RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (28 page)

A sound rattled through the roar of shakti that enveloped him, cutting through the raging song of Chandrahas like a bell heard faintly from across a valley. He frowned. Had that foolish woman regained consciousness? Did she really think she could stand upto him for even a fraction of an instant? He glanced in her direction: No. There lay her body, still crumpled in a heap. She was stone-cold unconscious, or worse. Which was all to the better. For he craved tastier meat than that. His cravings were far deeper and darker than mere flesh-lust could satiate. He desired the dark secret terrors of the flesh that to most mortals resembled the workings of hell-demons. After all, he was a rakshasa, was he not? And he had 17 years worth of abstinence, deprivation and isolation to make up for today. And in the days and aeons to come.

Again that sound.

What was that?

He turned his head to seek out the source.

And saw the man standing in the centre of the sprawling avenue. A dark-skinned skeletal-thin man in a ragged dhoti. Some kind of religious priest, the kind that sat in deep jungles or high mountaintops and meditated till they were skin and bone, surviving on spirit alone. What were they called? Sadhus? Rishis? Munis? All of the above? This sadhu looked like he had until recently been covered in some kind of unguent and had wiped it all off hurriedly – most of it anyway. His skin also looked raw and tender, as if he had been exposed to great heat very recently, a flame great enough to blister and peel the skin off. His eyes were bloodshot, his weight supported upon a charred staff that looked like it had been turned almost to coal in a fire, and his striking egg-shaped head was denuded of hair, as bare as his beardless face. The man had definitely been in a fire quite recently and looked more like a sickbed patient than even the average wandering mendicant begging for alms.

Atikaya grinned, feeling the energy pouring out of his mouth, wafting on his breath, tingling in his fingertips and toes, waiting to burst free.

“What do you want, old one? And how is it that you’re able to withstand the song of the moon-sword?”

The painfully thin rishi – or perhaps he was a sadhu? Was there a difference? – leaned heavily on his blackened staff and raised his head a fraction. Enough so that his eyes met Atikaya’s gaze levelly. Instead of showing fear or the abject terror that ought to have been there as a mark of respect for the one who wielded Chandrahas, there was only a sad bewilderment. A look of loss. As if the old sage was looking at an animal or something to be pitied rather than the most magnificent rakshasa ever to walk the streets of Ayodhya – perhaps the
only
rakshasa apart from great-uncle Kala-Nemi who had played such a significant part earlier this morning.

As if reading his mind, the rishi said aloud, “Your father’s uncle did his part well. I will admit I too was duped by the appearance of Kala-Nemi, dramatic as it was. I assumed that it was the crisis I had dreamed of these past several months. The great and terrible crisis to befall Ayodhya that would change the course of mortal history forever. But in fact, the resurrection of Kala-Nemi from the subworld of Naraka into which he had been relegated was merely a ploy, a clever conjuror’s trick to distract the city from the real enemy threatening it this day. And that was you, son of Ravana. Kala-Nemi’s cleverly staged resurrection, timed to the minute, was only a ruse to distract Rama and his family from the army approaching the city. Had they not been occupied by the crisis at their very gates, they would surely have thwarted your arrival and brought matters to a head long before you could approach the city proper. But as it so happened, they were kept occupied long enough for you to move into position, close enough to work your asura-maya and unsheath the sword where it would work most effectively.”

The rishi gestured towards the main gate of Ayodhya, to his left and now to Atikaya’s right. “Yet, even that army outside only serves the purpose of minor pieces in a game of chaupar. I see your shrewd plan now. After you wreak your havoc, you will leave those allies of Ayodhya to take the blame. And thereby cause the outbreak of an internecine war between the Arya nations, even as you continue to freely rove the mortal realm and rape and pillage and destroy at will. A clever plan it is. And one that you probably feel is foolproof. But of course, the only fool who is proof against that plan is yourself, son of Ravana.”

