The Destiny of Shaitan

by Laxmi Hariharan

  Yudi and Tiina run up to Rai, who has not moved since his earlier fall. They turn him around as his eyes flutter open.

  “That was …” Rai coughs, spitting blood, “That was not nice. How bad does it look …?” he asks Yudi, who looks up from binding his bleeding side.

  “Not good, man. We have to get out of here.”

  Rai coughs and says, “For once I agree.” He coughs again and closes his eyes.

  Yudi shakes him awake. “Come on, Rai; you can’t close your eyes now. We have to keep going.”

  “Can’t you use that for help?” Tiina says, pointing to the Isthmus still strapped to his wrist.

  Yudi shrugs. “I have no idea what this thing does anyway, do you?"

  They help Rai to his feet and, supporting him between the two of them, run out of the temple, out onto the plateau and then towards the edge. As they keep up the pace, Yudi happens to turn back and glances at the temple. “Look,” he says.

  The three of them turn back to find that the two figures are engaged now in a battle in space, silhouetted against the stars in the night sky by a giant beam of light from the netherworld. And as they watch, the Lion Man, now clinging to the middle of the beast, pulls out his sword sticks it into the middle of its body and putting all his strength behind it tears it apart. With a giant roar that seems to emanate from both the figures, they come crashing down towards the plateau, falling not far from them.

  As they watch only one figure moves. The Lion Man, trapped under the massive carcass, manages to work his way out from under. He pushes the body over and emerges, shaking his head. Then draws himself up to his full height, stamps his foot, raises his hands and his head to the stars and roars triumphantly, the stars and the last vestiges of the crumbling temple form a background to his conquest. Molecules of power radiate from him and through him as he turns back and walks towards the three of them, his mane rippling in the soft breeze which has sprung up, blowing away the remnants of the dark mist which had sprung up earlier. The temple is now collapsing completely, shaking the ground they are standing on. At their feet, the very ground sighs in quiet relief.

  The Lion Man bounds towards them and, taking hold of the hurt Rai, places him on his shoulders “Let’s go, we don’t have much time now.”

  “You mean there’s more?” asks Tiina.

  “Shaitan will not let the death of his most powerful soldiers go unheeded; we need to get back to the ship and out of here before that.” As he speaks, they hear a new sound, like that of humming bees.

  Tiina and Yudi look at each other and then to the Lion Man for confirmation. He nods.

  They double their speed and run down the plateau as the humming grows louder around them. They are almost halfway down when the world around them goes completely bright as if the sun is rising right next to them. Yudi and Rai look up, the Lion Man beckons. “Keep moving,” he says. “That is him.”

  Barely are the words out of his mouth when the Lion Man stops in his tracks. Tiina and Yudi are almost at Artemis and they look back to find that the Lion Man has been hit from behind by a thunderbolt shaped weapon which has clean gone through him. The Lion Man looks down to see its edge sticking out from the front. He places Rai down carefully, and then draws himself up to his full height. He glances at the three of them and without a word, turns and walks back up the plateau.

  “What is he doing?” asks Tiina, her voice filled with panic.

  “What do you think?” asks Yudi

  Rai groans but does not move from where he has been placed on the ground. He turns to look at them.

  Not far away, the entire plateau is filled with figures, silhouetted against the sky. Not quite human or animal, but a mix of all the possible combinations of life forms you could think of.

  Tiina makes as if to dash up towards the Lion Man, but Yudi holds her back. “We have the Isthmus,” he says, “we must get out of here.”

  “And Rai?” she asks. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  Barely are the words of her mouth when Rai gets up, slowly. He looks at them with eyes filled with pain and then looks again to where the Lion Man has reached the plateau. As the three of them look on the Lion Man flings himself against the army, taking a few of them down with him, and disappears from sight.

  Rai looks back at Tiina and Yudi and exclaims, “Go!”

