There were other asura races too, committing other unspeakable acts of violence and desecration. Defiling holy icons, demolishing temples, and slaughtering, always slaughtering.
A rumbling sound forced Rama to raise his gaze to the extremities of the city, where he saw the king’s highway boiling with more intruders. The asura forces covered the road all the way to the edge of the Southwoods, a distance of a full yojana. They flowed from the high rises of the Southwoods down to the city like a boiling black river of pestilence. Even at a glance, it was clear that the invaders vastly outnumbered the defenders. And yet, more kept coming in a constant seething flow. There seemed to be no end to their unholy numbers.
A screeching cry startled him from his horrified reverie. He looked up to see the early dawn sky darkening. Great hulking shadows coalesced into the winged shapes of flying bird-beasts, humanoid creatures out of myth and fable. He stared in disbelief at what seemed to be Garudas and Jatayus, named after the gigantic mythic man-eagle and enormous fabled man-vulture of ancient folklore. Their slender, lightly feathered bodies were strikingly humanoid, except for the bird-like eyes and beaks, and the incredible muscular wings growing from their backs. Some had a wingspan as much as ten yards or more. They swooped down to the streets below, down to the killing floor of the slaughterhouse that Ayodhya had become. Rama scanned the sky and saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of the flying creatures, flocking to the carnage, calling to each other exultantly in their proto-human speech. As they reached street level and a new wave of horror began, he shut his eyes and staggered back, away from the aperture, unable to absorb any more.
Now do you see the futility of resisting me and my forces? Would you like to see your kith and kin ravished and slaughtered like your countrymen below? Your brothers, perhaps? Or your birth-mother? Or—
Rama lashed out. This time he struck without discipline or stance. Pure rage fuelled his actions. The sword slashed through empty air. He came to his senses a moment later, at the far end of the tower chamber, sword vibrating in his double-handed grip. He had traced an interweaving mandala pattern that covered every square yard of the chamber. There was no living being here. His eyes misted with impotent rage.
‘Who are you? Why do you show me these monstrous visions? Reveal yourself, damn you!’
Boy. You still haven’t seen the real horrors. The best part comes later, when the survivors are taken back to Lanka as my slaves and whores. Shall I show you that now?
‘What do you want from me, demon?’
The cry was torn from his throat by an emotion more powerful than simple rage. It was an attempt to understand, to make sense of the evil that confronted him.
Now, you begin to learn. Yes, I do want something from you. A vow of allegiance. Bend your knee to me now, this instant, and swear fealty to me. Do this now, and perhaps I shall see fit to spare Ayodhya when my armies lay waste the nations of Arya. Kneel, boy, and live.
He forced his breathing to stay measured, his voice as steady as he could keep it. It took more strength than wielding the sword.
‘The only time I would bend my knee before you is when I kneel to aim an arrow at your cursed brain. Show yourself and face me like the man you claim you are, coward!’
Lightning shattered the sky above the Seers’ Tower. Lightning out of a pitch-black sky. Thunder boomed and echoed an instant later. When the voice resumed, it sounded like giant teeth gnashing in frustration.
Boy. Still just a boy. But you will learn. I will teach you the song of pain and terror. And you will bend your knee then. You will beg and cry for the honour of kneeling to me. Until then, sleep your childish sleep, boy. And remember this well: Ayodhya will fall.
Another blinding flash of white light.
He woke in his bed, chest heaving, sweat-drenched, fever-hot, bone-chilled. He sprang to his feet, stood naked on the cool redstone floor—he had tossed off his loincloth as the night grew warmer. Even as he reached for his sword, he knew that it was still there on the bed where it had lain all night, untouched.
Just another bad dream, he thought, willing himself to calm down. He remembered the perfection of his movements and asanas in the dream, and also how futile all his training had proved. Who was this faceless beast that tortured him this way? This was the third time this week alone that the monster had appeared and shown him similarly horrible dream-visions. Too horrible to discuss with anyone else. He hadn’t even told Lakshman, and he always told Lakshman everything. Just another nightmare. As real and terrifying as all nightmares usually were.
But this time, it felt like something more.
It felt like a prophecy.
THREE
The traveller reached the top of the rise and paused.
Ayodhya.
He was clad in the simple garb of an ascetic. The coarse white dhoti girding his loins, wooden toe-grip slippers on his feet, matted unkempt hair swirling around his craggy face, the long straggly white beard, the red-beaded rudraksh mala around his neck, all marked him for a hermit returning from a long, hard tapasya. His gaunt face and deep-set eyes completed the portrait of a forest penitent, a tapasvi sadhu.
Yet there was something about him that set him apart from any ordinary sadhu or hermit. An indefinable quality that belied the obvious first impression. An alertness in his intense predatory eyes, a sense of banked power in his fluid movements, a hint of hidden strength, and most of all, an unmistakable regal air.
