Once again the needles pricked him and his lungs screamed for precious air, but he ignored everything. This time he didn’t move his arms and legs hastily, instead he used long calm strokes. With this technique he reached the bottom of the lake within a handful of seconds. He swam over the lake floor— which happened to be at least a sixth of the size of the entire village of Bindi. It wasn’t an easy job, and there were times when all he wanted to do was return to the surface of the lake. But he didn’t let Xuhn’s face waver from his mind, and that kept him going.
And then, at a corner of the lake, he found the skull.
A skull that was half the size of Vivek’s entire body. It was partially buried in the lake floor and Vivek had to use strength to pull it out. The skull mystified him with its dagger like teeth, but the urge to return to the surface was greater. He swam up as quickly as he could and dragged himself to land. It was only after the sun had dried him enough, and he was able to put his clothes back on that he allowed himself the luxury of examining the skull.
It most resembled a gigantic lizard’s head that had three horns. Vivek reckoned the fabled beast said to be residing under the lake had died, and that was the reason why the lake had lost its ice.
But would the body of the beast decompose so fast?
The skull didn’t have any bits of skin sticking to it, and didn’t give off any unpleasant aroma. The animal to which it belonged should have died a long time ago.
Vivek had gone into the lake half expecting to find Xuhn’s corpse there. Thankfully Xuhn wasn’t lying at the bottom of the lake. Sure, it didn’t explain the mystery of Xuhn’s disappearance, but it felt good to Vivek to be relieved of the fear of finding his friend at the lake’s bottom.
And then Vivek’s eyes fell on the forehead of the skull, just below its horns. He realised that the lines that he had previously thought to be natural features of the animal’s skull couldn’t be so in any way. Those lines had been etched onto the forehead of the skull.
He examined the lines closer and knew for sure. Somebody had etched the lines using some sharp object. But why would anybody do that?
Vivek peered harder and saw what were unmistakably arrowheads at certain points along the lines. There was a circle between the eye sockets of the skull to which the arrowheads seemed to lead.
Vivek touched the small circle to remove some dirt sticking to it.
The moment he did so, an invisible wave of energy hit Vivek and he was thrown away from the skull, such was the force.
Gasping, he scrambled back to the skull. Just what had that been?
He needed to show it to his mother. For reasons he couldn’t explain he felt like the skull was what would lead him to Xuhn. The lake had been no ordinary lake, the skull was no ordinary skull, and Xuhn’s disappearance was no ordinary disappearance. Supernatural forces were at play here for sure. He lifted up the heavy skull and rushed to his house.
Some children who saw him along the way gaped at the object he was carrying. Thankfully no adult saw him, and he escaped being questioned by anybody.
“Mother, I am back!” he banged at the door the moment he reached home.
Barely did his mother open the door that her jaws dropped.
“What is that!”
“I found it,” Vivek panted, “at- at the lake.”
“At the bottom of the lake you mean?”
“Yes, I feared Xuhn might be there. He wasn’t. Instead I found this skull. You have any idea what it belongs to?”
He placed the skull on their floor and his mother examined it, turning it this way and that. Finally she said,
“I think it belongs to a dragon.”
“A dragon?” Vivek said, never been so surprised. Though now that he thought, going by the looks of the skull, it could only belong to a dragon. “But dragons are found far north, aren’t they? And they never fly south, do they?”
“Well, they have wings,” his mother replied. “One could have come to our village many years ago before dying in the lake somehow.”
“Do you think it’s the fabled beast of the lake?’ Vivek asked.
“That’s a possibility. But you never know.”
“Oh, and one thing,” Vivek pointed at the lines and the mysterious circle etched on the forehead of the skull. “You see these lines? Someone made them. They even have small arrow marks.”
His mother looked at the lines with wide mystified eyes. She was about to touch the circle in her curiosity, but Vivek stopped her in the nick of time.
“Don’t touch that, mother!”
“Why?” she asked.
“I touched it back in the lake. And this- this unseen force hit me all of a sudden and I was thrown a dozen feet away from the skull.”
“Really?” his mother asked, and by her eyes it was clear she didn’t believe him at all.
“Believe me, mother, that’s what happened.”
He would have demonstrated it, but he feared he would go flying and perhaps injure himself. He didn’t wish to go back to the days when his legs had been fractured. That had been the lowest point in his life. Both physically and mentally he had become a person he never wished to become again.
“These lines, don’t you think they look like a map?” he asked his mother instead.
“You are right, son,” his mother said, scanning the forehead of the skull keenly. “I think all the little arrows are pointing to this circle you told me not to touch.”
His mother suddenly got up.
“Wait a minute.”
She rushed to the bedroom and in moments returned with an old map of the known world. Not of the kingdoms, but of the physical features of the land— mountains, forests, deserts, seas and lakes.
She placed the great map just beside the skull.
“Oh my!” she said.
“What?” Vivek asked, bursting with curiosity.
“Look here,” his mother pointed at the slightly elevated portion of the skull’s forehead from where the lines began, “and look at the map. Don’t you think they represent the Dragon Mountains in the north? And look here”—she pointed at another elevated area of the forehead—“doesn’t this seem to resemble the Northuk mountains to the west?”
