Vibhisena smiled, shaking his head. ‘It’s you who is trying my patience, Jay. You know I will not stand by and hear vulgarity and abuse, especially directed at Brahmins.
Either you control your tongue - or your mental voice, as the case may be - or I will walk away at the next insult and leave you to fend for yourself, whatever the consequences.’
There was a long moment of sullen silence during which time the Lord of Lanka spun slowly in his bed of redstone, his eyes glaring with equal ferocity and barely suppressed anger. Finally, the response came, reluctant and recalcitrant but unmistakably clear.
Very well. No more Brahmin jokes. Now can we get on with it?
Vibhisena thought for a moment, one foot still on the lower step. Was he being a fool? Surely it was asking too much to expect Ravana to change in the least degree. And yet this was such a deva-gifted opportunity to try to mellow the demonlord’s rapacious ways and bring some small measure of morality into Lanka’s evil excesses. Perhaps he couldn’t change his brother substantially, but even if he could play a small part in reducing the bloodshed and horrors in some way, it would be worth it. He had no doubt that once restored to his full strength Ravana would return at once to his brutal, murderous ways. Which was why it was essential to press home his advantage here and now, while the demonlord was still relatively helpless.
What’s going through your mind, brother? What’s taking you so long? Do you have another appointment you’ve suddenly recalled? A Brahmin priestess you promised to bed before daybreak, perhaps?
‘Brother,’ Vibhisena said admonishingly.
Scratch out that last carving. I forgot, no more Brahmin—
‘I have a condition.’
So, spit it out.
‘No more invasions of Prithvi-lok. Ever.’
Another moment of silence. The block spun slowly, casting a long shadow that twisted and changed shape ominously.
Now you’re the one making vulgar jokes, brother. You’re asking an elephant not to breathe through his trunk, an ant not to seek out honey, a gandharva not to play music.
‘That’s my condition. No invasions of the mortal realm. Ever again.’
The reply came back sullenly, if a mental voice could be said to express itself sullenly.
You might as well ask me to slice off my manhood and eat it with butter and salt. Once made, the arrow must fly, the sword cleave, the typhoon rage. I exist to destroy and strike terror. It has been this way ever and shall continue ever more. You know this, as well as you know the history and cause of my quest for vengeance.
‘Even so, this is my condition. If you will not concede, then I leave you to work your own way out. I shall send for our brother, and for your sons.’
Ravana spoke again before Vibhisena could move another step.
Very well! No more invasions. What about forays? Skirmishes? Minor campaigns of conquest and subjugation? You would not deprive a boy of all his toys, would you?
‘No unprovoked acts of violence against mortalkind. You will under no circumstances attack humans singly, in groups or in larger numbers. I do not wish to play with semantics, brother. I mean that you and your asura followers should not in any way assault or attack any human in any manner henceforth.’
What about provoked attacks then? If the humans attack me or invade my kingdom, how can I not be expected to defend myself? As you well know, I lost almost all of my army strength to the Brahm-astra. What if the mortals decide that now is the best time to invade and cleanse the world once and for all of all asuras? Even your holy Vedas do not prescribe that a person under attack should quietly offer his other side to be stabbed and slashed!
Vibhisena smiled. ‘In that highly unlikely event, if the mortals themselves inflict bodily harm upon you or your followers anywhere, then yes, you may defend yourselves. But you and I both know that the mortals will not invade Lanka. You may have lost your army, but once released from this Brahman cage, you will begin at once to replenish your numbers. In a decade at best, you’ll have enough to begin thinking of invasion once more.’
In a decade I’ll barely have a few million asuras. At best a crore. You overestimate my abilities, brother. Even the hell worlds grow empty of new reinforcements, Lord Yamraj grows more difficult to bargain with each passing century. This is no longer the prime of our glory, which is all the more reason why we must go on fighting the mortals. Otherwise they will overrun this whole plane and we will all be forgotten. Even you wouldn’t want your own race extinguished, would you, Vibhisena?
Vibhisena shrugged. ‘We are all one in the flow of Brahman. Merely occupying different forms.’
