by David Hair
Ras looked up at Ravindra on the throne. His face was tense, but composed. ‘The ghost is here?’ she said, thinking of that sticklike thing she had glimpsed at the gates.
He nodded. ‘Padma has come.’
‘Send her away! Kill her!’ she whispered.
‘I cannot. Here, only you can deal with her. Any that come between her and you will die. Already some have tried and perished. Only the spells woven into the gates and walls currently protect you, and those will not hold her out long.’
Something dealt another blow to the Citadel door and the very floor trembled. The entire castle shook. The gathering quailed, except for Ravindra and his queens.
The hunchback, Syhajeet, lurched closer. He reeked of wet leather and rot, and his breath stank like desert winds over a beast carcass. ‘Your death comes, lady,’ he said gloatingly. ‘Your ghost is outside, demanding admittance. You must go out to it.’
She gaped at the monstrous creature, then turned back to Ravindra, her heart pounding, her throat going dry. ‘No! You’re lying! You’re playing with me, trying to frighten me into doing what you want!’
‘Syhajeet speaks truly,’ Ravindra replied. ‘The spectral being that is part of your soul has come. Though it is weak in your world, it is unstoppable here. Only you can deal with it.’
She sucked in her breath. ‘Can you protect me?’ she asked Ravindra, her fear overcoming her pride.
A dozen snarls erupted about her from the Rakshasas. A beaked horror with a shaggy hide shrieked at her. ‘So! Now she unbends! Make her beg, my lord!’ This suggestion was taken up all round the court. ‘Go out there and die, you ungrateful wretch!’ they roared. ‘Why should our king protect you who hate him?’ More roars and shrieks of hostility, and they crowded around her, jostling, shoving her towards the doors. ‘Send her out to face the spectre!’
Ras looked desperately at Ravindra. Why was he allowing this? ‘Control these animals!’ she shouted at him, her words cutting through the clamour.
The court silenced with a vicious hiss at her words, then rose in uproar. ‘Animals? Arrogant bitch!’
‘Who is she to scorn us?’
‘Oooo, so proud! Let us break her, lord! Let us soften that stiff spine of hers!’
‘Yes! Maybe then she’ll be more amenable!’
They crowded about her, reaching out with hands and claws and tentacles, their eyes and teeth glittering, the mask-like faces contorted in fury. ‘You do not call us “animals”, girl,’ Syhajeet rumbled, his eyes glowing with violet light. ‘Never that!’
‘Be still! All of you!’ Ravindra strode down from his throne, marching through the crowd of demons, somehow shoving them aside without touch or even gesture, walking with grace and power. ‘Queen Rasita is as yet ignorant of our ways. She will learn.’
The hunchback glowered. ‘She is no “Queen”, lord. She is not that until she unbends and weds you.’ Then he grinned fiendishly. ‘Provided she survives her own spectre, of course.’
Ravindra ignored him, standing close to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, lifting her chin to face him squarely. ‘You can choose not to believe me, and be taken by the ghost, to become another dead thing like Halika, or you can agree to my protection. But you must choose now.’
Ras hung her head. There seemed no way out. I have to hang on, I have to stay whole, for Vikram … ‘What rights do you gain over me if I were to agree?’
‘You retain your independence. I will demand nothing of you as of right. You continue as you are, except …’
She clenched her fists on her hips and looked up at him. ‘Except what?’
‘Except you would be expected to be my companion, as befitted one who is betrothed. I have three other queens, so I would expect your company every fourth day.’
‘My company? What does that mean?’
‘Just that. Your company—to be beside me at table, and in court, giving opinion if asked, providing agreeable companionship in social contexts.’ He raised his hands. ‘And that is all. Nothing intimate, until we are married, I assure you.’ He looked at her intently. ‘Rasita, the ghost must see sincerity in you. If not, if it sees that you have no intention of being with me, then the token I give you will have no weight—the spectre will not be mollified by it, and will strike you down and consume you.’
Ras swallowed her rising nausea.
Do I trust this? Do I believe him? And what will I gain?
‘What is required?’ she heard herself ask.
His face remained impassive, betraying nothing. ‘A brief ceremony. A pledge sincerely given to marry by a certain date that is realistic.’
