PRINCE IN EXILE (4 page)

Awed by the epic display of power he had just witnessed, it was very hard for Vibhisena to continue his given mission: to find the remains of his fallen brother Ravana. Even now, as his eyes scanned every yard of the ground below with painstaking care, his heart yearned to seek out those who were so in touch with this great shakti, to fall at their feet and ask for their blessings, and then to become their pupil for ever, learning firsthand the glories of Brahmanism. 

A thought flickered across his divided mind, as fleeting as the flash of a shadow across the ground below. 

Perhaps if Ravana truly was dead … perhaps then he, Vibhisena, would be finally free of the service of the king of rakshasas, free to pursue his own individual life-goal … to dedicate himself to serving the force of Brahman with the same diligence and fealty with which he now served the asura lord, his brother. 

It was too startling a possibility to contemplate. 

A shadow fell over him, blotting out the slanting rays of the newly risen sun. It was an enormous birdlike shadow, quite overwhelming the shadow of the Pushpak on the ground below. For a moment, the combined shadows of the chariot and the bird appeared to be a chariot with giant wings. A very apt image, except that the Pushpak had no wings, nor need of them. 

Vibhisena looked up, shielding his eyes against the sun to see a giant vulture-beast descending. He recognised Jatayu at once. The leader of Lanka’s sky warriors was grievously injured, its proud wings in tatters, punctured in numerous places, and its powerfully muscled anthropomorphic body crusted with dried blood that masked a score of wounds. As the vulture lord descended lower, hovering parallel to the Pushpak, Vibhisena saw that several of the wounds were oozing fresh blood. One injury on Jatayu’s right wing-shoulder looked particularly gruesome. 

‘Well met, lord of the sky,’ Vibhisena said formally, raising his hand. 

Jatayu’s almost human eyes stared back at him suspiciously from a face scarred with cuts and rents. The vulture king’s voice was hoarse and ragged. ‘I have seen you in Lanka. You are one of those who serve the Master.’ 

Vibhisena acknowledged this with a brief nod. ‘A minister of his council. And his brother as well.’ 

Jatayu squawked. ‘His brother? I did not know the Master had a brother.’ 

Vibhisena didn’t reply. He was used to being mistaken for just another of Ravana’s many minions. After all, in most ways that mattered he
was
just another of Ravana’s minions. In most ways but one. ‘You survived the Brahm-astra then, lord of the skies? How?’ 

Jatayu’s features were man-like, for all that its skull and the back of its head were as red and wattled as an oversized vulture’s, and as the bird-beast struggled to keep aloft, Vibhisena realised that the creature’s wounds were more serious than he had thought. The pain showing on Jatayu’s face was more eloquent than any words. Vibhisena slowed the Pushpak and gestured to Jatayu. 

‘You may perch on the Pushpak,’ he said. ‘It will take your weight easily.’ 

Jatayu looked doubtfully at the airborne chariot even as it struggled to flap its wings to stay aloft at this low, windless height. Then, it succumbed to the invitation and leaped rather than flew to the golden railings running in parallel atop the vehicle, placing its enormous claws on the railings with an expression that revealed its doubtfulness that such a fragile, gaudily man-made creation could actually hold its considerable weight. Despite its misgivings, the Pushpak didn’t so much as shift a millimetre, gliding steadily along the surface at precisely the same height as before. A sparrow alighting on it would have caused as much reaction. Jatayu’s eyes widened in disbelief, its beak-mouth emitting a short, high-pitched screel of surprise that made Vibhisena’s ears ring, and the bird-lord gripped the golden railings harder, holding on tightly now. It released another cry, this one clearly one of relief. 

‘How does this gold-bird fly? Where are its wings?’ 

‘It needs no wings, sky-lord. This is Pushpak.’ 

‘A Pushpak,’ the bird-beast replied in a throaty tone. ‘Yes, I recall now. A flying chariot, like the ones the devas use in Swargalok.’ 

