PRINCE IN EXILE

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  It shivered and continued its downward descent. After what seemed like another thousand yards, the stairwell finally let out upon a horizontal level. Jatayu heaved a sigh of relief as it stepped on to flat ground again. It resisted the urge to unfurl its wings and peered down a dark corridor. This seemed like the way to the Hall. It recalled a level much like this one following a similarly harrowing descent. It pattered cautiously down the gloomy passageway. The sickly glow of the demonlights illuminated only a featureless antechamber like a thousand thousand others in this vast fortification. It was said there were a million million asuras in Lanka, and there was a chamber to house each one of them in the black fortress.

  Now, of course, the first figure would have to be severely amended - very severely - but the fortress itself remained, vast and impenetrable, so labyrinthine that to be lost within its endless passages and halls was not just likely but inevitable, which was why Jatayu never ventured down here except when following those given the way by the demonlord himself. And Ravana, for reasons best known to him, had long ago chosen only to let the kumbha-rakshasas know the way through the fortress. It was rumoured that even the brutal overseers often lost their way in these countless mazes, usually those ones who had fallen out of favour with their master. It was said that there were thousands of wretched outcasts and hapless ones wandering these corridors endlessly in search of the way out. For when it pleased its master, the black fortress was given to altering its own architecture and interiors.

  Jatayu went to the end of the antechamber and peered through the archway to the next chamber. It looked exactly like the first. It hesitated a moment then decided to continue. Something smelled familiar about this place, and it was quite certain the kumbha-rakshasas it had followed down from the rampart rooftop had come this way. It could still smell traces of their distinctive odours, especially the older one, whose scent clearly indicated a vile case of uraga-bite which had begun to fester.

  The antechambers flowed for several hundred yards further, ending abruptly. The demonlights also ceased, and Jatayu suddenly found itself plunged into total darkness. It skittered nervously to a halt, its talons seeking purchase on the slimy floor. It paused, craning its neck this way, then that. The only thing it could make out at first was that the chamber was vast even by the standards of the black fortress, enormous beyond all measure. It could feel currents and eddies of wind sweeping from different directions, travelling in a complex interweaving.

  The vulture-lord’s leathery wings shuddered, eager to unfold, to take it high up to the rafters and explore this vast open space, but it forced them to remain closed. It shut its eyes, making the darkness redundant, and used its bird senses to explore the room. By studying the wind currents flowing across its bald head and fine, profuse antennae-like hairs, it could form a virtual mental image of the chamber’s dimensions and broad measures. After a moment, it opened its beaked mouth and issued a sharp piercing screech. The sound raced away into the darkness, seeming to lose itself in the vast empty spaces. But to Jatayu’s finely attuned avian senses, the sub-sonic echoes of the call reverberated for several moments after wards, adding depth, dimension and even texture to the sketch formed by the wind-current image. It opened its eyes, blinking its heavy lids in amazement. If its senses were right, and there was no reason to doubt them, this space was two whole yojanas in length and a full yojana in width!

  Jatayu squawked again, expressing its sheer amazement at the discovery. A chamber eighteen miles long and nine miles wide? Impossible! It had flown over entire island-chains in the Lakshadweep archipelago that were not this large. But once the first flush of surprise passed, it realised that anything was possible in Lanka. If the portals of hell themselves could be kept open in a place in the mortal realm, allowing the free passage of dead asuras from the nethermost levels of Patal and Narak, then what was a minor architectural miracle or two? Besides, it was well known that the black fortress had been built by yaksas for Kubera, Ravana’s half-brother, from whom he had wrested the island-kingdom. And yaksas had built cities such as Amravarti, Alkapura and Indraloka, the celestial cities of the devas themselves. Surely a room a few hundred square miles large would pose no obstacle to those gifted builders.

  After a moment of indecision, Jatayu began walking through the chamber. The scent of the kumbha-rakshasas led through here, unmistakably, and it still needed to verify the news heralded by the raising of the flag. If Ravana truly was dead, Jatayu wanted to see his corpse with its own two eyes. Spitting was optional.

