PRINCE OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  The serving girl’s eyes found the chaukat. Sumitra had already deduced that the stench coming from the fire-square was the same odour that had helped her locate the secret chamber in the first place. She had assumed the stench to be small goats, maybe even calves. She had heard there were people who still made such sacrifices to the dark pagan gods, devi alone knew why.

  Sulekha froze as she saw the chaukat. It took her soma-addled brain a moment to accept the reality of what the chaukat implied and therefore where she was right now. She rose shakily to her feet, staring at the secret room with horrified eyes, wide and showing more white than pupils. She turned around, like a girl lost in the throes of some childhood game.

  ‘The witch’s lair,’ she said in a tone drained of all inflection. ‘We’re in the witch’s lair, the witch’s lair, the witch’s lair …’

  Sumitra rose and caught the girl by the shoulders.

  ‘Sit down, Sulekha, you’ll make yourself dizzy that way.’

  The girl looked at the chaukat then back at the queen, then back at the wall through which she’d come. Her eyes flew one way then another like a person watching an archery contest in progress. Sumitra saw that only now was she truly seeing and accepting the reality of her situation.

  ‘Maharani!’

  Sulekha’s voice rose shrilly. She grew suddenly violent, her arms flailing in panic. ‘Maharani Sumitra! You mustn’t be here! You must leave this place at once! You don’t know what she does in here. We must leave at once, before she comes back. Go!’

  She pushed Sumitra hard, caught in the grip of her panic attack. ‘Go, my rani! Go now or she’ll kill us both and sacrifice us to her black god!’ She sobbed suddenly. ‘The way she sacrifices the little boys to show her obeisance to He Who Makes The Universe Scream.’

  Sumitra felt a dagger of ice pierce her heart. She looked at the chaukat. The small charred bones in the fire-square suddenly had a new meaning altogether. A horrible, unspeakable meaning. A shudder of revulsion shook her. She let go of the serving girl, her head reeling.

  Suddenly she felt this had been a bad idea. Coming here on her own, searching for a sign of Manthara’s complicity, seeking out the secret room. It had all been a very bad idea. And now she was caught. In the witch’s lair.

  SEVENTEEN

  Lakshman moved through the vinaashe grove as silently and carefully as he could manage. The shakti of the maha-mantras throbbed in his veins, enhancing his senses and keeping him preternaturally aware, yet he felt a tinge of doubt prick his heart. There were too many things about this particular mission that disturbed him. Not least was the sage’s sending Rama alone to perform the most vital task.

  Ever since he had been old enough to walk and talk, Lakshman had been devoted to his older brother. The bond was stronger than the biological one between Lakshman and his twin, Shatrugan. Never had he felt the faintest envy for Rama over anything, from the sharing of a favourite sweet to driving his brother’s chariot while Rama shot the arrow that won the chariot-archery contest.

  But tonight he felt something stir within his heart. A question. It was a very simple one, hardly worth speaking aloud. Yet it existed. Why only Rama? That was what troubled Lakshman. Not envy that his brother had been selected over him, but anxiety over their separation. He didn’t know what horrors might lie in the Pit of Vasuki. But he was certain Rama would be obstructed by something formidable, perhaps even worse than the hybrids in the Bhayanak-van, worse even than Tataka herself. Mortal danger was implied in the very nature of the mission. And the sage’s grim warning had left no doubt that while they were protected by the power of Brahman, they were not invulnerable.

  And Rama was being compelled to face the danger alone. Without Lakshman.

  Lakshman could understand leaving the others behind, they had joined the company incidentally. But Rama and he were oathsworn to obey the sage’s commands and fight the creatures that threatened their people. The sage ought not to have separated him from Rama for this task. His sword belonged beside his brother, defending Rama’s back, watching over him. Lakshman never doubted that Rama’s superior skill and the shakti of the maha-mantras made him almost deva-like in battle– he had seen evidence of that superiority first-hand in the Bhayanak-van. But he was uneasy at not being by his brother’s side in this moment of extreme danger. His place was with Rama, not running back to the river at the first sign of trouble as the sage had ordered them to do.

