It was bit embarrassing as I danced around to avoid the bricks. The dust storm on Dev’s side cleared and I saw him standing exactly where he was before and the curiously there wasn’t even a speck of dust on his jacket or on him. He was clean as a whistle. That really annoyed me, I sent a huge fireball zooming at him angrily, which he deflected with some force. The fireball went zooming away in another direction and hit another tree. The explosion this time was enormous.
“You spend too much energy trying to create fire and wind and whatever. You should use your environment to your advantage,” he shouted at me and didn’t even give me a chance to reply as he sent another brick at me. Only this time it came on twice as fast as before. I barely dodged and looked up to see another one just as it hit me. I was on the ground when another one hit me.
I gritted my teeth and worked on trying to put my hands to preserve my head. But my face was now a mess of scratches and bruises. My jacket was saving me but I was being beaten. I was enraged. I gave in to my anger, let it collect inside me. I created the biggest arc of willed force of my life and unleashed it.
It shattered all the bricks near and far in the air. I was finally able to get into a vertical position. I wasn’t done yet. I still had a lot of adrenaline. I pushed all my anger into my spell and created two streams of fire—one that ripped and screamed through the air and somehow curved both of them, so they approached Devakratha from two sides. Then I pushed the remaining power into another dual stream of fire. This one I curved so that they would approach Devakratha from up above and down below. The four streams raced towards him in a rush that looked spectacular. It lit up the whole ground and the roads.
I staggered back completely sucked of energy, luckily the staff saved me from falling, and I waited to see them fry Devakratha. His face still had no other reaction but a small smirk. He deflected the leading beam of fire onto the other and went back a couple of steps. There was a huge explosion as the two collided. But the other two beams were still going at him and they got pretty close. He waved his arms a bit wildly this time and the two beams just completely disappeared. A deep coldness suddenly touched me as I looked on. He had snuffed my strongest attack like blowing out a candle. But Devakratha’s face no longer held the smirk. He looked shaken and angry.
I had no more energy for magic. I still however had a couple of moves left. I went for the best spell I had with me in my jacket. Getting out of here would be the priority. I removed a small glass bottle, the size of my little finger, from my jacket. It was transparent but if seen closely something could be seen swirling inside it. This spell had taken me many months to construct, it was a piece of powerful magic that would definitely cause severe damage and it was the extreme last resort. I had no other choice.
I tossed it at him and as it was in mid-air between us, I said “Fris”
The bottle exploded into little glass shards and out of the bottle erupted a thirty feet hurricane. It roared its fury at being confined in a bottle. The sound was deafening. The entire ground was covered with flying dust that reduced visibility to almost nothing. I was already headed for the nearest exit which was the railway underpass while the hurricane was headed Devakratha’s way. It sucked everything in its path, even the huge burning branch that had fallen earlier.
It was a big distraction while I rushed to exit. Suddenly the roaring stopped. I turned around to see that in the place of the hurricane was a wee dust devil that wobbled to stay upright. The huge roaring had reduced to an impotent whine as it slowly went away in another direction. I was standing with my jaw dropping looking like an idiot.
He sent a beam of fire at me, and I was too tired and beat up to dodge or block it. It hit me but didn’t burn, instead it spread around me like a golden misty smoke and dissipated. I felt nothing. Puzzled, I looked again at him again. He ripped an arc of blue energy faster than any of my attacks. They reached before I could blink. It carried straight into a tree and I felt my back arch in pain. I lost a few seconds there and when I opened my eyes, I was lying down propped against the tree with blood freely flowing from my mouth. My leather jacket was ripped to shreds.
I watched as Devakratha slowly sauntered over to me and bent down and took the piece of armour from my torn jacket. I was too weak to resist. I heard his smooth voice say.
“Not bad. It was a good attempt, closest I’ve ever come to being hurt in a hundred years”.
I looked into his face and it didn’t look as if he was lying. I didn’t even have the energy for a comeback. I had no doubt that he would kill me now. Instead he ruffled my hair and hissed, “See, when Narimbu told me you had hurt him. I didn’t believe it. I wanted to see it for myself. And I am not disappointed. Since you have given me a good fight, I am going to spare your life. But if you ever interfere in my affairs again, I will first track down all those near to you and kill them, then I will undo all your work and make sure that your name is mud. Finally I will kill you.”
This was so chilling, I felt a current of fear travel up my spine. He was on one knee still examining the armour piece and put into his blazer. He said, “How did you think you could defeat me? Me? A Jamedar of Thugee ”.
My head snapped up and looked at him. I was not looking at a human, just a monster in human form. My terror must have showed in my face. He patted my cheek twice and walked away whistling leaving me utterly defeated.
Chapter 10: The Thug
After a while of just sitting there, I somehow found the energy to leave by the railway underpass and limped home. I tried calling Alagaraja, but my phone did not switch on. I called him from a pay phone and found him waiting for me outside my apartment bleary eyed with a first-aid kit.
“You really have to find another decent job. Its late.”
