by Varun Sayal
Controlling herself she spoke again, with determination. “Now I want to get away from this land. Somewhere far, where no one can hurt me and my son. I have escaped many times, but they always caught me, as they did today. For now, they are insensate, as you say, but when they wake up, they will come for me again. I am scared, Gurudev. Please help me.”
Rigu consoled her. “You don’t have to worry anymore. They aren’t going anywhere.”
“But no jail can hold them. You know better than me that these time-demons are not tied to their flesh. They can uproot their consciousness out of a body, ride the waves of time, and enter another body at another time. How can anyone in this universe subjugate them? And how could God create such evil beings and impart such powers to them? Is there even a benevolent God who cares for us?”
“Kid, they may be the masters of time, but they are not above the Goddess of time, Trikaaldevi. She exists in all time-slices and watches over everything. Since Kumbh and Vetri can manipulate time, I will put them in a place where there is no concept of time—a Kaalshoonya, a zilch-space devoid of time as a dimension. They won’t be able to escape anywhere from that prison. Don’t worry. My disciples will be here shortly. They’ll bind these demons in heavy-duty metal chains and take them to my science-sanctum. I’ve already planned to send them to that prison. Let’s leave this place. My ashram is nearby. Sisters there have good medical training. They will take care of you and your son.”
Dhara finally wore a bleak smile on her face. For a moment, she wanted to believe that everything would be all right. Deep in her heart, she was skeptical—there was no way this was all over. She wiped her tears, touched the feet of Rigu to take his blessings.
“I am sorry, Gurudev, I didn’t even introduce myself. My name is Dhara. And my son’s name is …”
“I know. His name is Tejaswi. And you call him Tej.”
2.
University of Time-Readers
Rigu’s Ashram | Few Hours Later
Rigu, his twenty disciples, and sixty security guards entered his ashram, carrying the giant bodies of Kumbh and Vetri. It was akin to a grand procession, both eerie and prodigious. Ten fortified guards walked in the front, with large fiery torches held high, leading the way; dawn was a few hours off, and the night was at its peak darkness.
Following them was Rigu on foot, with a prayer on his lips and his head held high. He had a necklace of black beads, on which he kept the count of his incantation. Alongside Rigu was a small palanquin with four sturdy bearers carrying Dhara and Tej. Behind them were Kumbh and Vetri, each carried on a huge wooden cart, one after the other, their bodies tied in thick iron chains. Ten muscular men pulled each cart, while twenty armed guards accosted them. Ten armed men walked at the end of the convoy in an attack stance.
Rigu had strong relations with several neighboring kingdoms. The cutting-edge research happening in the ashram was shared with the kings regularly. In return, those monarchs invested in the ashram’s upkeep and security. They provided financial help and hired soldiers for the safekeeping of the establishment. Those were the troops Rigu was using for the safety of this convoy.
Over five hundred inhabitants of the ashram gathered around the gates. Students, medical staff, cooks, gardeners and security personnel; all were there to witness the spectacle. They looked on in awe as the parade entered the ashram. It was no small event, after all—those were two of the most nefarious time-demons.
These lethal legends had carved tales of blood, gore and senseless violence on the slates of time throughout the ages. The specters who had haunted the world of humans for millennia had finally been apprehended. The herculean task Rigu had been planning for fifteen years was over.
As soon as Rigu entered the ashram premises, he scattered the crowd. He didn’t want to make a large display out of this capture. Then he started assigning duties to the staff.
Rigu sent Kumbh and Vetri to a fortified shack, which was to be under heavy guard at all times. He knew if they woke up, they would escape from those mortal bodies within seconds—although he had other plans for them. He sent Dhara and Tej to the medical center, where the staff would attend to their wounds.
Rigu himself headed to the most secluded part of the ashram. It was called the research center for hazardous chemicals.
Twenty security personnel saluted and gave way for Rigu to enter via a large door into the center. But “hazardous chemicals” was a front, to divert attention away from the isolated premises. It was actually a secret center of excellence established by Rigu fifteen years ago. The place housed over three hundred special disciples, gifted men and women with the power to read time. These individuals were called Time-Readers.
Two years ago, Rigu had divided the whole center into three groups. He named them Vart, the present, Bhavi, the future and Kara, the prison. Each group comprised a hundred time-readers, seven sketch artists, three scribes, and one group leader. Sketch artists sat with the time-readers and helped capture the time-visions through vivid sketches. Scribes documented the visions and organized them using a multi-layered archiving system.
Rigu met the team leaders of each of the groups. He liked to address them by their designations, Vart-pati, Bhavi-pati, and Kara-pati.
“Vart-pati, I am delighted with your results.” Rigu placed his hand on Vart-pati’s head as he bowed to touch the guru’s feet. “We’ve found and captured Kumbh and Vetri at their weakest point. They were alone, without their security, outside their territory. And the best part is that they were drunk. Their judgment was shaky, and their instincts were weak. Exactly as I wanted them. You actually served them to me on a plate.” Rigu smiled.
