by Rahul Sharma
“You are…” he began slowly and thoughtfully, “you are…..err…how do I put it? You are…. “There”” He looked at his young acquaintance’s puzzled expression and sighed. And continued slower and graver than before. “The world where you come from is neither here nor there. This” he said, indicating the orangish pink world around him, “is ‘there’. And those rockets, which leave every half hour-”
On cue, a rocket shot out of the orange waves, drowning out the man’s words in a roar. Speaker and listener were doused in orange ocean as the purple craft juddered off into the upper reaches of the atmosphere of the world known only as “there”
“shoot off to the third place, ‘here’.” Continued God, as though they had not been interrupted by a giant purple rocket that shot out of the orange sea. “And your world is neither here, nor there. Its everywhere else. Do you follow?”
He nodded, his mind heavy with thoughts, questions, information and dustballs. He stood up and stretched. He had been here for……how long? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Two days? Two weeks? Four years?
The concept of time seemed to fade into a distant memory as he realized that there’s no indication of time in this world. Or, in fact, no such thing. It was perpetually the same “time” of day/night there, and he soon grew accustomed to it. Or atleast, he THOUGHT he soon grew accustomed to it, but he had no idea as to how long he took. Time didn’t exist.
After several million breaths of air(since that was probably the only indicator of time) he grew tired of the world where he lived. He tried to buy a ticket on a shuttle to ‘here’, but he wasn’t allowed to. So he got extremely ticked off and decided to drown himself in the perpetually dynamic ocean of orange below him.
As he stood, poised on the edge of a platform, ready to jump, he took one last look at the world around him- men and women in maroon robes, chanting and boozing away to bliss. Blue men in white coats sitting impatiently behind counters, tapping and swearing away to glory and, he was not quite sure if he actually saw it, a line of ducks, following a big fat duck which was dressed in an orange tie and dye shirt.
He swore, and jumped.
Now read the whole story again.
~~~
The Sorcerer
There were seven of us in total.
We were riding from the southern province to the Northern Province. We had orders specifically from the king, to visit the court of King Frederick of northwinds. Those were the days when the northern and southern provinces were at war with each other. Crossing over from one side to the other was banned without a permit. But the king of southerland had given us a permit as we were riding on his orders. We were to inform King Frederick of the recent murders of southerland traders who strayed too close to the borders.
The sun was setting and the wind rushed against our faces. The galloping of hooves filled our ears. Being the captain of our squadron, I had the privilege of being slightly ahead of my comrades. We were bathed in orange light as we sped towards the north. To our right, the East, the mountains were visible, like a row of deformities on the earth's smooth skin. To our north west, there was the dark outline of a forest. We were close to the northern border of our province, too close for any villages to exist, yet we were a fair distance away.
Over the clopping of seven horse's feet, I called out to the others “We'll stop for the night at the edge of the forest. Possibly near a stream or something.” I heard the voices of the others agreeing. For a few more minutes, we rode on peacefully, wind and scenery rushing past us. It was about twenty past six on that summer's evening when we saw the man.
He first appeared as a distant speck. As we sped northward, toward him, the speck grew. I pointed him out to my comrades and, since we were on a flat plain, we easily maneuvered towards him. About ten meters from him, I pulled my chestnut horse to a stop. The others stopped a behind me.
He wore a long grey cloak, so I could discern nothing about him from his looks. He was slowly trudging his way southward. I called out to him. “Mister! Where do you hail from?” The cloaked figure stopped walking and looked at the seven horsemen. Though he could see us, I could not see his face. A hood hung over it. He called out to me in the voice of a fairly young man. “Hullo Officer!! I was just out on an evening stroll.” he began to walk again. This time, with a quicker pace. I coaxed my horse closer to him. “Stop there sir. I need to see your border pass.” I examined his cloak for any marking or sign of his province, but there was none.
The man ignored me and continued walking. One of my comrades, Raphael, pulled his horse ahead of me and called out to him, “Sir, if you do not reveal your identity, we will have to use force on you.” This stopped him. He stood rooted to the spot for a few minutes.
