‘RAMA!’ The word echoed and reverberated.
~~Fool!~~ he heard her scream. ~~And I a bigger fool to bring you here in the first place. Pushpak, take us from here at once. Take us!~~
He blinked at the sudden alteration in the quality of light, at the abrupt seamless change of surroundings. One moment he had been there, in that bottomless hell of rakshasa fornication. The next moment he was standing in a great palatial mansion, multilevelled and richly ornamented. He took a tentative breath and was hugely relieved: the air was not pure or perfect by any means but it was free of the nauseating reek of excess at least.
He looked around and saw a creature perched upon a golden railing that bordered the marble-floored balcony on which he stood. It was a rakshasi of some feline variety, with beautiful golden fur and glowing cat-like eyes. He recognised those eyes at once—and the sensual flow of the form, if not the actual form itself.
‘Lady Lanka?’ he said ironically. ‘Why, what big claws and fangs you have.’
She snarled silently at him. ‘Do not mock me, vanar. I am Supanakha, cousin to Ravana himself. At a single word from me, he will tear your heart out and eat it in a single gulp.’
‘If you are so powerful, and your cousin so mighty, then why did you need to disguise yourself and attempt to deceive me?’
She flicked her tail irritably. ‘I thought you would make a good night’s diversion.’ She licked her chops pointedly. ‘You are a handsome specimen, for a vanar.’
‘And so you pretended to be Lady Lanka,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The spirit of the land itself.’
She shrugged. ‘There was such a being once. Except she was a rakshasi named Simhika, and she wasn’t anything to look at. She liked to eat anything and anyone that ventured here. It was a long time ago, back when the world was new and few creatures moved upon the land. I borrowed a little from her … ’
‘And a lot from your own imagination.’
‘Actually, from yours,’ she said unexpectedly. She moved closer to him, exaggerating her femininity with an arching sensual prowl. ‘Did I not please you in that form? We could have spent a night in the palace of infinite pleasures, instead of my having to eat you alive.’
He smiled at her persistence. ‘And if I had succumbed to your depravity, what would you have done with me come morning?’
She cocked her head, pretending to think briefly. ‘Eaten you alive.’ She smiled dangerously. ‘But at least we would have enjoyed the night. Now, here we are.’
‘And where is that?’
She gestured over her shoulder, beyond the railing. ‘See for yourself.’
He kept his eyes on her as he walked to the railing, careful to keep enough distance should she try to leap. Looking down, he saw that they were on the balustrade of the upper level of a great palatial hall. The space below was a dazzling display of wealth and refinement. It was created in the fashion of rich luxury that mortals usually favoured—and that vanars were also wont to favour if they could but afford such luxury. Pillars of gold and silver adorned by carvings of animals and asuras. Stairways of gold inlaid with lapis and emerald and sapphire. Golden windows with delicate lattices. Enormous tables groaning beneath the weight of sumptuous banquets of exotic foods and drinks, the heavy remnants of some recent feast. Crystal floors decorated with pearls, ivory and coral. Magnificent embroidered carpets. Sweet birdsong music, divine fragrances, priceless fabrics … Even at a glance he was impressed by the wealth and sophistication. Yet again, Lanka had surprised him. He wondered if palaces in Ayodhya or Gandahar were as tastefully luxuriant.
But the decor was just that, decor. The real surprise lay in the centre of the chamber below. Evidently, a great feast and celebration had taken place only recently. He could still scent the odours of the food on the table, the wine drunk and spilt. The revellers had taken a respite, stealing a short rest, no doubt before resuming their revels, or going on to more advanced celebrations.
Lying upon dozens of beds, divans, couches, futons, sofas, carpets, rugs and even across the jewelled floor, were hundreds of women. Beautiful, breathtaking women wearing all kinds of clothes and jewels and garlands, and many wearing nothing at all. After the depraved excesses he had witnessed in the palace of pleasures, this sight seemed barely offensive, but he could not help but observe that every one of the women were of exquisite beauty, by any standards, rakshasa, mortal or otherwise. They possessed a perfection of limb and complexion that would have transfixed any male of any species. Singly, they were extraordinary beauties; together, they were an invaluable harem.
