by Rohit Gaur
“Well, now, welcome aboard the Needle, fastest boat in the third decasphere. She’s built for speed and comfort, but mostly speed. Hold on tight. In fact, better sit down and buckle the belt across. Before you know it, we’ll be on the high seas. Just need to make it past the cannons is all.”
Cannons? thought Tarun. He wanted to ask but thought better of it. He likely needed to concentrate on the wheel.
Galerest appeared and Radigar barked a series of nautical orders that Tarun could not understand. Galerest disappeared again to do whatever he had been asked to do. Meanwhile the boat began to pick up considerable speed, the waves slapping heavily against the hull. Looking out the window, Tarun could see the shore already receding, the workers milling about on the docks small and distant. Luckily, the well-lit docks made the waters of the harbor seem dark. With all of its lights doused, the Needle could stealth its way along the shore toward the harbor exit without attracting any notice.
Until, that is, the soldier noticed its slip was empty.
A sharp alarm sounded from the shore: their absence had obviously been noted. Radigar cursed and swung the wheel. “Time to go!” he whooped. The ship lurched forward at full speed, moving at a tidy clip toward the open space between the jutting spurs of land that hemmed in the harbor. On either side of the opening, a tall lighthouse stood. After the alarm sounded, both began sweeping their spotlights across the bay. They finally locked on to the boat only a few hundred yards out, and another alarm sounded. Shortly, an amplified voice sounded across the water:
“Stop, immediately. Kill your engines. If you attempt to cross the harbor entrance, we will fire upon your ship. Stop, immediately.”
Tarun sat frozen to his chair. Fired on. That sounded like bad news.
“You ready, Galerest?” Radigar shouted out the window.
A muffled assent came back from in front of the cockpit.
“Alright, then. Fire away!”
From the prow of the ship, Tarun heard a quick succession of bangs, followed by puffs of smoke rising from the deck. The smoke streaked into the sky in high-flying arcs and curlicues, filling the air with its twisted columns. Then all at once the sky was filled to bursting with exploding lights, showers of cascading sparks, like fireworks but even more blinding and incredible.
“Ha-ha!” Radigar yelled as the explosions kept ramping up. Tarun barely registered that the ship continued to hurtle forward. Two booms in the distance indicated that the cannons had been fired, but in the downpour of silvery light their aim was far off the mark.
By the time the manic celestial show was over, the ship had long passed through the harbor entrance, the Market Sway a distant thin line on the horizon.
Sitting meditatively on his low platform, Ganesha breathed a deep sigh. He knew he could trust Galerest. The Serpentine had strength, numbers, and force, but in cleverness, in guile, in sheer foolhardiness, Galerest would always have the upper hand. Although someone else in his position might be frustrated not to be able to join and assist, Ganesha had learned long ago not to desire something that was impossible. He was content to watch their progress with his mind’s eye and maybe help—just a little—if he could. Galerest would not need it, but soon it would be Tarun’s turn to lead. A great deal depended on Tarun. He must assist him if he could find a way to do so.
He stretched his arms and settled down lower in his pose.
Inside her cell, Parvati awoke to the sound of gunshots. Forcing her eyes open, she examined the room. From the light, it looked to be afternoon: she must have finally drifted off to sleep at some point in the early morning. The gunfire alarmed her. Rising from her cot, she peered out the one small window.
Across a field, she could see soldiers practicing their marksmanship against makeshift targets. Dressed in camouflage and black fatigues, they lay on the ground, rifles on small stands, aiming at several large mounds affixed with paper bull’s-eyes. She shuddered. This was not like the training that Kashmiri soldiers received. These soldiers were preparing for guerrilla warfare, for locating a hiding spot and picking off enemies as they approached through the trees.
As she watched, a group of three soldiers walked near the window, carrying long rifles and strips of ammunition. For a moment she was puzzled. They looked too short and slight to be soldiers, their frames barely any taller than the guns they were carrying.