  It walked for another thousand yards or so without meeting anything or anyone. That was not surprising in itself: it hadn’t expected to find furniture in this place! This was probably some holding area where asuras retrieved from the hell worlds were brought and kept awhile until their obedience and loyalty to the Lord of Lanka was established beyond doubt. Hence the overpowering stench of kumbha-rakshasas in the place: the overseers and their vicious knife-tipped lashes were most needed here. But what Jatayu didn’t understand was why there was no corresponding stench of other asura species. After all, if a million or two demons had been assembled here, still writhing and smouldering from their time spent in the hell worlds, surely the resulting smell should be overpowering? Yet Jatayu could detect no trace of anything but kumbha-rakshasa. It didn’t give the matter much thought: intellectual analysis had never been the vulture-king’s strong point. What mattered was that the kumbha it was seeking had clearly passed this way, so this was the way Jatayu would go.

  It passed a row of enormous round objects, each looming up to rise high out of sight. They gleamed with a metallic dullness in the faint illumination that crept in from cracks and crevices in the vaulting rock walls of the chamber. Jatayu paused to peck at one with its beak; it resounded with a startling sound that made it back away hurriedly. The sound was curiously like striking a metal vessel filled with water, but on an immensely larger scale. Jatayu debated a moment, torn between curiosity and caution, and finally decided that flying was the only way it would get where it was going within a reasonable time.

  It spread its wings with a sensation akin to sexual relief. It felt so good to be able to fly again, even if only for short intervals. The wounds on its body still hurt horribly, but they were healing fast. And while some damage was permanent, leaving Jatayu a pale shadow of its former self, at least flight was still possible. Among its kind they had a saying: If it can fly, it’s still alive. A flightless jatayu or garuda was better off dead, which was why its fellows pecked and clawed it to death, mercifully saving it from years of landlocked misery.

  Jatayu found the currents surprisingly powerful and rose quickly. By its earlier estimate, the roof of the chamber was as high as its width, namely a full yojana. With that much space, a whole flock of jatayus could live down here. Not that any bird-beast would want to live out of reach of the blessed life-giving rays of Surya-deva, the sun god. But it was a sobering thought. Once this vast place had probably contained lakhs, or even crores of asura species. Now, it was deserted. That was how dramatically Lanka’s fortunes had changed.

  It turned in a wide arc as it reached the top of the curved metal object it had pecked at earlier. It took it a fraction of an instant to recognise the object, and several stunned moments to let its mind accept the reality.

  It was a jal-bartan.

  An enormous drinking-water receptacle.

  Jatayu screeled with surprise as it rose higher and saw, stretching out for miles and miles, an endless row of identical jal-bartans, all as impossibly huge as the first.

  It veered left, flying to the far side of the chamber’s width. As it came within sight of that side of the enormous hall, it saw what it had expected to find: a row of small hill-sided heaps of oddly familiar stick-like objects. It took only a sniff to confirm with its keen sense of smell that the mountains were in fact mounds of discarded bones. The gnaw marks on their centres and edges were clearly visible as Jatayu flew closer then swooped overhead.

&nbs
p; Suddenly, it realised with a shuddering shock that it was dangerously mistaken. This was no ordinary chamber at all. Nor was it a holding pen for retrieved asuras.

  As if in confirmation, the groaning sound it had heard earlier on the stairwell began again. Except that this time it was sounding from this level of the black fortress, from this very chamber. With the evidence Jatayu now had, there was no disputing the nature of the sound. It was the sound of something snoring. Something so huge that it took a bedchamber eighteen miles long and nine miles wide to accommodate it comfortably.

  The snoring grew louder as Jatayu flew further. The bird-beast knew that it was committing perhaps the most foolish act of its long life, yet it felt compelled to go on. Now that it knew where it was, in the forbidden chamber, it couldn’t resist the fascination of exploring further. It executed another turn, finding a wind current that was as warm and sultry as a South Seas breeze. But unlike those balmy wind waves, this one had the foulest stench imaginable. More peculiar, it seemed not to bear any relation to the other currents and eddies in the chamber. If anything, this malodorous wave seemed to originate from a point within the room itself, about a mile off the floor.

