by Jen Pretty
Wings of a lark
Goddess Durga Series book 4
Jen Pretty
I am what you designed me to be. I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.
—Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
CHAPTER ONE
I pulled off my shoe and dumped sand back into the giant sandbox I had been travelling through for the last few weeks. Singh lay stretched out in the small patch of shade under a wispy tree. The feeling of something evil had been pulling me across the Indian desert, but now, it felt further and further away like a mirage. I was also chasing a literal mirage. I ran out of water the day before, and since then my lips had cracked, and my mouth was full of grit.
“Singh, I need water,” I croaked. “I will die.” We had already established that I wouldn’t literally die. Durga wouldn’t let me. The bitch.
Singh huffed and dragged his lazy ass up out of his shady spot. He was enjoying our desert adventure too much. He would catch gazelles and drag them back for me. A few times I cooked up some, and it was almost as good as bacon but really bloody. For a while, we travelled along a path that local villages used, but it went straight through small communities, and a white lion didn’t blend in. So, we wandered the desert aimlessly.
The first village we passed through gave me clothes that were better suited for the desert. The people celebrated us and decorated Singh with some paint made from plants. It smelled terrible, but the work was intricate and beautiful. It had mostly worn off, but you could still see it in places.
I followed the lions switching tail through a grove of bushes and past more tall trees. Birds circled above. I wasn't sure if they were vultures, but they were big and soared effortlessly. They occasionally blotted out the sun.
Finally, we cleared a sandy hill and below was a small village. Women were pumping water at a cement well. They wore bright-coloured saris that made them brilliant against the desert background of muted beige. They filled silver pots and carried them on their heads back towards the village, their clothes flowing in the wind behind them.
My sari was blood red. Durga had preened when I put it on and checked my reflection in a small mirror. She thought we finally had something lovely to wear. I admit it was much cooler than the clothes I arrived in and I hadn’t had a sunburn since I wore it.
Several camels congregated around the well, drinking from a long trough. They stomped at flies and watched our approach. There were always flies. The sun was setting, and the low angle of the fading daylight made the sand that floated on the soft evening breeze looked like mist. Some goats bleated and wandered about between the straw-roofed huts. Men in turbans sat around in circles laughing and speaking rapid-fire Marwari, which a girl at a small village told me was the most common language in this area. The camels moved away from the well as Singh, and I approached. Their long legs, bending and their toes dragging through the sand as they took each slow, lumbering step.
Singh sat in front of the trough and waited for me to pour more water into it, but I drank right from the spout, standing on the cement platform as I pumped the water. With my stomach distended, I filled the canteen I had been dragging empty for the last day and a half and then hopped down to rinse my hair in the trough. I wrung the water from my hair and replaced my scarf. A scream behind me had me spinning to find a woman staring at us. Singh stopped lapping at the water and blinked at the woman. She wore a turquoise sari, her black hair partially covered in a pink scarf. Others came running, joining her in staring at my lion friend.
“Come on Singh. Let’s get this over with.”
We walked towards a group of people, men, women and children. They bowed their heads, babbling words I couldn’t possibly understand. Singh rubbed up against my hip as we walked through the now crowded village. People offered us gifts and food, so I sat down on a tree stump near a fire and ate some of their food. Singh lounged in the sand, the air was cooling as the sunset, and it felt nice to be around people, even if I didn’t understand them.
A man stood up, and everyone quieted. He spoke in slow words with gestures and actions. It sounded like he was telling a story. The children all made faces, laughed, cheered and booed at what was probably appropriate moments. I wished I understood Marwari, but Durga was listening. She forced a laugh from my lips at one point even though I didn't understand what was going on. She was always just at my surface now. Her presence was as normal as my own, leaving me feeling empty on the rare occasion she disappeared.
When the man finished, the crowd clapped and cheered. Another man distributed small bottles of alcohol and presented me with two. I gave Singh a look. He hadn’t turned back into a man since we landed in India. I wasn’t sure he even could anymore, but it meant more alcohol for me. I had heard the desert moonshine could kill you, but I drank it anyway. Durga was happy with her life and not ready to let me die, so I was invincible. The women were decorating Singh with little swirls and motifs. He lay still in the sand as they worked. I sipped my liquor. He was more art than lion by the time they finished.
A woman stood in the center of the gathering, and a hush fell. She wore a vibrant pleated skirt and tons of beaded necklaces and bracelets that rattled and rang as she moved. An old woman began singing, and a man kept the beat with a tambourine. The woman with the beads danced to the music, her arms moving smoothly through the air around her. The strings of beads created more music, and she became the rhythm.
She looked like Durga, the way her arms waved and posed. Durga pushed at me to get up and dance, but I wasn’t in the mood for dancing, and eventually, she relented, satisfied to watch the beautiful woman as she twirled, in a show of vitality and joy. The old woman’s voice rang through the desert village for a long time. I wondered how she had the energy to sing so loud.
Deep wrinkles lined her face, and her eyes were a soft white colour that suggested she was blind. She held her headscarf over half her face as if she was hiding. At one point the dancing woman welcomed the children to dance with her, and they all leapt around with glee, twirling and falling. Some older girls copied the woman’s movements with the competence that adolescence provided. The adults laughed and drank. I mostly drank.