Then she realized: they were children. Barely in their teens. Barely old enough to be going on dates or driving a car, let alone being trained to shoot a gun or participate in war. Her heart ached thinking about these young boys pressed into this fight. They had been given way too much responsibility for their tender age.
They might even be the same age as Tarun, she realized.
Chapter 9
CLIMBING
When Tarun awoke, the boat was gently rocking on the waves. He was surprised at how quickly the night had passed: exhaustion had crept over him as soon as Radigar had given him a bunk below deck, lulled to sleep by the hum of the ship as it skimmed over the waters of the sea. But now the motion felt different. It felt like they were anchored.
Emerging from the cabin, Tarun could see that he was right. The ship was gently bobbing in a small inlet, surrounded on three sides by densely wooded banks. The trees rose high, higher than any Tarun had seen before, higher than any building in Srinagar. About halfway up, branches thick with dense clumps of leaves struck out from the trunks like elongated mushrooms.
“Well, well, glad to see yer still alive,” Radigar called out.
“Where are we?” Tarun asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Forests of Aeran,” Galerest chimed in from the stern. He leaped down and sauntered over. “From the information we’ve gathered, the Serpentine have hidden one of Ganesha’s objects here.”
“Why here?” Tarun wondered.
“Don’t know, really. But I have my suspicions,” Galerest replied.
“Aye,” Radigar echoed with a grin. “Suspect it has something to do with the Forests of Aeran bein’ the kind o’ place not too many see their way out of.”
“I have,” Galerest said solemnly. “Many times.”
“What’s in there?” Tarun asked.
Galerest looked at him steadily. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
As the boat skirted the coastline, Galerest explained to Tarun that through several back channels, the resistance had learned that the objects stolen from Ganesha had been hidden in several carefully guarded locations. The first object, they had learned, had been placed in the hands of a small tribe of warlike hawks, the Valorein, that lived at the center of the Forests of Aeran. What they were guarding—Ganesha’s axe—was likely hidden in their nest.
“How will we get up there?” Tarun asked.
“We will not be going up there. You will be going up there. I attempted to retrieve the object myself several months ago, but I’m afraid that the Serpentine have placed powerful enchantments on the forest that prevent any creatures from the Veiled Lands from getting close. We believe they will not affect you, however. So, you will have to climb alone.”
“Climb?”
“Yes, Tarun, climb. The hawks live in some of the tallest trees of the forest.” Tarun glanced up again at the soaring trees, seeming to stretch almost to the underbelly of the clouds.
“But I’ve never climbed anything that high.”
Galerest laughed. “I’m sure that’s true, Tarun. That’s why it’s time we started our training.”
“What kind of training?”
“Prana training. Are you familiar with prana?”
“Yes. I mean, maybe. Ganesha talked about it. It’s some kind of energy or life force, right?”
“Prana is motion, the prime mover of the universe. It forms the core of all beings, animate and inanimate, alive and inert. Rocks as well as trees, animals as well as humans. It is unavoidable, inescapable, in your world or mine. The difference is that here in the Veiled Lands, we have learned the ways
of using and directing prana for our own purposes. We have become adept at wielding prana, shaping it, channeling it, using it.”
“So, the Serpentine use prana? As well as Ganesha?”
“Yes, Tarun. Prana is neither inherently good nor evil. It can be used by anyone, for war or for peace, for defense or for attack. It can be used to protect, to sustain, to destroy, or to give life. It can be used to confine or set free.”
“So then what about Ganesha’s objects? The axe and the rope and the tusk?”
“Over a very long time, it is possible for objects to become special carriers of prana energy. They become conduits through which prana flows easily and with great strength. Ganesha turned the objects into vessels for prana, which the wielder can access immediately and without as much effort. Of course, Ganesha can use his objects far more effectively than you or I can, but they’re still powerful in anyone’s hands. Well, anyone but the Serpentine. Ganesha saw to it that his objects could only be used by his allies and friends. That’s why the Serpentine stole them and hid them away.”
