by Kevin Missal
“JUMP!” he yelled at her.
“Not without you.”
At that moment, the mercenary and Nanda began to fight the soldiers as much as they could, with one of them punching Nanda in the gut.
“You . . . need . . . to jump . . .”
Manasa realized the urgency. When one of the soldiers came to grab her, she elbowed him. She immediately jumped in the lake. She saw Kadru yelling in pain, but she also saw Nanda being stabbed in the stomach again as the mercenary got beheaded by Jamun’s men.
No. Please don’t die.
She couldn’t see what happened after that. Water engulfed her as she desperately tried to stay afloat. The current was strong and took her away from the shore. She had no idea where this lake would take her.
Remember my gift.
Manasa realized what Nanda had meant. She began to jerk harshly letting the locket flow out of her neck. Then she grabbed the string tight by the mouth. She put her arm next to the conical Shard of the locket and began to graze the ropes against the Shard until they ripped apart. Her hands free.
She now did the same with her feet. Once, they were done, she flapped her arms and came on the surface, panting in relief. She had come quite far from the shores of Naagpuri islands. She was now going towards a path she was unfamiliar with.
The ravine was takig her into the unknown.
As she swam in the lake, she recalled her husband’s last words.
I love you too, Nanda. I always have.
Kalki grabbed on to something and pushed himself out of the bog. His entire face was covered in mud and grease which he wiped out. And he was able to stand clearly over the swamp. It had taken a toll on his strength, but he had been able to do it. He walked towards one of the tree trunks for support.
And finally, he saw Brahmaputraksh fall in the swamp as well, and he was easily standing over it too.
“To master the bog, one must be trained well. How did you do it?” he asked.
Walking slowly towards Kalki, his razor-sharp Chakra slashed across Kalki’s chest. Another stinging pain coursed through his body. His ankle wound was also burning since all the bacteria and dirt had mixed in with the blood.
“You are a weaker kind of human. You are a Manav while we are . . .” and Brahmaputraksh went straight towards Kalki’s chest.
Kalki stopped him.
His eyes opened as mud trickled from the corners of his forehead. He twisted Brahmaputraksh’s arm as he groaned in pain.
“I’m not weak.”
Kalki gave a swift smack on his torso. Brahmaputraksh staggered. And then he felt another smack on the head. Kalki grabbed him by the throat as Brahmaputraksh tried to attack him with the second Chakra. Kalki let him stab his arm. Blood seeped from his skin, but it didn’t hurt him. His focus was only on Brahmaputraksh as his fingers began to clasp him tighter and tighter, until he could feel the Pisach’s larynx begin to break.
Kalki pulled Brahmaputraksh up from the bog. He rammed his fists into chest and shoved him inside the bog again. Brahmaputraksh struggled trying to push himself up, but Kalki didn’t let him.
“It’s over,” Kalki growled. “It’s over.”
And then the protesting stopped for good. The hands stopped flaying and there was no guttery sound anymore.
He was gone for good.
Kalki sighed as he touched the blood on his skin. He began to walk forward, out of the heavy, deep bog that surrounded him, where there was a ladder. But before he could climb the ladder, he fell down, unconscious.
Kalki opened his eyes, gasping for breath when he realized he was watching his own shadow at the ceiling. He was in a dark room and his eyes searched and scanned for Padma and Kripa only to see candles around him. He was lying over a rocky slab and he realized his entire body was burning and stinging at the same time. His neck ached and his muscles did too. He felt extremely exhausted and weak.
God, this hurts!
Kalki sat up and saw that his chest was glinting. What in the world? He touched it. There was a strange symbol carved over it. It was a zigzag, maze-like symbol in the middle of his chest, shining as if it was powered by fire lights.
The door opened and he turned to see it was Padma. She was wearing a heavy fur-like coat around her body. She looked rested.
“You are awake.” A glint of happiness was on her face. “I mean,” she coughed, “you are awake.” She normalized her voice.
