by David Hair
He saw one appear clearly, forty yards above him, looking about it from a silhouetted spot, making no effort to conceal itself, as if it held the soldiers below in contempt.
Suresh was no coward. He lifted his INSAS, locked it on single shot, and sighted through the telescopic lens. The face mask was hideously real-looking, all craggy leathery jowls and curling ram horns, and even the teeth looked lifelike, long and yellowed rows of jagged malice. As if it were not a mask at all.
He pulled the trigger.
The gun clicked impotently.
The masked insurgent above looked down, the bestial face swinging his way.
It saw him.
The general nodded politely to the young secretary who held open the door, and entered the office beyond. It was smaller than most people expected, as was the man behind the desk. A little Sikh man with a gentle face.
‘General, thank you for coming.’
‘Prime Minister,’ he bowed, fishing for more words, but finding none. He wasn’t a courtier general, full of slick phrases and platitudes. He was an old bear, a veteran who had seen real service, real combat. He’d been young then, and risen far.
He’d never been this frightened.
‘What is the news, General?’ the Prime Minister asked as he motioned him to a small couch, beneath photographs from old meetings, world leaders and diplomats. Gandhi and Nehru—what would those great men make of news such as his?
‘Another company, completely destroyed, Prime Minister. Completely wiped out, to the last man.’
The Prime Minister closed his eyes, wincing in pain. ‘Another? Where?’
‘In Jharkhand. We have lost more than six hundred men in seven different incidents in the last two months, sir. All of them slain by primitive weapons. None have fired a shot. The scientists say that their weapons and radios had all been rendered inert prior to contact.’
‘And no survivors at all?’
‘None, sir. They have all been shot with arrows, or hacked apart with bladed weapons. There has been no trace of the perpetrators of these massacres except their spent arrows.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘We are under attack, Prime Minister. India is under attack.’
The Prime Minister stared past him, trembling visibly, but his voice remained composed. ‘Has anyone claimed responsibility? Is it the Maoists? Naxalites? Islamic extremists? My god, is it Hindu extremists?’
‘There has been nothing, sir. Nothing, except …’ His voice trailed off miserably.
‘Except?’
He leaned forward, met his tortured eyes. ‘Prime Minister, we have kept this fact from the media. It has not been easy. Every corpse has been branded, after death.’
‘What sort of brand?’ the Prime Minister breathed, his face visibly blanching.
‘Ancient symbols, sir, burnt on to the flesh of our dead soldiers. We have had to contact the archaeological departments of the universities for a translation. Sir, the brands seem to use an alphabet that predates India itself. The scholars say that it may read: “Sons of Ravan”.’
The old man put a hand to his own throat. ‘Sons of Ravan?’
The general bowed his head apologetically. ‘Yes, Prime Minister. Just that. Only that.’ He tugged on his moustache fearfully. ‘Sir, I do not know what we are dealing with. They can destroy us at will. We cannot seem to even hurt them. If some demand is received …’
The old man seemed to consider that, hunched over, bowed. Then slowly he straightened. ‘We will deal with that if and when it happens, General. Until that time, we go on. Cautiously, but with courage. Tell your staff that. We are under attack, but we remain strong, General.’
‘Prime Minister, they are attacking us with impunity. We cannot even hurt them. We do not even know who they are. I … we … feel so helpless.’
The Prime Minister reached out and laid his hand on the general’s shoulder. ‘A way will be found, General. We are India. We have endured all manner of crises before. We will endure this also.’
Part Two
To Reign in Lanka
Falling
Lanka, July 2011
Rasita stood facing Lavanasura, and raised her hands in an elaborate flowing gesture, a lot like dancing. But she wasn’t dancing: she was marking out the three-dimensional space in which she would perform her next task. Faint vapour-trails of light streamed from her hands, leaving a transparent sphere of two-feet diameter in the air before her, pulsing in time to her heartbeat.
‘It is good, Rani,’ said the reptilian Rakshasa in his lisping voice. ‘My Rani is skilled, yes.’ His multifaceted eyes reflected dozens of tiny images of her. His tail flicked about restlessly. ‘Now the next step, please.’
