King of Lanka

by David Hair

  When they woke next morning, the doors and windows of their rooms had vanished.

  ‘Hey!’ Amanjit hammered on the wall where the door had been. ‘Vibhishana, you donkey! Let us out!’

  ‘It’s no good,’ Vikram told him. ‘You’ve been shouting for an hour. No one answers, and all you’ve done is give us both a headache.’

  ‘Damn! I knew it was a trap!’ Amanjit looked at him. ‘If they don’t feed us, we’ll die. I’ve seen it on TV. No water, and you’re dead in days, man. You can go without food for more than a month, but no water, no life. Those cunning bastards!’

  Vikram scratched his head. The toilet had been outside the suite as was the bathroom. They had no running water and no food. Nowhere to dispose of bodily waste. Then another thought struck him. ‘Man … we’ve got no fresh air either.’ He realized with alarm how warm and stale the air was becoming.

  Amanjit moaned. ‘You’re right!’ He pummelled the wall. ‘You’ll have to take us back to our world.’

  Vikram nodded. ‘Damn! But I guess we have no choice. This has been a wild goose chase.’

  ‘Yeah, a total waste of time,’ Amanjit agreed. ‘Best we get on with it then.’

  Vikram nodded, pulled out his dagger, and chanted the words, exerting energy, making the sparks of air fly as he had on the beach beside the Rama Setu.

  Nothing happened. It was as if the air repaired itself instantly, seamlessly. He tried again and again, until he collapsed exhausted, in the now stifling heat of the room. They fired most of their arrows but they just fizzled and smashed against the impervious stone of the walls. They were trapped. Hours passed, as they raged and shouted and then pleaded to the featureless wall. ‘We’ll stay, we’ll stay,’ Amanjit shouted. ‘We’ll stay, we promise!’

  Finally they fell asleep, dazed and barely knowing each other.

  When they woke, Vibhishana was standing in the room, surrounded by a small army of Asuras in medical garb with reverent eyes who fussed over them, feeding them wine and food that never seemed to reach their stomach. They could taste it, but it had no substance.

  Vibhishana beamed down at them, his face aglow with pride. ‘My Lords, my Lords, it is such an honour to have you here. May you stay for a thousand years.’

  Chained Queens

  Lanka, May 2011

  Ras reclined into the palanquin, which moved with rock-solid assurance on the back of four massive Asuras, who resembled cattle-headed primates. Cushions clothed in embroidered silk made her comfortable, and she was becoming used to the odd appearance of her guide, a Rakshasa woman whose face resembled an owl. Lavanasura’s wife, apparently. Her name was Yunikisha. Apart from her bird-like face and the down-like feathers that spread down her neck and spine, she was relatively normal looking, shapely and graceful.

  The palanquin had silken curtains, but these were pulled back, allowing Rasita to look down at the faces staring up at her. Heat washed over them from the streets and packed squares. It was a market-day, and Keke had suggested she seek permission to go into Lower Town. The suggestion had been made before and she had ignored it, but she could feel her native curiosity unfurling. How did these Asuras live? What were they like, close up?

  The faces looking up at her were similar to the Rakshasas, to which she was gradually becoming accustomed. But these Asuras were more bestial. They dressed in rough hides, cotton smocks or even modern attire pillaged from the real world. They smoked and spat. They littered and shouted and pushed and shoved. They hooted like beasts when amused or angry. They leered at her, making loud comments that made each other laugh. They bought and sold and quarrelled. Just like ordinary people in so many ways.

  ‘They are like children, you see,’ Yunikisha told her with kindly condescension. ‘They cannot see past their own noses. They are incapable of planning and forethought; caught between human and animal, the poor dears. We look after them as best we can.’ She smoothed her neck feathers fussily. ‘Some are brighter than others, of course. Intelligent but incapable of sorcery. Not worthy of being Rakshasas, but we give them rank in Lower Town. They keep things running.’

  Ras could see what Yunikisha meant, when she knew what to look for. The Asuras might be human-like, but they were simple, and wore their hearts on their sleeves. Whims and emotions ruled everything; there was no cunning and maturity. They squabbled and fought openly. They courted openly and brazenly. They obeyed the Rakshasas utterly, as children obey parents.

