Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  There is only Mimir dressed in unusually formal robes, which are deep purple in colour, worn over his normal white. He is waiting for Yudi at the bottom of the long room, looking out from the windows, his back turned to him. The official leaves, and Yudi walks down the long corridor toward Mimir, who turns around, a smile lighting his face. Disregarding any protocol, he opens his arms and embraces Yudi.

  “It is good to see you back safe.” Brows pinched in question, he looks behind Yudi.

  “She’s with Artemis; she’ll be along shortly I expect.”

  Mimir nods. “Losing a friend is not easy.”

  “And her long lost twin—it is cruel, don’t you think? That she met Maya after all these years, only to lose her.”

  “Perhaps it is better that way.”

  “Really?”

  There is more to what Mimir is saying than just the words on the surface. Without explaining, Mimir holds out his hand. For a second Yudi is confused, then his brow clears. He has forgotten the reason they had made the journey and looks at the turquoise bracelet sitting around his right wrist. After taking it off, he holds it out to Mimir, who touches it reverently with both hands, then leans close to kiss it.

  “I don’t feel any different, you know. Are you sure this is supposed to restore the balance to the universe?”

  “So you didn’t pay attention in class, then did you?”

  “Enough to get me through the harrowing adventures of the last few days, so you can’t blame me completely.”

  “Let me enlighten you, then. As you pointed out, the Isthmus keeps the balance of the universe. It balances out the creative and the commercial, but it is not just all the doing of the Isthmus. It has to do with who is wearing the bracelet. In the hands of someone evil like Shaitan, it amplifies the bad. But in your hands, it assumes the qualities of your innocent heart.”

  “Me? Innocent?”

  “Yes, mischievous though you are, but pure of intent—whether you like it or not, Yudi, you always end up doing the right thing.”

  He really does know me. “Perhaps,” Yudi says in a cautious voice.

  “You are selfish, but only because you want to protect those you love. Isn’t that true?”

  Yudi doesn’t reply, uncomfortable at having his worst qualities reflected back at him. “Uh! You were going to tell me about the Isthmus?”

  “Ah! Yes, the turquoise bracelet.”

  To Yudi’s relief, Mimir goes along with his change of topic.

  “So, legend has it that turquoise is made of bones of those who died of unhappy love. It is hence the stone of happiness. According to the ancient race of Aztecs on Earth, turquoise stones are tears of the Goddess of the Skies, a symbol of health, prosperity and love. A symbol of spirituality also sometimes associated with the Goddesses of Love: in ancient Egypt, Isis; in ancient Greece, Aphrodite; in ancient Rome, Venus.”

  “And to Uma, the Indian Goddess of Love?” The events suddenly make sense in a strange way for Yudi. Perhaps it wasn’t all as random as it seemed. There are no coincidences after all.

  “Yes, also Uma. Now you know why she wanted you to stay back. She knew you were going to retrieve the Isthmus.”

  “I suppose you want it back now? To place it back in the Temple of Arkana.”

  For the first time in memory, Yudi sees Mimir hesitate. “No! Keep it, Yudi. You must have realised that the Isthmus removes danger. It is your talisman. The Elixir has done its part. Let the Isthmus play its role now.”

  Mimir comes closer to Yudi and places his right hand over Yudi’s heart. “Let it in. Allow it to eliminate fear and protect you from falls. Let the Isthmus strengthen your heart, tune your intuition, and increase your independence. Let it be your guiding force for the days ahead. Let it heighten your bravery and give you an insight into your enemy’s heart. Above all, let it help you establish peace in the family.”

  He pauses, and without giving Yudi a chance to take in everything he has shared, says, “You have a visitor.”

  He gestures to the other side of the room. Yudi has not noticed that the time they had been speaking, there was another person in the chmaber. An elegant figure dressed in blue with black hair flowing to her waist is standing in profile. After taking him by his hand, Mimir leads him toward her. They are almost upon the woman when she turns and smiles.