Eventually, the music stopped, and people dispersed to their huts. The sounds dying until the crackle of the dying fire was the only noise.
The circular buildings with grass roofs looked like mushrooms in the darkness. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, but that could have been the alcohol.
Up at the sky, billions of stars twinkled. I had never seen so many in my life. There was nowhere on earth like this place. If it wasn’t for the nagging feeling that evil lurked out there, somewhere far away and I had to stop it, I would have just stayed here.
When the last of the drunk men disappeared into huts, I scooted off my stump to lie on the hot sand beside Singh. A villager tried to encourage me into a small shack, but I had grown used to sleeping in the sand with my lion and wasn’t ready to be civilized again, just yet.
When I closed my eyes, the world started spinning too fast. I clung to Singh who groaned and stretched. My cheek pressed into the rough sand, soaking up the heat the sun had left behind. Sleep finally dragged me under, but I dreamed of a little boy with sky-blue eyes and a smile that eased every ache in my heart.
When I woke, my mouth had become the Thar Desert. My teeth were gritty with sand, and my face felt like Singh's rough tongue had scrubbed it. I swung my arm around and realized my lion was missing. Oh well, one less bloodthirsty predator to worry about.
My hand fell on the plastic canteen I would recognize anywhere, it had become more than just my latest accessory; it was my lifeline in this parched land. I unscrewed the top and took a deep drink of the fresh water inside. It alway
s tasted like plastic, no matter how fresh the water was. Chemicals were probably leaching out of the man-made container.
I forced my eyes open, though my eyelids scraped over my eyeballs like sandpaper. I could hear children laughing, and as I sat up, I found my lion. Adorned in bright colours and jumping around with the children, he was playing some game. It looked like tag. I wondered if people in India played tag or if that was just an American game. I stood up and stretched, letting half the desert fall out of my sari. The wind blowing from the west swept it away or was that the east?
Singh glanced back at me before continuing his game. Adults looked on, watching their colourfully dressed offspring pull the lion's tail with glee. They would need to explain to the children not to try that with any other lion.
I slung the canteen strap around my body like a purse. I carried nothing else with me, no ID or credit cards. I cut them up when I left the airport. Singh and I were off the grid.
“I know English,” a young man said as he approached me.
“Good, have you seen Mahishasura?” I asked.
His eyes went wide, and he stopped dead.
I watched him, waiting for an answer. When he seemed to snap out of his shock, he shook his head.
I turned to go, but his next question stopped me again.
“They ask you of the king?”
A thick knot gripped my throat, but I swallowed it down and answered. “I don’t know any king.” I turned to begin the next leg of my voyage east. Or was that west?
“They say he came. He is in India,” the young man called as I walked away. My heart begged me to turn back and ask him what he was talking about — get confirmation — but my legs kept walking me away.
A woman caught up before I left the village and handed me a bundle of cloth. I knew it was a clean sari as soon as I saw the beautiful colours and patterns. It was a bold red like the one I was wearing but had a paisley print to it, and the scarf had a gold thread running through it.
I thanked her and continued walking. The unseen chain that pulled me towards evil kept dragging my steps forward. Singh’s purr startled me out of my thoughts a few minutes later. His face rubbed against my hip, and I threaded my fingers into his thick mane. I wasn’t even sure why I was still going on this journey. Sure, I vowed to rid the world of evil. Not like I had anything better to do, I suppose.
The day wore on. The sun beat down until it was too hot and we had to rest in the shade for a few hours. I undid the bundle of cloth the woman had given me, unfolding the beautiful sari. In the center of the mass was flatbread I had eaten the night before around the fire and another bottle of desert moonshine. I ate the bread sitting in the shade. It was delicious. I couldn't compare it to anything else I had ever tasted, and it was, hands down, better than the gazelle that Singh caught. I stripped and changed into the clean clothes. Only Singh was around, and he was too busy chewing on bones to care about a naked woman. The clean clothes were almost as good as a shower. I missed showers. Hot water. Soap.
When the sun passed its peak, we walked again. The sand filled my shoes making my feet feel like they were on fire. I sometimes wondered how the soles didn’t just melt on the boiling sand surface. I wondered many things as we walked. None of the things I thought about mattered, but they occupied my mind.
We crested a rise and before us was a ghost town. During our time in the desert, we stumbled on two others like this one.
We walked quietly, as though if we were loud, we would wake the dead. Families had once occupied the tiny village, now all that remained was sand. Scavengers had already picked the bones clean. A few still lay bleaching in the sun. The huts were burned, leaving nothing but soot in circular patterns to mark the places where people once lived.
A scavenger bird circled above, waiting for us to leave so it could return to pick at what little remained. Singh and I stopped at the well. I pumped it a few times to get enough water to continue our journey. Then we left the village behind. I knew it was Mahishasura. His rampage left a trail across the desert. It added fuel to the anger that still swelled inside me. I would kill that demon.
I didn’t look back as we walked. I had somewhere I needed to go, at least that was what I assumed since Durga wouldn’t let me stop.
