The demoness before him sang softly as she stirred her pot, a song of her own making:
I’ll count the hearts a brother can hold
And I’ll count the hearts a sister can boil
And all the times my toil’s been told
Until I can see above the soil.
She saw him as he grew, and shook her head, half-glad for a young fish-tailed monkey to pester her thoughts away from the task at hand. “Why are you wearing a mask, little ‘Nu?”
So he was-a white papier mache thing with a merry snarl worked into it, teeth crudely cut from oyster-shells. No memory of putting that on, but there it was. He hung it on a jag in the wall and scratched the fur of his forehead, hard to think through the song-stained steam that billowed about the chamber.
“I came down, need a favour, Aunt Pirakuan,” he remembered. “Need a spell to stop the human-king from hurting a scale of my tail, then I’ll be gone, I swear.” He saw the shelves on the wall held jars of hearts, great and small hearts, pickled and preserved hearts, ravaged hearts, deadly hearts. “Will any of these do?”
“He’s Ram, little monster, doom of all of us. Can’t change that, or him. But my fool brother wants him in a soup, and here I am stirring up the broth, for all we’ll never taste a drop of him. Hanuman’ll come, whisk him away, win the war-you should go along with them. No need for you to stay on the wicked side. I’m sure you’ll be rewarded.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” said Machanu, watching her season the broth with snakeblood, trying to remember more. What was that place, that strange dark chamber where his mother warned him of his fate among seats like red teeth? He knew he had never seen his mother except in dreams. He felt like the mask on the wall, head filled with smoke.
“Why are you still cooking, if he’s getting rescued?” he asked.
“What else can I do? Maiyarap demands a soup, our mother sits in the wall and mourns, and I boil up the water to cook the human-king.
You know, I’ve heard the rumble of the war being won up there too many times to count, but no one’s ever thought to kill me. My brother, at least he forgets being bludgeoned by Hanuman with those great black trees over and over. I’ve been putting up with mama’s moaning since time began—but my broth is so sweet by now, I could almost be happy. A thousand stories spicy, this pot, but never to have its main ingredient. You wouldn’t think the world would miss just one Ram, just once, would you?”
“You said you can’t change him,” said Machanu. “Like you can’t even try.” Surely that was wrong. He’d come down here, hadn’t he, and that was trying.
“Oh, of course you can’t. He keeps the world together, everyone knows that. Even sleeping. He dreams it. Probably we’re only still standing here because he’s dreaming. Wouldn’t do to go and ruin everything, not now I’ve got my soup sweeter than it’s ever been. Go back to your pond, Machanu.”
She shooed him back up the lotus-stem, to his lonely gate-pond with Hanuman’s starry breath swirling above it still. But it all looked so suddenly small, even these stars. It was as if he could reach them with his hands-and how big the night beyond was! Where to go? Somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t this spot, where all there was to do was to wait around for his true father to come out with tail-chopping Ram!
Through the Forest
Between the gate-pond and the sea lay a night-forest, all hung with dew, with fireflies and golden fruit, like a galaxy. He’d go tree-swinging as other monkeys did, he thought. And up leapt he into a high moon-etched tree, clever monkey-fingers grasping swiftly-but his tail slapped and flapped against the scratchy bark, hip-fins snagged on twig-tips. The scuffed bark glittered his own scales back at him, stolen shine for some dumb bird to come and peck at in the morning.
This wasn’t dignified.
Down to the ground, then. The ground was better anyway. The ground was a wonder-path of pools and streams, with golden fruits shin ing above the surface, dreaming golden fish below. He beat the water behind him as he went, scattering tail-splashed silver, and the flowers grew higher all about him, water hyacinth, water chestnut, and pale water-lilies that all spread wide to receive the moon.