  Jatayu peered down through the slatted dimness. Slits of light from other torchlit chambers filtered through into this vast space, illuminating long, slender bars of the room. There was something there, Jatayu could see now, something rising from the floor to about a mile’s height. Could it be a volcano? It was certainly large enough to be one! But a volcano would emit light as well as heat, and the stench was nothing like any other volcano on Lanka.

  Suddenly a mashaal flared somewhere down below, off to one side, about two miles or so from the western wall of the forbidden chamber. It sent flickering fingers of yellow light racing across the breadth of the vast space, illuminating the enormous humped object that lay on the floor of the room. A moment later, it was joined by another mashaal, then yet another.

  Jatayu flew higher on the warm, smelly draught, craning its neck to gain a better perspective by which to make sense of what it was seeing. It almost cried out in terror as its mind finally assimilated and accepted what its eyes were perceiving.

  Illuminated by the light of the mashaals, the largest rakshasa Jatayu had ever seen - or imagined in its wildest nightmares lay sleeping on the floor of the chamber. The warm, malodorous eddy on which Jatayu was riding was the exhalations of the rakshasa’s breath as it snored raggedly.

  Jatayu squawked like a pigeon in a cat’s lair and changed direction quickly, seeking a way out. Suddenly it knew why the forbidden chamber was forbidden. It was the private chamber of Kumbhakarna, brother of Ravana.

  ELEVEN

  Dasaratha sighed. The weariness of the maharaja was visible to all as they awaited his decision on the conundrum. Sita’s heart went out to him. She knew what he had been through these past few days and could see that the canker ravaging his body had only gained a greater hold. This was not the Dasaratha she remembered from her girlhood visits. The illness had reduced him to a pale shadow of his former self, turning the lion-strong warrior-king into a wounded old cat.

  As she watched her father-in-law struggle to pronounce judgement on the matter at hand, she was reminded powerfully of her own father. She had watched him age and change as well. But there was a difference. While Maharaja Janak had grown leaner, more austere and more calm with the passing of time, Dasaratha seemed to have grown wearier and more burdened. The sunwood crown was a heavy weight to bear on that ageing brow.

  It vindicated her father’s lifelong belief that the body was indeed a temple, and ought to be treated as such. Her father had been stout and mild-mannered in his youth, or at least that part of his younger life that she had witnessed, but unlike many of his contemporaries, Janak had grown leaner and stronger both physically and spiritually with the passing of time. She had often admired his self-discipline and ability to adhere to his rigorous routine.

  Dasaratha, though, had clearly suffered adversely from the excesses of living, and had allowed his virile manliness to waste away.

  She wondered briefly—just a fraction of a lightning-second— if Rama would become like this some day in the distant future. An ageing, weary king, too ravaged even to rise to his own feet, crushed beneath the burden of kingship.

  For some reason, she didn’t think so. Rama was Dasaratha’s son, true, but he was also Kausalya’s son. And looking at the three of them now, Sita saw at once that it was Kausalya’s steel-strong fortitude that Rama had inherited, rather than Dasaratha’s leonine forcefulness. And as for the other fleshly indulgences, well, in that respect Rama compared favourably with Sita’s father rather than his own.

  Enough, she told herself sternly. You’re being too harsh. All right, so Dasaratha had been careless about his health, and perhaps he should have paid more attention to spiritual contemplation than fleshly indulgence, but who was she to judge him? He was once the greatest warrior-king in the seven nations. Her father had only one victory to his credit, that too a disputed battle against a petty despot. And that paltry lack of battlefield prowess didn’t trouble Janaka in the least; he had always been a pursuer of spiritual gains rather than military ones.

  On the other hand, Dasaratha, this weary, ageing king seated before her, had kept the asura hordes from the borders of the Arya world and raised the Kosala nation into the greatest power on earth today. Whereas when death came stalking up to Mithila’s door, her father could barely summon up enough military resources to man the gates of his home city. It had taken a prince from another kingdom, this same Dasaratha’s son, to save the King of Vaideha’s kingdom and people.