I doubt you’d be as equanimous if you were occupying the form of a naga or a vetaal. But nevertheless, I won’t waste further energy arguing. It’s blasted hard enough communicating through this damn stone. I’m asking you again, please, set me free and I will agree to whatever contract you draw up.
‘First tell, do you agree to this bargain? No more attacks on humans? No more invasions, intrusions, assaults, or—’
Yes, I follow. I won’t even scratch their backs unless they scratch mine first. Get on with it. I feel my strength fading. It’s happening again like it did this morning, I’m finding it more and more difficult to reach you with every passing minute.
‘It’s the moontides,’ Vibhisena said. ‘The flow of Brahman has ever been linked to the flow of energy from the sun and the moon. This is why the Suryavansha line and the Chandravansha line on earth have always produced the most powerful champions, for their bloodlines are most directly linked with the solar and lunar energies of—’
Vibhisena … enough talk. Free me … fading fast … quickly! Act … brother!
Vibhisena nodded, even though Ravana’s back was to him at the time. The redstone block was pulsing with a blueish-tinted glow that cast a strange mixed-colour palette of rays across the Hall. This had happened twice each day since he had brought his brother home. It meant that the time was ripe for him to perform the rite he had planned. If he let this window of opportunity pass, he would have to wait till the next moontide, twelve hours hence, to act. If it had to be done, then this thing was best done sooner rather than later.
He summoned the Pushpak from its perch by the northern end of the black fortress. It arrived in moments, entering the chamber through one of the enormous open spaces that had been especially created to allow its passage. The golden air-chariot glimmered dazzlingly in the light show cast off by the rotating slab. The slab had begun to turn faster now, its progress hastened by the rising of the tide. Vibhisena had studied its movements closely. It would turn faster and faster, reaching its peak at the height of the moontide, spinning so rapidly as to be only a red blur.
He boarded the Pushpak and commanded it to take hold of the redstone slab. The slab continued to spin even after the chariot gripped it with its invisible shakti. Then Vibhisena instructed the celestial vehicle of his desired destination. The vehicle took flight without hesitation. If he had asked it, it would have taken him to Swarga-lok itself, realm of the devas, or conversely, to Patal-lok, the lowest netherworld of all. But his destination was nowhere near that ambitious; it was on the island of Lanka itself. He arrived within moments.
Vibhisena peered down from the height of a thousand yards, looking down into the maw of the largest, most violent volcano on Lanka. This was no ordinary volcano. This was the portal to Narak itself, the entrance to the hell worlds.
It was into this dread place that Vibhisena would have to take his frozen brother in order to free him of his stone cage. For only here could he summon up the heat and pressure that were required to release Ravana from the Brahman cage. And even so, it would take all his vidya and shakti to accomplish the feat.
The Brahmin rakshasa sent up a fervent prayer to the devas that he might succeed in his mission. Not for himself: the Pushpak would ensure that its occupant was protected from the toxic dangers and heat of the volcano’s heart. It was for Ravana that he offered hi
s prayers. He was keenly aware of the irony involved in his asking the devas’ grace to help the most terrible demon that had ever walked the earth. But Vibhisena’s faith was absolute. Moreover, he believed sincerely that if he succeeded in this task, he would achieve his larger goal: to recast Ravana in a more mellow form, leash his brother’s savagery and rein in the brutal destruction that he had wrought for millennia. Vibhisena was one of those who still remembered Ravana’s great austerities and penances of aeons past; those memories still inspired hope that he could make Ravana walk the path of Brahman once more. He took the Lord of Lanka’s present predicament, and his ironic reliance on Vibhisena and his Brahman-shakti, as a significant omen. The samay chakra had turned, bringing yet another change in the affairs of mortals and demonkind. It could, he believed, mean only one thing: that the end was near. The end of war and violence, and the birth of a new age.
Chanting a potent mantra from the sacred secret work known as the Smriti-Upanisads, he commanded the Pushpak to descend into the volcano. The golden air-chariot descended swiftly into the heart of the simmering open-mouthed mountain, the redstone block spinning at breathtaking speed.
