I kneeled and requested for guidance, courage and forgiveness for my many sins. As I was kneeling, I had the strange feeling of being watched. The feeling was in the pit of my stomach that made the hair on the back of my neck rise up.
I immediately turned around and saw nothing. I was extra wary as I looked for the symbol Kajur had showed me. I soon found it. It was at the entrance of the Garbagriha.
The little symbol that Kajur had shown me was way at the top almost seven feet up and right next to the entrance of the Garbagriha. I could just barely reach up. I touched the symbol and said the mantra and hoped that it worked or else I would have to face Devakratha alone. Nothing happened for a while, I was looking left a right to see if anything happened, but nothing did. Then I felt a small breeze on my hand, the one touching the symbol. I looked up to see a face in the stone. The symbol was on its forehead. I was touching its forehead, I quickly stepped back.
I saw two eyes glow beneath the symbol, the eyes were catlike. Then in a sudden motion, the yaksa broke free from the rock and did so with such violence as if the stone had imprisoned him and he wanted to tear it apart. The nearly seven feet tall yaksa was cracking his neck and flexing his shoulder and throwing off small stones that clattered onto the ground. Boy, was this guy dressed to the nines. He looked every inch like the legendary warrior yaksas, I had heard of. He was completely covered with weapons. He had an armour and a war nicked helmet. But everywhere I could see weapons, weapons of another era. He had daggers, small knives and two swords. The swords were very different, they were curved twice. With a jolt I realized that this sword is called a Kaduthala. And it was used by the practioners of the Kalariyapattu, the martial art of Kerala. It is said that Parashurama, sixth avatar of Vishnu, himself founded Kalari. I recognized the urumi belt. There were two of them and freakishly long, almost six feet.
The urumi is a sort of a coiled sword. Like a whip but only made of metal and having sharp edges. The yaksas’ had jagged edges. It takes a lot of skill and ability to handle even one, as they are incredibly dangerous and unpredictable. But he had two. I also recognized the weapon maduvu, or maru or more popularly called fakir’s horns. He had a pair of them as well. The maru is a weapon made using deer or antler horns which are tied together and the ends are made of metal and are sharp. The way he had come out suggested that he had been in the stone. Mayasura must have bound him to this temple. That was cruel.
The yaksa was looking down at me with what could only be called an unfriendly expression. He looked like he was in bloodlust. Well, that was going to be sated soon enough. I pointed in the direction of the hall.
“The temple is being attacked. Defend it.” I said.
He nodded and was about to stomp off when I stopped him. He glared at me with those cat eyes.
I said “Whoa, it’s not that simple. There is someone very powerful there and also there are close to forty Tinshas. We have to work together.” I said in Sanskrit. He stood still staring at me. I was starting to dislike those eye. They were ruthless eyes, with no mercy or fear in them. Like the eye of a tiger. I told him to wait for my signal. And then attack the Tinshas. I would keep Dev in play and then the yaksa could get past the Tinshas and reach him. How he reached him or what he did to him was not my problem.
He stomped off after that without having said a word. I reached for my bags and setup the stuff I needed. Then I too went away in the same direction as the yaksa. I reached the hall and saw that my little trick was working. Things were just about to go to hell in a hand basket.
Devakratha, who was pouring ghee into the fire, had noticed a lull. He looked around as if to try and sense the source of the disturbance.
Well, that was my cue. I summoned a spell to take away all the heat in the room. The huge yagna fire became smaller but did not die out. The tremendous build up of energy would keep it going for hours. Dev was mad. He stood up, looked around and shouted into the hall.
“Who dares interfere with my yagna?”
“A Kaalarakshaka,” came a stern voice from the darkness. It was mine.
I stepped into the light and walked over to him. The silence was deafening. I could hear the click of my staff as I walked.
Devakratha scoffed “You! You are going to try and stop my yagna! You’re nothing but a pest, an annoyance. I have been gentle with you so far, now you’re gonna feel so much pain that you’re going to wish you were dead. But I won’t kill you. Not so soon, you will suffer for this.”
“Yeah, yeah. First of all, stop calling it your yagna. You stole it from Prajwal and Suryaprakash.”
I could see his eyes popping out. “I did not steal anything! They were too weak to defend it. Only the strong must rule the world. That has always been the way.”
“Strong? Only those who can answer to their conscience are strong. You ignore yours. Only those who can carry a hundred hardships and face a hundred more are strong. You are just a bully.”
He had regained his cool as he answered, “Ok, that’s ok with me. I can be a bully. And right now this bully is going to hurt you”.
“Nope. Not this time. This time I’m gonna park my foot up your ass, bitch!”
And I gave the signal. The yaksa fairly exploded from a dark corner wielding the urumi. Both of them. It was mesmerizing. He was cutting, and tearing into the Tinshas. They couldn’t even get near him. It was like he carried a circle of death and was inviting the Tinshas in.
In the meantime, Dev shot fire at me. I blocked it with ease. My newfound power along with the staff roared in me. The lance of fire only got bigger and hotter. I put some more power into the staff and sent a lance of fire on my own. But that didn’t work, the heat was too much and Dev’s fire was cutting through mine.