He had been a warrior once. A king even. Lord of an ancient and illustrious northern Arya clan, master of a great throne and monarch of a rich dynasty. He had given it all up millennia earlier to pursue a life of total dedication to the pursuit of Brahman, the life-force that knit the universe. Now, he wielded this wooden staff instead of a sword, voiced mantras instead of royal edicts. His kingdom was the realm of atman and Brahman, spirit and power. His name had passed beyond history, across the boundaries of legend, into the misty realms of myth. A guru among gurus, a seer that other seers looked up to reverentially. A Brahmarishi. Yet the regal bearing and manner had not left him entirely. And at this fateful moment, this cusp of history, as he stood sketched against the sky on that high peak, gazing down at the lush, epic beauty of the Sarayu valley, he looked every inch the king he had once been.
Leaning lightly on the head-tall wildwood staff, his large frame silhouetted against the dusky purple of the pre-dawn sky, he resembled nothing so much as a warrior-king surveying his battlements. He would have looked at home on a royal chariot, gripping the carved bonewood of a longbow, polished armour gleaming in the cold sunlight, contemplating the battlefield’s lie.
Even the gentle northern wind that rustled the vast rolling banks of kusa grass below seemed to pause briefly, awaiting his command. The waters of the Sarayu, ice-pure and crystal-clear, stilled their gurgling momentarily. The world grew silent, marking the moment, as he spoke aloud a sacred mantra. Not just a mantra, a maha-mantra. The sacred and omnipotent Gayatri.
As he spoke, the lines of destiny swirled around him. The faint blue hue of Brahman, the raw energy of spiritual enlightenment, caressed his form, an invisible cloak of power. From here on, every step he took closer to Ayodhya would bring about change, historic change. For on this cool, crisp morning, the last night of winter, the first day of spring, he was about to make a king. Perhaps the greatest king of them all. What he wrought today in that city by the river would reverberate down the corridors of human history.
Gripping the hefty staff more firmly, the seer-mage Vishwamitra stepped back on the well-worn cart track of the king’s highway and began the long downward trek to the first wall. The city itself was still a whole yojana distant and he wished to be there before daybreak. But first he had to alter his appearance. It would not do to appear as himself. The unannounced appearance of a seer-mage of his legendary status would become the talk of the city, bringing Brahmins by the hundreds out of doors to pay their respects, which would only delay his urgent mission.
Without slowin
g his pace he spoke the mantra of transformation. The glow of Brahman grew brighter around him as nature itself responded to the sacred incantation. Countless tiny motes of bluish light began to swirl around him, blurring his form. A large boulder lay off to one side of the road and he stepped off the path and into the knee-deep kusa grass, droplets of dew clinging to his dhoti like beads of quicksilver. As he strode around the rock and passed out of sight, his body shimmered as if seen through a curtain of smoke.
When he emerged scant seconds later on the far side of the boulder, it was no longer as the great seer-mage Vishwamitra. The man who stepped back on to the cartwheel-ridged mud road was a muscular, dark-skinned young man with the traditional animal-skin loincloth, bone necklace and body-pierce adornments of a sudra hunter. A bulging game bag was slung over one shoulder, a gleaming sickle-spear clutched in the other hand. A few scattered motes of blue light trailed behind him, winking out slowly like fireflies extinguished by rain.
The hunter strode towards Ayodhya.
FOUR
High on the hill, a dark shadow detached itself from a small grove of eucalyptus trees. It hopped forward cautiously, reached a mossy ledge overhanging the path below and peered over the rim. Its keen eyes easily picked out the figure of the sudra hunter far below, striding north at a determined pace.
The disguise did not deceive it. It was familiar with creatures that changed their bhes-bhav at will. Even at this distance, the seermage’s aura was as keenly visible to its preternatural senses as a halo around a blue-skinned deva. Its bright golden eyes followed the hunter’s striding form until he disappeared over a rise a mile distant. Then it chittered and scratched repeatedly at the mossy ledge underfoot. Its yard-long talons drew deep grooves, sending the thick damp moss flying in shredded strips, exposing the rock. The tips of its claws drew sparks from the rock as it raised its head and issued a blood-curdling scream. The cry was almost human and the traveller on the path below heard it and recognised its source, but strode on without slowing. An ordinary sudra hunter would have been terrified out of his wits; the great seer-mage Vishwamitra barely gave the cry a second’s attention.
The creature chittered again, frustrated. It now wished it had attacked the traveller while he was still in the dense jungles of Bhayanak-van, the darkwoods. The seer-mage had been aware of its presence from the very outset, it knew, so it had made no attempt to conceal itself. But rather than glance up fearfully at the gigantic shadow lurking overhead as most ordinary mortals would have done, the sage had simply strode on relentlessly, as if it had been a mere raven or crow flying overhead, not the legendary Jatayu itself, first of its name, a name that struck terror into the hearts of mortals across the Arya nations. Furious at being ignored, weary of circling endlessly to compensate for the far slower pace of the earth-bound mortal, Jatayu had longed to plunge down, down, strike at the dhoti-clad human and rip him to shreds.
But its orders had been clear: follow and observe. Nothing more, nothing less. The Dark Lord of Lanka had been explicit in his instructions.
It scratched the ledge one last time, hard enough to draw a cracking noise like a dry twig being split. Its great talons had caused a fissure in the rock. Turning its enormous bald head skywards, it considered its next move. It had a long way to travel, in the shortest time possible. Lanka was a whole subcontinent away and the news it carried was important. The Lord of the asuras would not be pleased to learn the seer-mage Vishwamitra’s destination, but he would certainly be pleased at his spy’s diligence.