Xuhn couldn’t believe the similarity between the map and the skull’s forehead. His eyes focused on the circle, which was in a slight depression on the forehead.
“So this circle is in the sea?” Vivek said. The Balic sea was in the south, and so was the depression.
“On all accounts it has got to be,” his mother agreed.
“But what does this circle represent? And why did I feel that strange force earlier?” Vivek asked.
“The gods know, son,” said his mother. “But this skull you have found, it’s something very important.”
“Do you think we should show this skull to the werewolves?” Vivek said, “They might know more about it. I don’t know why, mother, but I feel like this skull will lead us to Xuhn.”
His mother looked at him with some hesitation. She had always been reluctant of seeking help from the werewolves, although they almost always had solutions to problems.
“I agree with you, son,” his mother said, “the werewolves have a lot of ancient knowledge, and without them I wonder if you would have ever become able to walk again.” Her eyes moved to his legs, which were still black from the treatment. “I also want to find Xuhn for he’s a very good young man, but I fear this skull is something of power, and only the gods know what that circle represents.”
“You are scared this skull might fall in the wrong hands, mother?”
“I am not saying the werewolves are bad,” his mother replied, “nobody has been better to me than your father— a werewolf. But anything that has magic involved scares me. I think it’s best that we keep this skull hidden at least for some time, until we have gathered more information about it.”
Vivek nodded. His mother was a patient lady, who could control her curiosity well. She had been right on co
untless occasions before, and Vivek didn’t doubt she was right this time as well. He decided to agree with her wisdom.
“Where should we keep this skull then, mother?” he asked, and was happy to see the pleased expression on his mother’s face. He had given her enough pain during the entire time his legs had been fractured, so these days he tried to be as nice as he could.
“Let’s bury it in our backyard.”
Chapter 18
Xuhn’s dream took a very strange course. He imagined a frog saying a very dirty street curse. Then he realised it wasn’t a frog at all, but a great hairy ape.
The voices reaching his ears finally pulled him out of his sleep. Xuhn realised that it wasn’t a frog or ape that had said the dirty curse, but a man. His vision somewhat hazy, Xuhn stood up and looked around for the man.
There were two.
They were behind a tree, crouching low and marvelling at the sleeping Mortugal.
“Hey, who are you?” Xuhn said.
“He’s awake!” one man squeaked to his companion.
“Who are you?” Xuhn repeated.
“What is this b-beast you have brought to our town?” the second man stumbled through his words. There was some confidence in his tone however. Xuhn recognised the second man to be the same beggar that had almost taken away Xuhn's goat from under the tree at night.
“So you have followed me here, have you?”
“It’s a dragon, I tell you,” the first man said.
“Pig shit,” the second dismissed his friend’s opinion, “dragons have scales not fur. This is no dragon I tell you.”
“Does it matter?” Xuhn said. He needed to maintain his ground as all his companions were fast asleep. He didn’t know with what intention the two beggars had followed him, though he reckoned it was curiosity. “It can gobble you both in an instant.”
“So you are threatenin’ us, eh?” the second man said.
“You want me to wake it up?” Xuhn said, referring to Mortugal by ‘it’.
“But won’t it eat you as well?” the first man nervously asked.
“My friend, will I be sleeping so snugly beside it then?” Xuhn said.
“We’ll inform the authorities,” the second man said. A beggar he might be, but Xuhn could see he had guts.
“Go on, inform them. Doesn’t matter at all,” Xuhn said. By the time the beggars succeeded to persuade the authorities that a great beast was sleeping just outside their town, Xuhn and the others would be long gone, headed to Dragonland.
But at second thought, Xuhn remembered Benzel. He was never going to leave the town without freeing the good slave.
“But if you keep your rotten mouths shut, I just might put some gold in your hands,” Xuhn said in a carefree fashion. He didn’t want the beggars to think at any cost that he was worried about them informing the authorities.
“I saw you talkin’ with that slave Benzel,” the second beggar said, “he readily gave you his coat—the one you are wearin’ now. I went asking for alms at that house once, and Benzel kicked us out.”
“That’s a pity isn’t it?” the first beggar said, “A man who can sleep in peace by a monster beast, yet wears the clothes of a slave. Haha!”
"Haha!" the second man joined the mocking laugh.
“I take it that you don’t want the money, then?” Xuhn said, although he had no coin in his pocket.
The beggars immediately stopped laughing.
“How much will you pay us for keepin’ our mouths shut?” the second beggar asked.
“How much do you want?” Xuhn said. He felt like a king the way he was bluffing.
“Ten kranks,” the first beggar said.
“Shut up, you idiot,” the second beggar admonished his friend. “Fifty kranks at the very least,” he told Xuhn.
“Fifty kranks be it,” Xuhn said. He reckoned ‘krank’ was the currency in Northang, but he had no idea how much one krank equalled to gold or to Suran currency. And then an idea came to Xuhn’s mind regarding helping Benzel escape the tyranny of his old mistress.
“I’ll give you two sixty kranks if you tell me something,” he said to the beggars.
“Sixty kranks!” the first beggar exclaimed.
