Satyayoddha Kalki- Eye of Brahma

by Kevin Missal

  Vibhishana was also the cousin of Raktapa. When Vedanta had defeated Vibhisana and killed his family, Vibhisana had sworn revenge, but nothing had happened. Vibhisana had lacked the courage to keep his word. Thus, Vedanta could understand why Raktapa had been so eager to join Kali’s campaign. He had wanted Vedanta to fall for hurting Vibhisana.

  Did Vedanta regret all of it? Surely, he did. He was a changed man now. He had a daughter so he could understand what Vibhisana had been through. And if Vedanta could ever get a chance to plead for forgiveness from the Dakshini king, he would. But not now. Now, he had graver issues to deal with.

  He reached Kuvera’s fort which was just like what he had expected it to be—everything from the floor to the ceiling was adorned with pure gold. The place smelled of fruits, and the accompanying sounds were of dancers in skimpily-clad clothes who entertained Kuvera’s ministers.

  Vedanta dismounted from the horse and walked forward, his one hand over the hilt of his sword. Passing the dancers and the ministers, he climbed the staircases to see the dwarf-like Yakshas glaring at him. Yakshas could be categorized in one simple line—they were small and ugly. He was unattractive but huge, and so were his sons—Nalakuvera and Manigriva. Unlike Kuvera, Vedanta had heard a lot of good things about them. They were charming, handsome, and fierce when needed.

  Vedanta entered Kuvera’s quarters and he found him sitting on a mini-throne eating grapes given by an Apsara. It was the classic act of living a life filled with gluttony and indulgence.

  “Ah,” Kuvera mused, shushing the Apsara who walked away in an instant. “Please come in.” He directed his hand at a cushion to sit, to which Vedanta refused.

  “We need to do something about Kali.”

  “You surely are an idiot, my lord.”

  “Excuse me?” Vedanta growled.

  “You shouldn’t have come to meet me in broad daylight. Lord Kali has grown smarter with his spy network now. He will know.”

  “Let him.” Vedanta announced as loudly as he could, his voice booming across the room. “I had given my crown for my daughter but I won’t let him take my beliefs away. He’s destroying each temple, every shrine in the city, taking people’s beliefs.”

  “Fortunately, not mine.”

  Vedanta gritted his teeth. “I don’t care about yours. You are worshipped as a god amongst your men. You have a different, primitive religion than mine.”

  “Ah well, yes.” Kuvera grinned and Vedanta noticed the purple lining across his throat as if his clothes were choking him. But Kuvera showed no haste and he looked comfortable. “Not primitive, advanced is the word. Have you come here to belittle me?”

  “I would like your help.”

  “I would advise you to watch your manners then, my lord,” he gestured with his hand, chuckling softly. “How do you plan to defeat Lord Kali, might I ask?”

  “I shall take away his army. He might be strong by that bloody liquid, but he cannot defeat an army.”

  “Do you have your loyalists?”

  “Yes, there are those who believe in me and there are those who don’t, whom I shall pay.”

  “Bribes? Well, I never expected that from an honourable man like you.”

  “These are desperate times.”

  “And since the treasury is under Lord Kali, you need money from me.”

  Vedanta nodded glumly. “In our prior participation, I had helped you kill Vasuki, even helped—”

  “You do not need to justify your alliance with me. To be honest, I need Lord Kali to go as much as you do. But he’s grown smarter and madder. If he sees us betraying him, he shall not even hesitate to kill us,” he thoughtfully mused. “But also, he’s handling his government well. The grain prices have been reduced, the tax rate has been lowered, he’s giving away money in charity and building houses in the poverty-stricken places. Yes, the endowments he would be getting from the idols will go away since he’s destroying them—”

  Vedanta snapped. “I don’t care what he’s doing. I ruled better than him, any day. I believed in traditions which our forefathers left us with.”

  “And who says these traditions were right?”

  Vedanta went silent.

  Kuvera smiled. “I had two sons—Nalakuvera and Manigriva.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. I just received the news that Manigriva has been killed.”