Every one of them lay asleep. He scanned their faces quickly but efficiently, using his superior senses to scent out if any of them might be the one he sought. Yet, even as he did so, he prayed that Sita was not among them. For her presence in this menagerie of kept females would mean only one thing, and he could not bear to allow that meaning to penetrate his mind.
There was no sign of Sita.
But lying in the midst of them, splendidly splayed out in rich robes and jewels all disarrayed from his recent revels, sleeping as peacefully as his concubines, was the king of Lanka himself.
NINE
Ravana lay upon his great bed in his most private of chambers, asleep after a day filled with drink and sensual pleasures. He was adorned by more jewels than Hanuman had ever seen upon the person of a single being before. His arms, thick as flagpoles, were encircled by beautifully filigreed bracelets that only partially concealed the rakshasa’s many battle wounds. As with any great legendary personage, Ravana’s wounds and scars were as famous as his ten heads. Hanuman recognised the famous ripmark scar said to have been inflicted by the right tusk of Airavata, battle elephant of Lord Indra, during the rakshasa king’s wars against the devas. On both his shoulders were the white slashes inflicted by Indra’s vajra, the celestial thunderbolt. There were any number of other scars across his body, the evidence of countless encounters and battles against celestial beings as well as mortal. Hanuman craned his neck, peering over a curved section of the railing on which he perched, seeking a better view of Ravana’s chest. At last he spied a diagonal slashing scar that was clearly of far recent vintage than the demonlord’s other marks. He sucked in a breath. That scar had been inflicted by Dasaratha himself, father of Rama. Lakshman had told him the story of that fateful encounter during the last asura war. Dasaratha had barely escaped that encounter with his life; after his chariot was demolished by Ravana, he was carried off the battlefield wounded and unconscious by Rama’s clan-mother Kaikeyi.
And now, here he was, in the most private chamber of Ravana’s palace, staring down at the lord of all rakshasakind.
His blood seethed momentarily, thinking of all the pain and suffering this being had inflicted upon so many for so long. Upon his lord Rama. His paws curled into fists, and he felt himself start to expand. It took a great effort to control himself.
A soft chuckle by his ear made him turn with a snarl. He lunged at Supanakha. The shapeshifter leaped back, startled, but recovered at once. ‘So,’ she showed her teeth in hostile amusement. ‘The vanar has claws too.’
‘She is not here,’ he said, hardly caring if his voice carried or not. The chamber was immense, and the railing on which he and Supanakha were standing was a good fifteen yards above the main floor of the chamber below. ‘Where is the lady Sita?’
She curled her tail over her rear, purring softly. ‘Are you sure she isn’t here? Have you looked closely enough?’ She leaped up to the railing again. ‘Perhaps you should take another look.’
‘Rakshasi,’ he said in a dangerous tone. ‘I will not tolerate your games any longer.’
She swished her tail, brushing it close enough to his face for him to feel the wind but not close enough to grab. ‘Why? Do you think your mistress is too scrupulous to sleep with the lord of Lanka?’
He snorted. ‘Sleep? She will not brook him touching one hair on her head. She is the paragon of wifely virtue.’
She chuckle
d. ‘You’ll be surprised how many paragons of wifely virtue are down there right now, lying drunk and thoroughly ravished.’
‘Then you do not understand the meaning of wifely virtue,’ he said, unprovoked by her taunting. ‘Sita is not among those who clings to morality because her sanskriti demands it, or because her elders impose it upon her. She does so because she is a self-fulfilled, self-empowered woman who values her own dignity. She has chosen to adhere to a code of ethics and morality, and having done so, she will not be moved a fraction of an inch from her position. Her rigidity is not demanded by her husband, her in-laws, or even her own family. It is her own desire for uprightness that makes her uphold this virtuous stance.’
Supanakha lost some of her taunting tone. Her tail flicked angrily. ‘Sure, she’s the queen of all virtue! But that doesn’t mean she’s superhuman and invulnerable. How do you know she has not succumbed to the forced embraces of my cousin? How do you know she has not been raped and ravished against her will?’