Vart-pati was overjoyed but remained humble in his demeanor. “The team and I are ecstatic over our victory, and are ready for any further services.”
“Ah. Victory is still out of our grasp.” Rigu grimaced. “For which I will look forward to Kara-pati. What do we have? I need a stable time-prison, and I need it now. The paralytic chemical will keep them asleep at most till sunrise. After which they’ll wake up, leave their bodies, and be gone forever.”
Kara-pati gulped. “We have a viable contender for a time-prison, Gurudev, but …”
“But?”
“If you can come with me to our chamber, I can explain to you a few options we have and the most pressing choice.”
“All right. I’ll spend the next few hours with the Kara group, as time is of the essence. I’ll meet both of you later.”
“Before you go, Gurudev, there was an accident.” Bhavi-pati fumbled for words.
“Accident? How?”
“Two of the time-readers, they were following Kumbh’s path to the future. They saw him entering the supermassive black hole.” Bhavi-pati wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“Let me guess, they decided to peek inside?”
“Yes, Gurudev.”
Rigu clenched his eyes and grimaced in pain. He had given all time-readers in the university a stringent mandate. They were not allowed to direct their time-reading visions beyond the event horizon of a black hole. Rigu had cast this rule in stone. He knew that black holes not only captured light but also engulfed time through invisible dimensions. Thus, a time-reader looking inside a black hole would lose himself in its endless mazes.
Only time-demons could use black holes as time-portals. Yet, once in a while, adventurous time-readers committed the cardinal mistake. Their sheer curiosity led to their cognitive demise.
“As a leader of Bhavi group you are supposed to set up best practices of time-visioning the future. Why this slip?” Rigu was stern.
Bhavi-Pati avoided Rigu’s gaze.
Rigu wanted to chastise Bhavi-Pati more. But he knew this was not the best time. “How are they doing now?”
“They have both lost their senses, Gurudev. Right after their time-reading, they got aggressive. They defecated in
public, tore off their clothes, and even attacked a few other disciples. We have kept them under tranquilizers, bound in chains.”
“All right Bhavi-Pati. We will house them in our center for mental health for the rest of their lives. Also, inform their dependents. The ashram will take care of their families until they have another breadwinner.”
“Will that involve a lot of money, Gurudev?”
“You let me take care of the finances, Bhavi-pati. I will be meeting several kings over the course of the next few months. In the past, many have shown an interest in funding the extensive research we undertake here. Now, let me speak with Kara-pati about a critical issue at our hands.”
Rigu sent other two team leads away and walked over to the Kara chamber.
The main office of the Kara chamber was a small room. It had a few chairs and a table on which several sketches and documents were spread out. The Kara group had the most daunting task of all: to find a time-prison. A time prison was a place, a realm or even a virtual reality where time was non-existent, or immaterial.
Rigu knew that a time-prison was the only place where the time-demons could be incarcerated. There were places where time was absent, but finding these places was like looking for an atomic needle in a cosmic haystack. The outcome of this group was the most critical and Rigu was most worried about it.
“So, what do you have for me, Kara-pati?” Rigu smiled. “Into which timeless space of the past do you want to throw Kumbh and Vetri?” He could sense the positive nervousness in Kara-pati. He was going to unravel the results of his past two years’ hard work.
“Not the past, Gurudev, the future. We have located a time-prison in the future,” Kara-pati blabbered. He handed some documents over to Rigu, who started flipping through them.
The documents impressed Rigu, but he showed no emotion. Finding a time prison was no mean task. Finding one in the future was even more remarkable. The future, being the sum product of trillions of choices taken by billions of individuals, was forever tumultuous and flickering. The solution proposed in those documents was a bit far-fetched, but not impossible.
“This is good, Kara-pati.”
“Do you think it will work, Gurudev?”
“I don’t doubt it will work. But unlike the time-prisons which we’ve encountered in the past, will it hold the fort for eternity? I don’t think so.”
“What should we do, then?”
“Let’s go ahead with the incarceration. We have no choice.”
“Will you be there, Gurudev?”
“Of course I will be there. What kind of question is that? Let’s start the preparations.”
“I will get on it right away.” Kara-pati bowed and rushed out of the room.
Rigu closed his eyes and went into deep contemplation. His fifteen years of hard work were finally culminating, yet victory looked more distant now than ever. There are times when after conquering one significant milestone in the journey, we realize the benign ignorance we had about the colossal challenges posed by the next milestone. The work was not yet done. Rigu got up and walked towards the Bhavi group’s chamber.
Bhavi-pati welcomed Rigu in his office. Bhavi group’s single focus was to conduct periodic readings of a specific apocalyptic event from the distant future. Kumbh and Vetri were a part—rather, the cause—of this apocalyptic event. After their recent capture, Rigu was eager to know if group Bhavi was witnessing a change in the outcome of this future event.
“Hope you’ve tied together the time-visions of the apocalypse from all your time readers. If so, I’d like to review them.”
“Yes, Gurudev.”
“And do you see a change in the visions?”