  Lakshman made up his mind. He couldn’t openly disobey Vishwamitra’s command by following Rama into the pit, much as that command frustrated him, but he could do the next best thing.

  He moved in the direction he had seen Rama go, deeper into the heart of the thicket. His eyes glowed softly blueish in the moonless night, seeking out his brother. So absorbed was he in this task, so preoccupied with his thoughts, that despite his preternatural awareness, he failed to notice the shadows gathering around and above him. Even the maha-mantras could not help a person who ignored their shakti. Lakshman was concentrating all his Brahman-given power on finding Rama rather than on protecting himself.

  As Lakshman moved forward slowly, the shadows moved too, stalking him.

  ***

  Bejoo cursed steadily as he moved through the thicket. He cursed almost everything he could think of at that moment. But he did so silently.

  There was only one thing he disliked more than taking orders from a Brahmin, and that was vetaals. He loathed the creatures more than even rakshasas. Rakshasas were powerful, bestial demons that came charging at you, roaring like fiends, and used brute force to try to destroy you.

  In that sense, they weren’t unlike mortals–well, they were quite different, but he was thinking only of their style of attack. As far as that went, vetaals were completely different from mortals. They didn’t attack directly, they stalked you. And they didn’t attack you when you were armed and ready, they came upon you when you were sleeping, resting, eating, praying, performing your ablutions, at any time except when you were armed and ready to fight. It violated every Arya code of warfare. But it was more than that. After all, all the asura races disregarded the Arya rules of war; why should they bother with civilised human rules when they were inhuman? But at least the other asuras sought mainly to kill mortals either outright, as rakshasas did, or slowly and painfully, as pisacas did.

  But vetaals never killed. Not truly. Instead, they fed on you, and kept you alive enough so they could feed on you some more. And then, perhaps when they’d had enough, or when it pleased them, they turned you into one of them. Like twice-lifers, the walking dead, who could infect you with a single bite. Except that even twice-lifers did so in a brainless, instinctive way, driven by some compulsion beyond human understanding.

  Vetaals, on the other hand, were very aware, very alive, very much driven by the same motivations and impulses as humans. They weren’t dead, as some ignorant people foolishly believed, or undead, as other even more foolish people assumed. They were simply humans who had been infected by other vetaals and had turned over to the vetaal way of life, either gradually, over days, weeks or even years and decades, or all at once.

  And once turned, they could never regain their humanity. For by then they had committed the most unspeakable human sin of all–they had fed on fellow humans. And having fed, had developed a taste for it that could never be ignored or forgotten. Like a merchant driven by the canny lure of gold, they were driven by the lust for human blood–and in some cases, human flesh, and certain choice organs. Their pleasure was derived from enslaving others and feeding off them, in much the same way that humans themselves corralled and fed on cattle or fowl. With one major difference–the vetaals never killed their human cattle.

  Because with their very first bite, they infected you with the gift of immortality.

  Bejoo cursed silently again and moved through the densely clustered thicket. He came around a large tree and found the way ahead slightly easier than before. The trees grew less close here than on the outskirts
of the thicket, the brambly leaves less irksome.

  He guessed he was reaching some kind of clearing, perhaps the central one of which the brahmarishi had spoken. If so, that would mean he should be turning back soon. But where were the vetaals? Why hadn’t they attacked him yet? He had been alert for any sign that he was being stalked and was reasonably certain that none were on his trail. But they must have been aware of his presence by now. Vetaals could smell humans from yojanas away. Where were they then?

  A moment later, he emerged into a clearing and had his answer. It was not the clearing he had expected to find–there was no pit or pool anywhere in sight. Just a round corral made of a low vinaashe-wood fence barely a yard high. The cattle cloistered within could easily have stepped over the fence and escaped. But it was obvious that they had no desire to do so. They merely sat or stood around the roughly circular enclosure, staring as mutely as sheep or pigs.

