by Jyotin Goel
He shot an anxious glance at the Keralite woman, who smiled at him placidly.
‘Do not worry if the leaf isn’t found,’ she said, misunderstanding his concern. ‘This may not be when you are fated to meet with it.’
Despite himself, Vineet felt relieved.
‘However, the fact of your presence here is a good sign,’ she said, nodding reassuringly. ‘I think your destiny awaits you.’
Vineet went back to being miserable.
The Temple Periphery
2.26 a.m.
The wood was at least seventy metres from the mandapam, but the shotgun microphone trained on the shutterless window was picking up the conversation inside it with little trouble. Talwar heard the rapid-fire Malayalam and the snatches of English on his headphones; his eyes coursed over the simultaneous translation generated by the laptop’s software. An unremarkable conversation, gullible supplicants falling for an astrological con. It couldn’t be that, of course. Not when you put it together with what had gone before, and the obviously clandestine place and time of the meeting. It must be some kind of code. Could I be mistaken after all? Talwar wondered. Were they, in fact, professionals? Only experienced operatives would take such precautions. He had to know more. Half an hour, the so-called priest had said. Talwar would wait. And act when he’d heard enough.
SERC
Where is she? Where is she?
No crushed leaf, no snapped branch, no scent: the trail had gone cold. Ashvatthama felt a creeping anxiety that would not be denied. His forehead creased; impatiently, he brushed away the putrid muck that oozed out. This was Kali Yug, after all, the age of public exposure—everyone was stripped bare. In this era, Draupadi was naked. So how could she hide? Where was—what was that maanav term?—her ‘electronic signature’? Ashvatthama’s mind throbbed with knowledge looted from the lifeless man on the floor. She could be in a place with no electricity, no connectivity. A forest? Mountaintop? His fingers moved at blinding speed; the giant machine hummed, spewing terabytes of data every second.
Where is she?
The Temple Mandapam
3.12 a.m.
Arunima Pillai looked around apprehensively. The chill in the mandapam had nothing to do with the mist outside. The Reader had returned, but not alone—five men grasping thick bamboo staves stood at the doors, their faces hard in the lamplight. The Reader slammed down knotted bundles of palm leaves on the table and rounded on Arunima, the Malayalam syllables quick and harsh, too rapid for Nishi to follow.
‘What is it, Arunima?’ she interrupted. ‘What is he saying?’
The woman was on the verge of tears. ‘I am sorry, Doctor madam. I know this cannot be true. He accuses you of . . . that you are . . . frauds.’
‘W—what?’ stammered Nishi, flustered.
‘He says the handprint is fake.’
‘Why? Because no leaf was found? No match?’
‘Leaf is found!’ The Reader broke in suddenly, speaking angry Malayalam-accented English. He yanked open the mouldering cord tethering the bundles, spilling them across the table. ‘Four leaves! All matching handprint! Has never happened!’
Nishi and Vineet exchanged a look brimming with wonder. Four!
The reporter tried to hide his excitement, look humble. ‘You are right to be angry, panditji . . . Sri . . . holiness . . .’ His voice faltered, but then he gamely ploughed on. ‘I am a fake. But the photo isn’t! Let me explain why we did what we did . . . what lies behind all this.’
The Temple Periphery
3.23 a.m.
Talwar felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rise. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was aware of some of it already: a virus raging in Kerala, more than a hundred dead, no known cure. The scientist had been part of the research team. But this was much more: a contagion designed to kill, with mass extermination of life! They were talking biological warfare—the agency’s worst fears realized! He ripped off his headphones; he had heard enough.
‘Move in!’ he ordered harshly. ‘Arrest them all!’
~
Lakshadweep Islands
5.37 a.m.
Alone in the thatched hut, he was deep in a yogic trance, conserving his energy. A sudden stench filled the air—his eyes sprang open.
Saragha.
It was no dream. The vaanar stood still in the pre-dawn half-light, framed by the wooden slats of the window; savage face, crazed eyes. Abruptly, the creature hawked and spat, a very human gesture.
‘You stink!’ he growled. ‘Even worse than last time!’ He shook, snorting with vaanar laughter. And vanished.