Ai! Even here he could fall, foot caught on some root between ponds. More roots came out of the water, pulled him in and bound his legs, green and tight with tiny spikes like shards of diamond, digging through his fur. His own lotus-spear bent as if it listened to these attackers, then, disloyal thing, wrapped itself about his wrists, quick as a naak’s lasso. He saw he was caught in the shallows of a stream-fed pool, where the monstrous flowers went round and round as if on patrol. Then he was within their circle and before him was a golden maiden made all of lotus-blooms, skin of petals overlapping like scales, stirring softly in the night-breeze, tiny buds for eyes that opened to stare at him.
“Lady,” he said, as his father might, “why do you sit alone in this pool?”
She peered at him, and the hearts of her lotus-eyes were hollow. “Who are you?” she said, and her breath was a cloud of sonorous jasmine, so sweet that Machanu, who caught a good throatful of it, fell into a fit of coughing and could not speak for some time.
And then he wasn’t so sure of the answer to her question. He decided to stick with the facts, what seemed to be the facts, for now: “I am Machanu, and Hanuman is my father, and Supanna Macha my mother. I’m not your enemy, whoever you are.”
She laughed, near choking him again. “You’d make a fine hero for one of my worlds.” She leaned her face close to his. He saw that the holes in her eyes were passages like his own lotus-gate. At the bottom of her eyes were worlds. Her skin she unfurled; in all her pores were more worlds.
Some were dazzling and some were dark.
Some were storms, some roared green fire.
“Where did you get these?” he breathed.
“I’ll tell you,” she said, in the rolling voice of a khon-reciter. “Once through this forest Hanuman came, leading his monkey-troops to Longka city, to find the Lady Sida. But on their way they came to a walled garden in the middle of the forest, with a low archway and a jewelled path leading inwards, and not a soul to be seen inside. And Hanuman the Wind-Son said: I will go in to see if it is safe, or if it is some trap laid by giants.
“He walked on the crystal-paved path, through trees that grew thickly together, past silver pavilions. There was no one else but the moon, sitting on the rooftops, watching him go, until he came to the garden’s heart. He saw a fountain where a heavenly woman sat among golden lotuses.
“Lady, he said, why do you sit alone in this pool?
“But she was frightened and would not answer.
“I am Hanuman, he said, and then she scolded him:
“Common monkey, don’t try to intimidate me by calling yourself that. I’m banished from the heavenly court, cursed to sit in this pond until Hanuman releases me, but you are not him. If you were, you would be greater, and you would yawn out stars from your mouth.
“So he floated up into the air, and grew enormous and four-faced, and let stars and planets fall from his lips to scatter among the trees. Then he spoke eloquently of love, and she let him in her pool, and took her in his eight arms. The golden flowers opened to receive the moon, and perfumed pollen floated on the water, and when they had made love she pleaded with him to stay.
“But you can dance again in the heavenly court, he said. And, flower of my heart, I must carry on my way, to seek the Lady Sida.
“He lifted her with one hand and threw her into the heavens, and never noticed the seeds that showered as sweat from her skin. Sweat from where they embraced: hers with starlight in it, and his with the wind. A tiny world, with tiny heavens and winds, in every drop, and they fell to the water. Too precious to disperse, they sank and put down roots to where there is emptiness, and there the worlds grew big. I am only the petal-tips, only the preserver, of all those worlds, and I catch heroes to populate them, an
d I must have my own brother to be king in one of them. Come, which will it be?”
She opened a world-hole in her palm. Deep inside he could see blossom floating in a starry void, big as planets. She scooped fish from the water and they fell into that space, into the black and bright. They tumbled and swam in the alien sky, monstrously big between the flower-stars. “How about this one?” she said. “It’s cold and dark and no one will laugh at you for being a fish-monkey freak.” And she reached for him.
“I could cut you up from the inside!’ he warned. Hadn’t his father done something like that in a story, once? She laughed again and he thought he would faint from the air-clotting perfume.
“Could you cut the universe up from the inside?” she asked.
So this was the danger of lone adventuring, of cutting loose. No brothers-in-arms, no faithful followers to leap from behind the scenes and save him. Only a sister with traps in her eyes, and infinite lonely paths.
