King of Lanka

by David Hair

  ‘Everything changed for me in a life I led in the eight century AD in Rajasthan. I met a guru who claimed to understand dreams. He studied me, taking notes on every aspect of my condition. He found powders and herbs that suppressed the nightmares when I could take no more. He also helped me recall the dreams more fully. Through this technique, I found I could remember fragments of scrolls and ancient symbols that I saw in my visions. We investigated them. Even then, it was all too much. I hung myself before we could make more progress.’

  He sipped his champagne. She risked a glance. His face, which she had only ever seen in malice or as a mask of charm, instead wore a grim, haunted aspect. She felt a queasy empathy in her belly and angrily fought it down.

  ‘Finally I made a breakthrough. For the first and only time that I am aware of, I was reborn into exactly the same town I died in, though of course with no memory of that past life. But coincidentally I soon met that same guru, when my new parents brought me to him as a nightmare-haunted child. I was fortunate—my parents were wealthy in that life, with the inclination to give proper care to a sickly child. The guru hypnotized me, and brought back those memories of the previous life. We were both amazed—he had never done such a thing before. He taught me his skills—how to learn from dreams, how to prevent them or induce them. How to remember past lives … And I learned! I learned to open all the doors, back to my earlier lives. I began to see the patterns emerging, to make sense of it all. My name was Ravindra, in that life, the place was Mandore, and it was 751 AD, as we now reckon the years.’

  She swallowed champagne to sooth her painfully dry throat, and accepted another glass. The whole world seemed to be silent, listening to this tale. ‘You are a monster,’ she said aloud. To remind herself.

  He flinched. Then hung his head, and raised it again, meeting her eye. ‘Yes. I am a monster. I have killed. I have tortured for pleasure. For a thousand years I have been unable to die, instead drifting from body to body, possessing them like a demon of folklore. I have caused wars and misery. I feel sometimes that I am made of rage, that I am the incarnation of all Destruction—the darkest shadow of Shiva himself. Some nights I feel I am a hairsbreadth from speaking a mantra that will bring ruin upon all Creation.

  ‘But this very year, 2011 AD, since regaining access to Lanka, I have learned WHY. I have learned the TRUTH. It does not make me less a monster. But I have learned how all of this mess has come to pass. And more than that: I have learned how to put aside my evil.’

  She stared at him. ‘Then do it.’

  ‘I’m trying to,’ he replied. ‘But I need your help.’

  Rasita had to put down her champagne flute before she dropped it. It was too beautiful to break, some part of her noted. She looked away. ‘That is the worst chat-up line I have ever heard,’ she said, letting harsh derision infect her voice. ‘What, do you expect me to believe that if I let you marry me, you’ll suddenly develop a sense of decency and all will be well?’

  Ravindra laughed gently. ‘Yes, I do want you to believe that, for it is true. Rasita, you need to understand what is happening to us. I want you to let me take you back, to that first life, the one that all my nightmares originate from. I want you to experience the truth. Then, and only then, will you understand.’

  Rasita swallowed. ‘But I don’t want to understand. I don’t need to!’

  ‘Yes you do! Without it, this cycle is doomed to go on and on.’

  ‘No it’s not! It’ll end when Vikram kills you!’

  ‘No. Because I will not let that happen.’ He put his big hand on her arm and she forgot to shrug it off. ‘I am no longer suicidal. I have the will to win this contest, honed by centuries of suffering. And more than that, I am more deserving of your love than he is. He is the villain of this tale, not I.’

  She reeled. ‘That’s ridiculous! You’re a killer! He has been nothing but a man of peace! How can you say that?’

  ‘Because you are my true wife, Rasita! You are the woman whose death haunts my dreams! You are the love I lost in the cataclysm that haunted my earlier self’s dreams! And he’s the adulterous bastard that tried to steal you from me, and caused that cataclysm!’

  ‘Never!’ she told him, ‘Never!’ She fled, before he could spin more of his lies.

  She fled the room, panicked beyond all reason.

  A few days later, a scroll appeared in her room, beside her well-thumbed copy of the Ramayana.