I dropped the spell and dropped myself. I tucked and rolled to another spot. Dev turned to face me. That was intentional. I wanted to position him so that I would be in front and the Yaksa could approach from the back. I could see him now. The Tinshas had fallen upon him like dogs and had managed to take one of the urumis away. He was still wielding the other one with deadly effect. But the numbers were heavily against him.
I thought about my earlier idea of using magic differently, about how everything Dev did was perfect hence his spell were more effective. His style was pure like Mozart. While was I good at it I was not as good as Dev. So I wanted to change styles, try something like a DJ. I wanted to mix it up. So I went deep into myself to the source of my power, in my mind it’s like a pool of clear water. Instead of using the techniques that were taught to me, I let my natural instinct take over. I immersed myself in that pool and let the water flow off me as it would instead of constraining it with rules and structure and harmony.
What I got was a splitting headache. And also I could see a green aura surrounding my body. It pervaded into my very being and became just another part of me like my blood or heart. I then extended my arm with the staff out and whispered to my element. “Agni” The fire that came out of the staff was way more powerful and hotter than any I had created before. The flame was entirely blue. It wasn’t organised or in a perfect lance. But it went in Dev’s direction with a vengence. He was shocked. He barely just raised an arm to block and it hit and threw him back. But he managed to stay up and countered with his own lance of yellow fire. They met with a fiery explosion of sparks, and I saw with joy that my blue flame was closer to Devakratha.
He seemed to realize it too and started focusing all his strength on the lance of fire. This was perfect for me because the yaksa was coming up behind him.I kept up the pressure although I had a pounding headache now. It seemed to be only thing that Devakratha could not counter. Everything else I had he could dismiss with ease. The yaksa was still fighting furiously. The other urumi had also gone, he had the two kadathala’s out and was cleaving the Tinshas. It was like the Tinshas were entering a buzz saw and getting sliced to pieces. The fighting technique of yaksas was wildly different from any other swordfighting I had seen. He didn’t bob,weave,
pirouette and dance around. He just went at it like a farmer cutting wheat. But his moves were accurate and deadly. The yaksa would swing the kadathalas with all his strength and the keep up the momentum. And any opposing Tinsha was cleaved completely through. The yaksa’s kadathala went through the Tinsha swords like a knife through butter. He was cutting them down like animals. But he was still heavily outnumbered and they were coming onto him from all directions.
On my end, things were not so good as well. Dev couldn’t counter me, so he was trying to overpower me. He kept throwing more power into his lance of fire. And it took everything I had to keep up my blue flame. But he was clearly stronger, with a furious roar, he pushed forward. His lance of fire was getting closer to me. Already the sparks were falling on my hand. The staff was shaking in my hand. It looked like his lance of fire would hit me. Then he could take out the yaksa and continue the yagna for the Gandiva.
I dug deeper than ever before and threw everything I had I had into the staff. I held nothing back, all my emotions of hate, guild, sadness, pride and anger. Everything. And over all of these, it was the image of the little girl that made me push myself harder than ever before. The headache turned into a body ache. My whole body was paying the price for this act. But my blue flame grew wildly and spread around his straight lance of fire and overcame it. It went streaking back to him, and for the first time I saw fear on Devakratha’s face. With savage satisfaction, I kept up the stream of power. Devakratha was barely holding on. I could see beads of sweat all over his slimy face.
One of my eyes filled with blood, and I couldn’t see out of it. With the other, I could see the yaksa, he had lost the kadathalas, but there were only fifteen or so Tinshas still fighting. The amount of carnage was unbelievable. Body parts lay all around him and the blood covered the floor obscuring the gem encrusted tiles. The yaksa himself was cut in multiple places but he showed no signs to slowing. He was now using the marus and fighting hand-to-hand. Stabbing and parrying the Tinshas, going low and tearing the hamstrings of the Tinshas. But even as I watched, five of them rushed to him and forced him into a corner, one of his hands was bleeding heavily.
He lost the marus as well. It didn’t seem to bother him all that much. With an earsplitting war-cry, He bent down and tore the huge root of a tree right out of the stone and swing in a wide arc right into the face of an advancing tinsha, I could hear the skull break all the way over here. He was swinging the huge tree root like a mace, and hit three of them who went down.
He took out a short sword, I don’t know from where, and went on the offensive. The Tinshas hounded him like wolves. Striking and withdrawing, snapping at his heels, throwing knives at his back. But the yaksa had it all covered. He leapt very high and threw small knives like darts. Three more went down. The leap was very much a Kalari leap. The short sword was a spinning wheel of death. He was my only hope to end Devakratha
I was hurt bad and going down. I was on one knee, but still maintaining the enormous amount of energy required to power the blue flame. The green aura around me had gone. My arm muscles had seized up. But I still gave it everything. And it was keeping my powerful opponent at bay. My vision was dimming further. But I could see that the yaksa was close, any moment now I would see a sword swing through Devakratha’s head.
But the yaksa went down. He was in a crouching position. He was cut and bleeding profusely and a Tinsha raised its sword high to cut his neck. Instead, the yaksa snatched a Tinsha sword lying on the ground and cut his opponent’s abdomen and entrails poured out.