  A simple red saree with a yellow border is draped over a matching yellow blouse. She wears no jewelry except for a small diamond nose ring on her right nostril, which glints. Hair threaded with greys lines her temples, lending an air of solemnity about her and a strong square jaw makes her seem both confident and stubborn. Her lips are painted bright red and on her forehead between her eyebrows, she wears a bright red coloured bindi, the painted dot signifying her status as a married woman. Marring the smooth beauty of her face is a gash on her forehead. It is a fresh wound, for the blood glistens on its edges, matching the crimson of her bindi.

  He comes to a standstill near her and peers down at her shorter frame, wondering who or what had hurt her.

  Her eyes are not blue, not black, but indigo, and lined with kohl so that they are startling against her unlined dusky brown face.

  There is only one person I know with eyes like that. Yudi frowns, trying to form an image of who she is, but his heart feels as if an enormous fist has suddenly tightened around it, squeezing it dry.

  About to voice his doubts, he is interrupted by Mimir, who answers his unasked question. “Yudi, meet your mother.”

  27

  Saturn, 3000

  So, he had killed Thalia and is sure it was the right thing to do. He is Shaitan, after all, the most powerful half life in the universe and did not need some human female to hold his hand and tell him how much she loved him.

  Do I? The doubt crosses his mind and he is annoyed. Human emotions! He curses his half human side. It simply weakens his heart, detracts him from his real goal—to conquer the planets one-by-one. To become the most powerful half life in the galaxy, that is his goal, he reminds himself.

  Yet of late it is not enough. He feels the need for companionship and smiles bitterly. Even his half-human side needs something more than just the taste of power.

  He had his chance with Thalia, yet when he had found out she was pregnant, he had seen no choice but to kill her. Perhaps next time I can find a way to make it work. Strike an arrangement of some kind.

  Out of habit, he touches the sword on his back, making sure it is still secure in its protective leather casing. The gold band around his forehead shines dully in the lights reflected from the control panel of his spaceship. At just nineteen years, he is already the ruler of Saturn. Over the last few years, he had gone about building his army systematically, wooing the best warriors in the universe. Once his troops are in place, he will conquer the other planets.

  He would be more powerful than any of the gods, more powerful than Shiva himself, which is all that matters to him. No matter how he tries to convince himself, it doesn’t feel like enough.

  The journey from Earth to Saturn is swift. He knows his way around the various shortcut routes in the galaxy, and aided by his powerful spaceship, he avoids Mars and Jupiter completely. Instead, he uses a complex series of interconnected wormholes between the planets to reach Saturn within a day.

  He lands on the open terrace of his palace, docking his spaceship in almost exactly the same position from where he had taken off a few days earlier. Yaksha, his right-hand bodyguard and sometimes guardian, walks into Shaitan’s room. His face is unreadable. At thirty years of age, Yaksha is older than Shaitan and has already begun to grey around the temples, yet his immense strength makes him invaluable. He has been the one constant through Shaitan’s last few years and he has come to depend on Yaksha’s impassive presence in many ways.

  Yaksha silently accepts Shaitan’s sword and head gear, helping him out of his vest. Then he places them back on the table in the centre of the room, where they would never be more than an arm’s reach from Shai
tan.

  To refresh himself, Shaitan walks to the bowl of water in the corner of the room and splashes some on his face. Water is a precious commodity on Saturn, to be used sparingly even in his palace.

  Feeling the first stirring of hunger in nearly a week, he moves to the next room, where wine and fruit are kept. As he sits down to eat, he realizes what is missing. Much as he hated his human weaknesses, Shaitan acknowledges for the first time that he needs company, preferably of the female variety, and human at that.

  When he is not out conquering the galaxy, he needs to be entertained, and it needs to be little more than the sporadic encounters with females either human or half human. He wants someone who will actually live with him and be part of his life. Was it a mistake to let go of Thalia?

  He dismisses the thought almost as quickly as it creeps in. After calling for Yaksha, he proceeds to fill him in about his trip to Earth.

