screaming back to my bike and back to civilization. Here be monsters. Instead I forced myself to take a step forward.

  “Greetings,” said a grave voice from the darkness.

  Chapter 3: Midnight Show

  Time and reality lay suspended for me. There was no sound. The wind, the dogs all dwindled into an ominous silence. I was on the other side of sanity. His eyes were like burning torches and it felt like they were drilling holes in mine and examining my soul. They can do that you know, just look at the person and size up if they are good or evil. And if they decide you aren’t worthy, well then, your life insurance payments were justified. My hands were frozen on the torch. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  “Sit down,” he offered.

  I wanted to say no, but strangely my body was doing his bidding. I found myself sitting cross legged on the mud in the meditation position. He then raised his hand and bought it down like he was throwing something on the ground. A small fire lit up illuminating him clearly.

  It was a scene right out of a horror movie. He had ash all over his body and was sitting in the meditative pose over a dead body. He was naked. He had a beard that was also in dreadlocks that went all the way to his waist. Oh man, he was sitting on top of a person, a dead one, but still. That ash on him was probably human. There was a chillum burning in his left hand, and the smell of cannabis was strong. It was the one I smelt earlier confirming my suspicions. Beside him was a human skull with one of its front teeth missing, leering away at my unhappiness of being here. Then I looked at the fire and wished I hadn’t.

  Oh God, there was nothing underneath, the fire was burning nothing. Still, the flames danced merrily casting shadows as if mocking me.

  There are laws, there are always laws. No matter what. Even magic follows laws. Once manifested on the physical plane, physics takes over. Ergo if there was a fire, it needed a source to burn, cause and effect. There was no cause here. He saw me looking at the fire and said, “First choice, and then comes cause”. Oh great. A mind-reader. If he was the one who attacked Prajwal, then I was in big trouble. I thought back to the damage Prajwal’s body had gone through and shuddered. I had the torch in my hand. It was nice heavy weapon. I wasn’t totally helpless. I am a Wizard with a capital ‘W’. I still had many nasty spells and tricks up my sleeve. If I was going to be thrown down right here, I wasn’t gonna lie down and die. I may lose, but I would make him pay dearly for it. People miles around were gonna witness lightning and fire in a cloudless sky and a crater, possibly with my mangled body in the centre.

  “I offer no harm, wizard,” he said still looking steadily at me. So he knew what I was as well.

  “Would you mind if I took a picture of you? Preferably holding up a ‘V’ symbol on both hands and then some group shots? It’d be a kickass wallpaper, ” I said. Well, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I have a big mouth. It has got me into trouble many times before. I have a gift for saying exactly the wrong thing in the worst situation. Normal people, when frightened or scared, cry or wet their pants. I crack jokes. Or try to.

  The Ahgori was just looking at me with no reaction. It would be better for me if I didn’t make him angry. It was time to get serious. “I’m sorry, I mean, I am pleased to meet you.” I bowed my head but I didn’t take my eyes off him even for a second.

  “I am...”

  “I know who you are. Named after My Lord, the great Bhairava, Maheshwara, Bhudeva, Vishveshwara, Akshayaguna, Avyayaprabhu, Bholenath, Mahashaktimaya, Sarvayoni, Vedakarta,” he said.

  As he said ‘Bhairava’, he stretched out his arms and looked up at the dark sky and stayed like that till he had completed. The fire also flared. I recoiled slightly. Then I realized that I was frozen in place, edgy and wound up tightly. I tried to relax. I took a deep breath. The bow I made wasn’t really necessary. Aghoris don’t really believe in respect or any other cultural convention. To them, people are just walking dead bodies or shavas with emotion. They spend their lifetime trying to unlearn these conventions and go back to their roots, to be as they were when they were born. Hence, the bizarre lifestyle. Their goal was to attain Nirvana. While on the path, they attain tremendous powers with their lifestyle and meditation. An Aghori is always in control of all his senses and his body. Their blessings can be powerful and their curses terrible. Their power is enormous. I could feel this one’s coming off him in waves along with bad body odour.

  “You seem to be far away from your home.” I asked

  “Near, far does not matter. Only my karma matters,” he replied.

  Ok, let’s get down to business, I just wanted to get out of there.

  “Did you happen to visit a home nearby some time back?” I asked.

  “Yes, I did. There was man who had been hurt. His karma must have been very bad indeed to suffer so.” Aha. So the marks on Prajwal were graveyard symbols. But was it the Aghori who chose to inflict his karma on him?

