King of Lanka

by David Hair

  Amanjit fired, murmuring the words for the Parvata-astra. The shaft struck the Rakshasa like a boulder and shattered him into chunks of broken flesh. ‘I don’t care what your “noble name” is, you bastard. You’ve spent far too long killing “ignoble” little nobodies like us for me to want to know. If being forgotten means you will never return to life in our world or the mythlands, then I hope you are forgotten forever.’

  He turned, and went back to Vikram, who was returning to the edge of consciousness.

  ‘Come on, bhai, we’ve got to get going.’

  Vikram sat up slowly. ‘Did it work?’ he asked dazedly. ‘Are we free?’

  Amanjit squatted beside him. ‘Yeah, I reckon.’ He peered about them protectively. The fields were empty, and the immense corpse of the rhino-Asura was disintegrating into a pile of mud and wood, as he had seen them do before in Pushkar. ‘There were a few real demons in there and one got through on our tail, but I nailed him.’

  Vikram looked up at him gratefully. ‘Well done, brother.’

  Amanjit put a hand on Vikram’s shoulder, waiting for him to regain the strength to rise. ‘That Trimurti astra really took it out of you, didn’t it?’

  Vikram grimaced. ‘You’ve got no idea.’ He held up a trembling hand. ‘I’m shaking like a leaf.’

  They stopped, listening to the distant sounds. One was a lot closer. A rasping sound, the sound of something large struggling to fill its lungs, soft exhalations from a leathery throat. It came from the landward side, where the trees were thickest and the shadows deepest. Amanjit stood up slowly. ‘It’s that dying elephant sound again. I’ll go check it out, Vik. Stay here.’

  Vikram smiled weakly. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Be careful.’

  ‘Sure.’ Amanjit nocked an arrow and stalked into the thicket, following the breathing. It didn’t take long to find the source. A dark mound lay amidst the foliage, sprawled, and the sound came from it. It was like a beached whale, but as his eyes accustomed to the gloom, Amanjit could see that it was actually man-shaped. The earth around it was broken, as if it had fallen there from a great height. Blood was running from its mouth and nose, black steaming blood that soaked into the earth and stained it.

  Amanjit stepped closer, then slowly let his breath out as he seemed to recognize the ravaged features. The prone demon would have been immense and majestic, bearded in silver with purple eyes and bull-horns. But he was a ruined thing, emaciated and barely breathing. He was so skinny that it seemed his entire skeleton was visible—in truth in some places the bones did poke through the papery worn skin.

  ‘King Vibhishana?’ Amanjit slowly lowered the bow, his mind reeling. This was the real Vibhishana, that legend said had betrayed his fellow demons, and had been installed as king of Lanka upon Ravana’s death. The demon-king who loved Rama and justice so much he would fight against his own people. The real being, and not the echo who had hosted them in the mythlands.

  This was how his people had rewarded him then. To live as a prisoner forever in a mythland dungeon while a mockery ruled in his stead.

  What must he know? Could he still help them? Amanjit dropped the bow and ran to the fallen king’s side. ‘Sire! Stay with me! I can help you!’

  And you can tell us where the real Lanka is! You can maybe help us in the fight, and tell us what we face! My God, this is the breakthrough!

  But the king never moved. Amanjit pummelled the earth in frustration. Here he was, stuck in Sri Lanka with Vikram almost catatonic and a demon in a coma. Then he stopped, and his eyes went wide. He leapt to his feet and ran back to Vikram. ‘Vik! Vik! Have you still got that doctor’s phone number?’

  It was half a day before Kasun arrived, just himself and an older brother who drove a battered old truck. Vikram climbed unsteadily to his feet as Amanjit waved the truck down. It still felt insane, to betray their secret to a Sri Lankan graduate doctor, and load him with the strangest patient he would attend in his life, but what choice did they have?

  Kasun shook Amanjit’s hand, then saw Vikram and hurried towards him. ‘Vikram, my friend! What are you doing out here? This is bad country. Even the Tamil Tigers did not come here!’ Kasun gripped Vikram’s hand in both of his. ‘Are you all right? You look pale!’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Vikram murmured, as the world folded slowly sideways and the lights went out.