  She knew what it would contain: his lies, his manipulations. His recasting of the truth, with himself as tragic hero and her as his only redemption.

  LIES! Almost, she tore it apart and burned it.

  But what if I can learn something that gives Vikram and Amanjit the edge ……

  It is not disloyal to read this if I’m helping my love win this war ……

  It still took her all day to find the courage. But eventually she picked it up, and began to read.

  I, Ravana

  I am known in legend as Ravana. Scholars say the name is derived from a phrase meaning, ‘he whose words cause weeping’. They are utterly wrong. It is derived in truth from ‘Ravan’; a word of my original people, simply meaning ‘King’. I had the name ‘Rai’ as a child until I mastered the ten aspects of the warrior-sage, and so earned the name Aeshwaran—meaning ‘Ten-face’.

  The place where I dwelt—where my father was king and I was one of many princes—is today an archaeological site in Pakistan, called Mohenjo-Daro. That is the modern name for it, meaning ‘Mound of the Dead’. Obviously that was not our name for it: to us it was ‘Adun’ which meant in our tongue, ‘Mother-Place’. Do not look to translate ‘Adun’ to Hindi or English—it is from a language that is lost. Only I now speak it, and my Rakshasas—it is our language of ceremony—the language in which you and I were betrothed by Lavanasura. The ruins of Adun is the principal site in what is now either called ‘Harappan’ or ‘Indus Valley’ civilization. But when I, Aeshwaran, lived, we called the land ‘Sinat’—meaning ‘Riverland’ in our tongue. The local name of Sindh actually does derive from this, one of a few words of our tongue to survive into modern languages.

  It was natural to name the land for those mighty rivers. Protected by mountains and the sea, and fed by those rolling veins, our land was truly blessed. Archaeologists and scholars now believe that we were one of the first great civilizations of this world, but of course we knew nothing of that. We only knew that there were primitives outside our borders, and order within. It was the Age of Bronze, which archaeologists date from 3000 BC to 1200 BC. I believe I was born around 1700 BC, during this first flowering of human civilization. I have seen much drivel written about the Indus Valley civilization, wishful-thinking scholars and writers imagining some kind of paradise on earth. It was not—we were only human and new to civilized behaviour. There was slavery, disease, wars, injustice, shortages and riots. It was not Paradise. It was not even particularly advanced. Adun at its height would have seemed a meagre place to a Greek or a Roman of the Classical Age, or a man of Imperial Peking, in later ages. But for that period, it was a wonder to behold. We built tall buildings and wide roads. We diverted water through canals and ran them through and under the streets—the first decent drainage system mankind had known. Our metalwork and agriculture was the best of its period. We of the elite found time for pleasure and learning.

  Religion at the time was simple and even seen as a little common. We of the educated elite disdained it. We had not yet conceived of a moralizing God or gods that demanded adherence to certain behaviours. To us, gods were mysterious and hostile, to be placated. They had no philosophy or moral code telling us how to live. We made our own rules.

  By the time I was born however, around 1700 BC I suppose, the good times were passing. There had been earthquakes in the mountains, and the rivers were drying up, veering eastwards or failing. Our farming methods had, despite the rivers and the lushness of the land, been depleting the soils. Crops were less dependable. A modern scientist would have know
n what the problems were, and educated us about nitrate-fixing and such techniques. Modern engineers might have found a way to re-divert the rivers back on course. All we had though were priests telling us to sacrifice more to appease the gods. Eventually, even human lives were sacrificed. But that was later.

  I knew little of these matters and cared less. My only concerns were learning the warrior-aspects. These were the ideal forms of skill and learning of our warrior-sages. I wished just to excel and best my peers. As a noble, I could aspire to the kingship which was not allotted by hereditary lineage, but by acclamation. I made it my business to be so acclaimed, and won a great following. So, I became King—‘Ravan’—and suddenly, I had to contend personally with all of our kingdom’s problems.