Bheem leapt for the door of the hut. The sun hadn’t risen yet but the small fishing village—little more than a dozen huts—on the island on the far side of the lagoon was already awake, a handful of boats pushing off the sloping sands into the sea. Bheem’s eyes swept over the twin, palm-covered isles that made up the atoll, raked the coral-ringed lagoon they bracketed. Even in the faint light of pre-morning, he missed nothing. The vaanar had taken cover. Where? In a copse of palm trees? Offshore, among the lichen-covered coral reefs? He could hardly be lurking in the village on the far shore. There had been little time to cross the lagoon and there was no uproar, no panic. Had he imagined the creature, after all? No. Vaanarspoor hung in the air, heavy, distinct. There! A patch of flattened shrubbery, a pad print in the sandy soil, and—nothing. The creature had obviously leapt the twenty-bow-length distance that separated the hermitage from the tree line. Unsurprising, given the vaanar’s abilities. But what was he doing here on the maharishi’s ‘isle of exile’? How had he survived that terrible explosion in the mountains?
A door opened; the warrior turned. The maharishi was walking up the little path from the hermitage, face weary, eyes tranquil.
‘She will live,’ he said, as he came up. ‘So will the child.’
Relief swept through Bheem, surprising him with its intensity. He felt his eyes prickle, brushed an awkward hand against them. The sage, though, wasn’t surprised at all.
‘She means much to you,’ he said.
‘No,’ the warrior said, forgetting he had never been able to hide anything from his grandsire. ‘Just a friend.’
‘And yet you chose to save her,’ the sage said blandly, ‘and gave up on all of humankind.’
Bheem felt anger flare, that quicksilver temper for which Lord Krishna had repeatedly reprimanded him. ‘She is a child!’ he said, his voice rising against what he thought the sage was implying. ‘She means as much or as little to me as those infants meant to you when you chose to save them!’
Ved Vyas smiled, and did not reply.
‘Well? Am I wrong?’
‘You seek to know who those children were. The answer leads to the choice you have forsaken. I cannot answer.’
A distant shriek. The vaanar! Bheem had momentarily forgotten him. His eyes darted to an isolated grove of palm trees shaking violently. Bheem spun back to the sage.
‘This I can answer,’ the maharishi said serenely, forestalling the question. ‘Saragha was brought here near death from blast injuries—remarkable when you consider what he has survived over the centuries. I restored him to health.’
‘Who brought—?’
‘That, again, I may not answer. However, the vaanar’s unique power of recovery is fading. His long life nears its end.’ Yearning glimmered fleetingly in the sage’s eyes. ‘He is fortunate . . .’
Another shriek sounded, followed by crazed gibbering.
Bheem gazed pityingly at the wildly swaying trees. ‘He remains insane.’
‘And yet he was entirely sane as long as he was injured. His return to health is a return to madness. Interesting, is it not?’
The sage’s seeming flippancy soured Bheem. ‘It is time I left,’ he said. ‘I will take the girl with me.’
‘She will need another day to recover. The child within her needs to gain strength. And her leg has yet to heal fully.’
‘Then I will leave her with yo
u. I must find the last saviour before Ashvatthama does.’ Bheem met the sage’s all-knowing gaze with barely concealed contempt. ‘Since you choose not to intercede, I will seek the help of my companions.’ His eyes remained locked on the maharishi’s face. ‘Vineet-Sinha and the healer—will you, at least, guide me to them?’
‘The path is the same, my son. I cannot.’
Bheem glared at him. ‘But you are willing to let loose Pralay on the world, watch uncountable millions die!’
Ved Vyas’s gaze did not flinch. ‘Pralay was unleashed long ago. A necessary cleansing. I interfered. There was another who did not. He was wise—and right. I was not.’ The maharishi grimaced and shook his white-maned head. He looked up at the huge warrior; affection softened his wizened face. ‘I know you, my son. You will not give up. It is not in your nature.’ He raised his hand in a gesture of benediction. ‘I wish you well, always.’ The holy man patted his grandson’s cheek and ambled away.