Tarun thought this over. “Do you have sacred objects?” he asked.
Galerest offered up another smile. “No, Tarun, I’m not nearly old enough or skilled in the art of prana mobilization. But I do have other talents.” He stood and slowly began moving his arms and legs to an inaudible music, his face a picture of concentration. Tarun felt—not with his skin or hair but with some other interior point of sensation—an energetic motion in the atmosphere. Between Galerest’s hands a revolving sphere of glittering light formed. The light condensed into a shaking, revolving orb that seemed to hum with vitality. Then, with a startlingly deft movement, Galerest clapped his hands together into the dense center of the concentrated prana. The orb collapsed and shot out as a beam of forceful energy, hitting an empty packing crate that had been abandoned on the deck. Struck by the kinetic motion of the beam, the crate burst into a shower of splintered wood.
“Whoa!” Tarun yelled, leaping up from his seated position. Galerest chuckled.
“It’s not as easy as it looks,” he said with a wink. “It took me years of training with Ganesha to learn to manipulate prana like that.”
“So you’ll train me to do that?” Tarun asked.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Galerest chided back with a grin. “Let’s start with the basics.”
Several hours later, they finally arrived at a scrubby patch of shore marked by an immense fallen tree. Galerest and Tarun climbed into a rowboat and made their way to shore while Radigar anchored the Needle nearby. After tying the boat to a stump, Galerest warned Tarun not to shout or run when they entered the woods, no matter what happened. He explained that the hawks were not the only dangerous birds within the Forests of Aeran, and they could spot a running creature or hear a shout from great distances away. Better to stay slow and quiet to avoid attracting unwanted attention from above.
For the first hour or so as they walked through the forest, the land sloped upward away from the sea. The trees gradually grew denser, sidling up close to one another, even as the brush grew thicker. At a few spots, they had to wriggle underneath tangled mounds of bushes or through narrow openings in between the slender trunks of saplings. The air grew drier as they ascended and colder. The sky was visible only in small, scattered patches through the haze of leaf-covered branches far above them.
Tarun wondered how Galerest knew which direction to travel. To him, the forest just seemed a monotonous repetition of the same scene. The trees and ground cover never changed significantly from moment to moment, but Galerest walked forward without hesitation or checking of maps.
“You said you’ve been here before?” Tarun muttered, catching up to Galerest as he pushed his way through a thorny bush.
“Yes.”
“Is that how you know the way?”
“I know the way because I can smell it. I listen to my nose.”
Tarun took in a deep breath, straining to see if he could identify any of the odors. Galerest chuckled.
“My nose is more refined than yours, Tarun, more powerful. By nature. You won’t be able to do what I can do. You have to work with what you have, Tarun.”
“What do I have then?”
“I don’t know, Tarun. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”
The light grew dimmer as the forest drew closer. Soon, it felt as though day had passed into night, though Tarun knew that was impossible. It had only been a few hours since the sun rose, he thought. But here in the thick of the forest was a perpetual twilight, all gray-green and mottled brown, no sun shining through the canopy at all.
The forest was eerily silent, but occasionally they did hear a flutter of wings or a birdcall. Each time Galerest instinctively ducked down, and Tarun did the same. For a few moments, Galerest would scan the air looking for any signs that the bird had spotted them and was waiting for further movement. After several beats, he would straighten up and motion for them to continue on.
After several of these encounters, Galerest stopped and smelled the air. “Time for a rest,” he decided, “and for lunch.” They sat upon a sunken log, its trunk softened by decay, and Tarun looked down to see unfolding tendrils of fog sliding among the leaves and fallen branches. His eyes followed them back and realized that in another hundred yards or so the fog had grown so dense that it obscured the trees, the bushes, and everything else. Just a wall of milky white lay ahead of them.
As they ate, they discussed their next move.