‘Why must I make such an arrangement? Why can’t I make it open-ended?’
‘Because it will then not be seen by the ghost as real. There must be a date set for the pledge to have meaning.’
‘What if I break it?’
‘I do not know, but I suspect the ghost, dwelling inside you, will rise up and obliterate you.’
She hung her head and thought long and hard. Finally she raised her face to his. ‘I will make the pledge, and keep my word, though I do not expect to need to, for Vikram will come to prevent it,’ she told him, marvelling at the certainty she managed to put into her voice. ‘But I will live through this, so that I may become stronger. I will give my pledge to be your engaged companion, and to marry …’ she thought ahead … ‘at Dusshera, in September.’
He nodded solemnly, though he smiled slightly at the irony of her chosen date. There was something like hope in his eyes. ‘Then let it be so.’
She closed her eyes, trembling. ‘Then let it be so,’ she echoed, choking. ‘Let it be so.’
The ceremony was held almost immediately, while the wailing spectre outside the walls pounded on the gates, a funereal drumbeat. Her skin was so damp with perspiration, the silken shift Ravindra sent her to wear felt like an extra layer of skin that stuck to her. She felt naked though sheathed from shoulders to ankles. Keke tried to apply make-up and she shoved the maid away. She did not want to look any different for this. It was hard enough to give a sincere pledge, limited though it was, to her enemy.
There was no shrine in the whole of the Citadel, so the ceremony took place in the throne room. Alien faces crowded about her, clad in grotesque finery. Only the dead queens did not attend, for which Ras was profoundly grateful. Though it was their faces she held in her mind as the incentive she needed to go through with it.
‘I pledge engagement to Lord Ravindra. I pledge companionship. I agree to become his betrothed. I pledge an intention to marry at Dusshera. I do this of my own free will.’ She said it like she meant it, because insincerity might kill her.
But it still made her tremble when Lavanasura spoke the binding words, first in a rolling tongue she didn’t know, and then in Hindi. ‘Let all heaven see that these two are betrothed, are promised one day to wed. Let all the gods mark it. Let all the people see it. Ravan Aeshwaran and Ravani Rasita are pledged to one another, and will marry at Dusshera this year. May every divinity bless their pending union.’
He gave her a diamond ring to wear, larger and more beautiful than any she had ever seen. To remove it was to renounce the betrothal, Lavanasura told her. She would have to bear the reminder of her promise everywhere.
But first she had to face a ghost.
Rasita stood alone in the courtyard, even the guards gone, having fled after those that tried to assail the ghost dropped dead, bodies preternaturally cold. The air was freezing, her breath was coming in bouts of steam. On her finger the glittering diamond caught the moonlight, twinkling like a fallen star.
The doors swung open, as if her presence was the key that picked the locks.
The ghost of Padma stood outside, a girl-shaped hole in the living world. That night in Jodhpur she’d been frightening enough, but here and now, in this place, she was inky and terrifying. The very earth seemed to quail from Padma, her tread making the ground dip like fabric. No steamy breath came from her mouth
. But she was whispering, calling to Rasita as she came. ‘O my heart, O my soul.’
She floated towards her, features barely discernible, just a shadowed glimpse of an emaciated face, of teeth too long, eyes too dark, nails too sharp. A tangled veil of hair that carried all night’s darkness in its dusty tresses. Rasita had to force herself not to run.
Padma’s ghost, the final part of her soul, wafted into touching distance, her eyes twinkling as her pallid face caught the moonlight. Ras stared, not daring to move. Padma reached suddenly, and grasped her left hand in a taloned claw that burned her skin with its frosty touch. She whimpered aloud, as the ghost bent over the hand, sniffing the ring.
If it believes me sincere, I live.
If I lied to myself, I die … and become it.
Was I sincere?
She reached out and took the ghost’s hand and embraced her, kissing her cheeks, holding the gelid body to hers, feeling her body heat drop, trembling in icy terror. She inhaled, and breathed the spirit in. She could not say how she did it, only that it was like drowning, like falling into arctic waters and floating downwards. A flood of horrible memories, of the longings and lusts of a dead thing, forced to consume the living to endure, too many memories, too ghastly to bear. She heard herself cry out, and as icy lips closed over her mouth, the darkness swallowed her, filling her mouth and nose and eyes, obliterating her, dragging her down into nothingness.