She frowned, and pulled everything she had been doing that morning into her mind—the hours spent caressing the stem of the frangipani tree, letting her consciousness feel the way the roots and stem were created, how it existed, pumping its water, processing the light and heat, and feeding its growth. She still could not have named the parts of the plant nor said how it functioned … but somehow she just knew. She had experienced it. And now, within the sphere, she called it back into being.
It was a month since she had been taken to Lavanasura and begun to formally learn the powers she had manifested. It was hard, intense, demanding all of her being in outpourings of energy that left her shaking. Yet it was also easy: it seemed to come naturally to her. Nothing that Lavanasura had demanded of her had proved beyond her, provided she gave it her all.
Within the hollow sphere, the skin of the bubble began to slowly flow into the middle in long arcing flows, like a galaxy forming or a spray of surf on the wave of a beach. It swirled into the heart of the sphere, and began to form into a delicate structure of spindling branches and fraying roots, that grew imperceptibly yet inexorably into the recognizable shape of a tree.
With a faint smile, she made it flower. The heady scent flowed outwards, through the bubble and into the garden. With a free hand she made a digging gesture, only realizing partway through that this was a hand, indeed an arm, made of spirit flesh. She was almost startled, and the whole sphere wobbled, then steadied. She bit her lip, refocused, using the gestures of her spirit hand … no, hands; there was a pair of them, … to dig a hole. She poured water from it, into the hole, and then gently lowered the sphere to the mouth of the hole.
With a final contortion of arms and hands, she laid the plant into the ground, packed the earth about it, and released the sphere. She suddenly noticed that her skin was slick, her lip swollen and painful where she had bitten it, and her limbs felt like lead. The spirit flesh of the extra pair of arms she had manifest dissipated into nothing, to her relief: she wasn’t really ready to deal with that.
She stepped back, and stared. The tree was about twenty foot tall, covered in flowers, and looked like it had been there for years. She felt a pleasing thrill, despite the sudden weakness she always experienced after performing such a task.
Lavanasura clapped his hands. His reptile face didn’t really do expressions, at least not ones she could recognize, but his neck-ruff had gone pinkish, usually a sign of pleasure. ‘Splendid, Rani! Superb!’
Another pair of hands joined the applause. She half-turned to see Ravindra leaning against the wall. She wondered how long he had been there, and was suddenly conscious of the way her sari clung to her sweating body.
‘Wonderful,’ he said in his musical voice. It held something of longing, almost envy. His own powers were caught in the aspect of destruction, she reminded herself. Everything she did was beyond him. Beyond most of the Rakshasas in fact: they had all been imbued with power by, and trained by Aeshwaran and Halika. Destruction was pretty much all they knew, except for a few like Lavanasura.
‘You steadied me, just at the end,’ she acknowledged, caught between annoyance and gratitude.
‘I saw you realize that you had manifested spirit flesh unknowingly, and that it had thrown you off balance. It was a small thing—you will know to expec
t it in future.’ He stepped towards her, a handkerchief appearing in his hand, and he wiped blood from her lip and chin. He sniffed it with a small shudder, a gesture that made her shiver. Just at times, he revealed his nature, and frightened her just when she was at ease.
I relax too much around him now. He is not my friend, he is my Enemy, and I forget that too easily.
He looked up at the tree, nodding appreciatively. ‘It is always humbling to see someone do something that I cannot,’ he said eventually. He glanced at her, giving a slightly forced smile. ‘You make rapid progress, Rasita.’
His praise made her faintly uneasy, at how it made her glow. ‘It feels natural,’ she admitted reluctantly.
‘In all of your past lives, you have been less than whole, without realizing it. Now you are nearly complete.’
‘I feel whole already.’ She thought about that. ‘Almost.’
He nodded. ‘Almost.’ The word meant different things in his mouth.
She lifted her chin. ‘I will not let you kill Deepika, even if it makes me what you call whole.’ She turned square on to him, set her hands on her hips.