  Ras looked at the preening Rakshasa noblewoman curiously, then back at the Asuras. The sights and smells of Lower Town washed over her. The tang of freshly butchered meat, the reek of fish. Fresh flowers and vegetables. Urine running in the gutters, and dung drying in the sun. Half-beast children squalling about in the confusion. Smoke from cooking fires guttering in tiny hovels. Glowering warriors sharpening weapons, knuckling their foreheads in obeisance as their palanquin passed. The haggling of the buyers and sellers babbled about them, and she marvelled at the weird mix of goods on offer—modern and primitive. The baking of fresh bread wafted over her, a lovely aroma.

  Lower Town had humans too. There were many of them, packed into the squalor, all ragged and collared; slaves of the Asuras. They stared up at her with eyes that were hard to read. She saw hope, that one of their own should be crowned and carried among them. But she saw hatred too: she was a traitor to her kind. A demon-lover. A squad of heavily-armed guards flanked the palanquin. She realized for the first time why.

  This place will be my life forever, if Ravindra has his way.

  Vikram will destroy it, if he has his.

  Both thoughts made her uneasy in different ways.

  ‘Where did you all come from?’ she asked Yunikisha, trying to make the question seem offhand, but curious to see whether she could verify Ravindra’s tale.

  Yunikisha seemed to be expecting the question. ‘Well, my dear, I have always lived here, and have not seen the world outside, as some have, but I know the tale. I have it from my father’s mother’s mother. My great grandmother. She used to tell my sisters and me of the old times. She said she lived in a human city once, during a bad time. She said one day the skies turned every imaginable colour, and the most dreadful storm arose, levelling everything. She and all about her were seeking shelter when some terrible agony assailed them, and when she woke, her whole body was changed, into something like a bird. All about her people were similarly afflicted. Most died. But Grandmother lived, and when the Ravan came, followed him to safety.’ Her voice took on reverential tones. ‘The Ravan brought us here, and made us safe. But then evil men came, and slew the Ravan, and tried to exterminate us.’ Her voice took on harsher notes. ‘They penned us and slaughtered us. They called us animals but treated us as lower than beasts. Only those who hid survived. Like Grandmother hid us.’ Her voice shook with emotion.

  Ras remained silent until the Rakshasa regained her composure. Was all that Ravindra wrote true then? But surely Ravindra primed her to lie … ‘Where did you all hide? How did you return here?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘We hid in the wild places where men do not go,’ Yunikisha replied. ‘For many years we spent wandering in the wilderness like nomads, shunning human contact. Eventually the Rakshasas gathered us, told us of a place where we could go. A secret place, our Lanka, but rebuilt, in a hidden place. They led us here.’ Her downy cheeks were wet with tears.

  Ras stared out at the pandemonium of Lower Town, struggling to comprehend it all. A secret place—this place. Vikram had told her of his adventure in Mandore when he found a temple that seemed to belong to another time. And beneath the Mehrangarh Fort, guns had stopped working. Maricha had cut a hole in the air itself and taken her … elsewhere …. Somewhere like here. A place that was made from belief.

  Her mind reeled. Is Ravindra’s tale true? Is he the hero and this Dasraiyat the villain? And am I Manda reborn? No! Not I—We! We: Deepika and I and the other five queens, are we the seven aspects of Manda, reborn in human bodies? She almost forgo
t to breathe.

  ‘Are you all right, my dear?’ Yunikisha asked in a concerned voice. ‘Sometimes the smell here can overcome one, especially at this time of year. I can take you home if you like?’

  Ras nodded weakly. ‘Yes, please take me home.’

  She entered Ravindra’s guest room that evening for their fourth-day assignation with true trepidation. The implication of the story that he had written grew more and more disturbing the longer she dwelt on it.

  I can’t just blindly accept everything he tells me! All my lives he has plagued me. He has tortured and raped and murdered his way through history. So what if I was once Manda, the last Queen of Sinat, and he was my husband and king? It does not make him less of a beast now.

  But does it mean he can be restored to goodness?

  The tale had not triggered any memories or even dreams of that past time in her. The past beyond Mandore in 769AD remained a closed book. She could not tell whether he had lied, told the truth, or mixed the two in his narrative. Did it change anything? Yes, she decided, as she entered his chambers. It means he needs me more than I need him. I will not roll over and give anything away. Yet. The consciousness that Dusshera was only months away preyed on her mind. Hurry, Vikram …

  Something of her resolve must have showed in her face as he greeted her. There was nothing patronising in his face or words as he welcomed her. ‘Good evening, Rasita. Thank you for coming.’