He smiled, undaunted. ‘Because she is not merely a woman of strong character, she is also a warrior-princess. She would defend her virtue just as a male warrior would defend his own dignity. Just as an Arya prince or king would rather have his head cut off than bow it before a being such as Ravana, or any asura chief, so also my lady Sita would fight to the very end rather than allow herself to be used against her will.’
Supanakha scowled. ‘Methinks you think too highly of your precious lady. Perhaps you are mistaken in your fealty. Perhaps the lady is not half as honourable as you would like to believe.’
Hanuman unfolded his arms from across his chest and stared at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Be careful, demoness. Your attempts to deceive me were acceptable, for you are my foe and were doing your duty in attempting to keep me from entering Lanka, and then, Ravana’s palace. That is why I have allowed you to live until now. But do not make the mistake of insulting the name of my lady. I will not tolerate any slur against her good name.’
Supanakha snarled silently, letting him see all the way down her purple throat. Spittle flew from her lips. ‘Too much self-righteousness makes a person imbalanced, vanar. Be careful that you know whereof you speak. You may have cause to doubt the veracity of your beliefs before this night is through.’
She turned and raced the length of the balcony, away from him. He was on her heels in a trice.
The shapeshifter led him a merry dance. He followed her through chamber after chamber much like the one in which he had seen the lord of rakshasas asleep. These were as richly invested and decorated. There were apartments with courtyards paved with gold and silver and pearls. Pools of every shape and size, filled with fountains of clear, sparkling water, jewelled steps leading into them, crystal bottoms and banks of coral and pearls. On their banks were trees such as he had never seen nor heard of before: gold-hued trees which glowed luminously in the semidarkness. Lotuses and lilies bloomed, and the cries of water birds were audible, even though he knew he was inside a great white tower, not a forest. The lines of illusion blurred further the more he pursued the demoness. He followed her through a mango grove where birdsong filled the air and the trees were made of gold and silver. Flowering trees bustling with bees drunk on nectar. Strutting peacocks pranced and preened. He saw entire townships, with stone-paved streets and crossroads and buildings and fortifications. There were rakshasas and rakshasis here too, although none seemed to be aware of him. He recognised other subservient peoples too—vidyadharis, beautiful servants and maids who obeyed the commands of the rakshasas. Gorgeous naga women with full, moon-round faces. There were wonders beyond counting. He saw hillocks with streams running down, lakes brimming with clear water with carved steps and gem-encrusted artificial banks, surrounded by landscaped gardens abounding in docile wildlife and covered with lavish pavilions.
Yet just as he was about to dismiss all these as clear signs of artifice, he came upon a samsapa tree, dense with leaves and creepers. He climbed the tree to taste the leaves and found them as real as he could make out. He was perplexed. Was all this real or an illusion? He knew that asura sorcery could achieve great feats of illusion, but this was a real samsapa tree, with real samsapa leaves and creepers. How could sorcery create something ostensibly natural? It defied everything he knew.
But this minor irritant was soon forgotten when he could not find the shapeshifter. He had seen her last at the foot of the tree, but by the time he reached her, she had vanished. He ranged up and down, in case she was hiding in the dense foliage or hanging from a creeper. But when he could neither see her nor scent her he began to fret. It was already night and he still had not found Sita.
He was overcome by a great thirst. The lake nearby was clear and inviting, and he went and drank from it without thinking. The water was wonderfully cool and sweet, and it refreshed him greatly. Only after his belly was full did he feel a twinge of misgiving. Perhaps he ought to have abstained from consuming anything. After all, this was the heart of Lanka. Despite all appearances, he was within the inner sanctum of Ravana, inside some artificial construct of the celestial vahan Pushpak. Perhaps he should not have eaten those leaves and drunk that water after all …
His vision blurred. The lake shimmered, like steaming water in a mountain spa. The entire landscape rolled, then righted itself. His ears filled with strange sounds and voices, his nostrils twitched, scenting a myriad of scents too exotic to identify. His tongue felt numb and hot where he had tasted the juice of the samsapa leaves. They were not samsapa after all, he realised, his senses reeling. Nor was that lake water, water at all.