‘She is already dead, Rasita. When her ghost returns, you will drink it in. It will be natural, and then you will be Manda again.’ He put a hand on hers and she forgot to pull hers away, she was listening so hard to him. ‘Do you remember what it felt like, when your soul was reunited: Sunita Ashoka and Rasita Kaur Bajaj? Do you remember how you went from dying to truly alive? A fractured soul partially heals, like a lizard that grows new limbs to replace the old, but it is never perfect. Not the way you will be. When your two souls unite, and you are truly Manda again, then you will know what it means.’
Rasita remembered that shuddering, dying-alive feeling as Sunita and she became one. Now she could not really tell which she was any more, Sunita or Rasita. Mostly Rasita, she usually thought, but not always. At times she would say or do something the old Rasita would never have done, being too unworldly, too inexperienced of life. That joining had been like waking up after spending all one’s life half-asleep. It had been like recovering from a dreadful sickness. It had been both of those things, and more. It had been revelation. It had been enlightenment.
‘You said that you summoned her months ago,’ she mused aloud.
‘Yes. These things take time. She will only be moving at walking pace. I sense her vaguely at times.’ He frowned. ‘But it is still taking too long.’ He turned suddenly and touched her swollen lip. ‘Lavanasura will tend your mouth.’
She flinched slightly at his touch, though it was gentle. His face filled her vision, and she felt herself filled with a sudden longing.
‘You know, there is now enough of Manda in you that I see her reaching for me,’ he whispered. ‘There is probably enough there for memories to surface, at times.’
She felt a quiver of fright at the thought. Not more memories. I can scarcely deal with those I have. She stepped away, before she lost control and fell into him. She put on her mask of defiance again. ‘You are taking a risk, Ravan. You are training me, but I am not your ally. I am not your Manda.’
‘Not yet,’ he agreed. ‘Not yet.’
A messenger stepped into the garden, a frog-headed Asura. ‘My lord, your sister has returned.’
Ravindra sighed, and his face became grim once more. ‘About time.’ He turned back to Rasita. ‘I must attend upon her,’ he told her, as if she would miss his presence.
Surpanakha … She had picked up enough from Keke’s gossip that the she-Rakshasa had been in Mumbai, monitoring the court cases. ‘May I also attend?’ she asked quickly, hoping to glean news of her family.
He frowned, then shrugged. ‘My sister is not a pretty sight these days, after what Deepika did to her. But if you wish it, you may accompany me.’
He led her down corridors she’d not travelled, past armed guards, into chambers that seemed to be his alone. They found themselves in a room of green marble, overlooking a small shadowy garden filled with trellised ivy. The lighting was poor, but it was cool, refreshingly so. A single long table filled the centre of the room, with a dozen chairs presided over by a throne at the window-end. Ravindra walked past it, to the window bower, where there was a small seat. He sat Rasita there, sat down and joined her, an imposition of intimacy that made her skin begin to sweat again. He nodded to the messenger, who had followed them. The servant bowed out, and was replaced by Surpanakha.
The demoness was in the guise of Meenakshi Nandita, one-time lawyer to Ras’ mother Kiran. She was wrapped in a thick sari and a blanket over that, as though hiding from the cold. She walked like a cripple. Deepika had harmed her somehow, though Ras had not had time to find out the details before Ravindra found them both and took her. She was Ravana’s sister, in the legends, and liked to be termed so now. Maybe she was—it wasn’t clear from the tale Ravindra wove or Halika’s memories whether she was or not.
Ras glanced at Ravindra, who was wearing pantaloons and an open shirt. He looked barbarically magnificent. His bare torso was close enough that she could have reached out and stroked it. She found she almost wanted to.
Meenakshi was not pleased to see her with the king. ‘What is she doing here?’ she asked angrily.
‘Rasita is my queen,’ Ravindra replied simply. ‘Rejoice, sister.’
The Rakshasa looked stunned, and almost fell. ‘Then she has … have you …?’ She looked almost horrified.
‘I would have thought you would be pleased, that my queen was whole,’ Ravindra observed coldly. ‘But no, we have not reached that stage yet.’ He eyed her, and raised his hand. The robes hiding Meenakshi’s form flew apart, leaving her wrapped in a thin undergarment, her face buried in a curtain of hair.
Rasita gasped, for the Rakshasa princess’ left leg was twisted and bent brutally. Blood and pus still oozed from a dozen slashes on her thighs and arms. She turned her face away.