As we entered, I shook my head and placed my fingers over my lips indicating Kajur to be silent and he nodded. Raja helped patch me up, while I was reliving the fight all over again in my head. The things he said were impossible. He implied that he was over a hundred years old. And that he was a Jamedar of the Thugee.
“Man, did you get hit by a truck or something? You should have this checked out by a doctor.”
“Later. Have you ever seen a hundred year old man who looks like forty.”
“What? No, of course not.”
I told him what had happened. He listened grimly.
“Ok, I didn’t understand a lot of what you said. But what or who is Jamedar of Thugee?”
“The Thugee were a cult who worshipped Kali. They existed from India over 700 hundred years ago. Origins unknown. They were first recorded way back in the year 1356. They were brutal killers who would befriend travellers and travel with them for hundreds of miles waiting for the right moment. The British wiped them out during their colonial rule or so they thought. The Thugee are religious fanatics, whose victims are estimated to be over 2 million people, the original number is unknown. A Jamedar is the leader of the group. Inhuman and practitioners of black magic, they would perform bloodless kills and follow a certain ritualistic way during each phase of the murder ‘cause they believed it would give them powers. Actually the English word thug derives from ‘Thugee’”
“That’s sick. And this guy said he is over hundred years old?”
“Yes, I don’t know if that’s possible. But what’s worse is that if he was over a hundred years old, that would explain his enormous power. He overruled me without effort. ”
We tried reasoning it out but there was no rational explanation. Alagaraja was scared but he was a small part of the Guardian network so he stayed and helped with finding out more about the Thugee. The information just increased my fear. The cult was believed to be wiped out but rumours indicated that the cult changed tactics and went underground. And that they still existed today. Raja left after bandaging me up. There were many bruises and my jacket was gone, completely shredded, all the protective spells nullified.
His threat to me was really cold, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I was still
scared but had to go on. I had given away my only advantage. But I still had a card up my sleeve. I had two choices now—one to not believe him and go ahead and take him on, or believe him. If there was even a remote chance that he was telling the truth, then I was screwed, dealing with something way beyond my league. The Guardians would want to know.
It was my duty to let them know. I sat up gingerly to go get a drink. I have a little spell that reduces the temperature of the room. It saves a lot of electricity for air-conditioning. “Dese,” I murmured as I opened the fridge, nothing happened. I tried again and no effect, the room was still hot. I tried another spell, and no go. I tried everything, and nothing was happening. A sudden fear gripped me. I did use a lot of energy, but small spells should have worked. Did I exhaust all my energy? An image from the fight came back, a golden misty smoke all over me that did nothing. Did it mess with me somehow?
I was now powerless, I was a wizard without magic. I would be a useless Guardian. If I was unsure before, this cleared it up. I have to contact the Guardians immediately. I was wondering if anything worse could happen when I remembered my phone was broken. I opened it and saw that the inside of the phone was burned out. It was black all over but the phone was undamaged on the outside. Interesting, I didn’t get hit by anything that could cause this.
But I had thrown around a lot of magic energy, if that had affected the phone by frying the electronics inside, then that raises interesting questions … a lot of magical energy messed with electronics. Great, now I had to buy a new expensive smart phone and I did not have enough money for it. I had a smaller inexpensive regular phone that I used to contact the Guardians. I was given the name of a temple and a mantra, which is a short spell that defines the temple. It was like a password. That was the meeting place where I was to meet an Elder Guardian. Elders are Guardians with incredible power, the very first Guardians, the ones who form the leaders of the council that controls our activities. I hadn’t met one yet.
Indian temples are marvels of architecture. There are innumerable, incredible structures with architecture unseen anywhere in the world. All discovered and built over thousands of years ago. The older temples built according to Vedic scriptures were very special. Basically a temple is supposed to be built on a serene place, preferably outside the city. The outer structure should be rectangular made of stone to focus energies towards the centre. Four is a magical number for Hindus. There are four Vedas, four Yugas, four stages of life, four heads of Brahma and I could go on. The centre of the structure is built differently in different parts of the country. But at its core is the small windowless square structure that holds the idol where only priests are allowed. This chamber is called the Garbagriha.
Underneath the idol several copper plates are placed. These plates and the carefully designed core attract magnetic and electric energy. This creates a small focus point of positive energy. All temples designed as per the strictures create this focal point of energy. This energy is positive and somehow connected. So these temples are interconnected in a very intricate way.
Here is the magical part. The inside and outside of the Garbagriha has several symbols, especially on the back wall behind the idols. These symbols are ancient, symbolizing the deity and the temple itself. These symbols can be translated into a mantra, a shloka or spell. The mantra of a temple defines it and identifies the deity who resides in it. The back wall on the outside of Garbagriha is also decorated with symbols. Devotees after praying in the main chamber, go around the Garbagriha from the outside to soak up this energy. So I could walk into any temple, go the back wall of the Garbagriha on the outside, utter the mantra of another temple and that would transport me to that temple.
This method of transport is known only to the Guardians, and the mantra of a temple is highly guarded and given out only under special occasions. To avoid this sacred method of transport to fall into wrong hands, the ancients included a lock mechanism. The destination temple can be locked so no one can transport into it.