  The following week, Shaitan organizes a massive hunting expedition to the thick forests located on the far side of Saturn. It has been almost a year since he last visited these jungles teeming with varied wildlife from around the galaxy. The forest houses animals from various planets, many crossbred with each other. It is the most fantastical collection of species that anyone could find in one place, an aquarium of the weird and the wonderful that always manages to lift his spirits.

  On the hunt, Shaitan plunges straight into the chase, hot on the heels of a deer. For the first time he decides to go after a traditional purebred animal instead of the more bizarre, which is his usual preference.

  The deer is magnificent and runs fleet-footed with Shaitan in pursuit, leading him deeper and deeper into the heart of the tangled woodlands, where the trees whisper the secrets of the world to each other. They are towering giants, more ancient than time, surviving many an apocalypse and carrying within them secrets that could make the world recede to insignificance.

  The deer leads him into the thick vegetation and, putting on a burst of speed, disappears into the under growth.

  Shaitan finds himself in the middle of an extremely thick grove with nothing but the whispering fronds for company. The rest of his hunting pack fall behind and his prey is nowhere in sight. He is not concerned though; his natural confidence in his abilities keeps him going in anticipation of the kill. Not only armed with a hunting bow and arrow, he also has his sword in its leather scabbard slung across his back.

  He has barely gone another few yards when he hears gurgling, like an animal drinking water.

  Then he slows, taking on the stance of a hunter and closing his eyes, he concentrates on the kill and lets loose his arrow. He comes out of his reverie to find that the sound has ceased. Cautiously moving toward the original source of the sound, he stumbles upon a clearing with a small rivulet running through it. A burst of colour on the ground near the far end of the water draws his attention and he jogs over to it.

  Looking down at the fallen figure, the bow and arrow drop from his hands, for he is gazing into the face of the most beautiful creature he has ever seen.

  Slim and shapely, she is no more than five-foot-three, yet what there is of her is perfectly formed. Dark hair falls to her shoulders, framing a stubborn square jaw, adding character to her face. Dusky brown skin covers a slender waist and gently flaring hips, which end in shapely legs, clad in elegant deer skin, now in shreds.

  Her arms are askew, the left flung out to her side as if to protect herself from the fall, the right folded carelessly over her swelling breasts. The arrow he had shot earlier scraped her right arm and is embedded harmlessly in the soft mud of the river bank. As he reaches out to touch her, to make sure that she is still alive, her eyes flash open and her lightning gaze strikes him.

  A startling indigo stare catches him off guard. It is something he has never seen before. The curve of her eyelashes is matched only by her slim thighs. Both seduce him.

  Is she a goddess? he wonders. No a shape shifter.

  The female had probably taken on the form of the deer he had been chasing. Shape shifters are not uncommon on Saturn, but it is the first time he has been so close to one.

  Her ebony skin pales with pain from the wound setting in, and he picks her up gently, so as not to hurt her further, and carries her back with him to the hunting party, his bow and arrow forgotten. How the mighty fall.

  As ferocious a warrior as Shaitan is, over the next weeks and months, he is filled with love for this essence of femininity who has stumbled into his life. From the time Yana opened her eyes and looked at him, first with terror, then with growing lust, he had fallen in love with her.

  Shaitan’s armor and weapons lie forgotten as he discovers the narcotic of a soul mate. For the first time, he understands the heady feeling of living for someone else, of another being filling his every waking thought. He breathes in her essence, aware on some level he is falling into the trap of fate, and yet not caring.

  The stars may warn, but immortals and mortals plot their own course.

  28

  Saturn, 3000

  Yana opens her eyes in Shaitan’s palace and finds that he does not allow anyone near her—not the palace doctor, not even Yaksha, preferring to treat her wounds himself. Seeing to her every need himself, he wins her over.

  She is touched by his attention and mindful that he is the most powerful half life on Saturn. Before she is completely recovered from the wound caused by his arrow, she sleeps with him. Like many on Saturn, she knows about Shiva’s curse, his declaration that Shaitan would be killed by his own child, and hence Shaitan’s oath of not allowing any of his children to live.