  Vedanta arched his brows. “I’m sorry for—”

  “Tsk, it’s okay. He was never my favourite. And imagine who killed him? Nalakuvera. His brother. Heh.” He clapped his hand in laughter. “It was a petty feud over an Apsara. You see, Manigriva was the honourable one, doing things out of duty and love. He was emotional. He cared while Nalakuvera was mad, frantic, and unpredictable. Manigriva’s so-called honour killed him. You see where I’m getting at? We don’t live in times where good, honourable men triumph. And if they do in the rarest of instances, they lose something in the process.”

  Vedanta could understand that he was being equated with Manigriva and Kali with Nalakuvera. But Vedanta was older, wiser. He had seen wars and crushed all rebellions. Manigriva had not had his experience. “I’m not as honourable as you think I am.”

  “All right. Good. Then you must do something for me and in return, I shall fund your coup.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Kill Pradm. He’s a thorn in my plans.”

  Pradm? He was the Rakshas general of Kali’s army. He would have to die eventually but why did Kuvera want him to die? Something didn’t add up, but questions beget insecurity and Vedanta couldn’t show Kuvera that.

  “It’s good for you, my lord. He’s the one who’s destroying the shrines under Lord Kali’s order. Relieve the executor from his work. And you have my support. Easy.”

  Vedanta nodded.

  “You seem confused.”

  “I thought you’ll ask something else.”

  “Of course not. People still trust you. Your soldiers still love you because they believe you are a great man and no matter what, you shall never go against your morales. You show me you can take down Pradm, I will believe that you have the capability of killing Lord Kali, that you still have guts.”

  Capability? Of course, I have the bloody capability. With a stomp, he walked away from Kuvera’s chambers, wondering how he was going to kill a brawny, fierce Rakshas.

  Padma had never thought that in her journey of living the life of a ferocious assassin in the city of Indragarh, she would become a rebel and end up babysitting a so-called saviour. Kalki was anything but a hero. He was an idiot, first of all, rude, disrespectful and worse—he was just plain irritating, always whining, always coming up with stupid plans that made no sense.

  There was a reason why the Pisach had appeared out of nowhere. It was because Kalki had made so much noise with his mouth that it had alerted the Pisach. They wouldn’t have come up if he hadn’t caused a ruckus. While they were being dragged with the horses, she had been cutting down her restraints with her pocket knife. She had been this close to escaping but the saviour chose to use his pea-brain at the worst possible moment.

  And now here they were, inked Tribals surrounding them, jumping from one tree to another, and the ones who were on the ground had their darts aimed at them. With the slightest of movement, they would surely shoot them down.

  Padma knew that the Pisach wouldn’t kill them. They would toy around with them and then eat them, but not kill them instantly. Pisach were the bottom feeders of the society, the illiterates, the dark and dusty. They were looters and rapists, but they also followed a system. They must have hired the Simhas to get them more humans because Pisach believed they facilitated the soon-to-be dead to the afterlife. With the help of their brethren, they could deliver people from their wretched lives. In short, they were a cannibalistic cult.

  And Padma, Kripa, and Kalki were just about to meet their head chief.

  They travelled inside the trenches of the jungle to see the ground was turning
murky. Leaves were going scarce but the dense canopies hid the little sunlight the place had. And soon, her eyes fell on the dark path that lay ahead of her. Grotesquely beautiful she could call it, as she saw the entire ground was swamp—deep, dark, and dingy. It smelled and mosquitoes swarmed all over it. Frogs crept around it. The only sound she could hear were the crazy syllables made by the Pisach. She knew what they talked like—their language was same as their own except they were speaking in reverse. It was confusing. I wonder how they all learned this language .

  Over the swamp were huts and nets that covered the distances between each tree. The huts were long and elongated, some camouflaged under the canopy. They were made of wood and reed. The branches were tough as well. The nets were carved in such a way that they acted like paths. There were ladders that helped one to go out, but neither the hostages nor the Pisach needed a ladder. They were able to jump from one place to another, barefoot.