Atikaya was sure he had misheard. Surely the tottering, half-dead, starving-thin old man had not just called
him
a fool? But he had of course. What impudence. What folly! He began to lower Chandrahas in a threatening gesture towards the old rishi. To his surprise, instead of blanching with fear or turning tail and running for his life, the brahmin mortal actually looked as if he had expected Atikaya to do just that and continued speaking unperturbed.

“Yet there are greater plans than your little boy’s game. Laid out since before the beginning of time, some of them. By minds greater and quite unfathomable to one such as you, or to most beings for that matter. Those plans are the maps by which the course of human history moves, along predestined paths and byways. Nothing is truly random or unexpected, not even randomness itself. Even the tiniest flea nipping at a horse’s flank in a remote stable serves a purpose. Not necessarily a purpose of any particular benefit to the flea or the horse, but to the plan itself.”

Atikaya almost giggled. What was the old man blathering about? Fleas and horses?

“
You’ll make a nice bed for the fleas to nest in very soon, old one, if Chandrahas leaves enough of you for the fleas!
”

And he levelled the sword without further ado. Enough of this nonsense. He had waited long enough for this day, this moment. He had no intention of being interrupted any further by a brainless old sage mouthing incomprehensible inanities.

Chandrahas spat a swell of blue flame. A jagged bolt of blue fire shot out from the tip of the moon-sword and struck the old man with an impact that flashed like lightning striking a lone tree on a mountaintop. Atikaya turned away without bothering to even look at what remained. He leaped across the crack in the earth he had made, landing on the far side with a spring in his step and glee in his heart: A great deal of killing to be done and a whole city filled with people to do it too.

The blow caught him totally unawares. One moment he was striding towards a band of armoured soldiers in the distinctive purple-and-black uniform that most of the Ayodhyan gate-defenders were clad in, intending to start by despatching the frozen men with a few deft flicks of the moon-sword. The next moment, he was hurtling sideways through the air.

He struck the wall of a structure made of stone with force enough to rattle his bones.

That’s impossible. I should not even feel any impact, with Chandrahas in my hands, its energy protecting me.

He slid down the wall, scraping the side of one arm painfully against the rough stone – “
Aaah!
” he cried out, the pain shockingly unexpected and inexplicable – and landed on bent feet that crumpled underneath, toppling him face first onto the dusty avenue. He spat out dirt and rubbed the back of one hand savagely against his mouth, his rage mounting uncontrollably.

“
Who do you think you’re playing with here?
” he shouted. “
Do you know who I am? Do you realize the power of this weapon I have? What it can do to you?
”

There was a soft chuckle that was more growl than laugh and even through the dust of the avenue he saw the familiar unmistakable shape looming large.

“
I KNOW,
” said the impossible ten-headed form rearing up through the dervishes of dust that had suddenly sprung up out of nowhere, accompanied by a chilling wind that was at odds with the near-noon sunshine that was still blazing down. “
I KNOW BECAUSE I CREATED BOTH. THE SWORD. AND YOU, MY SON.
”

FIVE

Valmiki gazed at the figure that loomed, topping even his own two yards height by almost another full yard, and was almost as wide. That rack of ten heads, each with its own distinctive features and personality, its own independent voice and mind, that neck as thick and knotted with powerful muscle as that of a Himalayan stag, that chest as broad as the chest of three warriors, those arms one above the other, each moving independently, veined with wiry muscle and stony sinew. And that voice. At once gravel and granite. Thunder and wolves. Bear and breaking rapids. Once heard, it could never be forgotten, he had heard it said. Even though it was the first time he had had occasion to hear that mighty rack of voices speaking, he knew the legend was true.

Ravana was a being to behold.