There was nothing in between the yaksa and Devakratha but the yagna fire which was atleast five feet high. The yaksa bent low and jumped. The leap was atleast ten feet high. His sword arm was outstretched. He was in the perfect freaking position above the fire bearing down on Devakratha. He hung there motionless like an albatross over the waves, it seemed to me.
“ENOUGH!’
With a roar that shook the walls, Devakratha lashed out. The force that struck me threw a full a fifteen yards. Without even turning, he sent another arc of force at the yaksa. The instant it struck him, he shattered into a thousand pieces of stone that flew back over the now dead Tinshas.
“YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT THE JAMEDAR OF THUGEE!! THE GANDIVA IS MINE!” That echoed throughout the temple and in my head. I had hit a stone wall with bone shattering force without any protection. I felt faint and feeble lying on that gem encrusted floor.
“Bring him here.” He shouted at his men. They had wisely stayed out the yaksa’s way and our fight. Little Johnny alone had entered the fight with the yaksa and he had a huge bleeding cut in his chest and face to show for it. They dragged me over to Devakratha. Little Johnny was livid, he punched me in the stomach with wild abandon, his fists were like hammers crushing my organs to pulp.
Memories of a drugged night returned and my body automatically withdrew without my permission. All was nothing for a while. Sometime later, I was being held up and looking into Devakratha’s face who was shouting something at me. It took sometime before my ears could focus, and I heard him.
“What did you do? I know it! You did something. Tell me what you did now!! Its not working. I threw in the last item, the armour piece into the fire and chanted all the mantras. The Gandiva should have appeared by now.”
“Wh-what?” I said
He himself came closer and grabbed me by the collar and dragged me near the fire. I couldn’t feel the heat from the fire, my pain levels were maxed out, I guess.
He held me up and shook me while asking “What did you do?”
Fear is a deadly enemy. My body and mind screamed at me that I had done everything and it was over. So I told him.
“I jammed your yagna.”
“What,” he said
“I jammed it.”
I was not brain addled. It was true. Ever since our first fight, I had been thinking about something that had been bugging me. We had thrown around enormous power and that had damaged my smartphone. So magic damages electronics. So why not the other way around? Why couldn’t electronics affect magic. Science and magic are separate. Like the two sides of a coin. They both may be part of a bigger spectrum, but they are two different things and like all things in this world, they were interconnected in a way that could never be completely defined.
So I had got me a big ass radio signal jammer. Like military grade. That jammed everything in the viscinity. Including sensitive magic, like the yagna. That’s what was in the bags. I had assembled it in the Garbagriha.
Devakratha was still shaking me.
“Explain.”
“Your yagna is like a big antenna that calls out to the Gandiva. So I got a radio signal jammer, like they use in airports to block mobile calls, and put it in here. And it is now blocking all communications in this area.”
“But I have drawn the Circles of Protection.” And he showed me the various symbols and circles around us.
“Yes, but those symbols protect you from magical interference. Not interference from outside the realm of magic.”
From his flabbergasted face, it was obvious that he knew next to nothing about what I was talking. I seized my only chance. While he held my collar, I threw a vicious head butt straight to his nose. He let go and brought his hands upto his face. Like I knew he would. I grabbed them before they reached his face and used the rebound from my first headbutt to throw and even harder one. This time I heard his nose clearly break. He struggled and pulled away from me. But not before I yanked the ruby red ring from his finger.
Little Johnny was next. In my weakened state, I threw a punch straight to his face. He caught it easily just before it hit is face. But that’s ok. I knew he would do that. His face was now inches away from my fist. My little pinky finger went up.
“Sqqeedoosh” I said. And my toxic spray spread into his beady little eyes. It was the ace up my sleeve. Literally.
I had cranked up the potency to acid-like levels and from the way Little Johnny was screaming his head off,
I knew he would be out of it for a while. Even days. I threw my other hand out towards the other men and sprayed them with the toxic spray as well.
The situation stood like this. Devakratha’s nose had broken and was bleeding freely, he was on the floor in pain in front of me. Little Johnny was in the right screaming like a little girl. The other Thugs were down as well on my left. There was only one direction in which I could go. I turned back and hobbled away as fast as I could with my blood-filled vision.
I went to the only place I knew, the Garbagiha and collapsed on the wall next to the magnificient black stone sculpture of Lord Varuna. I had nothing else left in the gas tank [GGN14] The huge jammer which looked very much like a car battery was next to me where I had left it. The huge paintings and the carvings with gems for eyes glittered like they were asking me what was next.
I had no idea.
Chapter 24: Magic Marker
I was a mess, blood all over my clothes, my backup plan beeping away in front of me. I had no other plans. I was done. Nobody could expect more from me. Not Palak, not Karna, not the Kaalarakshakas, not anybody. I would just wait here until the Thugs find me, dismantle the Jammer, and kill me. Probably a person was born in this world to stop Devakratha. It certainly wasn’t me. Atleast I had broken his nose as promised.
Now somebody else is gonna have to come along and stop this.
The Weapon of the Devas Page 17