As if in response, the volcano belched a gigantic gout of molten magma, emitting a roar like a sea-beast awakened.
Lanka shuddered.
EIGHTEEN
The night was cool and dark when they rose from their flower-bedecked bed and stood on the veranda.
The city still echoed faintly to sounds of revelry. The grooms’ wedding procession might have been deprived of a full seven-day feast in Mithila, but they were more than making up for it back home in Ayodhya. And with the coronation tomorrow, it seemed as if two weeks of festivity that had begun at Holi were finally coming to a climax. But the eyes of both young lovers were drawn upwards. The sky was rich with stars, and their thoughts and emotions were high above the everyday affairs of the mortal world in which they dwelt by day. The distant sounds of merriment only enhanced the cocoon of privacy in which they stood, nestled in each other’s arms on the quiet veranda. Somewhere to the northern side of the palace, unseen except for the occasional flash of white foam breaking the blackness, the Sarayu sang her eternal song.
Sita broke the silence first, her voice soft and melodious on the still night air. ‘“Forget the singer but not the song. The lute but not the wood. The forest but not the tree. There was the place I gave you my heart, and you gave me yours in return. Then was the time, and that was the night.”’
Rama said, ‘“Will you not deny this sun that shines above, this canopy of cloud, this panoply of gold and bronze? Or are these more deserving of your witness than that one sweet night of wedlock?”’
‘“For even though the eyes grow dim, the mind falters, the head is dizzy from the elixir of wealth and power, yet does the heart remember truly, and your lips, and your tongue, and every flame-singed hair on your skin recall. So ask your body, what the body remembers, what the soul holds tight in its fist, and come back, come back to me again.”’ Sita finished with a long sigh. Resting her head on Rama’s chest, she said, ‘Why are all the most beautiful love poems so melancholy?’
‘I don’t know. Remind me to ask the poet.’
‘Ask your guru.’
‘Guru Vashishta?’
She pinched his arm, laughing. ‘Brahmarishi Vishwamitra. You know that! It’s his daughter’s tale, isn’t it? Considerably embellished and dressed up suitably for presentation before patrons and kings by the poet laureate, no doubt, but still the tale of Sakuntala, and her tragic love for Dushyanta. Their son was Bharata, the father of the Arya nations.’
‘Really?’ Rama said, feigning innocence. ‘How remarkable is that! Tell me more, maiden from Mithila.’
She smiled, untroubled by his teasing. She loved the story enough to tell it a hundred times - or hear it being told. ‘Sakuntala lived and served her widowed father Vishwamitra in his forest hermitage in remote Kanwavan. One day she went down to the stream to fetch water as usual and found a handsome man lying unconscious. He was Dushyanta, a raja wounded during a hunting accident. The sage’s daughter tended to him until his wounds healed. Now do you remember the story?’
Rama frowned, tapping his cheek with an expression of mock-concentration. ‘Not really. It sounds vaguely familiar, but … ‘ He shook his head. ‘Not a thing. Must be that blow on the head I took when my horse rode under a low-hanging bough the other day, hunting wild stag in the woods.’
She tousled his hair affectionately. ‘I’ll give you such a blow—’
‘Okay! Okay!’ he said, laughing as she resorted to tickling next. ‘I remember now! How could I forget? It’s taught at every gurukul in the seven nations. It is the story of our founding father’s birth after all!’
He leaned closer to her. ‘The truth is, I like hearing you tell it. The sound of your voice … ‘
‘Yes?’
He gestured to the north-west, towards the unmistakable sound of the river. ‘It harmonises with the song of Sarayu. As if you were speaking with the voice of the river herself.’
Sita was silent for a moment. Rama turned his head to examine her profile in the dim light of the city. She looked more alluring to him than any portrait of apsaras or gandharvas, those celestial temptresses that adorned the palace of the Indra-dev. Yet there was something in that profile that also reminded him of the likeness of the devi his mother worshipped. Goddess and celestial beauty: surely it was conceivable that both qualities could be contained in one womanly form? The proof stood beside him, made flesh.