He struggled to stay upright, but found himself flat on his back a moment later. The sound of familiar laughter filled his ears. He tried to turn to see if it was the shapeshifter, but ended up falling flat on his face. He lay there, trying to raise his head to breathe. Moving any part of his body seemed impossible. For a moment, he panicked, thinking that he would suffocate to death under his own weight, suffocate and die.
A train of visions floated through his delirious, drugged mind, a psychedelic line of hallucinations. He saw himself dying, succumbing to the most trivial of ruses, duped by a rakshasi shapeshifter, killed by eating a few leaves and drinking some water. He saw Rama, waiting at the unfinished bridge, receiving news of his death—the hallucination did not clarify how Rama heard of this news—and losing all hope and motivation. He saw Rama dying, believing Sita already lost. And then Lakshman, dying too. He saw Rama’s entire line extinguished—Bharat, Shatrugan, Kausalya, Sumitra, even the rehabilitated Kaikeyi. Then, Sugreeva, desolate at his failure to aid Rama in his quest, taking his own life the vanar way—by leaping from a cliff. And Sugreeva’s wives, Ruma and Tara, killing themselves. Angad dying as well. And then all the vanars of Kiskindha throwing themselves to their deaths.
The vision was absurd in its exaggeration and lack of logic. Yet it carried a terrible foreboding, like a bad dream that seems utterly real and convincing at the time. He knew that it was the result of the unnatural leaves and water he had consumed but that knowledge alone did not help him throw off the vision. He felt his body struggling with the anguish of suffocation and knew that by simply moving a little to one side he could enable himself to breathe again. But that tiny effort seemed impossible. He heard someone laugh and recognised his own inner voice. He was laughing at himself, for being able to grow as large as a mountain and leap across an ocean, yet now unable to move a few inches to enable himself to breathe.
His mind swam with mad visions. They were worse in a sense than the earlier morass of sensual temptations into which he had been immersed. As one who had taken a vow of celibacy, he had long since mastered the art of deflecting sensual temptations. Even that epic assault in Ravana’s palace of sensual pleasures had not been sufficient to break through his wall of self-will. But these were his own fears and anxieties, all too real and possible. Not a succumbing to temptation, merely a glimpse of things that could easily be. Still, he knew, these were no different from
sensual temptations. They were a form of acute battlefield depression. A sinking of the soul into the quicksand of its own anxieties. The darkness that passed through a soldier’s mind when the battle was going against his side, his lines routed, his comrades slain or screaming in anguish around him, his own lifeblood ebbing through his futile fingers, the knowledge that his general had been brought down, defeat certain.
A warm breath wafted upon his cheek, breath so redolent of rotten flesh that even the perfume of sorcery could not conceal its putridness. ‘Still desire to see your lady Sita, vanar?’ She laughed, exuding an amalgam of scents that swirled like colours in his brain, dancing and leaping madly in his drugged consciousness.
Yes, he tried to say. Yes, I will find her, even if it kills me. For that is why I came here. And that is what I will accomplish.
He remembered the phrase the vanar armies had used to cheer Rama at that first gathering. What were the words? Maryada … He fought a new swirl of madness, visions of his family, his mother, his brothers and sisters, all dashing their brains out with rocks, howling and bleeding and broken. Maryada Purshottam … The women lying sprawled across Ravana’s chambers, all with faces resembling that of Sita. Each one of them opened her eyes and looked up at him, and each one smiled an obscene, sensual smile. Maryada Purshottam …
‘Maryada Purshottam Rama,’ he said, gasping, his starved lungs gulping in precious breath.
Supanakha screamed and danced away as he sat up, gasping and heaving. ‘Does nothing bring you down! You damned vanar! What are you made of, anyway? Stone and iron?’
He heaved, bringing out the contents of his stomach. It tasted vile and smelled worse, and he wondered how he could ever have been foolish enough to sample anything in this evil place of deception and desire, then it was all out, seeping over the sandy soil that still looked and felt and smelled so real. He sat up, then rose to his feet, gulping in great lungfuls of air. ‘Maryada Purshottam Rama,’ he said once more. ‘I am the servant of Rama Who Achieves His Goals Against All Odds.’
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 34