  The crux of our crisis was that the rivers were dying—and so were we. Our supremacy depended upon those rivers, and all knew it. Primitive steppes men were circling the northern borders. Barbarians from the east—modern eastern India—were testing our defences. Our discipline and metalworking gave us an edge, but we were weakening all the time. It seemed to me that I would be the last king of Sinat.

  These imperatives changed me as a person, from a vainglorious warrior to a single-minded ruler. I did all I could for my people. I instituted new canals and excavations. I expanded the army. I widened the powers of the priesthood to tithe and made sacrifices.

  As Ravan I had to marry, and came to adore my wife with an intensity that still frightens me. Her name was Manda. She too was from a well-connected family with scholarly traditions. In our lands, women also learned the aspects, and in the non-martial aspects, she was my better. Quick-minded, sharp-witted, Manda blazed with a confidence in her own worth that made her outshine all other women, even those outwardly more beautiful. She had true charisma, the presence that lights up a room and draws every eye. She was passionate and glorious and all worshipped her. She shared my dedication for righting the wrongs of the kingdom. We were on a quest, she and I, to save Sinat or to die trying. But despite all we achieved, our quest seemed doomed. Year after year the water tables dropped, and the raids grew worse. Raiders burnt border towns that were never rebuilt. The priests took to sacrificing children to try and placate the angry gods. We despaired.

  It was in this dark time that Dasraiyat returned. He had been the best friend of my youth. He was also my greatest rival, when he and I learnt the ways of the warrior-sage, and the Ten Aspects. He had left without taking the final tests, so none but I knew just how accomplished he was. At the time I thought he had lost his nerve, and that this was the reason he left. I was wrong. He had gone away, all the way to Mesopotamia in the far west, to learn secrets even we at Sinat had never dreamt of.

  What is an aspect? Simply, they are the prime skills we considered necessary for a person to attain nobility. They also provided a ranking amongst us, a formal recognition of skills that played a massive part, alongside all the corruption and bribery, in determining rank. Our teachers taught us ten aspects: weaponry, horsemanship, language, anatomy, medicine, singing, music, history, priestly ritual and astronomy.

  But Dasraiyat returned with aspects we had never seen. He could shape fire and make water dance and the winds rage. In short, he had learnt what you would call ‘magic’. Of course, he was careful who to reveal this to. The priests would have labelled him a demon and had him sacrificed to placate the river-gods. But he was my best friend: when he revealed these powers to me in private, I was stunned, but my only thoughts were to protect him, and to use his skills for the good of the kingdom. And to gain them myself, of course! You must remember that until he revealed these powers to me, I had felt myself to be his superior. So when he revealed them, I had to learn them too! He agreed to my request. He and I engaged in secret training. And Manda also—I insisted. By day, we fulfilled our royal duties, but now my real work was in our secret chambers, where Manda and I learnt from Dasraiyat. It took several years, while the realm tottered towards collapse. But we grew in power, until we were ready to make a difference.

  I must tell you something of this ‘magic’. There were four magical aspects—aligned to the prime elements—Fire, Air, Earth, Water. To reach them required mastery of Ether. What is Ether? Ether is the key—the unseen linkage between mind and matter. It is the gesture and word and will that combined makes an element bend to the mind of the magician. I cannot reveal how it was done—there were powders and fluids we ingested that opened the paths to Ether, and Dasraiyat kept those secret—but to be brief, Manda and I gained the secret powers that enabled us to become magicians like Dasraiyat. It humbles me still to think that Manda overtook we men. Her skill was amazing. We grew in our belief that we three were destined to save the kingdom.

  At last, the great crisis came. One summer the Saraswati, the easternmost of the great rivers, dried so thoroughly that it failed to reach the sea. The Indus fell and fell, and the monsoon that followed made no impression. We did not have enough food and water for the people. The sewage drains festered and disease swept through the poor. People developed painful sores that swelled and burst horribly just before they died. It was a ghastly time. The poor rioted after starving soldiers pillaged their farms and I had to raise taxes again to try and find imports to feed them. It was the sixth bad season in a row and the treasury was empty. My time was running out. I had to barricade myself in the fortress.