“There are many futures happening, Gurudev, so there are changes.”
“What did I tell you, Bhavi-pati? I don’t care about the many futures. I only care for the dominant future, the vision which is being seen by most of your time-readers.”
“Yes. There is a slight change in the dominant future, Gurudev. Vetri is no longer seen in the visions. It’s only Kumbh.”
“That’s strange—they’re always together. Anyhow, the future is what it is. We can only hope to change it. Tell me. Today, we are going to imprison both of them. Do you feel there would be a change in the visions after that?”
“I am not sure, Gurudev.”
“All right. Get the people together. Each time-reader, scribe, and sketch artist should receive the message. We will narrate the apocalypse to everyone.”
“But why, Gurudev?”
“The disciples of the time-readers university have worked hard for this future-altering mission. They have put countless hours over the past few years and slogged until this very moment. In a few hours, we will work towards imprisoning Kumbh and Vetri forever. I don’t know how that will turn out. It might have the gravest of consequences. The pupils in this center have a right to know what we’ve worked for, and what impact it may have on the future.”
Bhavi-pati’s ecstatic smile shifted to dour nervousness. He had assumed that the guru would listen to his final version of the future and pat him on the back for work well done. But now the Rigu would display his years of toil out in the open, in front of the whole university. He had not prepared for this kind of scrutiny.
“Is there a problem, Bhavi-pati?”
“No, Gurudev.”
“Go ahead, gather them. They should be ready to hear a message from the future.”
3.
Trisillex, the Devil From 2072 AD
A few minutes later, a crowd of disciples gathered in the university’s large central hall. They faced a dais where Guru Rigu and three group leaders were to be seated. Folks in the crowd chit-chatted, joking, speculating on why they were gathered there. Barring a few rare visits to the outer world, they were not allowed to leave the time-reader university. But the word of Kumbh and Vetri’s capture had spread like wildfire. Each of them was eager to hear more from Rigu.
The crowd bustled and murmured until Rigu and the three group leads entered the room. The noise went down a few notches, but some folks continued their conversations.
Rigu stood on the dais with a smile on his face, waiting for the crowd to placate, and didn’t say a word. He kept observing the crowd, taking in their youthful energy. A few in the crowd noticed that Rigu had arrived on the stage, and they started shushing each other. Within a few seconds, there was silence in the whole chamber, enough to hear a pin drop.
At last, Rigu spoke. “For a long time, I didn’t know who my enemy was. By my enemy, I mean the enemy of all of humankind. I was a strong, capable time-reader, like you young souls. I could see the blood, the gore, the violence we humans inflict upon each other in the past, present, and future. I used to wonder why it happens.
“Eventually, I realized the existence of some evil, power-hungry entities who were behind most of the carnage in the world. These entities are what we call time-demons. These parasites have immense powers. Their immortality and ability to travel through time render them invincible.
“As I came in touch with more seasoned time-readers, I learned more about these devils and their atrocities against humankind. That is when I pledged to capture two of the most notorious time-demons. Today, I am too old to read time visions with clarity. Age has corroded my abilities. But I am fortunate enough to have each of you with me. To fight alongside me in this righteous quest.”
Rigu took a pause and looked at the crowd. Their inquisitive faces fixed on his own.
“Now, you must be wondering why I called you to this chamber in the middle of the night. My children, I have great news. I’m sure some of you have heard it by now. But it’s my duty to apprise you that after years of meticulous planning, and through efforts by some of you, Kumbh and Vetri have been finally captured.”
“Yay!” one of the disciples in the crowd screamed. The whole h
orde broke into loud jeers of victory and started cheering. Rigu raised his hands and signaled the crowd to calm down. It was a full minute before the mob of young men and women fell silent.
“As I speak, Kara-pati is making arrangements for us to put these time-demons into a deep, dark pit—a prison from which they, hopefully, cannot escape again. Their absence from this world would be our best gift to mankind, to the generations of the future. But today, I want to reveal to you why I, fifteen years ago, embarked on this mission of capturing Kumbh and Vetri. Why was it so critical to capture them?”
The crowd was more anxious now. One-third of them were from the Bhavi group, and they knew exactly what Guru was going to say. They had been concentrating on the events of the future for the past two years. The others were eager to know.
“I tasked the Bhavi group with the reading of four years of time in the future, from the year 2069 to 2073 AD, which interest us. After Kumbh and Vetri’s capture, I asked them to do a complete read of these four years once again. The idea behind this re-read was to see if we were able to change the outcome.”
Rigu made eye contact with Bhavi-pati, who nodded in affirmation.
“One of the time-readers from the Bhavi group will narrate this vision of an apocalyptic future. Being time-readers, you know that in the distant future, we would be a scientifically advanced civilization. The terminology—the names, places, and technologies which you hear about during this narration—should not be a shock to you. After hearing this, if you have questions, please reach out to your respective group leaders. You may also talk to me later. Through this narration, I want you to understand the gravity of the righteous cause we are fighting for. I want you to assimilate the damning consequences of the apocalypse we are fighting to avert.”