“Where am I?”
“You saved us. The Pisach let us leave because you killed their master and that was one of the most honourable things to do according to them. They wanted you to be their next leader, but we kind of knew you didn’t want to wear a necklace of skulls, right?” She smiled and Kalki realized that this was the first time that Padma had given him a genuine smile.
“Yeah, who does?” He looked outside the door. It was snowing.
“We are in the hills?”
“Oh yeah, come on. We have reached a cool place, by the way.”
Cool place, eh?
Kalki walked to her and asked, “What is this?” He pointed at the symbol on his chest.
“I don’t know. It appeared on your chest when you killed Brahmaputraksh.”
“Like magic?”
“Oh yeah.”
He stepped out and even though he was standing in the cold, he felt nice. The breeze was smooth and harsh at the same time. The mountains were large and capped with snow. The skies were sapphire-coloured. There was no sunlight. He took a deep breath in, letting the fresh air of freedom rest in.
“How many days have I slept for?”
“Three to four days. You kept waking up because of your fever so we fed you then.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Yeah, because you were not completely conscious. But it’s all right.” She patted him on the back. “Don’t you feel cold?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Of course, you don’t. After all, you are the saviour of this world, right?” She winked.
She is cracking jokes now? “What really happened, Padma? Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because now I finally believe what Arjan told me. He believed you were the Avatar and I didn’t believe it, not until I saw what you did back there, how you would’ve sacrificed yourself to fight the Pisach. You were fearless and you did it with ease, although I didn’t expect an Avatar would collapse due to blood loss, heh.” She grabbed his arm. “I believe in Lord Kalki.”
Lord Kalki? I believe in him too, I guess.
For some reason, he could picture Lord Varaha grinning at this from afar, thinking that finally Kalki had done what he had been meant to do.
“And also, the folks here were quite happy to see that symbol on your chest. I mean, they wouldn’t have rescued you if you didn’t have that symbol.”
“Folks here?”
Padma pointed to the side where there were more huts and cottages like the ones Kalki had just stepped out of. And then he saw there were furry civilians walking with coats and strange long dhotis, wearing shawls and what not. They had tufts of hair around their faces, bulbous noses, and big mouths. Some of them were using bamboo sticks to fight, while some were just meditating under trees. It was an entire town submerged in the snowy-capped hills with uneven, beauty slopes and the horizon that never seemed to end.
“Who are these people?”
“Vanars,” Padma excitedly spoke. “I was always curious to see them and here I am.”
“Vanars? We are in Dandak Hills?”
She nodded.
“They cured you. They had these crazy herbs.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, but the good part is we are close to Mahendragiri mountains.” She pointed at the far hills which were visible from there.
“Should we leave then?”
“Oh no,” she shook her head. “He wants to see you.”
“Who?”
Padma licked her lips in anticipation. “He was quite curious to meet you, the leader of
the Vanars.” She paused. “Lord Bajrang.”
“Lord Bajrang?”
“Yeah, you might know him from the books, the stories, the history of us. I can’t believe he’s real.”
Of course he is.
“You know what the textbooks in my gurukul called him, right?” Kalki asked. “Where I used to study these myths.”
“No.”
Kalki smiled. “They called him Hanuman.”
Kali had lost consciousness and by the time he woke up, he realized it was the first time in a long time that he hadn’t had a nightmare.
He could feel that he was being transported somewhere—he could even see the figures that were carrying him. Koko and Vikoko were beside him. He could glimpse Durukti too. She looked concerned.
His body ached and his mind was fizzing. He could feel his temperature was high and in the background he could hear people shouting. Unable to understand what was happening, he fell asleep.
In and out of consciousness, he had wondered aloud, “Where am I?”
“You’re safe.” Durukti’s voice had comforted him.
“What is happening?”
But then he dozed off again. It was quite evident why he was ill—he had been beaten to a pulp under the scorching heat of the sun. There were bruises all over his face and arms. Some of the sand had gotten in his mouth during the fight.