“What do you want to hear?” the second one asked in a business-like tone. Xuhn didn’t know about the first beggar, but he was sure the second one had taken begging by choice— as a profession, instead of being forced into begging by bad luck.
“About Benzel, what do you know of him?”
“Well, he’s a slave as you probably know,” the second beggar said, “and slaves are worse than us beggars. We have an identity of our own, slaves are mere objects.”
“Look, Benzel has an identity of his own. I won’t tolerate you speaking of him as an object,” Xuhn said roughly.
“Sure,” the beggar said, “but he is what he is.”
“Since when have he and his mistress been around here?” Xuhn asked. “There are from Sura as far as I know.”
“And so you are, aren’t you? I gather from your accent.”
“Answer what you have been asked.”
“They came here about ten years ago,” the first beggar chimed in, “which was before you came, Gobolo.”
“Gobolo?” Xuhn asked, not getting.
“That’s my name,” the second beggar said. That is one weird name, Xuhn thought. In some Suran dialects, Gobolo referred to a certain kind of monkey with impossibly big lips.
But returning his thoughts to the important point, Xuhn realised that if Benzel and his mistress had moved to Northang ten years ago, then it should be only a year or two after Xuhn had made his lucky escape.
“Anything else you know about Benzel?” Xuhn asked.
“Hey man,” Gobolo said in an exasperated tone, “if you want to ask us anythin’, ask about Benzel’s mistress all right? I don’t know why it hurts your sentiments when we talk of Benzel like the slave he is, but obviously his mistress should me more important.”
“Tell me when she’s not in the house,” Xuhn asked, not liking being lectured by Gobolo at all. “Does she go anywhere at the same time every day?”
“In the evenin’,” Gobolo answered. “She goes to visit the tomb. Since the goddess has ordered everyone in town to visit her tomb at least once daily.”
“Goddess?” Xuhn asked, wondering if he had misheard the beggar. Had Gobolo said ‘the king’ instead?
“The goddess of the tomb,” Gobolo said, “she awakened some days after I came here.”
Gobolo’s words flew sideways Xuhn’s head. A goddess who had awakened? The goddess wasn’t important, he told himself. He needed to know which time he could meet Benzel alone.
“Does Benzel go with her too?” Xuhn asked.
“No, stays at home,” Gobolo’s friend said.
“So are there other slaves in the house besides Benzel?”
“There were three more,” Gobolo said, “but they died last year due to sickness. Only Benzel survived.”
At that moment, Mortugal stirred. Until then, he had been in a deep sleep quite unaware of the conversation going on. But it seemed the noise Xuhn and the beggars were creating was disturbing him.
“Now what’s all that mumble?” the dragon asked in an irritated voice, opening an eye.
“We have some visitors,” Xuhn replied. The two beggars meanwhile attempted to conceal themselves behind the tree, so great was their fear for the dragon.
“Visitors?”
Mortugal raised his head and looked towards the beggars. The tree only partially hid them.
“Who are you two?” Mortugal asked the beggars.
“I went to the town at night to get some… er, warm clothes,” Xuhn said, not wanting to say he had gone to bring the vampires an animal to drink blood from. “Apparently they followed me here.”
Gobolo had the courage to come forward and speak, his eyes fixed on Xuhn.
“So, will you give us the money now?” he said.
“Co
me tonight,” Xuhn said. He planned to meet Benzel in the evening and help him escape. By night, their party would have flown away towards Dragonland.
A disappointed look settled on Gobolo’s face.
“You are goin’ to run, aren’t you?”
“For all I know you might give us away to the authorities if I give you the money now,” Xuhn told him.
“Give us half now and half later,” the first beggar said, still half-hidden behind the tree.
“Can’t do,” Xuhn said, “come at night. Keep asking for money now and I won’t give you even one krank. Now off with you.”
Scowling, the two beggars went away. Xuhn was sure they would have kept asking for the money had Mortugal not woken up. The dragon just stared after the two beggars as they made their way to the town in the distance. A cold breeze blew and Xuhn caught a chill despite the beaming morning sun.
Mortugal turned to Xuhn once the beggars had disappeared amongst the houses in the town.
“Why were they asking you money?”
Xuhn told Mortugal about his discovery that Benzel was in the town, and about his deal with the beggars to keep mum.
“You have money?”
“I do… back at my home.”
“If you didn’t have money you shouldn’t have lied to them,” Mortugal said. Now what had happened to the dragon? Xuhn thought, why was he siding with the beggars?
“Well, I think it’s best that the authorities don’t know that we have come here,” Xuhn said, “and Northang is an ally of the werewolves. It won’t help a lot if they find out that Ritika and Ruponi are vampires, or that Breda betrayed her kind.”
“Still,” Mortugal said, and Xuhn did not at all like the seriousness in the dragon’s eyes. “When you refused to give half the promised money to them, I could see hope shattering in their eyes. When hope shatters, that’s not good.”
Thankfully, Mortugal shed away his seriousness after sometime. When Xuhn offered him the dead goat, he gobbled it up without one question about why there was so little blood in the carcass.
The Banishment of the King Page 12