Rasita woke in her own bed, with Keke at her side, holding her hand. The prints of the ghost’s grip still marred her skin like an old burn, and the ring glittered on her finger.
She had pledged herself sincerely after all.
Quid Pro Quo
Lanka, April 2011
Ras’ first day of duty as royal consort came in four days. There were no engagements that day—Ravindra sent word that he was inspecting the treasury and that the daylight hours were her own, but he would expect her at dinner in the evening. She wore a glorious silk sari in greens and blues that Ravindra had sent, and let Keke lead her to the Ravan’s private chambers, as nervous as any bride.
Ravindra seemed to have taken some care to ensure that she wasn’t left feeling like some kind of exhibit. The only servant present was a dapper little Asura with bird-wings folded on his back and no other discernable animal-trace. There were no other guests. The servant led her to a small roof garden that looked out over the western walls, towards the setting sun. Lord Surya’s chariot gave a pastel orange hue to the walls of the fortress. The distant forest and seas were already turning to shadow.
Ravindra was in black slacks and a white Italian-style shirt. He was wearing sunglasses. He had cut his hair and shaved off his moustache. He looked up at her and smiled, as if she were a date he had been anxiously awaiting. ‘Rasita! Thank you for coming.’
She had to remind herself to hate him. ‘I didn’t have a choice.’
‘There is always choice in life, Rasita. Even here.’ He half-smiled. ‘How do you feel? Are you recovered?’
She put her arms about herself defensively, shuddering inwardly. ‘I think so. The dreams have gone. She’s inside me … sometimes I share her memories, but they aren’t pleasant. Mostly I feel her, exploring my past, like I’m a book she’s leafing through.’ She frowned. ‘And I’m healthier, I can feel it when I’m swimming and exercising. I can do more than I ever could before.’
She didn’t tell him about her new dreams, the ones about him. Those had come with the ghost, and they left her tossing and turning at nights for entirely different reasons. She had thought herself immune to his dangerous charm. She was wrong.
‘Please sit.’ He smiled enchantingly.
She glared at him, trying to summon anger. ‘I suppose you think you’ve got me now, you smug creep,’ she snapped.
He smiled apologetically. ‘All life is made of bargains, Rasita. Quid pro quo, as they say in Latin. “This for that”. Sometimes we have the best hand, other times we just have to grin and bear it. Would you like some wine?’
‘No.’ She had made up her mind not to drink tonight.
‘That is a shame. I have a bottle of a very fine French champagne; a Laurent-Perrier.’ He frowned. ‘You fear intoxication, clearly. But have just one glass—I swear, you will have tasted nothing better in any life.’
‘How do I know it isn’t poisoned, or drugged?’
‘I don’t take advantage of drunks, Rasita,’ Ravindra replied in an offended voice. ‘I have no need. And in any case, I desire your love freely given, not the ravishing of an inebriated woman.’
I desire your love … Ras shuddered and sat, trying to take stock.
I have lived sixteen lives including this one. In the first, in Mandore, he pampered me, left me a virgin while enjoying all his other wives, and then had me drugged and burned alive. But because I had secretly given away my heartstone, I escaped whatever that ritual was meant to achieve. Thereafter I lived three parallel lives: one as a ghost, one as mad Gauran, and the other as sickly Padma. I was Vikram’s lover or wife in some Gauran-lives. In my Padma-lives, I always died too soon to wed. But in many of the Gauran-lives, Ravindra has found me, and he was not gentle …
She clenched her fists, and lifted her head defiantly. ‘You have had me killed, in past lives. Stoned as a witch. Murdered. Worse. I remember these things now! How can you have the sheer gall to believe you can win my heart?’
To her amazement, he did not fly into a rage. ‘You are right, of course. You are entirely right. But there were reasons, Rasita.’ He paused. ‘Do you prefer “Rasita”, or “Sunita”? Or perhaps something in between,’ he added archly, ‘like “Sita”?’