Until this day, I neither know what happened then, nor why. With a swirl of a cloak, his hand flew up into the air and pointed at Raphael. I thought I heard a soft whisper of a word. There was a second’s gap. By this time I was on Raphael’s side. I turned toward him to see what the man was pointing at, only to see his eyes go wide. His horse's knees buckled as he slid sideways off it. Then with a loud thud, Raphael and his horse collapsed on to the hard ground, clearly dead.
I was awestruck. I pulled my steed away from the man as quickly as I could. I caught sight of the lower half of the man's face under the hood – It was stretched in a smile, showing sharp pointed teeth. I was absolutely horrified. Edward, my second in command, realized this and, sensing danger, gave the order “Circle round him men.”
With soft clops of hooves, six horsemen circled around the man in the cloak. He seemed unperturbed. He surveyed us as we took our positions around him. I looked at Ralph, a strongly built man with a clean shaven head. He was staring at Raphael’s body, his lips were trembling. He then looked up to stare at Raphael’s murderer. Raphael happened to be his brother. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had picked up his sword and launched himself at the man.
That was exactly what he did. Except, not at once.
The cloaked man looked at him in the red light of the setting sun. The flowery landscape of the plains was in stark contrast to the emotions and events in our little circle. As the six of us watched, he raised his arm yet again, and this time I am sure he muttered something. A spell? Yes possibly. Ralph's horse was dead on the ground within a second. Ralph managed to jump off in time. Then, with a single fluid movement, he drew his sword and charged toward his brother's murderer, as we watched.
Even today, I regret not helping Ralph. He was a good soldier and a wonderful person. Also, if we had all worked together, possibly, just MAYBE, we could have killed that man. But we believed in the saying 'Every man for himself'.
And so, Ralph charged at our captive with a loud bellow, fury etched on every line of his face. He reached him. With a powerful slash, he beheaded him. Except, the sorcerer was no longer there. He had vanished. Ralph spun around, sword at the ready, rage contorting his face. He spun one full circle, then, under the impression that the man had fled, he called out into the open, “YOU COWARD!!! YOU FILTHY COWARD!!” Ralph's eyes then strayed to Edward, who was staring at a spot about twenty feet above the ground. Ralph followed his line of sight and saw the sorcerer, standing with his arms crossed, twenty feet above him, his long cloak whipping in the wind. “COME DOWN HERE YOU NO GOOD CHEAT!!!” Ralph bellowed.
The sorcerer vanished in a small wisp of smoke and reappeared behind Ralph. Within a fraction of a second, there was an outstretched arm balled into a fist and Ralph was soaring in the air. He landed with a dusty thud on the hard ground. With a slight moan he pushed himself on his elbows. But it was too late. The sorcerer was already in the air, his right hand balled into a fist, surrounded by a bright orange flame. He brought his fist down on Ralph's chest like a hammer on a smith's anvil. There was a convolution across Ralph's body as the small wave of flame traveled across it. And then he died.
I was born and brought up in a society that shunned the rumors of magic and declared them myths.
But what I was seeing today went against all my principles for the past twenty eight years. As I watched, my friends and comrades were murdered with just a few words. Terror pulsed through me faster than blood. If I managed to survive this ordeal, I resolved to worship magic as much as possible.
And then we understood our mistake. Only five of us left now, we understood that we had to work together. We stood around the man, awaiting his next move, each of us praying, that we weren’t his next victim.
But the sorcerer did nothing to harm us. He stepped quietly over to Ralph’s body and bent over it. I wanted to shout at the man and ask him to get away, but his powerful magic seemed to have left me speechless. One glance at my comrades told me that they shared the same situation as me. All four of them, Edward, James, Ken and Nott, seemed nervous and looked like they wanted to say something but couldn’t. The man in the grey cloak whispered something, and Ralph’s body began to glow a bright blue.
“Stop it!” I called out, “Leave him!’. But it was too late. The sorcerer took no heed of me and Ralph’s body suddenly vanished. All five of us watched in mounting horror, as he did the same for Raphael and both the brother’s horses.