After getting the mantra of temple where I was supposed to meet the Elder, I left my apartment after a bath and went to a nearby temple that I knew had been built in the older style. This temple was simply beautiful, even though it was built with modern techniques, all the older symbols and magic were still there. I could feel it. Since it was still early morning, there were very few people. I offered my prayers and went to the back wall and found the symbol I needed. I gently placed my hand on it and uttered the mantra of the destination temple. I felt the warm feeling spread through my body and saw a white light cover me completely. When I opened my eyes again, I was in another temple, a huge one. This one was considerably older.
I had been transported. This temple wasn’t even in the same city. I recognized the architecture as the ones used in Madurai. Avoiding the strange looks I received, cause I must have appeared out of nowhere, I quickly went to find a priest. I told him who I was here to see and he led me to another inner chamber in one corner of the temple.
I walked into a wide open area, which had a raised platform, reaching the waist, made of stone. This platform had a tree underneath which sat a man. He had the typical priestly look with saffron robes and a long beard with wise eyes. There were also several people standing in line to see him even this early. Most of them women, I took my place at the back of the line. Each person would walk upto the Elder and speak to him for some time. Most of them seemed to be sharing their troubles and the Elder seemed to be giving them advice. This practice is still common all over India in temples.
As the line slowly moved forwards, I let my eyes stray and saw a couple of girls looking at me from a distance away and giggling. I must have looked weird with my outlandish clothes and bruised face. They were the cute and demure dressed traditionally with flowers in their hair. I turned away with a little sigh, this was no time. Besides, my experience had taught me to be more careful around cute girls than beautiful girls. Cute girls have a way of weaving into the heart faster than beautiful girls. Around beautiful girls, I am distinctly uncomfortable and make a fool of myself. But cute is nice, I feel more at home and fall for them faster. A beautiful girl makes me wonder and question myself—do I deserve her, but a cute girl makes me feel safe.
My misery seemed to amuse them even more and one of them gave me a smile. I returned it by reflex and turned away sheepishly running my hand through my hair. I didn’t even have my smartphone to impress them. I was thinking of a cool magic trick, when I remembered I couldn’t even do that. I was getting closer to the Elder; thoughts of the girls were driven away from my mind. He looked like a kind old man and his beard was really white. I waited patiently for my turn.
As he saw me, he slowly got up and asked the others to wait for him for a while.
“Walk with me,” he said to me in a very calm voice.
“I am Elder Madhava. I received your message. What troubles you, Guardian?”
I described the events of the last few days to him as we walked around the beautiful enclosure. He listened without interrupting. Once I was done, a great weight seemed to have been lifted. He asked for a few more details and I gave it to him. Let the big guys deal with this nut, I just have to make sure that I free Prajwal, once this was done.
“Ok. I understand. I’m afraid he wasn’t lying. This is not the first time that Devakratha has menaced us. I know of him. If the Thugee are back, then this is indeed a cause for concern.”
“So its true then? He is over a hundred years old?”
“Oh yes. He is over three hundred years old actually.”
“But how?” I asked
“The Thugee’s use of black magic is well known to us. They gain immense power through their heritage. It is said that the great goddess Kali created the very first Thugees herself. They soon swept far and wide, but the Jamedar would always be related to the original Thugees. They have gained enormous power through their dark rituals.”
I noticed that he didn’t answer me directly but instead do
dged the question. I didn’t pursue it.
“So what’s the plan?”
He stopped walking near a bunch of flowering plants and stood looking at me solemnly.
“Well, that is upto you.” He said.
“Uhh, well, I can track him and with the help of the Elders, we can find out what he is planning.”
“Son, I’m sorry. But the council is already occupied. The Asuras have risen once again and attacked Devaloka. We are holding back the Asuras at strategic points and we are already stretched to our limits. I am here to collect certain provisions and other weapons. I will be off soon. This task has been given to you, you will have to find the way.”
“But Elder Madhava, my powers seem to be depleted. Even at my best, I was hardly able to touch him.”
He motioned for my arm and took my hand in his. He closed his eyes. After about thirty seconds, he reopened them and said, “You chakras have been disturbed. They are out of balance, hence the problem with reaching your magic”.
“What? That no-good scumbag messed with my chakras?” I said indignantly .
Elder Bhairava smiled “Don’t worry, it is not permanent. Your chakras are not some organ in your body that can be damaged. It is like a well from which you access your power and it cannot be completely removed. They should realign themselves soon. But until then it will be difficult for you to do any spells. It will tax you deeply.”
“But the date of the Yagna is approaching soon,” I pleaded.
He looked at me with a little sympathy, “I’m afraid that the task assigned to you is not simple. Or easy. Yet you are the one, the Guardian, who has been assigned the task of stopping Devakratha. My advice to you is, don’t underestimate yourself. Devakratha may be a Jamedar of Thugee, and may be powerful. But he is arrogant, too sure of himself. Use this against him, knowledge is power and after all, this is the information age.”
The Weapon of the Devas Page 8