A rustling of leaves . . . close . . . too close! Faster than thought itself, the warrior stepped aside, barely evading the slash of razor talons as Saragha hurtled past. Bheem whirled around and saw his assailant drop on to the shrub-stubbled ground. The vaanar stood tall, his ugly fangs bared, madness frothing at his jaws, pounding out deranged defiance on his matted chest. A warrior must know his adversary. The creature was unhinged, confrontation was best avoided. Bheem stooped, his head determinedly below Saragha’s, carefully evading eye contact: the classic posture of non-aggression when confronted by a raging bull vaanar. Instinct took over the whirling chaos that was Saragha’s mind—the human facing him was not harmful, not an enemy. The bellicose screams died away, replaced by the grunts of an ego gratified.
Insane.
A feeling of melancholy descended on Bheem—along with the memory of his first encounter with the vaanar in the Forest of Always Night. One of the sanest faces he had ever seen.
Something stirred in Bheem. What had his grandsire said?
His return to health is a return to madness.
A spark lit the warrior’s eyes. What if . . . ?
The next moment, the warrior rose to his full height, head above the vaanar’s, gaze locked on the creature’s demented eyes.
Saragha screamed.
And leapt at his brazen adversary. Bheem twisted aside, grabbed the swirling tail as the vaanar flashed past and swung the creature head-first into a tree trunk. There was an audible crunch. Bheem winced. Had he gone too far? The sage had suggested that the vaanar’s auto-healing ability was diminishing. Bheem wanted to inflict damage, not kill him. His worry was premature. With a groan, the splintered tree collapsed. Saragha himself hardly seemed to have felt the crash. He sprang up and mindlessly threw himself at the warrior.
Bheem had been expecting the attack, had deliberately instigated it. But the complete absence of calculation in the creature’s assault, the lack of any thought of self-preservation, wrong-footed the warrior. Despite his lightning-swift evasion, Saragha’s flailing tail grazed Bheem’s arm, the steel-wire bristles raising a welt on the warrior’s almost impervious skin. Bheem glanced at the mark grimly. An image flashed in his mind, the memory of Saragha’s acidic blood dripping down the cave wall, eating through layers of limestone and grime. That asura toxin had destroyed the vaanar race—what would it do to him? The journey through Samay had rendered Bheem almost indestructible. Would Mandodari’s venomous blood undo that? Bheem couldn’t be certain. A grin stretched his lips—this was hardly the time to find out!
I have to hurt him, make him bleed, thought Bheem, and meanwhile remember to stay alive.
He would have to keep out of the range of those slashing claws and tearing fangs. And that deadly whipping tail.
Bheem’s eye fell on a wedge of sharp coral, ossified into iron hardness. He snatched it up and spun to face another suicidal charge from the crazed vaanar. The creature’s hot breath hit Bheem full in the face as he held his ground, allowing the vaanar in. At the very last instant, Bheem leapt, pirouetting in the air, striking downward with the coral shard as Saragha’s roaring momentum propelled him past the spot where, a moment earlier, his foe stood. The sharp edge found its mark, hacking through the thick pelt on Saragha’s shoulder. The vaanar howled and staggered to a halt twenty yards beyond the warrior, who landed with a balletic grace that belied his size. Bheem glanced down at the wedge: a thick hank of grey-brown fur was lodged in its jagged coral teeth. No flesh, though. No blood. Bheem would have to roll the dice again. A dangerous game, but he had no choice.
Bheem’s great advantage as a warrior was his uncanny ability to anticipate an antagonist’s plan. What would the vaanar do next? Bheem had leapt over the creature; the rational response for Saragha would be to take to the air himself, at once negating the warrior’s earlier move and bringing the creature’s own superior agility into play. But the vaanar was mad. Therefore, unpredictable. And Bheem’s advantage was lost.
All at once, the howling ceased. Saragha’s pendulous lips twisted into a misshapen rictus, a parody of a smile. ‘My friend,’ he growled. ‘My friend for centuries!’
And before Bheem could realize that his mouth had dropped open in astonishment, the vaanar had scurried up a tall palm tree. Bheem came to himself with a start. What was he to do now?
Crunch!
A coconut hit the ground next to the startled warrior, shattering, splattering him with milk.
Thump! Splat!