‘That is the first lover’s compliment you’ve paid me since we met.’ Her voice was soft, an undertone to the murmuring song of the Sarayu.
He leaned low, breathing warm against her cheek. ‘But not the last.’ He nuzzled her cheek. ‘Our marriage may have taken place expediently, but our courtship shall last a lifetime.’
She laughed softly. ‘Now you’re getting carried away, my lord. You don’t need to be that lavish with your compliments to get me to recite the tale of Sakuntala!’ She added softly, ‘Although the compliments are welcome.’
He smiled at her in the darkness, white teeth flashing in his dark face. ‘And well deserved. I meant what I said about your voice and the river. You two might well be sister-bards. Were you ever a river in your past life? Or a waterfall?’
She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, then realised he probably couldn’t see the expression. ‘Back to the story, my lord. As I was saying, Sakuntala tended to the wounded king until he effected a complete recovery. In the process, he grew enchanted by her lustrous beauty.’
‘Lustrous beauty,’ Rama repeated softly, lifting her hair off her shoulder. ‘That describes you well.’
She brushed his hand away gently but firmly. ‘Dushyanta induced Sakuntala to enter into a gandharva vivah with him.’
Rama touched the nape of her neck. ‘Gandharva vivah? A fancy euphemism that simply means they exchanged vows without witnesses or pundits present, probably before a stone lingam in the forest.’
She continued smoothly. ‘Intoxicated by their mutual passion, Dushyanta and Sakuntala dallied together, desiring only to stay thus for ever, content with the simple forest life and each other’s love. But of course, he was a king. And for a king, dharma came before self. Finally the day arrived when his mantris and senapatis, after a long, exhaustive search, sought him out in that deep forest.’
‘If I was he,’ Rama commented, ‘I would have taken her and gone someplace where they could never be found.’
‘But then what of your dharma?’ she asked, only half teasing.
He sighed, nodding to her to go on.
‘Raja Dushyanta gave Sakuntala his ring and vowed to her that he would return very soon and take her home as a queen-bride to his palace, there to reign beside him to the end of their days. Then he rode away.’
‘Ah,’ Rama said. ‘And then it all turns sad. Like all Sanskrit dramas, and … ‘
And life? Is that what you me
ant to say, my love?But he didn’t complete the sentence, and she went on.
‘Weeks passed. And then months. And then years went by. And still Sakuntala waited patiently, secure in her love. But still Dushyanta didn’t return. Finally, she decided she must go to him. And after a long and arduous journey—’
‘Why do the protagonists always have to suffer at this point in the story? Is there some kind of formula that all playwrights employ, or—’
‘After much hardship, Sakuntala reached the court of Raja Dushyanta and presented herself before him. But because of a curse cast upon her by an irate sage—’
‘Another staple of Sanskrit drama! The shraap by the offended sage!’
‘Because of Sage Durvasa’s curse, the raja failed to recognise her and flatly denied their relationship as well as their child, Bharata. Then, in that speech we mauled a little while earlier, she lamented his loss of memory and their forgotten love.’
Rama feigned a melodramatic sigh, holding a limp wrist to his forehead. ‘I’m lamenting, lamenting.’
‘But her love was too great to deny, and the devas saw fit to reunite them against all odds. Sakuntala’s ring, lost by her in a river crossing en route to see the raja, was swallowed by a fish. The fish itself was fortuitously caught by a fisherman, who brought it to the same court on the same day, as a humble gift to the raja.’
‘How convenient,’ he murmured. ‘But how poetic as well. Go on, my love, finish the fish-tale.’
‘When the fish was cut open, the ring was found within its belly, with the raja’s seal upon it. The instant the raja laid eyes on the ring, the curse was circumvented, and his memory returned at once. He realised how terribly he had acted by spurning Sakuntala. He rode into the forest after her with an army and full entourage, and came upon her in the Kanwa-van, raising the product of their love, little Bharata.’
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