  On the condition that she hands over every child born of her, Shaitan proposes to her. He tells her he cannot afford to let them live. It isn’t that he has anything against children, but with Shiva’s curse, he has no choice.

  Yana is appalled by what he asks of her. Yet it would be foolish to walk away from his status and his power, she thinks. The promise seems a small price to pay to share Shaitan’s future and fulfill her own thirst for power through him, so she accepts his proposal.

  A few months after marrying, the attraction between them settles from a tornado to a quiet storm. Having put the final touches to his powerful army, Shaitan embarks on the first of his conquering trips, this time to the planet of Neptune.

  While he is away, Yana discovers she is pregnant. After praying for him to be away long enough for her to give birth, it is only when Yudi is born, his screams piercing her heart, that Yana jerks out of the comfortable routine she has fallen into. With this comes the cold realization that she has set the dice rolling on not just her future, but also that of her newborn son. Anxious to fix the crack in her fortune before Shaitan’s anger wrecks her future, she forms a plan to protect her child.

  Yana is struck by how much Yudi looks like her, for he has her characteristic strong square jaw and Indigo eyes. He also has a peculiar birthmark, four golden dots forming a square with a fifth in the center, and an unusual golden colour. It is Shaitan’s emblem, the symbol he uses on his flag. How could my child’s birthmark bear the same sign? It is as if Yudi has been marked by Shaitan before birth.

  How the patterns pass on from parent to child amazes her. Not only do I have to get my son out of the palace, but I have to get him off planet, hide him so that Shaitan will never set eyes on him.

  Between Yudi’s uncanny resemblance to her and the damning birthmark, there would be no mistaking who he is on Saturn. Before her heart forces her to change her mind, she wraps the child in a bright yellow cloth and calls her fellow shape shifters to help ship the infant to Ka Surya.

  It is the farthest, hence she thinks the safest, planet; among the more prosperous in the galaxy. She feels reassured that he will be cared for there.

  Then to be doubly sure, she substitutes Yudi with a servant’s baby girl. When Shaitan returns, surprise spreads on his face when he sees the child feeding at her breasts. He touches the infant and seems to wonder what it would feel like to k
eep her. Then, to her shock, he admits he is surprised to feel the emotional pull toward what he sees as his own daughter, yet he tells Yana that he has no choice; he reminds her of the promise she has made him. Yana hands over the child to him without another word.

  When Shaitan is about to leave with the baby, Yaksha reveals her secret. He tells Shaitan about seeing Yana send away their son to another planet for his safety. This little girl is not Shaitan’s, but belongs to a palace maid.

  When he confronts Yana, she flies into a rage and demands if he had actually expected her to simply hand over her child and live on as if nothing had happened. Seeing his reaction to the baby when he had thought she was his own, she realises not even Shaitan can resist the innocence of a newborn.

  Even the merciless Shaitan has a heart. He does love me, in his own way—doesn’t he? Surely he must feel my pain, she hopes and is crushed when his only reaction is to remind her of their bargain.

  In an act of defiance, feeling as if her heart is about to burst, she tells him that he can turn the entire galaxy upside-down, yet she would never reveal her son’s whereabouts. Shaitan looks at her calmly and then tells her that is exactly what he intends to do. He orders Yaksha to put Yana under house arrest.

  She glares at Yaksha with hatred. As he leads her away, gripping her slender upper arms with his massive shackle-like fists, she decides to bide her time to take revenge against his betrayal. Yudi is safe in Ka Surya, yet a part of her dies with the child that is not hers that day.

  Her full breasts ache with no newborn to feed, and with it she is overwhelmed by the sorrow of her loss, and she is not as resistant to the pain of separation as she had hoped. All her dreams pale before the single most important desire, her hope that her child is safe somewhere in the wide galaxy. The chasm of self-destruction beckons, but she must live so that Yudi stays safe.