“Why don’t you want it?” she said. “Why is this world better than any of the ones you could fall into? Here you’ll just be eddied around in the story-streams of bigger heroes.”
He opened his mouth to say, so why are you here, but she did not look for an answer, only reached for him, stroked his tail-hip. His words stuck. Her thorny fingernails snagged on an embroidered fin, and she snatched the hand away. Threads snapped, silver sequins scattered all about.
“Hah! You’re not a real Machanu!’ she cried. “What’s this cheap dancing costume? I don’t want an impostor inside me. Get out of here.” The roots that held him shrunk back. His lotus-spear released its grip on his wrists, but would not uncoil in his hands.
He went, his tail catching on hidden things, fins unravelling behind him, not knowing whether the strange power of this place was making him real or unreal. It was tugging his tail away, that was certain, though he’d left his post to keep it. If only he could grow extra arms to hold onto it! He made do with one hand to pull his threads free of twigs, the other to push low branches out of his way.
The far curling scent of salt pulled him on in the thorny dark.
In Pa-Karang
When he came to the sea, his tail was dragging, loose threads fraying all over, but still there, still his, and the sun was just beginning to reach over the forest-tops from the far end of the island. Machanu dove under the ghost-coloured waters and swam far out and down, with the dawn chasing the currents at his tail, trailing forest dirt and sequins behind him. He went swiftly until he saw a dark land of looming things, with glints and glares beckoning from here, from there. Cave-mouths were a-throng with morning market stalls, lit by greeny lanterns, and beyond were buildings he could not make out, in shade and the rolling ringing din. Then the sinking sunrise caught him up and crystal pavilions blazed, spat and spun reef-colours all about and dazzled his eyes; beyond, coral-forests spread far and wide and brilliant!
Unsure who to speak to or where to go, he swam into the forest, so high and vast it dwarfed the temples that were scattered abundantly between the coral-trees and stalks of great sea-lotuses. But Machanu swam closer and saw the temples were monsters all asleep, with horns adorned chedi-like and mouths ever-yawning, high arched doorways. He swam closer again, to the maw of the first monster. Its lips were like jade, its teeth pointed pearls with scenes carved in them. Its inner cheeks were so crusted by sea-lichens that someone had been able to paint lively frescoes over them, in colours ground from fish-scales and pearl-snails so the images all shimmered, as if in the light of underwater flames. The inside of the left cheek showed a time when the gods still swam the oceans as great horned fish, with storm-beasts and whirlpool-demons eating the power that whirled in their wake.
“This is just the first,” said Supanna Macha from the doorway. He turned and saw the Ocean-Queen: glorious, more glorious than he had ever dreamed her, chasm-black tresses beating in the water like night’s fin, tail thick and powerful and greener than any forest, any jade. She held out her hand, as if she had expected him. She led him from the chamber to the forest. “See those seven makara? They are brothers, telling the past lives of Pii Sua Samut, who gave us this library.”
“A library?”
“Yes; all of the sleeping monsters, from here to the forest’s far end, have all the great stories painted in them-particularly hers, for she tamed them and made them into warm shelters where all in the sea-kingdom could flourish and dream.”
“All the great stories? You must have Ram’s, then! Show me. I want to see where it comes to in the end.”
“Ram? Who’s that? Ram, Ram, I’m sure I’ve heard that name before…”
“Ram, the most famous king of the humans, mother! Your father’s great enemy; they say he’s Lord Narai born into a man’s body.”
“Ah, yes. I thought it sounded familiar. I think his story’s carved on a whale’s fang somewhere-it’s not very long. Come, we’ll find it.” She took him under red and yellow branches, through palm-tall anemones that parted for the Ocean-Queen, to a glade where a monstrous temple stood, built out of a beast like a city-wide whale, with the snout of a serpent, jaws of a demon, scales that could be used for shields. Men and women with the tails of eels worked inside, painting the last panel of the beast’s mouth with busy scenes of daily ocean-life around a centre-image of Hanuman fighting a fearsome sea-giant. The pearly teeth arched high above their heads, and Supanna Macha swam up to pluck one from the monster’s gum. It was huge and heavy in her hands, but she carried it down to show Machanu.