Finally, when he next woke up and saw his surroundings clearly, he realized he was in a small hut, with a concrete ceiling and fire lights around him. Right next to him, Durukti was sitting and looking at him intently while on the other side sat a strange old man with a grey beard and a crooked eye. He was wrapping bandages around his arms and legs, and massaging a strangely scented ointment on his body. He could see shadows of Koko and Vikoko at the door, guarding him from harm.
“Are you better?” Durukti asked.
The room was far smaller than his quarters. Kali nodded to the question as he began to stand up but he was pushed down by the old man.
“Ssstay,” he said with a wispy, snake-like tone to his voice.
“You fell ill terribly.”
Kali sighed as he looked at the man clearly. He recalled him from somewhere, as if he had seen him sometime back.
“You . . .” Kali’s eyes widened. “I know you.”
The old man nodded impassively as he went over to the other end of the room and brought something familiar to Kali’s notice—it was Kali’s crown which he had given to the old man.
“Gratitude reciprocates, I believe,” the man said.
But somehow, the man looked different, strange. Now, he seemed more in charge and . . . dangerous, mysterious.
“He helped us take you in.”
“What about the infirmary in the kingdom?”
“There’s no kingdom.” She lowered her gaze. “I am sorry, but it’s been taken over by Urvashi. She killed all your loyalists and convinced the ministers to go against you since you got beaten up by a prisoner.”
How did she do it?
“Did you get my pouch of Soma? That can help me.”
She shook her head. “It got lost.”
Someone stole it!
Kali was coming to his conclusions, but then his mind was going all over the place. “You mean to say, I’ve lost the very city I’ve been fighting for for so long?”
“Yes.”
The old man didn’t say anything. He kept himself busy tending to Kali.
Kali closed his eyes. He had been defeated. He rubbed his aching arm as he thought about all the things that had happened. “How did we escape?” he quietly asked Durukti.
“We were on a run, chased by the prisoners when Koko and Vikoko found a chariot in which we could travel out of the city and then we met Shukr.” She pointed to the old man.
“Couldn’t we just hide in the city?”
“Urvashi was hellbent on finding you. She wanted you out of the city and if we would have stayed there, gathering an army would have been a problem.”
“We had Kuvera’s allegiance.”
“Kuvera allies with the powerful. And you are not it.”
I’m a nobody again.
“Where are . . . where are we?”
“In the outskirts of Indragarh, one of the villages of Keekatpur,” she sighed. “To be honest, it’s not even a village, it’s a farm.”
Kali nodded. He tried to stand up, but couldn’t. Feeling weak, he plopped down and fell asleep.
Kali walked out of the hut with a wooden cane. He leaned on it as he walked, looking at the mighty hills, the downward slope, and the local farm with sheeps and goats. There was also a small mill nearby. The pastures stretched wide and large. The skies didn’t end where he stood and it somehow felt pleasant from where he used to be—in the oil drenched, smoke-infested city. This was cleaner.
Koko and Vikoko stood like diligent guards. Kali was proud to have them. They would never turn their backs to him because they had pledged a blood oath. No matter how much they hated Kali, they could never betray him.
He wondered how Urvashi had gotten the idea of releasing the prisoners. It seemed so far-fetched for a young girl to be able stage a coup. There is more to her than meets the eye.
He also thought about his pouch of Soma and how it had gone missing. And where had Arjan’s strength come from? There was a connection that Kali was missing. There must be someone in the middle of it all. Someone had orchestrated Kali’s downfall.
Though, whoever that person may be, he had been successful. Kali had been defeated and left out in the woods, in some farm that he had no idea about. With his cane, he limped forward to see a small, razor-like ravine flowing with crystal blue water, zigzagging and smashing against the rocks.
“How do you feel?” a sickly, troubled voice came from the back.