She didn’t dignify that with a reply. The bird-winged servant pulled out a chair and she sat, frowning at the setting sun. Champagne was poured into the king’s glass, and sparkling mineral water into hers. She tried to think about Vikram but all she could see were those damned photographs of him and Sue.
For a time, Ravindra tried to draw her into small talk: was she well-treated, did she lack for anything, did she like her new dress? She tried to snub him, but it just made her feel churlish and ignorant, especially after he had saved her from the ghost. He took no offence, no matter how rude she was. He sipped his wine, and when the meal came—a beautiful French-styled cuisine which exploited the natural freshness of the vegetables and the succulence of the meat to produce some of the most delicate and lovely tastes she could remember—he ate and enjoyed it in silence. He never pressed his betrothal claim on her, nor said anything untoward.
It felt like one big act designed to make her feel bad, and she simmered at it.
As soon as the last dish was cleared, she stood up and snarled, ‘I hate you and your pig-slop food and I hope you choke on it and die,’ and stalked out.
It didn’t make her feel better. It made her feel like an infant, a petty little baby who had no manners and no dignity. She ripped up the gorgeous sari in her rooms and cried herself to sleep afterward.
‘Thank you for coming, Rasita.’
It was the next appointment, four days later. She sat down stiff-backed, and stared into his face. ‘What happened to Sue Parker?’
He met her gaze, and slowly shook his head. ‘I do not know.’
‘Liar! You know everything that happens here!’
He sighed sadly. ‘Would that I did. But Maricha was charged with your recovery, and he never returned. She may be anywhere, alive or dead. I do not know. But she is not here.’
Ras looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. It had taken all her will to ask that question. The images of those photographs of Sue and Vikram still burned inside her skull. That the American had been courageous and selfless in helping Ras get away, albeit temporarily, from Maricha, only made it worse. But she hoped the girl was safe. Safe and gone.
She accepted champagne this time. The silks she wore were an exact replica of those which she had ruined last time. He was as she last saw him, as if he believed looking like a movie star would intimidat
e her less. Which she found herself admitting, it did. She didn’t like big moustaches anyway. ‘I will never, ever, love you,’ she said, tossing her head. ‘Even should you evade Vikram until Dusshera, and marry me, you will never have my love.’
He pulled a rueful face and toasted her with his champagne flute, the falling sun bathing his face in gold, turning him into the very image of kingliness. ‘I wish to tell you a story,’ he said.
‘I can’t stop you,’ she replied acidly.
‘I want to tell you about my life. So that you understand me.’
The sarcastic Gauran side of her rose. ‘Oh, you’re just a poor boy who wants to be understood.’ She resisted the urge to spit. ‘I don’t need to understand you, I know all I need to.’
‘Do you? Well, regardless … You have lived, what? Fifteen lives? Sixteen? I have lived one in that time, in more than fifty different bodies. And like you and your Aram Dhoop, I remember them all, though not well. I thought I knew what had to be: kill Aram, regain you and Darya. But since returning to this place, I have realized that all along I have been wrong. I have been like a lion with a thorn in his paw, thrashing about, furious and in pain.’
She listened to him stonily. She scarcely even breathed lest it interrupted him. There was a tone of revelation in his voice that made her hang on every word.
‘My first life was in Mandore: or so I thought. But recently I have learnt otherwise. I now know there were more. Many, many more. Gradually, through meditation and incantation, here in Lanka, I have regained those memories.’
Rasita didn’t look at him. Though she hated his voice and hated being near him, she stayed silent, listening intently. She was hearing things that even Vikram had never heard or suspected.
‘In fact, I have had many lives prior to Mandore and becoming Ravindra. But there was something that afflicted me in all of them, in life after life after life, that drove me insane: the nightmares! In all my pre-Mandore lives, I dreamt of a dreadful event, an apocalyptic trauma. Fire in the skies, rivers boiling, forests blasted away, people dying … and a woman I loved being torn apart by incomprehensible forces. These nightmares tormented me in life after life. I didn’t understand them, I couldn’t stop them, and I couldn’t live through them. In many lives I killed myself rather than face them. I only escaped those dreams when as Ravindra of Mandore I lost the capacity to sleep.