“The Story of Ram,” she read from the curling script along its base, and turned it so he could see the carven scenes. It showed Ram attending his wife Sida, showed him sending a monkey army after her, showed him warring against the demons. “We need this story to explain how Hanuman came to battle with Pii Sua Samut, though human kings are of little interest to the sea. But I’ll tell you about Pii Sua Samut.
“She was tall as a mountain and fat as a storm, she had long white tusks that curled up to her eyes, she stomped through the waves and sang songs to make the sailors blush, and she came down with tremendous fury on any who would harm the sea.” Supanna Macha showed Machanu the left cheek, where scenes of the yaksa’s birth and youth were painted in that moon-fiery pigment. One panel showed her watching whole realms and dynasties of fish devoured by storm-beasts; the next showed her transformation into a fearsome great butterfly, who bathed in the floating pollen of Himmapaan forest and returned to fertilise the depleted sea, turning it abundant with tiger-fish and boar-fish and many more creatures, that swarmed joyfully to live in the city of Pa-Karang among the merfolk. Another showed her binding the greatest and greediest of the monsters to the ocean floor, and stroking them into sleep, and reciting the ancient sea-lore that would later be recorded in murals behind the monsters’ jaws.
“But sometimes demons from the world would come down, and hunt our animals, and sport with fish and fish-folk alike.” She showed him a scene of Totsakan, glowing golden in bliss, clasping a great silver-white fish in his arms. “When the Ten- Headed One made love to the Queen of the Fish, she shone like the moon and he could not help but turn all his faces to her. Pii Sua Samut bent down and plucked the flower he wore in his crown, and put it in her hair. Now, his first queen Monto had placed that flower there, and would be angry to see it missing. So he begged it back, promising never to send his demons down again.”
Here was a scene of Totsakan taking the flower back, and discovering that two of Pii Sua Samut’s long black hairs had come with it. “Pii Sua of the Ocean was in his service, then, and went about patrolling the waters for him, until Hanuman came to Longka.” The painters with their tangling tails continued to embellish the first panel of their fight, while the master painter sketched the next on the breathing wall. “But that I’ll save for when the mural is finished.”
Machanu could guess. “He killed her, didn’t he? And you still fell in love with him.”
“It’
s not so simple,” she said. “They both had to play the parts the war commanded. And nothing really dies in stories, or the sea.” She led him to the altar at the back of the monster’s tongue, where fish flocked to pay their respects to a pair of long white tusks.
When they swam out again, she nodded to the painters. “Will you have it ready in three days’ time?”
“What happens in three days time?” asked Machanu.
She laughed and bubbles scattered from her lips. “Where have you been, my son? I’m sure even people in Maiyarap’s domain have heard. Sida’s living with the Naak, and has called for a day of storytelling.”
“Ram’s wife? That Sida?”
“What has Ram to do with anything? You are fond of bringing him up. Sida, the most powerful storyteller there is, perhaps only rivalled by Hanuman. Do you know, when Totsakan was keeping her in his pleasure-garden, and the demon guards came with jeers and crude threats, she matched them, hissed exquisite curses, sweet poison fables, and none of the guards or demon-women could withstand her enchantment. None of them would harm her-though of course they guarded her all the more fiercely. Now she’s sick of the world and living in the ground, but says there should be story-meetings for all who are not welcome at the telling-festivals of human courts.”
“And you’re going?”
“You’ll come with me. It will be instructional. We’ll ride the fanged whalefish, bringing them the tale of Pii Sua Samut, and we’ll hear all sorts of wonders.”
“But it’s asleep…’
“Yes,” she said. “No one has tried borrowing any beast from the library since its Lady was slain, for fear they’d wake and eat us. But we’re harnessing it, and it holds her sacred relics in its mouth, and now is not the time for fear. We need a mount, for everyone else is sure to have a grand one. But I’m sure no one will have a manuscript like ours.”
Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana Page 26