Once the body of the second horse had vanished, the sorcerer returned to his position in the center of the circle. The circle was now free of any evidence of any of the murders, it could have just been a dream…..But I knew it wasn’t, I knew that this man was going to kill us all for unsaid reasons…..
With a loud war cry, the oldest and most experienced of our group, Nott, charged toward the man, followed by Ken and James. Edward and I remained in the sidelines as backup.
The action was fast. Like a spring, the sorcerer jumped out of Nott’s sword’s range. He ducked and twisted away from James and leapt right over Ken and his horse. Ken gave a bellow of surprise and yanked his reins; his horse turned around and charged yet again. But this time, the sorcerer was ready. He vanished yet again, with a wisp of smoke.
James spotted him first; he had reappeared about fifty meters to the east. “Get him!!!” James bellowed and directed his horse toward the sorcerer. We watched James gallop off to the east but lost sight of him in the fast fading light. “Light your torches men”, I gave the command with as steady a voice as I could muster. After a minute, all four of us held burning torches in our hands, though the light they cast was rather poor because of the harsh winds.
After a minute, we heard a loud cry. Ken turned to look at me, his face was pale in the torchlight, “Capt’n, do we go after ‘im?”. I swallowed and shook my head, but before I could speak, another voice spoke through the darkness. “Don’t you worry Kensington, James is fine, he’s just a little upset that he can’t find me…”
All four of us spun around, looking for the source of the voice. A strong cold wind began to blow, and I could barely hear my own voice, “Stick together men.” I called out over the wind. The remaining four of us grouped together, back to back, I noticed that all our horses seemed rather nervous, pawing the ground and tossing their heads. The voice came out once again from the darkness, and somehow, the wind didn’t seem to howl over his voice like it did for us. “I think I’ll dispose of James now...” he said softly. Before I could say anything, there was a humungous blast, and a loud shout from the east, which faded into nothingness. I didn’t have to make any further investigations to discern that he, too, was dead.
Fear clawed my insides but I tried my best to maintain a calm voice. “The least you could do is reveal yourself.” I called out into the darkness. All of a sudden, the howling of wind stopped. For a moment, I thought I was dead, but then I noticed that I could still feel the wind blowing through my clothes. The others seemed to be as perplexed as me. “What the…?” I heard Nott whisper. The following clattering and twanging noises told me that he had just strung his bow. I heard Edward and Ken string their bows as well. I decided not to.
This time I definitely heard it. It was a soft whisper of a word. From what I heard, I deduce that the word he said was “Illuminous”. There was a soft whooshing noise and a ball of bright light floated above the four of us. The light was stronger than any of our torches and didn’t seem to be affected by the wind. And from the shadows, the sorcerer stepped into the pool of white light, with his hood lowered.
I shall never forget that face. Even today, he haunts me in my dreams. The sorcerer looked barely older that twenty. He had a thin, long face. His eyes were quite narrow and his pupils were coal black. His long face ended with a pointed chin with a rough stubble. His hair was dark brown and held in a high ponytail. The man’s sharp pointed teeth glittered menacingly in the white light.
His voice was soft and polite. “Captain Augustine Clencher?” He asked, looking at me inquiringly. I nodded. His grin grew wider. “And I presume these men,” he indicated my three accomplices, “are your band of loyal soldiers?” He saw me nod again and spat on the ground. I heard him mumble something that sounded like “Pathetic”.
All of a sudden, with a quick movement, Nott pulled an arrow from his quiver and placed it on his bow, pointing it at the sorcerer’s heart. Nott’s wrinkled old face was contorted with hatred, it was radiating anger. To my surprise, the sorcerer smiled. “Henry Dredger Nott, you will be the next to perish.” He mumbled softly.