  He woke to find himself in a small room that smelt of cooking spices and cleaning fluids, lying on a low flax mattress with a drip stuck in his arm. Kasun was sitting beside him, biting his nails furiously with an almost panicked look on his face. When Vikram stirred, Kasun jerked in alarm and bent over him. ‘Vikram? My god! I have a Rakshasa in my recovery room! What is happening to the world?’

  It was a long and weird conversation, but one Vikram couldn’t avoid, now. So he told Kasun pretty much everything. It helped, in a way, to try and explain it all to someone new and uninvolved. In trying to do so, it crystallized some of his own thinking, about Lanka, about Ravindra, and especially about Rasita. He had not placed her front and centre of his life, whether through trying to protect her, or fear of committing to her, or whatever. That had to change.

  When he’d finished explaining it all, he watched Kasun carefully. He half expected the young Tamil doctor to declare him crazy or something, but then, with Vibhishana as ‘Exhibit A’, he could hardly call Vikram’s tale impossible. More than this though, he sensed a friend in Kasun, someone he’d like to know better. And Kasun did not let that instinct down. Far from dismissing the tale, he accepted it totally, and promised to look after Vibhishana, and Vikram too, for as long as it would take.

  It only took eight days. Vikram mended quickly. Both he and Amanjit were frightened at how much time this failed journey south had taken. They now had no idea where Lanka might be, and the only person that might help them, Vibhishana himself, remained in a coma, not responding to anything.

  Eventually, they decided they must return to India. Kasun promised to look after the fallen Rakshasa, and to contact them if he recovered consciousness, but he did not hold out much hope. They parted warmly, promising to be in touch. Then Vikram led Amanjit into the forests, seeking a private place so that they could invoke the traveller-arrows, and leave.

  As the moon rose over the steaming forests, two arrows shot into the air, each with a young warrior balanced on them, like two surfers riding the night skies. They alit on the same deserted beach they had left weeks ago. They were back in India.

  Amanjit theatrically kissed the sand. ‘Mother India! I’ll never leave you again!’

  Vikram slumped on to his haunches beside him. He felt weak still, but was getting his strength back gradually. He picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers, like the time that they had lost in the hunt for Rasita. Weeks, maybe months? For nothing. Where was Ras? Had she … no, she would never!

  ‘What now, man?’ Amanjit asked in a hollow voice. ‘Where do we go next? How can we find them if our only clue is the Ramayana, and even that isn’t working any more?’

  Vikram slowly stood. He struggled to contain a sense of hopelessness. The heartstone in his pocket felt distant and inert. He couldn’t sense Rasita through it. ‘I don’t know, bhai. It makes no sense—Sri Lanka is Lanka, in every version of the story. Believe me, in the last year I’ve checked out all of them: the Reamker of Cambodia and the Yama Zatdaw of Burma and the Ramakien of Thailand and all the rest. Sometimes a bit of the geography of the story varies … but Lanka is always Sri Lanka! Always! It makes no sense at all.’

  ‘Then Ravindra is double bluffing us! He knows we know, so he’s got her somewhere else! He’s tricked us.’

  Vikram nodded slowly. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, bhai. You might be spot-on. But if this is all tied up with the Ramayana, I would have thought he would need to take her to the real Lanka, to fulfil everything properly. To win.’

  Amanjit exhaled wearily, and slowly stood up. ‘This whole thing makes my head hurt. Man, there must be some
clue! In your past lives, maybe? Or in a history book or something? There must be! It can’t end like this. He’s got to kill you to win. So eventually he’s going to have to come and get you, if we can’t find him.’

  Vikram rubbed his chin. ‘What if it’s too late? What if us going to the wrong place gave him the time to … you know … with Rasita?’

  Amanjit came and gripped his shoulders. ‘No! That’s my sister you’re talking about, man! She’s tough as old boots. She didn’t die when all the doctors were sure she would. She’s the most determined person I know, next to Dee.’ He fumbled in his pocket. ‘Speaking of which—I’ll call her, tell her we’re back!’

  He turned away, leaving Vikram swaying slightly, clinging to the last of his energy.

  After a minute, Amanjit scowled. ‘Damn telecom company! I can’t get a connection!’

  Vikram sank weakly to his haunches. The astras had taken much of his strength. He let the noise fade, lay on his side in the still warm sand, and simply closed his eyes.