  “What do you mean, ‘go’?” asks Tiina, eyes wide. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I will hold them back with the Lion Man. Go, or else you’ll never make it back.”

  “No," says Tiina, her voice rising in panic. “I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Go,” says Rai, looking back at the army, which has crept nearer, a rising tide with no respite. He looks at Yudi and then says again, vehemently, “Go! Before I change my mind!” He manages to smile.

  Yudi takes hold of Tiina’s arm and drags her along with him back to Artemis. “Come on, Tiina, you know he is right.”

  Tiina looks at Rai, tears streaming freely down her cheeks now; she allows herself to be pulled along by Yudi. They are halfway to the ship when she breaks his hold, turns and runs back to Rai. She hugs him firmly, kissing him on his cheek. “I will see you again.”

  Then runs back to where Yudi is already in the ship and pressing the various control panel buttons to pull away.

  Once they are in, they look back towards Rai, who he has not moved. He is silhouetted against Shaitan’s army, which has almost reached him. He raises his hand in farewell, mock salutes them with a smile then, following the example of the Lion Man, pulls out his sword and with a mighty leap dives lengthwise against the troops, taking down as many as he can with his fall. The rest promptly swarm over him and he disappears out of sight.

  The tears continue to stream from Tiina’s eyes as they pull away and take off, to head back to Arkana.

  This is it

  They travel in silence for a long time. Neither has the inclination to speak. The events of the past few hours weigh heavy on their minds. They are on the bridge between the now and the future, where it feels that they could reach out and touch the silence. Scorching a path through the crowded thoughts, the words finally tumble out.

  “Was that really Maya?” She wonders

  Yudi does not reply to her question. Tiina looks at him “I was always afriad, that when I finally met her, she would be in some horrible situation...and I would just watch her die.”

  “Guess you just made it happen,” Yudi shrugs.

  His words ring very true and they both look at each other, a light dawning in their eyes. “Unless …” says Tiina. “Unless Shaitan read my mind …”

  “And recreated your deepest fears” Yudi completes her sentence.

  These are the very first words they have spoken to each other since leaving the site of the bloodshed. The scene is fresh in both their minds. Everything seems a bit unreal yet.

  “I am tired of Shaitan creeping into our minds. After all that happened I still do not even know how he looks. Do you?” Tiina asks Yudi. “I can’t just wait around waiting for him anymore, not after everything he has done to us.”

  She gets up from her seat, goes to the front screen of Artemis and whispers to the great black space in front of her, “Come out of your hiding place, you coward, and show yourself!” She gazes out into the void. There is a deep, dark, complete silence in response. It is as if the world has stopped spinning for a second.

  She takes a deep breath and, turning around, looks straight into the eyes of Shaitan.

  “You called?” he asks relishing the humour in the situation.

  “Ah!” she gasps in surprise. “And who are you?” she asks, knowing the answer full well.

  “The guardian of your divine power,” Shaitan says, mocking her. “I have come to rescue you from this never-ending journey. Is that not what you want?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then come with me,” he says.

  “Where to?”

  “A place free of the ne
ver-ending rhythms that bother you. Where there is no life and no death. No past or future. Nothing that will cause you pain or anguish. Where you feel the same all the time.”

  Tiina smiles “And it exists?”

  “No,” he says, raising his sword. “Not yet. But I can create it, just for us.”

  “Promise ?”

  “I promise,” he says, placing his sword lightly on either side of her neck as if measuring it for the accuracy of the final stroke.

  Tiina closes her eyes. It is exactly what she wants right now. A single stroke to end it all. She smiles.

  Yudi taps Shaitan on his shoulder. “Hey! Not so soon,” he says “you still have to get through me.”

  Shaitan turns around “Ah! The knight in shining armour.”

  He laughs aloud, the sound echoing through the ship and all through space. It does a complete turnaround the wide empty nothingness, and lands right back where it all started.