  She shrugged. ‘I made a bargain.’ She showed him the betrothal ring, reminding them both. She accepted champagne from the winged servant and gazed out the balcony. The heat had been steaming this last week, making even the lightest silks uncomfortable. She was sweating in the least gauzy outfit she could find, struggling to preserve her modesty. Keke spent most days half-naked whilst cleaning, and Rasita swam each morning and afternoon, and wore her bikini all day. Even the guards wore no armour, and she saw naked Asuras in the public pools of Lower Town. There was little modesty or privacy among them and some of what she saw made her blush. The nights were suffocating hot, but she refused to sleep nude, not in this place. There was a disturbing eroticism to the whole palace in this sultry heat.

  Ravindra wore his simple Mediterranean outfit, and looked inhumanly attractive. ‘What did you make of finally learning the truth about the Ramayana?’ he asked.

  ‘If truth it was,’ she replied, deliberately sounding obstinate. ‘I can’t see that it means anything.’

  He frowned, as if perplexed. ‘It means that you and I once had a bond. We had a love towering above all others. We can renew that bond, you and I! We can be happy!’ He gestured in exasperation, his face pained. ‘I reach out to you, and you resist.’

  ‘A bond. All I see are bonds. Your people are in bondage to you. Your ghost-queens are in bondage to you. You want to put me in bonds too.’

  Ravindra shook his head. ‘Not all bonds are oppressive. There are bonds of love and respect that free us. We had such bonds once, you and I. I had hoped reading of them might remind you.’

  ‘If your story is true, then you are nothing but a shadow of the man you were. A particularly murderous, bloodthirsty husk. Just because you are going to all this effort to be nice and reasonable and talk to me instead of forcing yourself on me doesn’t change what sort of monster you are.’

  His face hardened. ‘Once, I was a force for good. Once, I was accounted the greatest man alive. I can be that man again! You can heal me, Rasita! You can help me re-learn myself. And in doing so, you will fully heal yourself!’ He was visibly fighting his anger.

  ‘I don’t need your healing,’ she snapped back, wilfully goading him though unsure why—it gave her no pleasure. ‘I am whole once more!’

  ‘You reveal how little you know.’ He tapped the glass stem. ‘You may be physically whole, but psychologically, you are not. You are one part of Manda. You could become all of her!’

  ‘Could I?’ she flared. ‘Why me? Why not Halika? Or Jyoti or Aruna? ‘What happens to them if I do as you want?’ I don’t recall this Manda you speak of! Why should I wish to be her?’

  Her words hung in the air.

  For an instant she thought she might have broken his self-control, but though he stiffened, and grimaced, all he did was half-bow as though in acknowledgment of some cutting witticism, and then wave her to her seat.

  Dinner passed with little conversation. Ravindra seemed distracted, simmering as though barely controlling anger at her words. When the dinner was done, he stood quickly, his face full of grim purpose. ‘Come, there is something you must see and experience.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You will see! Come!’ His tone brooked no denial. She wrapped a shawl about herself nervously, her shift clinging to her in the heat, and followed him down a spiral stair that led deep into progressively cooler circular rooms, as if they descended a tower, or a well. As he passed it, he unhooked a curved sword scabbard from the wall, and belted it about his waist. She flinched when she saw the weapon.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘I will not harm you,’ he told her impatiently, still bristling with suppressed anger. ‘Quite the contrary. What you see will enhance you, and prove further my sincerity.’ He strode onward, and she followed him, timidly.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she found he had led her to a bowri, a water tank, whitewashed but dimly lit. There were three shapes huddled against the walls, held up in chains that gleamed brightly in the flickering torchlight. She stopped and stared in shock as three heads were raised. Halika, Jyoti and Aruna, the dead queens of Mandore, were chained with manacles of silver, and they hissed their hatred and envy. They looked like half-eaten corpses now, reanimated ghouls, half the flesh missing, tendons and bones gleaming beneath the torn skin. They were almost bloodless. Their wrists looked chewed upon, as if they had been gnawing on their flesh to try and escape the silver. Their rich gowns were ragged and torn. The air stank of rotting meat.