‘Indeed, and this one is not just a Pushpak. It is the Pushpak. The first of its kind, created to carry the mighty Lord Indra himself into battle. My brother won it from him, along with many other prizes, when our armies invaded Swarga-lok and defeated the armies of the devas in the plane of heaven.’ He neglected to mention that the Pushpak had belonged briefly, rightfully, to his half-brother Kubera, from whom Ravana had wrested this and much else, including the island kingdom of Lanka itself, during a falling-out after the asura-deva wars. He didn’t think the bird-beast was interested in a lesson in mythic history right now. 

Jatayu issued further sounds of incredulity and amazement, its oozing wounds momentarily forgotten as it marvelled at the perfection and beauty of the flying vehicle. 

Vibhisena gently repeated his last question. ‘How did you survive, my friend? What miracle shielded you from the devastation wrought by the Brahm-astra?’ 

Jatayu explained how it had been flying with its warrior brethren high above the clouds on Ravana’s instructions–so as not to be seen by the mortals until the very time of the attack. How it had issued the order to descend and fall upon the city of Mithila, and had seen its fellows plunge down steeply, itself staying back the better to watch the first wave of assault and judge the results. How the towering blue wave had appeared, sweeping across the assembled asura hordes, blasting them on contact into wheeling clouds of grey ash, destroying Jatayu’s winged brethren as well, and of how the bird-lord had watched, dazed and amazed, until the instant the wave had passed immediately below, striking it with a force like it had never felt before in all its centuries of existence. The next thing it knew was that it was many hours later and it was lying woefully wounded upon a rocky clearing scores of miles away, being fed upon by ravenous asura parasites, stragglers that invariably followed in the wake of the asura armies and fed upon the mortal and asura dead alike after battles. If Vibhisena counted them as survivors, then those offal had survived, only because they followed so slowly and far behind that the Brahman wave had not reached them. 

Vibhisena nodded, sighing as the bird-lord finished hoarsely with a string of curses directed at the rodents who had assaulted his unconscious form. Jatayu was crouched over the side of the Pushpak, its vulturish head craned down to Vibhisena’s face level. 

It asked in a cracking voice, ‘And what brings you to this site of devastation, brother of the Lord of Lanka? Did you seek to count the dead? They are gone! Washed away by ganga-jal like chimney soot in a monsoon thundershower.’ 

Vibhisena shook his head, gesturing at the ground below. ‘Nay, lord of skies. I am here on a request from my sister-in-law Mandodhari, who asked me to seek out my brother and ascertain his demise, if so.’ 

‘Ravana is dead,’ replied Jatayu sharply, his bird eyes glinting in the brightening sunlight, their wide orbs catching and throwing back the glitter of the golden flanks of the Pushpak. ‘He was on the ground, right in the path of the Brahm-astra’s assault. No asura could have survived.’ 

‘And yet,’ Vibhisena said softly, ‘my brother is no ordinary asura. That is why, even though a mere rakshasa, by no means the most ferocious or lethal of the asura races, he has reigned supreme for so many millennia.’ 

Jatayu snorted, flecks of blood-tinged emission dripping from its nostrils. ‘Supreme or no, he is gone now. I tell you, not a single one survived. Every last one of our forces was turned to ash the instant the wave touched them.’ 

‘And you saw my brother turned to ash as well, with your own eyes?’ 

Jatayu paused, rubbing at an oozing wound over its right eye with the underside of one enormous wing. ‘There was nothing to see. One moment there was an asura army as had never been assembled since the beginning of time; the next instant it was a wasteland of ashes and dust.’ 

Vibhisena sighed, resting his hand on the railing of the Pushpak. ‘Even so, my friend, I must search a while longer. My good sister-in-law Mandodhari refuses to grieve until she sees her husband’s corpse with her own eyes. And until she grieves, all of Lanka must wait in stasis. 

Jatayu craned its neck suddenly, its many itches and wounds forgotten again as if some new thought had occurred to it. ‘You say you are Ravana’s brother? Does that make you his heir as well? Is not a brother ahead of a son in line of succession?’ 

‘It is as you say, bird-lord. If Ravana is indeed dead, then I shall ascend to the throne of Lanka. Even after me, Ravana’s sons would not yet ascend, for we have one more brother.’ 

‘One more?’ 

‘Yes. But he sleeps incessantly, so he would have escaped your sight on your infrequent visits to Lanka, sent forth on Ravana’s orders to spy on the mortals as you often are. His name is Kumbhakarna and he is the youngest of us three, so I am ahead in line of succession.’ 