It spread its wings; first the left one, then the right, unfolding them slowly, painfully, sighing as it did so. They were weary from the long journey. What was more, its belly rumbled with hunger. It had been able to snatch a few small prey on the wing, a pair of parrots, a duck that had strayed from its fellows, even a juicy pregnant bat. But they were barely snacks for its enormous appetite.
If it could just stay awhile, forage around until it found the burning ghats where it knew these Ayodhyans must cremate their dead, it would have food aplenty. After all, if it was part-human, it was also part-vulture. And the vulture part craved human flesh.
But Lanka was thrice as far as the distance it had flown already. Even with brief rests, the journey would consume precious time. Hopefully, the seer-mage would stay in the city that long. These holy men usually took their time when they made their rare forays back into civilisation. And this particular one had broken his retreat after a considerable time, even by Jatayu’s count. Over two hundred mortal years, it reckoned. Which meant there had to be a very good reason for Vishwamitra’s visit to Ayodhya. Which meant in turn that the Lord of Lanka would not appreciate the news being delivered late.
Sighing in frustration, Jatayu began the arduous task of flapping its mighty wings, trying to work up enough wind to elevate itself off the ground until it found an air current. For yards around, the grass was flattened by the tremendous force of its flapping. A family of hares creeping from their hole were pressed to the ground, their long ears laid flat on the earth to either side of their heads. With a final ear-splitting screech of effort, Jatayu launched itself off the ledge, plummeting downwards like a boulder for several heart-stopping seconds before it found a small wind-wave and clung to it fiercely. The wave strengthened and it straightened out scant yards above the trail the sage had taken. With one more massive effort, it rode the wave out into the Sarayu valley.
Airborne at last, it drifted for several minutes, climbing steadily higher to find a current flowing in the direction it wished to go. It saw the seven gates of Ayodhya far below, ringing the mortal city like a set of concentric necklaces around a queen’s throat. The river Sarayu undulated like a silver cord through the lush valley. The magnificent palaces and mahals at the centre of the city straddled the roaring river with a variety of vaulting arches and inbuilt bridges in a large complex system of architecture. It was an amazing sight and Jatayu accepted grudgingly that it had never seen a mortal city as intricately designed as this one. So this was the great Ayodhya the Unconquerable. As it drifted on a strong up-current that flowed parallel to the river, the sickly-sweet odour of mortal flesh came clearly to its hunger-heightened senses. All the beauty and splendour of the magnificent Arya architecture was forgotten as its appetite was provoked again. To Jatayu, that was what this great city was ultimately: a giant feeding trough. Soon, it knew, its lord and master would beat down the proud walls of this so-called unconquerable city, and Jatayu and its kind would feast to their heart’s content.
The giant man-vulture issued an ululating cry, mocking the city and its inhabitants and their puerile quest for immortality before riding the air current southwards to its distant destination.
The sound that issued was a single word, split into three extended syllables by the bird-beast’s cry:
‘Ra-van-a!’
FIVE
The guards on watch at the city walls below heard the cry of the bird-beast and started involuntarily.
A grizzled veteran at the seventh gate glanced up and glimpsed the shockingly large silhouette that was sketched briefly against the deep-blue pre-dawn sky.
‘What in Shiva’s name was that?’ asked his companion, a much younger man, barely old enough to sport a beard. ‘Did you see the size of that thing? It must have a wingspan of at least twenty yards!’
The veteran shrugged. ‘Trick of the light. Like I told you before, this is the time of day you see the strangest things.’
The young guard stared at his companion. ‘But you must have seen it. It was right above us. It looked like a giant vulture. That round head, long hooked beak, that hunched back. But there was something odd about the body. It was broader than a bird, differently shaped, almost like a—’
‘A man? A giant man-vulture, is that what it looked like, young novice?’ the older man responded sharply.
‘Exactly!’ The young soldier looked eagerly at his senior. ‘Then you saw it too?’
The old man hawked and spat over the
rim of the stone wall. The gob of phlegm glistened in the light of the gate-lamps. He watched it splash into the still waters of the moat far below before he answered in a disinterested tone.
‘There are no giant man-vultures, boy. Not any more. A trick of the light is all we saw. One sees strange things on purnima. The full moon dazzles the senses. Now, get your thoughts back on your work. It’s almost time to open the gates.’
Still the young guard pressed on.
‘But Somasra, you saw it too! It was a Garuda. Just like the ones in the frescoes at the War Museum. From the asura wars.’
The veteran snorted derisively, choosing not to reply. It was a silent message to the young novice to let the matter drop. First of all, the veteran thought to himself, if that thing they had glimpsed had indeed been a man-vulture, it would have been called a Jatayu. A Garuda was a man-eagle, the great flying mount of the devas and a holy icon. A Jatayu, on the other hand, was not man’s friend. But one of the failings of youth was that it tended to be slow to heed warnings, or heeded them too late.
PRINCE OF DHARMA Page 4