  Amanjit kept trying to call Deepika all day but till dusk there was still no reply. He woke Vikram and they found a nearby guesthouse, shabby but serviceable. Vikram was asleep again in minutes. But Amanjit couldn’t rest without hearing from Deepika. Finally he risked calling Bishin instead. ‘Hey bhai! It’s Amanjit!’

  Bishin almost squawked in surprise. ‘Amanjit? What’s happening? Where are you?’

  ‘Can’t say, man. I’ll fill you in later. Is Mum okay? Has the court stuff happened yet?’

  ‘Yes! We won! Lalit testified for us. He brought up a whole lot of stuff that helped us. We won.’ Bishin still didn’t sound happy. ‘But brother, things aren’t good. We were attacked in the car park afterwards. This slimy dude pulled a gun. He shot Tripti, our new lawyer. She’s still in hospital, but the doctors say she’ll live. Lalit took a shot in his arm, which broke bones. The rest of us are okay.’

  ‘Was Dee there?’ Amanjit asked, suddenly afraid.

  ‘Yeah. She charged across the car park soon as it happened. She took down the gunman! Scariest thing I’ve seen. She just ran at him while he was shooting, grabbed his gun off him and blew his brains out. Then she ran after the second shooter. I never even saw that one. But the weirdest thing was, by the time the cops had arrived, all that was left of the dead guy was a pile of stinking mud and ash.’

  Rakshasa! Amanjit found his hands were shaking. ‘Did Deepika get the second shooter?’

  ‘I don’t know, bhai. She never came back.’

  Amanjit sat down slowly, his brother’s words echoing in his skull.

  She never came back …

  Vikram stared at his hands, fighting down his fears.

  Across the room, Amanjit lay on his bed. The Sikh youth hadn’t moved for days, apart from limping into the toilet every few hours. Mostly he just lay on the bed. He looked borderline suicidal. The disappearance of Deepika had hit him hard.

  We need a plan. We need a purpose, before we both go mad.

  There had to be something. Some clue, something they had missed. But no matter how he tried, if it was there he kept missing it.

  Eventually Amanjit revived enough to talk again. ‘Tell me about my past lives,’ he whispered, one evening. ‘Even the least significant one you know of. I need to know.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to know about such things,’ Vikram replied. At least he’s conscious.

  ‘I don’t. But if you can’t think of anything, bhai, then maybe the clue is in my lives, not yours.’

  Vikram nodded slowly. It was possible, but before he could reply, Amanjit just rolled over and went back to sleep. Vikram sat by him all through the night, thinking about his own past lives, especially the ones he seldom considered, the least of them, just in case there might be some clue. At dawn, he shook Amanjit’s shoulder. ‘Amanjit, wake up.’

  The Sikh came awake slowly. ‘Wassup? Wassup man?’

  ‘I had a thought—I need to do some research. I’ll be at that Internet place in the next block.’

  Amanjit groaned and clutched his head. ‘Sure, whatever. Bring me back a coffee. No, two. Or three.’ He rolled over and closed his eyes. ‘And shut the bloody door.’

  It was Amanjit’s words that triggered his thinking again: ‘the least significant life’.

  It was a life he’d never thought of as having any bearing on anything. It had been brief: he’d never even attained puberty and recovered his memories. He’d been murdered when he was eleven, hung beside a girl by a homicidal Pakistani zealot just before Partition. But perhaps it wasn’t his most insignificant life. Perhaps it was the most important clue of all …

  He wasn’t sure until he saw the photograph, an old sepia-tinged snap from an archaeological dig in Pakistan that the historical society had posted on their website. The site hadn’t been in Pakistan then—it had been taken before Partition, before Pakistan existed. The shot was just scenery, ancient towers unearthed by the blackened figures with their shovels and wheelbarrows, delving amidst the dust and rocks.

  But the name of the photographer was Timothy Southby. Tim sahib.

  That was just the start of his search. He was in the Internet cafe for hours, sipping chai and bottled water, following online leads in obscure archaeological journals, tracing a man whose life had been spent in the search of knowledge. Then there were the family tree records and the telephone company lists and finally, a number worth trying. He paid up the Internet cafe and went in search of a restaurant. It was already afternoon—he dimly realized he’d not gone back to check on Amanjit. Or taken him a coffee. But he couldn’t stop now.

  He bought a beer and a thali, then while he waited, he thumbed his telephone and heard it connect.