  They were human cattle. Bejoo had found the vetaals’ food store. What was more, he realised, as the two-dozen-odd men and women within the corral grew aware of his presence and began to shuffle towards the fence, they had all been turned, every last one of them. It was obvious from their red-irised eyes, glowing wetly in the pitch-darkness. And the greedy way they looked at him as they became aware that he was that rarest of rare things, a human as yet untouched by their vetaal masters.

  They smiled at him, by way of attempting a grotesque greeting. To his horror, some even attempted namaskars. He understood at once why the vetaals hadn’t tracked him into the thicket. He had headed straight to the one spot where they would have taken him anyway.

  The vetaal cattle began creeping towards him, smelling his fresh, untainted blood and uninfected body. Several of them began to grin, their teeth flashing in the darkness.

  They began climbing over the low fence, reaching out longingly. Touching him, tugging at his clothes, even trying to clasp the point of his sword. Their movements grew agitated, their smiles broader.

  They wanted him.

  ***

  Sita knew at once that she was being stalked. She felt the familiar prickling on the nape of her neck and the itchy sensation at her wrists that meant she was under threat. She glanced at Nakhudi. The Jat Kshatriya had obeyed the brahmarishi’s instructions by finding her own course through the thicket, but she had followed her own immutable life-oath by staying within sight of her ward.

  Nakhudi’s large head bobbed once, briefly. Signalling that she was aware of their stalkers too. Sita felt better at the Jat’s presence. She would have willingly ventured into the thicket alone if the sage had commanded, but having Nakhudi in sight made her feel complete. She had been intrigued to see how similarly Rama and his brother were bonded.

  She had always wished that her sisters would take an interest in swordplay and warfare the way she did, but they had stayed with their girlish pursuits while her interests had taken her in these less effeminate directions. As her daiimaa had once put it, she was obsessed with martial pursuits, while her sisters were obsessed with marital pursuits! Thank devi she had Nakhudi at least. She re-affirmed Sita’s conviction that a girl didn’t have to wear oiled tresses and red saris in order to assert her femininity, and that wielding a sword and riding a horse bareback wasn’t the exclusive pursuit of men.

  Sita made a fist, bent it forward, then raised one finger and twirled it around. Nakhudi raised her open palm sideways to show she had understood. They were to pretend to move forward, then circle back very quickly and try to force their stalkers into a confrontation.

  Sita followed her own strategy, moving forward at the same careful pace until she found a thick clump of brambly poisonwood bushes ahead. She slipped behind the bushes then crouched down low for a moment before darting sharply round them to the left. She sprinted between tree trunks and wildflower clumps, circling around several yards, sword raised and ready for action.

  She stopped abruptly.

  They were waiting for her. Arrayed in a crescent, their deep ruby eyes gleaming in the darkness. As she froze, they closed the gap behind her, surrounding her completely. They had seen and understood her signal and waited for her to circle around and return to them. She had forgotten: they weren’t like other asuras. They understood human speech and communication. They thought like humans.

  They moved in, teeth flashing whitely, talons held ready by their sides. She smelled the familiar acrid odour of fresh human blood from their open mouths. They had fed just moments ago. She had a fraction of an instant to wonder who might have been the hapless victim. Where was Nakhudi? Caught in a similar trap of her own probably.

  The circle closed completely and she was alone with her own private group of suitors. What they sought from her was much more intimate than marital bliss. They sought her immortal aatma.

  ***

  Lakshman burst out of the thicket and into the clearing moments behind his brother. The dull glassy gleam ahead told him that Rama had found the Pit of Vasuki. The clearing was not large, perhaps twenty yards in circumference, but the mind boggled at the thought of a snake that thick being pulled out of the ground. The pit–rather, the pool–occupied almost all the clearing, with only a thin lip of about two yards between the woods and the water. Rama was standing a yard from the pool, almost close enough to leap in and continue to the next phase of his mission.