  As for past errors of youth and indulgence … which man did not have his weaknesses? For that matter, which deva? Arya scripture was rife with the many instances of devas and devis faltering, succumbing to vices and temptations, committing grave errors and mortal sins. This man, why, he was just a man. A king. A great king and a great provider and protector. What more could one ask for? Perfection? Sainthood? In that case, go create your own dream-world, Sita Janaki; this one belongs to those whose feet still gather dust and mud when they walk the marg, no matter how lofty their thoughts and ideals.

  Even her father was wise enough to know and accept that, through all his spiritual austerity and religious dedication. He had said as much to Brahmarishi Vishwamitra, and to Rama, her Rama, when giving his daughter away in the kanyadaan, the gift-of-the-daughter ceremony at their wedding. ‘Today I do not give away a daughter, I gain a son, a son I could not be more proud of had the devas themselves given him over as a dakshina for my long piety.’

  It had been a shining moment in her life, that realisation that her father, despite all his peaceful spiritualism, still accepted the need for warriors and heroes in this troubled mortal realm.

  She watched Dasaratha now in this new perspective, his bowed head weighted down by the burden of his difficult decision, and saw the man within the king, the soul beneath the crown. It was a heroic soul, battling manfully with larger-thanlife challenges, and bravely triumphing. No wonder that he had produced such a son. For Rama was his son too, just as much as he was Kausalya’s.

  Pradhan-mantri Sumantra was at his maharaja’s side, looking anxious. Unlike his counterparts in other Arya states, politically ambitious players that they all were, Sumantra seemed content to focus his energies on administration and organisation, working discreetly by Dasaratha’s side like a charioteer by his lord, steering the rath adeptly through treacherous ways and leaving his master free to concentrate on more important intellectual decisions. Sita guessed they must have been very effective partners in the governance of the Kosala nation, judging from the city she had just passed through.

  She was still recovering from her passage through mighty Ayodhya, the sheer spectacle of colour and noise that had assailed them. Such a display would have been considered wastefully extravagant, even decadent, back home in spiritually enlightened Mithila, but she understood and appreciated t
he need for the Ayodhyans to express their gratitude and admiration for their liege-heir. And Mithilan though she might be, she was not too enlightened to recognise that Rama’s victories had been no ordinary trophies won at a feast-day melee. This was history in the making. Ayodhya was everything the legends claimed, a lion among Arya nations.

  And yet, here was the dark blight on Ayodhya’s sun-bright face. Sita already knew about the history of Dasaratha and his three wives, his succumbing to Kaikeyi’s amorous charms to the woeful neglect of his lawful first wife Kausalya, and even the delicately girlish Sumitra. Rama had been reticent about the actual day-to-day relationship between the queens, but Sita was woman enough to understand that however polite and well-mannered things might be on the surface, the three ranis, and the first two in particular, could hardly be gaily contented in one another’s company.

  Dasaratha coughed feebly. Sumantra bent forward quickly, and the maharaja took the napkin the pradhan-mantri handed him, using it to wipe his mouth. Sita was startled to see a distinct tinge of red on the cream-coloured cloth. Dasaratha moved his hand in a gesture of thanks to Sumantra, who offered him a goblet. Dasaratha sipped gingerly, with the painful slowness of someone whose every physical action has become a living torture, and then seemed ready to speak.

  ‘This dilemma is beyond the powers of any ordinary mortal to solve,’ he said hoarsely. ‘And it is hardly meet for me to make such choices amongst my own queens. I urge you all to contain yourselves and wait until we have completed the ritual welcoming of our daughters-in-law into their new house. Thereafter we shall … ‘interrupting himself to release another volley of heartrending coughs,’ … we shall retire to the sabha hall and debate the matter in private session.’

  Sita resisted the urge to frown. She sensed from the turning of heads and sharing of glances that everyone else in attendance was as puzzled by the maharaja’s response as she was. Dasaratha’s words were extraordinarily obtuse and vague in the circumstances. Rani Sumitra’s accusation had been blatantly unambiguous: she had accused Rani Kaikeyi of being an asura in disguise! Few allegations could have been more urgent. Rani Kausalya had seconded Sumitra’s accusation, adding to its gravity. Yet here was the king asking them all to wait and talk about this later.