  But Manda, Dasraiyat and I had devised a plan to save our kingdom. It was our grand design. Our greatest folly. There were no ancient texts to guide us; no sages or gods to tell us what to do. Though we had to make it up as we went, with trial and error, we were aflame with determination and pride. Our key conclusion was that the world is balanced between the twin poles of Creation and Destruction, on a fulcrum we labelled ‘Preservation’. This came to us before the names Brahma and Shiva and Vishnu had been spoken in these lands. We were in new philosophical territory. We realized that by utilizing these forces, and applying them to the four elemental aspects, we could achieve mighty things.

  We studied. We experimented. Dasraiyat accidentally destroyed a village in the north when he inadvertently triggered an earthquake. I myself decimated a forest in error whilst manipulating fire. Only Manda never made mistakes. But we learned. All for the greater good, we told ourselves whenever we erred. Finally, on a date selected according to the alignment of stars and planets, we tried to save the kingdom.

  To manipulate the complex forces we intended to use, we had to peel away a part of ourselves, and join it to a magical aspect. I was strong in Fire and Air and in the destructive energies. Dasraiyat was my ideal foil—aligned with creativity, Water and Earth. Manda, my wondrous wife, could do all of these equally. Picture us: Dasraiyat, Manda and I, each at one point of a triangle within a magical circle etched on the floor, in a chamber deep below Adun. Naked, with protective symbols painted all over our bodies. The only light coming from fiery braziers. Manda seemed a divinity to me, her body curved like a dancer whilst her hands pulled and wove at the very seams of existence.

  We began. I stepped into the Ether, and invoked the aspect of destruction. My role was to clear the way, to re-carve the rivers, reshape the lands thrown awry by the earthquakes. As I did so, Dasraiyat invoked creation, Earth and Water. His Ether body was so bright, it was hard to look upon.

  Opposite me, Manda split her soul in three, sending one into the Ether in the form of creation, shining and bright, and another alongside it in the aspect of destruction. Her third aspect, the fulcrum, was a stabilizing aspect in the middle, to hold us all in place and ensure the equal flow of the energies: a protective aspect. You will recognize the Trimurti in this configuration—the Creative, the Destructive, and the Protective.

  I raised my arms, and twinned my destructive aspect to that of Manda. The male and female. Beside me, Dasraiyat twined his arms about Manda’s creation aspect. We then invoked all of the elements: I called the destructive aspects of Fire and Air, and Manda the destructive aspects of Earth and Water. Similarly she
worked with Dasraiyat on the creative aspects. In the middle, Manda’s protective aspect controlled the flow. I do not know how long this took but it was probably only a few minutes. We were ready to unleash the powers of Ruin and Rebirth upon our beloved land.

  It is difficult to convey how it felt. From that darkened room beneath the palace, with our heightened sense we could perceive the entire valley, and the lands all around. It is how gods must see. From the highest peak to an ant beneath a rock, we could see it all, at once. It was incredible, majestic, so much that we almost forgot why we were there. I wish we had. But then I moved—the merest twitch of a finger—and began to carve the earth, to allow the Saraswati’s springs to again feed the river. I blasted a hill a hundred miles to the north to rubble, to alter the river’s flow. Dasraiyat rebuilt it a mile to the west. Manda clothed it in woods again. It was so easy.

  We were as gods.

  We destroyed. We created. We moved lands and razed enemies. We rained fire on the barbarians massed on our borders and listened to their screams as if we inhabited their throats. We made grand gestures and watched them unfurl upon the world we shaped.

  There is a Greek word that has found its way into other tongues, including English. Hubris. It signifies overweening pride leading to a fall. There is no better word for what happened.

  We thought it was progressing well. We were on the way to achieving our aim. What we had not realized is how, in donning the aspects of creation and destruction, they would reveal our minds to each other. In trying to deepen my mental rapport with Dasraiyat, I saw into his very soul. I realized to my horror that he had no intention of letting me live through this night. He lusted in secret after my Manda. All along, he had hated me, and saw me as just a tool, a vessel for his ambition—to rule with Manda at his side, though she loved only me. That was his intention. To murder me with his powers and take my wife.