  But he had run into trouble.

  The clearing swarmed with light-skinned, dark-eyed beings that had lost the right to call themselves human a long time ago. Their eyes and teeth were the only things that were clearly visible, flashing blood-red and ivory-white respectively. They were between Rama and the pool.

  Lakshman had the impression that they knew that Rama desired to enter the water and were determined to prevent him. Although Rama was swinging his sword ruthlessly, slaughtering them left and right, more of them kept coming to take the places of their downed comrades, swarming from the woods, rushing out in endless numbers.

  Lakshman roared his battle cry and leapt beside Rama, wielding his own sword.

  ‘Rama, go! I’ll deal with these vermin!’ he shouted. Rama needed no more urging. Together they cut a swathe down to the edge of the water. Lakshman swung around, shielding Rama from the vetaals. As they rushed him, screaming silently, eyes glistening with tears of blood, Lakshman fought them bitterly. Without turning, he heard the sound of Rama’s sword falling to the ground beside him, then his rig and bow and arrows.

  An instant later, he heard a gentle splash. Rama had dived into the pool. The vetaals produced a strange throaty sound, a rasping, grating noise like a creature’s death rattle, and even greater numbers swarmed out of the thicket to bear down on Lakshman with murderous zeal.

  ‘Ayodhya Anashya!’ Lakshman roared, and fought on with renewed fury.

  He didn’t stop to wonder if he could possibly hold out until Rama returned. He had to hold out. That was all there was to it.

  EIGHTEEN

  Rama fell slowly. The water pushed his arms away from him, and he didn’t resist. His elbows rose to the level of his chest and stayed there, bent inwards. At first, he was aware only of the water encasing his body, embracing it, caressing it. It was cool and soft and felt like a thousand tickling feathers. As he descended lower, it seemed to grow warmer but there were moments when a swathe of colder water would pass by suddenly and once he was swept sideways by the force of one such swathe.

  There were bubbles in the cold swathe, as if something that breathed air had pushed its way through at great speed and with great force. But each time he tried to turn his head slowly to see what it might be, there was only the murky dimness of the pool. He continued to fall slowly, seeming to grow heavier with each yard he descended, as if the water above was now greater in mass and weight than the water below. He had learned about water pressure in his gurukul days, but the store of Arya knowledge on the subject of sub-marine science was limited by the national fear of deep water.

  He saw little of his surroundings as he descend
ed. For the first several moments there wasn’t sufficient light to see anything; even his hands before his chest seemed insubstantial, ghostly. He had to touch his chest repeatedly to remind himself that he was still solid. When the descent was smooth, it felt as if he was floating in the same place, immobile. This must be what an insect trapped in ancient amber must feel like. Suspended. Frozen eternally.

  But after a while, sight began to return to him. He began to see colours first. Swirls of dark hues at the edge of the spectrum, the deep ochres of spiritual enlightenment. Then the softer, warmer tints of the tertiary colours. And eventually, as he felt his descent slowing, natural colours. They danced and flowed, one way then another, never still, always changing form, shape, size, direction. He tried to puzzle out what they might be. Weeds? Fish? Coral?

  When he reached out to touch one of the streams of colour, it seemed to avoid his hand deftly, dancing out of his reach then returning to swirl close by, as if taunting him to try to catch it again. He shook his head, smiling, and kept his arms before his chest. This was no time to play.

  He knew he was reaching the bottom when the gloaming illumination of the Brahman-infused stones lit up the area around him in a wide circle of blue light. Each stone seemed to physically bleed light, the blue effusion rising upward like a string of bubbles. These rising bubbles had given him the dim light with which he had been able to see at the lower end of the descent. Here at the bottom of the pool, they glowed as brightly as small glassy lamps, their cerulean emission suffusing the water and staining it a glaucous blue-green.