  Skinny Jyoti snarled at her, thin as a famine-corpse. Aruna, normally plump, was emaciated to a ghastly degree. She whimpered piteously. Even Halika seemed to have her spirit broken. Haughty pride had been replaced by sullen fury and despair.

  Rasita felt a wave of pity for them she would never have expected. ‘What have you done to them?’ she gasped.

  ‘They are being punished,’ Ravindra replied, his tone expressionless. ‘They are jealous of you, and have plotted against you. I locked them up in here for your protection. The silver torments them. Every moment is painful. I would have expected your gratitude.’

  ‘Then that just shows what a monster you are. Kill them and have done, or free them and feed them. They have suffered enough.’

  He looked at her, assessing her, then nodded. ‘I thought you would react this way. This is necessary. Unpleasant, but necessary. What we do now will help you understand your destiny.’ He walked to Halika and stroked the ghost-queen’s greasy tangled hair.

  She looked up at him, her eyes glowing with something between adoration and terror. ‘My love,’ she moaned. ‘Please release me!’

  The other two ghost-queens begin to wail.

  Rasita found herself backing away, unable to take her eyes from the scene.

  Ravindra stroked Halika’s hair, then turned and walked to Jyoti. ‘Ah, Jyoti, my little vixen. I will miss you,’ he said in a low voice, as he drew his gleaming sword.

  ‘My king!’ shrieked Jyoti. ‘Mercy!’

  He slashed once, and she seemed to almost dissolve into the air, crumbling like dust in a breeze. There was no blood. But a steam rose from the neck wound. It flowed like dry-ice at a rock concert, coiling in unseen and unfelt breezes, and then flowed like a snake towards the nearest other queen: Halika.

  The chief wife gave an excited cry, and opened her mouth. She swallowed the soul of Jyoti while her body arched and convulsed in pleasure. She sobbed in a kind of ecstasy. All the while the husk that was Jyoti’s body collapsed into dust. Halika’s body became rounder, softer, and her woun
ds began to close.

  ‘Back in Mumbai, when Vikram contrived the death of Meena and Rakhi, their essence drained into Deepika Choudhary,’ Ravindra commented. ‘That sustained her against the cobra poison, and kept her alive, together with the effects of her heartstone. It also led to her manifesting the Protective Aspect, her part of the soul of Manda, though it showed itself in a warped way, due to her distress and incomplete understanding.’

  Rasita listened numbly, struggling to swallow the bile in her throat. She felt ill. Ravindra walked to Aruna, sword in hand. The dead queen cowered. ‘Yes, Lord, kill her too,’ Halika purred, wriggling in delight.

  Aruna began to cry. ‘Please Lord, no. Remember the good times, Lord! Please Lord, remember …’

  Ravindra’s blade sang again. Aruna’s body crumbled as her head rolled. More dust, more smoke, coiling into Halika’s waiting mouth. The last of the ghost-queens sighed in pleasure, whilst her mouth drank of Aruna’s soul, and her body reclothed itself in fresh flesh. ‘Oh my Lord! …’ Ravindra walked to her, and lifted her chin. ‘I long for you. I am almost whole! It’s been so long …’ she purred.

  He smiled, and pulled the heartstone necklace from his neck. He turned and gestured. The necklace flew like a winged snake. Rasita saw it undulating towards her, but her limbs were paralysed. It wrapped itself about her brow, like a tiara.

  Halika stared at her, and then up at him. Her face, pure and beautiful once more, took on a look of total disbelief. ‘Please, Ravan!’ Halika moaned. ‘You promised it would be me! You promised me forever!’

  For the last time, Chandrahas the moon-blade flashed.

  Blood fountained up the walls, covering the demon-king in gore. Halika’s body thrashed headless. Her severed head fell between her thighs, and wedged there, staring out. Her lips still moved, eyes round and shocked. Her hair seemed to writhe, then go still, like a dying Medusa. A thick oily smoke poured out with the blood from her neck-stump, pumping out in time with her slowing heart. It was dark and crimson and coiled and reared like a cobra. Rasita tried to scream as it flowed toward her, but it came on inexorably. She saw Ravindra staring at her like a scientist conducting a risky experiment, and then the soul of the dead queen enveloped her. Darkness poured into her nose, her mouth, her ears, her eyes. She felt it flow into her through her skin. She tried to scream it out but it choked her, and she swayed, then fell, while suns and planets exploded behind her eyes.