  A phone rang, thousands of miles away.

  ‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice. An English voice, middle-aged perhaps. She sounded bleary. It was only eight o’clock in the morning in England, he realized guiltily.

  He tried his best to keep his accent neutral. ‘Hello madam,’ he said in his best school-boy English. ‘Am I speaking to the house of Timothy Alexander Southby, please?’

  He could picture the woman blinking slowly. ‘Mister Southby is my grandfather-in-law,’ the woman responded eventually, her voice a trifle wary. ‘What is this about please?’

  She said ‘is’, not ‘was’, he thought with a flare of hope. ‘Ah. Mrs Southby? Mrs June Southby?’

  ‘Yes. What is it you want, please?’ she repeated in worried tones.

  ‘Madam, may I speak to Mister Southby, please.’

  ‘I am sorry, that is impossible.’

  Oh no! He’s dead after all. Or in a coma, or … ‘How is that, madam?’

  ‘He is away on holiday,’ she replied. ‘In India.’

  His eyes flew open, and he clenched his fist. Thank you, every god, thank you! ‘I am calling from India, madam.’

  He heard her relax slightly. ‘I could tell by your voice that was where you were calling from,’ she said, more warmly. ‘I was worried when I heard your accent that you were phoning with bad news. We didn’t want him to travel, but the old duffer insisted. So Mike—that’s his grandson, my husband, went with him.’

  ‘No, there is no problem, madam. I am related to people who knew him when he was a photographer in the Indus Valley. I was hoping to talk with him. But maybe I can even meet with him?’

  ‘I can’t see any problem with that. Tim loves to talk about the old days. I’ll get you the number.’

  ‘Hello? This is Timothy Southby.’

  The voice was quavery, frail. He must be in his eighties, at least. But it was definitely him. The tones, the verbal mannerisms. Vikram felt a sudden warmth and his eyes stung. Timothy sahib.

  He felt his voice begin to break, and struggled to speak. The boy from his least significant life was weeping inside him. ‘Mister Southby, sir. You will not know me. But I am related to someone who knew you, a long, long time ago. His name was Ramesh, and he was a chai-walla at the archaeological dig in Har
appa, in the spring of 1947.’

  Tim Sahib

  Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, June 2011

  They met in the north, a week later. Vikram and Amanjit traversed India again on their bikes, the reverse journey north, veering eastward and crossing Uttar Pradesh. They again slept in cheap hotels. The newspapers were full of the latest ambush of the military in the north-east. What was puzzling everyone was that none of the insurgent factions were claiming responsibility, which they were seldom slow to do. In fact they were disclaiming the attacks. Was a new terror organization emerging? Trains were guarded and military checkpoints proliferated as they moved into the north, towards the town where they were to meet Southby: Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh; the legendary city where Rama was born. The city where Valmiki was said to have begun composing the Ramayana. Tim Southby was staying there with an old friend, he’d told Vikram.

  Modern Ayodhya was a sleepy place on the banks of the wide Saryu River, lost in the past. At least Vikram thought it that way as he walked the city, trying to reconcile it with anything at all in his mind. He had been here before in a past life, seeking clues, and found nothing. There were Jain temples and a Muslim masjid, but this was primarily a Hindu town. Long ago, Muslims had constructed a mosque over a Hindu mandir, an inflammatory move following conquest. Recently Hindu scholars had claimed that the place was the site of Rama’s birth, and the mosque had been wrecked in 1992, and a makeshift Hindu shrine erected. In 2005 Muslim fundamentalists had attacked the place, and been gunned down after setting off a bomb. Now it was guarded by myriad soldiers and a maze of barbed wire, all to protect a tiny idol that visitors couldn’t get within twenty yards of. It seemed an embodiment of all that was wrong with the world to Vikram. He thought about all the religious wars he has seen down the years, and wished for impossible things, like peace and fellowship.

  Timothy Southby and his son Michael were staying at the house of a historian, one Varun Kapoor, of the Historical Society of India. The house was behind Naya Ghat, near the river, behind a curtain wall topped with jagged glass and barbed wire, with guards at the gates. Varun Kapoor seemed apologetic about his security. ‘I have been outspoken at times,’ he said as he greeted the two youths. ‘I seem to make enemies just by opening my mouth.’