‘The Darya made a mess of you, sister,’ Ravindra commented, then waved his hand again. The illusions surrounding his sister dissolved, and her true form appeared. A battered old crone, with almost apelike arms trailing to the ground. Bestial ears and hands. Most horribly, her nose had been cut off, right down to the bones of her skull. The loose skin at the edge of the holes flapped wetly as she breathed.
A bloody tear crept into the corner of one eye. ‘Please, brother, do not shame me like this.’ She jabbed a finger at Ras. ‘Not before this one.’
Ravindra leaned forward. ‘Report. How did the court case fare?’
Surpanakha cowered. ‘Badly, brother. The Bharata betrayed us, as you said he might. The case fell apart.’
Rasita felt like punching the air in sudden joy.
‘Good,’ Ravindra said, surprising her. ‘It was not necessary that Charanpreet and Tanita were victorious. This victory is a further sign that the epic is asserting itself in our favour.’ He put his hand on top of Rasita’s. ‘I am pleased that your mother has this comfort.’
Surpanakha eyed her brother’s hand sourly. Ras wondered at her attitude. Is she jealous of his affections?
The demoness bowed her head. ‘Lord, I have further bad news. Your son, Prahasta, is dead.’ A touch of malice entered her voice. ‘He became cocky, exposed himself to fire, and was shot.’
Ravindra bowed his head abruptly. Rasita fought the urge to squeeze his hand in comfort.
What am I thinking? I should be rejoicing. I should be taunting him … but this place is nothing like I thought it would be … and neither is he …
Ravindra seemed tragic to her, suddenly. A lost soul, compelled to act in violence first, constantly left to pick up his own wreckages, and try to repair them.
‘His body?’ Ravindra asked eventually.
‘I could not recover it,’ Surpanakha replied. ‘He was my favourite nephew, brother. We worked together for most of our existence. I mourn for him, and for you.’
Ravindra’s face hardened. ‘Your relationship with him never won my approval, sister. He was a warrior,
easily led by such as you. Now get out of my sight! Go and find Lavanasura and see if he can tend your wounds.’
Surpanakha stared at her brother and then at Rasita. ‘Yes, my Lord Brother.’ She reached out toward Ras. ‘Allow me to escort the Rani back to her rooms.’ Her eyes conveyed something, but Ras had no idea what.
‘Rasita Rani can find her own way,’ Ravindra told her. ‘I am sure she does not crave your company.’
His sister glared at him sourly, then turned and limped away, clothing herself in illusion as she went. Ras noticed that even the illusions did not fully conceal her wounds.
Ravindra answered Rasita’s unspoken question, making her wonder how much of her thoughts he could sense. ‘She was been marred by pure destructive energy by Deepika. Those wounds will never heal on their own, and they transcend all illusion and shape-shifting. She is marred forever.’
‘Can’t even Lavanasura heal her?’ Ras asked.
‘Lavanasura is a creator, but his powers are weak. He may offer some temporary alleviation at best, but frankly, the only person capable of healing her is you.’
She bowed her head. ‘Are you asking that of me?’ she enquired quietly. She didn’t know why, but it hurt her to see someone in such pain, even a monster like Surpanakha.
He placed his hand over hers, and lifted her chin. ‘You are a good spirit, Rasita,’ he told her. ‘Who else would offer to aid an enemy?’
His face was painfully close to hers. Her swollen lip stung. It was bleeding again. Her whole body felt dangerously hollow and unsteady. ‘I have to go,’ she whispered, her vision wavering. Before …
She leaned back against the pillar, struggling to breathe. His face followed hers. The shoulder fold of her sari fell down her arm. Her breasts felt full and painful inside her bodice, straining at the fabric. Her stomach was clenched, her legs hollow and trembling. He leaned in and kissed her parted lips, his deft tongue licking away the blood, then closing about hers, breathing through her. Her arms wrapped about his shoulder as his hands explored her bare shoulders, working down to her bodice. His mouth tasted of her blood, and sweet spit and a lingering tobacco-taste. He smelt of tension and desire. ‘Yes,’ she heard herself whisper. ‘Yes.’