A rain of coconuts, the vaanar probably having changed his erratic mind about the human’s ‘friend’ status. This would never do. Though wildly inaccurate, the coconut fusillade wasn’t a situation Bheem could risk waiting out. Every moment he spent marooned on this island was an opening for the enemy. A vision of Ashvatthama snapping the last saviour’s neck flared—and something dark twisted within Bheem. He did not know why his soul churned, why visceral rage shot through his veins, bloodying his face. Furiously, he raced forward, threw his massive arms around the base of the tree trunk, locked his wrists and bent his knees. The cords in Bheem’s neck bulged, power exploded through his enormous frame; he straightened. Groaning, grating, the tree’s roots were torn from the ground. For a moment, the giant stood still, holding the tall tree upright. Then he swung it in a fierce arc, smashing it down into a natural pool left behind by the receding tide. Water fountained upward, knocking the raving vaanar off the tree, disorienting him completely. He sank, choked, coughed violently, instinctively struggling for balance in the turbulent mix of vegetation and water.
The pool wasn’t deep; Saragha floundered to the surface. Where Bheem was waiting. In a moment, he was on the vaanar’s back, steel arm around his throat. The warrior slashed down with the coral wedge, its serrated edge biting into the exposed hide at Saragha’s shoulder. The vaanar screamed, talons raking his foe’s arm, trying to tear free. Uselessly. Bheem struck again and again, breaking through the tough hide, drawing blood. Saragha bared his fangs, but couldn’t bite down; the warrior’s arm was under his jaw, forcing his head away. And the vaanar’s most versatile weapon—his fearsome tail—was submerged in the water, caught under the tree trunk. Blocking out the creature’s screams of pain, Bheem forced himself to hack at the wound he had inflicted, trying to widen the gash, but repeated impact on the vaanar’s armoured hide shattered the wedge. The warrior, though, was a lethal weapon himself—he locked his jaws on the wound, sawed at the hide with cruel teeth, and tore into the broken flesh. Saragha’s toxic, red-black blood spattered on to the fallen tree; the fronds blackened, turned to ash. The bloodied water steamed as they struggled. Blood that was not blood smeared Bheem’s jaws and trickled down his throat; he gasped in pain and the smell of burning meat assailed his nose. He knew that the venom had broken into his body, but there was no turning back. He had to back his hunch. He couldn’t stop now.
‘Stop!’
A throttled gasp.
Bheem’s jaws unlocked, his hold loosened, fell away. The vaanar foundered, gasped and grabbed the shrubs at th
e pool-edge. Bheem back-pedalled and hoisted himself out of the hissing, reddened water on to the coral bank, warily eyeing the spluttering creature. Saragha too tried to pull himself out, but groaned and let go of the shrubs, clutching at his savaged shoulder.
‘Help me,’ he growled, looking balefully at the warrior.
Bheem eyed the vaanar, smelled blood and pain and fear. The furry chest heaved with the effort of breathing, jaws agape, lips drawn back from his savage, yellow fangs. The great golden eyes glared angrily. Anger—clean, cauterizing. Sane. Bheem reached out; a leathery paw wrapped itself around his hand. Bheem grunted and pulled.
‘I hate the wet,’ Saragha harrumphed, shaking the last drops of water off his pelt.
‘No wonder you stink!’ Bheem laughed, rinsing ugly, red-black gouts from his mouth. There seemed to be no repercussions yet from the toxic fluid he had ingested. Perhaps Samay’s protective shield still held firm.
The vaanar spat out the leaves on which he was chewing, applying the greenish paste to the gash on his shoulder, attempting to staunch the bleeding. ‘You didn’t have to gnaw so deep,’ he grumbled.
Bheem examined the wound unsympathetically. ‘The maharishi said your healing takes time now.’
‘Even so, less than a twentieth part of the day for a wound such as this.’ The vaanar stared at Bheem. ‘So you hurt me deliberately? To unclog my mind?’
Bheem grinned and jerked his thumb towards the hermitage. ‘He happened to mention that you were sane as long as you were injured. Just took that thought and ran with it!’
Saragha said nothing. And then, all at once, he boomed and shook and chittered.
‘Something amuses you?’
Saragha looked at Bheem, still laughing. ‘I didn’t know maharishis were allowed to cheat,’ he rumbled.