  The next question was going to be a curveball. I readied my will and my most powerful spell. It was right at the tip of my fingers when I asked him quietly “Did you do it?”

  He was lookin
g at me, his face unreadable. “You have iccha shakti, but not gnana shakti.” That didn’t make sense and I sure as hell did not want to talk philosophy here.

  Ok, let’s try that again “Did you do it?” This time my voice held just a hint of menace.

  “No. I tried to heal his body.” Aghoris are known for their miraculous healing powers.

  He continued, “I sensed someone using Maya to cause harm. I went to the spot, there was no one there. I tried to save as much of him as I could. Then I left.”

  I let out a long sigh of relief. I believed him. The Aghori didn’t do it. The concept of uttering a lie is against an Aghori’s way. It wouldn’t even occur to an Aghori to lie even if it spared him danger. That’s why they were going the way of the dodo. So no lightning and thunder today folks. I didn’t even ask him how he got past all the security and into Prajwals’ room. I reassessed the situation, sure the Aghori looks like a villian and it would be easy to pin this on him. People would believe me. But that wasn’t to be.

  “Thank you, Bhairava [S5] [GGN6] . I shall take my leave now.”

  I got up and turned to leave. “Wait.”

  I stopped, what now? I slowly turned back. He had something in his hand. “This is for you. It will put the scent of the grave on you.” He said, holding a small object tied with a black string. I took it, because one does not refuse gifts, especially if the one giving it can blow you to smithereens. It was small fragment of bone. I didn’t even want to think about its history.

  “Thank you again Bhairava. But I am afraid I have nothing in return for your generosity.”

  “Nothing was expected.”

  I nodded my head and left. I walked as quickly as I could out of the graveyard without appearing as if I was running. As soon as I stepped out, my senses were flooded with the sounds of the wind, the crickets and dogs howling. That was intense. I started and left as soon as I could. On the one hand, I had survived. But on the other I was no closer to finding out the truth about Prajwal’s attacker. Time for an honest chat with Palak. I reached her home at around 3.00 a.m. The servants let me in. She was sleeping on a small divan that was placed near her husband’s bed.

  “Did you find anything?” She asked as soon as I entered. I signalled that I wanted to talk outside that room and led the way to Prajwal’s study. She followed me till the door but did not enter.

  “Look, when your husband comes out of coma, you will be living here for a long time with him, so you can enter the room. I need your help.” The statement about her husband getting better cheered her. She bit her lip and took a tentative step inside like she was stepping on to a minefield. Now how to phrase this, I needed her to talk to me honestly but I couldn’t mention about hacking her hubby’s email part.

  So I pointed at something I had noticed earlier. There was an entire row of books on mysticism and magic in Prajwal’s bookcase.

  “Please Mrs Malhotra. Could you explain this? I thought your husband didn’t involve himself in things like this.”

  She looked guilty but didn’t accept it. “My husband has an interest in Indian mythology, is that so strange?” She said.

  “Nice. But I’m not buying it. You are clearly an educated woman, and they believe in science and western medicine and not in this stuff. And yet, you pleaded with me to take this case. You clearly know something. You need to confide in me, your husband’s life depends on it.”

  “I didn’t plead with you,” she said with a flash of anger in her eyes. But her resolve cracked.

  “But yes, my husband was involved in this stuff. Besides being a collector, Prajwal was in touch with several people in this line of work. Recently he had come close to a person called Suryaprakash. He was going on and on about some new experiments they were doing.” There it is. The plain and simple truth, why didn’t all my clients confide in me straightaway?

  Wait a minute! Suryaprakash was the magical theorist who had been killed in his home. Things were starting to get connected but I couldn’t talk to either one.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “They were very excited about some recent upcoming thing. About some great upcoming yagna or pooja that was going to be a very big deal, if it worked. Aditya knew about it, but he thought it was a great big joke.” Naturally.

  “Do you know when they were going to do it?” Sometimes the day and timing could point towards a specific direction.

  “Three days from now.”

  Oh that’s not good. Three days from now was a very auspicious day. Most yagnas or rituals would bear fruit. Not much time. I needed to solve this quickly. I needed to think. We left the study and I started pacing up and down in a different room. Guess I lost track of time. It was 9.00 a.m. when Palak came to see me. I had an idea. But it was crazy, even for me. I was trying to think of a way to pitch it to Palak without it sounding insane. Nope. There wasn’t any. It was crazy from all angles, up, down and sideways.