  Then as Tiina and Yudi watch in amazement, Shaitan grows in size. On and on he extends. His limbs, torso, throat, every part of his body expanding in harmony, keeping pace with each other as if they have repeated this routine so many times in the past. When he hits the roof of the ship, he simply continues to extend sideways. He continues all through the circumference of the ship, against the walls, circling the hapless pair in the centre, trapping them in his centre. Wrapping them in his Shaitanness.

  Yudi and Tiina are overcome by the wave of energy emanating from him and crashing over them. Each more agitated and intense than the last. When every last pocket of space in the confines of the ship has been taken up by Shaitan, he begins to increase the pressure squeezing the very breath out of them until they are almost senseless.

  With his last coherent thought, Yudi manages to free his right arm with the Isthmus strapped onto his wrist. He manages to get to his sword and holds it up. The light catches the sword and makes it sparkle, charging it with divine energy, then he brings it down strongly on the part of Shaitan closest to him.

  There is no effect; the sword does not even make a dent. Close to tears now, Yudi keeps hacking away with his sword “Come on, come on” he says putting everything he has into it.

  He finally manages to cut through something. He has no idea if it is an arm, a leg, or an ear. But he knows that he has hurt Shaitan because all of a sudden there is a roar of pain and Shaitan minimises back to his original form. The entire action takes less than one quarter the time it originally did for Shaitan to elaborately wrap himself around them. It is almost comical, the way he snaps back into shape.

  Yudi is pleased that Shaitan is at least bleeding. “So is not completely invincible after all” he thinks, then says aloud “Show me what you’ve got!”

  Shaitan looks at him and bares his teeth. As they watch in amazement his two additional arms, which fit into a groove on his back, spring to his sides. Then the knobs on either side of his head unravel to form additional heads. Tiina notes absently that there are an additional four heads on one side and five on the other.

  “So the myths about this ten-headed, ten-armed form of Shaitan had been true after all” Yudi thinks swallowing his fear. Then, staying calm, he once more lifts the sword high above his head. The Isthmus on his wrist catches the light again and glints. Shaitan’s attention is drawn to it. He freezes; lowers his own sword and looks at Yudi.

  “I will be back,” he says.

  Turning his attention to Tiina one last time, he smiles. “If you want to meet your twin again, come find me,” he says, and then, disappears.

  Tiina wakes up breathing hard.

  Yudi looks at her sympathetically. “Bad dream?” he asks.

  “Yes” she says. She goes up to him and hugs him tightly. “I know where he is.”

  “Who?”

  “Shaitan,” she says. “He’s not far off and he knows we are coming.”

  “I am sure he is quaking with fear,” says Yudi sarcastically.

  “Actually he is,” says Tiina, looking at him unsmiling.

  Yudi looks closely into her eyes. “You sound like you’ve seen him.”

  “I did. It was a dream, but much more than that. Call it a warning of things to come. This is the Elixir’s effect on me I think.”

  “What? The Nightmares?”

  “Yudi!” she says exasperated. “I mean visions, the gift of sight.”

  “So you are psychic now?”

  “I always was. But the Elixir has simply magnified my capabilities, so that I can really see these messages, Yudi.”

  “OK,” says Yudi, “I believe you. So what now?”

  “Shaitan is coming and he is not alone. We need a plan else he and his army will destroy Arkana, just like he destroyed our home planets.”

  Yudi turns pale. “Are you sure? You saw all that?”

  “Now you know why this worries me so,”

  “How do we take on an entire army?” Yudi wonders.

  “You are the warrior,” says Tiina. “So this one is for you to resolve.”

  “It feels to me like we are on a cyclical path which curves back on itself multiple times and there is no moving forward,” says Yudi softly.

  “Why, that’s almost poetic, Yudi,” says Tiina in surprise. “I believe even your heart is beginning to turn more human than Half Life.”

  “Whether the Elixir has given me fighting skills remains to be seen but sure seems to have made me more perceptive” he agrees

  “You are right about that, Yudi, your heart has turned, it beats with feeling now,” says a third voice.