“That fog you see ahead, Tarun, is the reason why I cannot retrieve Ganesha’s object myself,” Galerest explained. He reached out gently and touched his finger to a small curl of the fog. A sizzle and then a smell of burning as Galerest snatched his hand back and examined where the matted fur had been singed.
“The fog has been laced with a substance that burns the flesh of anyone who tries to pass through it,” he explained. “The Serpentine are masters of venoms and poisons.”
Tarun shuddered, thinking about the evil-looking eyes of the Serpentine guards he had encountered.
“Luckily,” Galerest continued, “when I ventured here last, I was able to capture some of the venom in a jar and have it examined. It is very powerful and there is no antidote, but it appears that the poison only affects those born into the Veiled Lands.”
He paused, looked hard at Tarun, then continued.
“We believe that means you should not be affected by it.”
Tarun looked back down at the lingering strands of fog only a few feet from where he sat. He let Galerest’s words sink in. We believe. That phrasing didn’t exactly ring with confidence. Raising his eyebrows, Galerest’s eyes flicked to Tarun’s feet. Gradually he realized what Galerest wanted him to do.
He remembered a game he used to play with Kumar and other friends at a park when he was younger. The object was to avoid touching the ground while jumping from slide to monkey bars to swings, navigating the entire playground without falling. Tarun had never been very good at the game, but it had helped to envision the ground as a dangerous pit of boiling lava, like the top of a volcano. He would imagine the heat and the smell of sulfur wafting up, and coached himself to jump a bit higher and stretch out his arms farther to catch the hot metal rungs of whatever equipment he needed to catch. Now, about to put one of his hands into a venom-laced fog, he felt like he was back on that playground, making a blind leap and hoping that he didn’t just fall in.
Gingerly, Tarun stepped toward the creeping fog and crouched down in front of the nearest tendril of smoky white. Before he could think too closely about what might happen if Galerest’s friend was wrong, he plunged his hand down right into the middle of it.
Arjun studied the map in front of him. Already twenty-four hours since Parvati and Tarun had disappeared, he and his men were no closer to tracking them down. As best they could guess, the militants had smuggled them into the deep recesses of the overgrown mountains, where it was difficult to send search teams or heli
copters. Two hundred soldiers and intelligence agents had arrived from Delhi, but they did not understand the terrain—and how to search it even less. Arjun wasn’t even sure that the map he was examining was accurate. It showed the major byways of north Kashmir, but he knew that a maze of unpaved and unofficial roads interconnected the region as well, known well to locals but impossible to navigate for anyone else.
Vishal stepped up next to him and began tracing his finger along certain routes. He explained that the soldiers would be dispatched in caravans of forty soldiers along the major roads, charged with interrogating locals for any knowledge or sign of the militants’ location.
“It’s the best plan we have, sir. Once we obtain more intel, we can alter our strategy.”
Arjun raised his eyes to meet Vishal’s. “Do you think this will really work?”
“It depends. The people of north Kashmir are against us, so they may be unwilling to cooperate with the search. Or they might even sabotage our efforts. They have no honor, and no sense.”
He paused for a moment as if considering whether to continue. Then he spoke again: “Of course, we have ways of . . . enhancing our ability to gain cooperation from them.”
“What are you . . .”
“All I’m saying, sir, is that, if you give the word, I’ll instruct the soldiers to extract the necessary information at any cost.”
Arjun turned back to the map. It had obviously been used at some point during the negotiations over the proposed wall. A dotted line had been inked in a sinuous curve across the belly of Kashmir, like the incision guide for a skillful surgeon. Below the line, in a small dot marked Srinagar, he and Vishal stood contemplating their next move. Above the line, in an unmarked spot, Parvati and Tarun were hidden and in danger.
“Not another word, Vishal.”
The fog felt cool and moist on Tarun’s hand, like any fog he had ever encountered. Galerest nodded once with satisfaction. Tarun breathed a long sigh of relief.