Kali turned to see Shukr who was slouching. He was wearing a long, dark robe. Walking over to the river, he came and stood beside Kali.
“Better.”
“You came at the right time otherwise you would be dead right now. The river . . . it usssed to be bloody, you know.”
“Bloody?”
“Red, scarlet . . . all red.”
“When?”
“When Asurasss were alive.” He opened his mouth and revealed his rotten teeth. Kali realized the man’s eyes were golden. “Everything wasss in their order.”
Kali arched his brows. “You are an Asura, aren’t you?”
“Yesss.” He smiled. “And so are you and so is your sissster.”
“I thought we were the last ones.”
“You don’t know anything, foolish one.” Shaking his head, Shukr continued. “You don’t know what you are capable of. You don’t know that your enemy is alive and is out there.”
“Arjan,” Kali nodded.
“No, no. Kalki.”
Kali dismissively twisted his mouth. “He’s dead.”
“So you think, but he isn’t and he’s up there preparing to fight you,” he pointed at the mountains.
“How do you know all of this?”
“I have seen everything.” Shukr played with his beard.
“The crown . . . you didn’t want money for your family or your daughter . . .”
“No. I wanted to see if you were generous or not, and you were. Good for you. You are sssupposed to be.”
“Why?”
Shukr shrugged, leaving Kali to contemplate. He began walking further and Kali followed him. “Why? Why am I special? Why is Kalki my enemy?”
“The prophecy,” Shukr mumbled.
“What prophecy?”
“The prophecy of every Age—of Dharm and Adharm, they shall come at the brink of people’sss troubles and shall fight, determining the fate of the world. You both will be trained in the arts of your expertise to have the last battle.”
Kali clenched his fist. “Dharm and Adharm?”
“Yes. The good and the bad.”
“So I’m Adharm?”
Shukr turned. “What do you
think?”
“I must be. I have done awful things.”
Shukr smiled.
“The Asurasss were the most majestic and the most powerful race. They ruled justifiably but history mocksss them.”
“Asuras were evil. That’s why our homeland Pataal suffered a witchhunt where Asuras were impaled and put to death. We were hunted by Manavs for we spread hate and did black magic.”
Shukr sighed. “All liesss to apprehend us. We were good, justifiable.” He said the word ‘justifiable’ as if it meant something to him. “The most beautiful race . . . proud and intelligent. Look at usss now.” He signalled at Kali’s bald head and his loose skin. “You’ve made yourself worse, young one.”
“It was the illness.”
“I know. It was the Cursed One. He was behind it.”
Should I believe what he is telling me? He seems a little crazy. But then there was one fact that Kali was supremely interested in and which he wanted to probe further. “You said Kalki is Dharm and I am Adharm. My training, what is it? How shall I be trained to fight him if you say he hasn’t died?”
“You’re wrong.”
“About the training?
He shook his head, keeping his lanky fingers over Kali’s shoulder. “ You are Dharm.”
Mayhem ensued.
Arjan had realized that this would happen. And it had. The entire city of Indragarh was in chaos after Urvashi had taken over the city. While the prisoners rejoiced, the council was furious over Urvashi who had promised them order in just a matter of few days. They had said to her that she can’t control the public with a paramilitary force. Urvashi had been adamant though. She would rather have this army than trust the council. One of the noblemen who had been raging against her was Ramras. He advocated that it was unwise to let a young girl rule the city for which he started a motion for removing her, making him the interim ruler till they found someone suitable.
Urvashi denied the motion. She was the previous ruler’s daughter. So she was queen by birthright.
The motions kept going back and forth while Arjan stood amidst the mayhem. He was given the task to cleanse the city, make sure there was no issue between the prisoners and the public. The public was retaliating while the prisoners supported her. Some prisoners had chosen to leave Urvashi after her purpose had been achieved but some of them, like Rudra and Harsha, had stayed back. Rudra had managed to convince Arjan to help Urvashi as well.