He clicked his fingers and the arrow flew out of Nott’s bow, turned around in mid air and shot straight into Nott’s chest. With a grunt of surprise, his eyes widened and he landed on the ground with a soft thud. Nott’s steed, a white mare, on seeing her owner dead, gave a neigh of terror and fled into the darkness. The sorcerer did not try to stop her. I gave a glance at Nott’s body; there was already a pool of blood around it. It was at that moment that I made up my mind. All the bravery and valiance left me. There was only one, primitive instinct left in my head: RUN!!!!
Within an instant, I dug my heels into my horse’s sides and bolted towards the mountains. The night landscape rushed past me and the wind began to roar in my ears with renewed fury. After covering a satisfactory distance, I chanced a look behind me. There was no light. I could see the faint flicker of a torch lying on the ground, but it was off before I could make sure. Deciding to take no risks, I sped off away from that dreadful spot.
I have lived in the mountains of Klaar for twenty years now. From the edge of my cave, I can still see that spot on the plains, which changed my entire life. I live a life of seclusion and feed off mice and insects. I have never seen any of my comrades or that man again. Though, I often see battalions of soldiers, much like that of ours, crossing the plains; but never was there a sign of that dreaded cloaked figure.
I have a feeling that he is going to come back one day and kill me, so I have prepared this journal. This is Captain Augustine Clencher, saying goodbye.
The above journal was that of a cavalry captain from the province of Southerland. He was found dead in a cave on one of the highest peaks of the Klaar range. His face wore an expression of welcome, as though he were meeting an old friend.
~~~
The Ironies of Life
I had heard of life’s little ironies, but I had never expected them to happen to me and so was not mentally prepared when they really did. The incident that I narrate is actually quite a big irony for that matter. The whole thing started about six months ago.
I was a big shot back then(today I’m a bigger-shot). Fortune was smiling upon me and life was favourable towards me. I lived in a huge mansion, drank the finest wine, dined with all the “cool” people. My name was one that commanded respect in the English speaking world. My life was filled with autographing sessions, talk show interviews and even a few movie appearances.
Once in a while I used to retreat to my “Secret hideout” in the mountains and work on my next novel. After a few days of quiet mountainside life, I plunged back into the world of glitteratzi, headfirst.
But a high flying life came at a price-stress. The flashing cameras gave me headaches, the noisy crowds irritated me. The
frequent travelling made me feel nauseous quite often. The deadlines by publishers often resulted in panic attacks.
It was one evening- after several hours of autographing and smiling for cameras- that I collapsed in my large armchair in the middle of my mansion’s large library. As I massaged my aching temples, my butler- or as he preferred to call it, “manservant”- Bert, came to my rescue with a large bottle of whiskey. As he massaged my aching shoulders, I complained to him about the stresses of a high flying life. Bert, in his calm and formal way, informed me about one Rishi Swamynatha who lived in the Himalayas. Bert told me that one week with the rishi would change me completely and help me manage stress. Why not? I thought.
So, after prior E-booking at the rishi’s website, I flew to Delhi from Yorkshire by private jet and drove up the mountain in a Range Rover. There I met the rishi and his four current disciples (All four as sophisticated and well to do as I, I must add)
The rishi, of course, was clad in saffron and had a lot of grey hair. He welcomed me with open arms and soon I followed his schedule of rigorous meditation and simple, vegetarian, meals. This in itself might be quite ironic- a rich, sophisticated, millionare writer living with a simple saint in the high Himalayas. But it is actually now that my story begins.
My four fellow disciples were all rich tycoons from various countries. However, money is never enough, and so, five sets of eyes focused not on the rishi but on the golden crown a little way behind him, gifted to him by the king of Nepal.
I had arranged to stay with the rishi for two weeks. The other four (I will not include their names) were at various stages of their stay. One was leaving at the end of my first week while the rest were to leave after me.
The human mind functions quickly in times of need and greed. And five minds are better than one. Thus, by the end of my first week, a plan was formulated to steal the crown. All five of us decided to steal the crown and split the profits. The South African tycoon was to stow the crown in his suitcase and leave. We were to regroup at a Swiss resort one month later to split the profits of the crown, which the South African intended to sell in the black market. On the day the south African was leaving, the plan was set into motion.