  Though the scary part was the vines. When one hut was far off and the net wasn’t there, Padma saw them using long vines to travel—like monkeys.

  “Where the hell are we?” Padma quietly said, only to get a response from Kripa.

  “It’s called Daldal Lands. Where no man walks and if they do walk, they never return.”

  Padma narrowed her gaze to look at Kripa questionably when Kalki asked him, “You make things as you go, right?”

  “Sometimes, mate.” Kripa grinned.

  Padma was then told to travel by the ladder. She climbed up and reached the nets and carefully walked over them until she finally reached a hut that had a solid green surface made of branches, woods, and leaves. Kalki was behind her and they all were standing in a line when the Pisach knocked on the door of the hut.

  It opened.

  Standing close to it was a fairly-sized Pisach who nodded at Padma and then gestured them to enter. Padma did, followed by the other captives. She didn’t even know who the bald-headed girl was, who had been travelling with them, though she looked a lot like an Apsara—exceptionally beautiful. But she had no hair which made Padma wonder if she was an Apsara in the first place.

  The room of the hut was incensed with candles, the sound of light drums played by the Pisachis—the female counterpart to Pisach—could be heard. In the middle, cross-legged, a dark-skinned Pisach sat, his arms outstretched, his eyes closed, and he had a piercing right across his nostrils. He had his hair tied up in the top, oiled well. And the worst part was, he had a necklace made of human skulls, disturbingly enough one of the skull was of a child.

  “Their god,” whispered Kripa. “Or their current god; it keeps changing.”

  “What do they believe in?” Kalki asked rather loudly. Padma just felt like smacking him on the head.

  “They believe that the strongest is the fittest and should survive. If two Pisach fight and one loses, the defeated must be killed as it is considered a ‘dishonour’ to lose a duel.”

  “They duel? Where the hell do they duel?” Padma scoffed.

  “SILENCE!” the leader of the Pisach roared loudly.

  Padma was swept with a chill she had only experienced when she had been about to kill Urvashi, but had refrained. It was a chill that comes after a realization and right now, it surely was a realization of dread.

  Worse, the leader of the Pisach spoke in their language.

  He opened his eyes and Padma realized they were bloodshot. A smile crept over his face as he began, “How indecent. You speak in my territory . . . without my permission. Who is the leader of this group?”

  The bald-headed girl came forward. “It’s not a group. We are different sets.”

  “Ah, interesting.” His voice had a wheezing sound to it as if his throat had an infection. “Not many women here dare to speak and here you are blabbering away.”

  The bald-headed girl gritted her teeth and Padma could feel the tension right now. In fact, she had hated the statement as well. Illavarti was still primitive and unlike Nagas, who were not patriarchial, every other tribe was rooted in orthodox ways in some way or the other.

  “What is your name, dear?”

  “Ratna . . . Maru.”

  The leader hissed. “And who are your friends?”

  Ratna looked at the matted girl. “That’s Smrit.” And then she looked at the inked girl. “And this is Aina.”

  “And you?” His red eyes turned over to Padma.

  “Padma, and that’s Kripa and Kalki.”

  The leader nodded. “You all seem exhausted and worried. I welcome you to my abode. Please get some rest.” He paused. “Also, I apologize. I seem to have forgotten to introduce myself. I am Brahmaputraksh.”

  At that time, Kripa nudged Padma. Padma shot him a glance, mouthing what . But Kripa remained fixated on the leader as if he had instantly recalled who this Brahmaputraksh was. He was being quite courteous. But then, something felt off about this whole thing. They were cannibals and yet they were behaving normally.

  Padma ignored Kripa and they began to move when Brahmaputraksh called out, “Just wait.”

  They all froze.

  “We have a little game that we play when we receive our guests. It’s a game of survival. Since you are of two teams, three each, we would love it if you could get ready for some duelling.”

  “What?” Padma said.

  “It’s a tradition we follow. Whoever wins will get to live another day.” His smile widened and Padma noticed a worm slowly wheezing out of his gums which he instantly ate. He didn’t look so courteous, after all. Rather, he seemed disturbing to even glance at. “Our first duel will be with you,” he pointed at Aina, “and you.”