  We had breakfast and went up to Prajwal’s room. Aditya was there reading a magazine. Palak took her side by her husband’s bed. There was a moment where we all were looking at Prajwal. He looked pathetic. I hope I never end up like him. If I was gonna go out, I hoped it was with a bang. Go down fighting. That’s the Guardian’s dream and it was regularly fulfilled.

  Aditya began, “The doctors say he’s the same. No change, his body is healing. But they are not sure why he’s still in decline.” He said it gently to Palak. She looked up and huffed out a breath. “I would like to try something,” I said. Aditya gave me a dirty look like I was ruining the moment. However Palak looked up with some hope.

  “I need to know who did this to him, what he and Suryaprakash were doing and what happened that night. The quickest way to find out is to ask him.”

  “What? In case you haven’t noticed my brother-in-law is in coma.”

  “That doesn’t mean his mind is sleeping. Its awake. Science has proved that the brain is active during coma and sometimes the patient can hear what is going on around him”

  “So what are you proposing?” Palak asked.

  “Altered states,” I said.

  “What states?” asked Aditya

  I rolled my eyes and tried using a more recent metaphor.

  “Inception. Or rather, extraction. I propose we enter his mind using magic and get the information out.”

  Chapter 4: Eviction

  Both of them were staring at me in disbelief, like a couple of deer caught in the headlights, or in this country, like a dog that’s staring down at a car on a highway travelling at 120 kmph. It wasn’t impossible. Mind reading is possible even though I suck at it. But I can manage it, under the right circumstances. It needs incredible focus and is extremely risky.

  First I had to separate my mind from my body and then direct that mind exactly where I want it to go. That means leaving your body vulnerable. Any spirit or any other bodiless thing can enter it. Just look at what happened to the great Dronacharya in the Mahabharata. Basically he was kicking ass in the Kurukshetra war, leaving the Pandavas no choice but to trick him. They claimed they had killed his son, when in reality, they had just killed an elephant with the same name as his son. The devastated Drona laid down his weapons and separated his mind and body and went in search of his son’s soul. His enemies took advantage of his helplessness and beheaded him, so when Drona’s mind came back, he had no body to occupy.

  I would have to take a lot of measures and do it in private. But it looked like I wasn’t going to get a green signal from the Malhotras.

  “Are you mad?” said Aditya

  “It does seem a little extreme,” said Palak diplomatically.

  “Again, it’s the quickest way to find out the problem and fix it.” It was crude and direct and so it appealed to me.

  “What would this process involve exactly?”

  “I would need to arrange for a few things to ensure that I have complete concentration. I need to draw certain magical symbols on the floor to prevent interference and ensure
that the room has only your husband and me. I don’t have to do anything to your husband.” He was in dreamland already.

  “Why?” asked Aditya standing up.

  “I need to do this alone. I can’t give you any explanations.”

  “For how long? What if something goes wrong and he needs a doctor in the room?”

  “I’m sorry, I cannot allow that either. I need privacy and I don’t know how long it might take, maybe one hour or ten.”

  A small vein on Aditya’s face began throbbing. Guess he was angry. I was looking steadily at him, I’d seen a lot worse, and it would take more than some Ivy League paper pusher to make me back off. He was just about to shout something in anger when Palak interjected.

  “Isn’t there any other way, anything else you could try before this? Can’t we leave this as a last resort.”

  I didn’t answer her right away. I was still staring down Aditya until he finally averted his eyes.

  “Well, I could check out Suryaprakash’s home and see if I find anything. But it would take a lot more time and time is of the essence here.”

  “Please could we try that first then ….” Palak asked me like it was a request.

  My idea was a bit unorthodox. Maybe I would find the answer in Suryaprakash’s home. But I highly doubted it.

  “Ok, you’re the boss,” I said.

  I returned to Bangalore and to my apartment. It had been two days since I had a decent night’s sleep and I wanted to catch a quick catnap before I headed out again. Just as I was about to turn in, my mobile rang. It was Alagaraja, “Hey, remember that information I gave you? It’s going to be useless soon; I got word that he’s moving the cargo out soon.”

  Oh, I needed to act on this right away. “Ok, ok. I’m on it.”

  “Do you need anything?” he asked me.

  “No, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Just so you know. I really don’t like this. You shouldn’t interfere in these matters.”