I climbed a small rise of loose sand. My shoes slipped and skidded. From the top, laid out before me was a beautiful section of pristine dunes. The wave pattern took my breath away. It stretched as far as I could see with no break of trees or shrubs.
“Looks like we'll be walking all night, Singh.”
He huffed. My sneakers and his big paws broke the sand’s perfect surface as we moved on towards our destination.
Where ever the hell that was.
CHAPTER TWO
The moon rose as the sun fell, turning the desert into an unearthly world. My shadow rippled across the dunes, mesmerizing me.
“You know, we could die out here,” I said, breaking the silence. It wasn’t the first time I made the morbid observation.
Singh huffed. I took another sip of the alcohol the nice lady in the village had stuffed in with the food and clothes. I sang that song about the guy who rode through the desert, except I changed the word horse to lion. My laughter would have scared away birds and small animals if there had been any. Singh and I were the only ones foolish enough to wander the Thar Desert.
It wasn’t really aimless, though. Durga had her radar on full and was tracking some evil. In Durga we trust. My feet never faltered, no matter how much alcohol I drank. She kept me upright and moving towards our target.
“You know, Singh, you aren’t great company anymore. I should have brought Drew. He knew how to have fun.” I said, sipping the alcohol. “Or Frankie. God, I miss Frankie.”
We walked in silence while I thought of getting drunk with Frankie in Moscow. That was good times.
“You know who I don’t miss?” My shoe was full of sand, so I stopped and plopped down to empty it. “I don’t miss Vincent. Not even a bit.”
Singh huffed again, then yawned and plopped his fuzzy butt down in the sand.
“No sleeping, we are walking till morning, so we don't get stuck out here in the middle of the day.” I learned my lesson last time. Durga kept me alive, but by the time I staggered into a tiny village, I was fully cooked. I nearly drowned in the dirty trough the camels were drinking from. I would have happily died that day.
Shoe back on, I rose and stretched my arms over my head, still gripping the bottle of liquor. In the distance I could hear a gentle whoosh sound, I couldn't see very far by the light of the moon, but it sounded man-made. It was too rhythmical.
“Where were we? Oh, yeah. I would be fine if I never saw Vincent again. He’s a jerk.” The memory of the little boy flashed in my mind again, but I shoved him away. Well, tried too. It was like the witch in the tunnels under Moscow had tattooed him on my mind.
I drained the last of the alcohol and kept walking. The rest of the night sludged by as Durga forced me feet onward and Singh swaggered at my side.
As the first rays of sun peeked over the horizon, the tall wind turbines — the source of the whooshing sound — came into view. They were all around us, towering over the desert like giant propellers. We climbed a tall dune and gazed down at what could only be a full-size city. A buzzing metropolis, with electricity and cars and people. Lots of people. There were tall buildings and rows of houses huddled together in the middle of the desert.
Between me and the city was a bright red landscape. It was fields of chili peppers, but in the early morning sun, it looked like blood running down the slope towards the edge of the city. I walked along the ridge to a gap between the fields, so I didn't step all over the hot peppers. We marched down the hill towards the city.
“You are going to have to shift, Singh. These people won’t want a lion in their city.”
Singh stopped walking and sat down. I turned and waited for him. His yellow eyes squinted like he was thinking really hard, but nothi
ng happened.
“Are you trying to shift?” I asked with a laugh.
He narrowed his eyes, curled his lips back and hissed at me.
“Momma always said if you made that face for too long it would freeze that way.” I sat down in the sandy soil to wait for the silly lion to find his human.
Durga pushed me to reach out to Singh, so I crawled forward and rested my hand on his head. Magic pulsed and curled from my fingers to the lion and suddenly he was a man again. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I was jealous. I missed yoga pants. Not that I had done yoga or meditated while we were out in the desert. But Yoga pants are the best. Singh stood up and wobbled a bit on two legs. He opened his mouth, but it was like he had too many teeth, not quite a person. I couldn't understand his garbled words when he spoke.
“You need to work on that, buddy.” I rose and turned back to the city, satisfied that my lion wouldn’t scare too many people as long as he didn’t smile.
Small shacks populated the edge of the city, with people just beginning to rise for the day. They came out and headed for the pepper fields or into the city. The further in we got, the bigger the buildings became. They had been built close together casting shade on every street. It probably kept the city cooler. At the far end, on a mountain was a giant fort, its magnificent arches and stone exterior lording over the city like a king. The rounded turret walls looked like a crown for a giant. The buildings in the city were square. Little odd shaped boxes all lined up. Some were painted, but most, including the fort, matched the desert sand. Sandcastles made by God.
We walked the streets, into the center of the city where people were hustling around setting up shops. As they did small dirt bikes and scooters crowded and honked. Several groups of tourists passed by, their cameras clicking. It was nice to hear American voices again, but I didn't pause. Durga had her senses on some bit of evil she wanted to squash, so I let her lead my legs. We crossed a highway, with noisy trucks and cars. They honked, and people yelled. Cows were wandering along the sides of the highway, loose. Men in turbans lined up in the shade watched as we walked past, their camels stood with peaceful expressions. We continued down a narrow drive between two buildings.