  He pointed at Padma.

  Urvashi thought about a lot of things—but she wasn’t allowed to execute any of them.

  Always under the protective arms of her father, Lady Urvashi had been homeschooled, home-trained in the arts of warfare—swordsmanship or horse riding—with prominent military tacticians. She didn’t have a lot of friends and the one she had forged a bond with had been her guru who had turned out to be a Vidhyadhara. The guru hadn’t told anyone except Lady Urvashi, for Vedanta was xenophobic and didn’t want anyone but a Manav to train his daughter.

  Lady Urvashi, on the other hand, didn’t care. She didn’t mind if her guru was a part of an extinct tribe.

  She loved learning, books, and most of all, she loved magic. She loved it to the point of being obsessed with it. She could never be a Vidhyadhara but that didn’t mean she couldn’t perform External Magic.

  Vidhyadharas were magicians. They looked like Manavs and were ordinary men and women, though they could conjure magic tricks of their own. It could be as simple as creating things out of nothing, travelling to faraway places, and using control over elements of nature. They could do it in two ways—External Magic and Internal Magic. Internal Magic was the elemental form of magic—using fire, water, earth, and wind. Her guru had taught her that each Vidhyadhara has a fragment of Indra, Vayu, Varun, and Agni, with which they could use their powers but not to a godly extent; they could slightly tap into it. External Magic relied on using an object that held magical properties, like an amulet or a bracelet.

  Urvashi, being a Manav, could have control over External Magic and her guru had taught her something diabolical after she had urged him to. He had taught her how to hurt people without physically touching them. Urvashi had thought that that was impossible, but she got her proof soon.

  And when she saw Lady Durukti, the docile sister of Lord Kali, frantic and in need of help, Urvashi knew she could give a pretty good hand with her problem. Also, her guru had left to improve upon his craft and she was all alone. She couldn’t practice the magic. Thus, she could apply it in the best manner possible through Lady Durukti.

  “I only have one request,” she said to Durukti as they entered her chamber. “Do not mention any of this to my father.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” Durukti nodded with disbelief.

  Sometimes, Urvashi envied Lady Durukti for
being a beauty. It was just so effortless for her while Urvashi had to spend time to add shine to her hair and powder her face. Of course, Urvashi was young and still in the growing stage, but she knew she wanted to grow up and look like Lady Durukti—with her ravine, black hair, full eyes, small mouth, and an angular jawline. She was everything that Urvashi wanted to be. And thank the gods, she had found Lady Durukti in the place which she frequented.

  “Also, this doesn’t change the fact that your brother and my father hate each other. We are not friends. I’m bored and you need help.” Urvashi stated her intentions, though her voice was soft and childlike, and didn’t match the intended command.

  “I know, I understand.” Durukti nodded again. It was like she didn’t care much about her warnings. Like she was still treating her like a child.

  Well, I’ll prove her wrong.

  “All right, I would like you to do something for me.” Urvashi began to fumble in the bag, as she pulled up a wooden figurine.

  “What is that?”

  “This is a wooden figure that I carved. My father thinks it’s a hobby, and it is, but it is also a way to connect to a person. You can hurt them with this.”

  “For a young girl, you are quite a menace.”

  Urvashi blushed. “Oh thank you very much, madam.” She paused. “Now I want you to go to Symrin and distract her, while I pluck a hair from her head.”

  “Hair? Are you sure?” Durukti’s face contorted.

  “Oh yes, because then we need to tie her hair around this figurine.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Durukti glumly nodded. “I hope this works, girl.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or . . .” Durukti was speechless. “It’ll be a waste of my time. That’s it.” And with that, she stormed out of the room.

  Urvashi followed Lady Durukti while she studied the little architectural foliage of the entire fort. Lord Kali hadn’t done much to the fort in terms of upgrading it, but he had managed to amp up his guards in number. He seemed paranoid since each new corridor had been stationed with two to three guards.