  They look around but cannot see anyone. “You heard that as well?” asks Tiina cautiously.

  “Yes,” nods Yudi in agreement.

  “Whew! That’s good,” she says, “for a moment there I thought that I was beginning to hear voices in my head.”

  They look around, but cannot see anyone.

  "Up here," says the voice more impatiently. They look in the direction of the voice to find a woman seemingly perched on the ceiling. She is in full battle combat gear. Full latex body suit, tight belt cinched in with golden buckle, thigh high boots, black leather gloves, a small, smart back pack and a sword holder and pistol hanging from the belt around her tiny waist.

  As they watch, she leaps from the ceiling down to the floor in front of them “Very impressive.” Yudi smiles at the woman in unabashed admiration.

  Tiina raises an eyebrow at his tone. She walks up to Yudi and puts her hand on his arm, drawing his attention back to her. Yudi smiles down at Tiina, as he senses an undercurrent between the two women. Tiina looks back at the woman defiantly. “Mine,” she says without speaking. “Back off!”

  The other woman merely raises her eyebrows and nods.

  “If you are trying to replace Rai, forget it,” Tiina tells her.

  The warrior woman merely looks at her witheringly. “I have been sent,” she says, “to help you.”

  “We do not need your help,” Tiina replies hotly.

  “Great!” There is relief writ large on the woman’s face and she turns as if to leave.

  “Wait!” Yudi calls to her. He lets go of Tiina’s restricting arm. “Wait, madam, I am afraid my girlfriend speaks in haste. We need all the help we can get. We have an army to defeat.”

  She looks at them. “Your girlfriend is jealous of me,” she says.

  Yudi looks at Tiina in surprise. “Really?” he mouths to her.

  The woman jumps down from her perch and walks towards them. She is nearly six feet tall. She towers over Tiina and is almost Yudi’s height.

  “I am not here to be part of your childish love triangles,” she says. “We have a war to fight.”

  “No kidding!” says Tiina, under her breath. “And you are the Goddess of War, no doubt?” she asks sarcastically.

  The woman looks at her and sighs “I am Raven,” she says. “Mimir asked me to guide you in preparing for battle. Of course, I am most happy to leave if you prefer.”

  “No, please don’t,” say
s Yudi quickly. “Pardon Tiina’s rude behaviour. She is still recovering from the loss of one of our close friends.”

  “Rai,” says Raven.

  “Yes,” says Tiina. “And I will not ask how you know about that. Because all you Gods from the other world, of course, know everything about everyone.”

  “Rai is fine,” she says, “and happy in the other world.”

  “So you met him?”

  “Yes, of course. He asks you not to be worried about him. He is where he finally belongs.”

  “He’s found his place?” asks Tiina, her voice softening

  “Yes,” says Raven. “Would you like to speak to him?” she asks, and before Tiina can answer otherwise, she closes her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opens them, her pupils have rolled up to reveal the whites of her eyes, which glow with an unearthly light. Electricity seems to crackle through her and even though she is still Raven, her facial features seem to change so that she seems to look unerringly like Rai. When she speaks the illusion is complete, for the voice that emerges seems to be from Rai.

  “Hey you two!” says Rai’s cheery voice.

  “This is totally bizarre,” Yudi tells Tiina in an aside, but says aloud, “Ah! Rai, what’s up?”

  “Bet you guys are surprised to hear me,” says Rai.

  “Not really,” says Yudi, “but you do sound changed.” He fumbles around in his mind to find a word which truly describes the emotion he is hearing in the voice. “Your voice seems much happier than on this side of the universe.”

  “Does that surprise you?” asks the voice belonging to Rai, accompanied by a chuckle that sounds so much like him, it prompts Tiina to walk up to Raven. She effusively hugs her/Rai.

  “I told you I’ll see you again,” she says.

  “Indeed you did, Tiina,” replies Raven/Rai.

  “I hope it did not hurt too much.”