The expression that appeared on Jatayu’s face at these words was not one that Vibhisena could have put a name to. Neither human nor birdlike, it was a strange mixture of anger and frustration, greed and hope. ‘So then you will be my new master? You will raise a new army in time and lead the asuras again against the mortals?’ 

Vibhisena smiled gently, his face warm in the sunshine. ‘Nay, my winged one. I am no warrior. Nor do I have any enmity with mortals. I will be content to turn my people towards penitence and tapasya, in the hope that some day the devas may forgive us our many transgressions and restore us once more to the status of demi-mortals. Part of the great cycle of karma and dharma again.’ 

Jatayu gazed at the rakshasa for so long, Vibhisena began to fear the bird-beast had lost its damaged voice at last. Then the vulture-king said, the wonder in its tone unmasked by the harshness of its voice, ‘How could a fiend like Ravana have a brother such as yourself?’ 

Before Vibhisena could reply, the Pushpak came to a halt with a shuddering motion. At once, a terrible grinding sound began to rise from the earth below, and the sky-chariot was buffeted by winds as fierce as any ocean gale. 

THREE
 

Jatayu screeled and released its hold on the top railings, flapping its wings hard, adding to the force of the wind already blowing. Vibhisena clutched the railing tightly with both hands, fearing he would be blown out of the vehicle. He called out to the bird-lord, shouting above the screaming of the wind. 

‘Fear not, my friend. Pushpak is attuned to the heartbeat of its master. Its stopping here can only mean one thing, that it has found Ravana’s remains.’ 

Jatayu’s answering cry was louder and harsher. The bird-beast sounded enraged at Vibhisena’s words. The wind of its wings battered Vibhisena hard, threatening to cast him overboard. Yet the rakshasa held on staunchly, and after a moment the wounded bird-beast regained its perch atop the flying chariot with a final screel of reluctance. 

Vibhisena braced himself to look down. With an instinctive gesture of appeal to the devas he worshipped in defiance of all the laws, traditions and sentiments of his own race, the pious rakshasa gazed over the side of the Pushpak at the ground below, seeking out his brother. 

A wind rose from nowhere, bringing a chill that made a mockery of the bright spring sunshine. Clouds appeared in a clear sky, racing across the sun, casting giant monstrous shadows across the land. The new tendrils of growth shooting up out of the ground slowed and ceased their emergence. The stench of death, blood and iron and the pungent reek of male seed rose like a miasma from the patch of earth beneath the hovering Pushpak. Vibhisena stared down, unable to believe his eyes. 

‘
Ra-va-na!’ 

Jatayu’s plaintive cry filled the air for miles around, rising to the cloud-enshrouded sky like a lament to broken gods. The cry sent a chill through Vibhisena’s heart. He felt the bird-lord’s frustration and rage. Only moments ago, Jatayu had been dreaming of freedom; freedom from Ravana and his Prithviconquering ambitions, his sadistic and humiliating leadership, his brutal ways and indomitable will. Vibhisena himself had been dreaming similar dreams; not just for himself the way Jatayu had, but for all Lanka. He had had a dream, a dream of a Lanka that lived in harmony with the rest of Prithvi-lok, that some day, through the goodness of its actions and the sincerity of its reparations, rejoined the rest of the mortal plane and abjured its demonaic history for ever. 

Now he feared that he might have dreamed too much too soon. 

Vibhisena continued to gaze down from the Pushpak. The chariot hovered in mid-air, about five yards above the surface of the ground. The area below the vehicle was unlike the rest of the land around it. While the rest had been cleansed of its asura ash by the purifying waters of the Ganga rain, this patch remained ash-grey, scorched and charred. The patch was no more than six yards long by three yards wide, yet it was a blot on the entire gangetic plain. The wisps of fetor that rose like steam off its scarred and ruined surface withered the stalks of new shoots nearby, wilting newborn buds before they could bloom, rotting holes in newly grown leaves. There was no question at all that whatever lay here, it was neither purified nor cleansed. If anything, it still retained the potency to corrupt the land entire, like a seed of blackness waiting to sprout and darken the earth.