One head of the Lord of Lanka turned to glance in Valmiki’s direction, whispered something to its companion heads, and then the great torso twisted as the rakshasa turned, his central head staring directly at Ratnakar. A strange sensation, like cold water washing across his spine and nerves then evaporating instantly, then he felt sweat break out on his face. His skin still felt raw and scalded. But the unguent Hanuman had used had worked a miracle: he suspected it had been part of the cache of precious herbs that the vanar had brought back from the secret mountain and used to provide succour during the battle of Lanka, or so he had heard. It was beyond belief that he could be so well recovered barely a few hours after suffering such unspeakable burns. And he did not feel all well. Yet he could stand and move of his own volition, with only some discomfort. And that was all that he required. The events transpiring here today were historic; it was the reason he had come to Ayodhya after all. Whatever the consequences to himself personally, he could not lie in a sickroom while this terrible pageant unfolded.

Ravana’s gaze lingered on him a moment then turned back to its main quarry, Atikaya. The young rakshasa was a being in shock. He stood gaping open-mouthed across the crevasse he had cut with the moon-sword, at his father. His surprise and horror were evident, and were only to be expected.

“But you are dead,” he said incredulously. “I saw you die on the field back home in Lanka. Everyone did!”

Ravana’s voice rolled and crashed, like thunder in distant ranges. “Indeed. I died. And am still dead in your timeline.”

In your timeline.
A curious choice of words.

“But I am not present in the Ayodhya of your day and time. I am standing in Ayodhya of long ago. So long ago, that there was no Ayodhya as you know it. No Arya nations. No Lankan city. No rakshasa race even. I am in a time before civilization rose upon this realm. An age when the gods still walked the earth freely, and we who came to be called
a-suras
later, were still
suras
, or allies of the devas.”

Ravana gestured behind himself. “This is the place where Ayodhya shall someday rise.”

Valmiki peered curiously at what lay behind Ravana. It took him a moment to realize that it was not the same as the rest of the vista before his field of vision – because it was merged so perfectly with the real Ayodhya around it, it seemed the same, but on closer inspection, it was quite evidently a different world. Or rather, the same world, same place, in a different time. An older, much older, time.

He saw a landscape that was more primordial than any he had seen in his living memory. It was still the Sarayu Valley. But it was densely overgrown, in a way that he had glimpsed in the deep jungles of Janasthana during the years he had fought alongside Rama’s valiant band of outlaws and rebels against the rakshasa hordes. Not the dense yet human-occupied Sarayu Valley of today. The woods rolled across the entire length and breadth of the river’s banks without relief. There was no raj-marg, no sentry towers, no gates, no moats, no structures – and no people. None at all. Nor any signs of human presence – flora grown to provide for human needs, for instance. He could not know for certain, for it was merely a brief glimpse, but somehow he sensed that it was an age when no mortal beings had begun to appear on Earth. Perhaps not even most of the other races of animals, fish and fowl. Merely the verdant realm of Prithvi Maa herself, gardener supreme.

His gaze passed on to the air to either side of Ravana and he noted a peculiar phenomenon. The air shimmered and warped in two places, one on either side of the rakshasa lord, as if the lines where the old world and the new met were conjoined together with a slight imperfectness. Beyond the warped air and light of those two lines, extending vertically to meet in a kind of vaulting overhang like an insubstantial arch in which Ravana stood centred, the world of the present was visible. Where the world of the present met the old time, all modern details – buildings, wall, frozen soldiers – vanished completely.

“I stand here upon the site where Ayodhya shall be built someday,” Ravana’s rolling voice said. “Not in the here and now that you occupy. But in another place and time, millennia before the time and place of my death. I speak to you from the past, Atikaya. From a time when I was not much older than you are now.” He chuckled sonorously. “Well, in a manner of speaking. For while I am not 17 at this moment, relatively speaking it is in the adolescence of my long lifespan. A mere few centuries of age.”

And it was true. For though Valmiki had never met Ravana in person, yet like all famous personages the rakshasa lord was legendary enough that his description down to the most minute detail had been repeated often enough in Valmiki’s hearing over the decades for him to realize that the figure standing before him was a much younger Ravana than the one spoken of in the present age. It had been widely known that the rakshasa lord was many years old, whether hundreds, thousands or – as some rumours had it – tens of thousands of years, he did not know for sure. But Ravana had just confirmed the rumours.
A mere few centuries of age. In the adolescence of my long lifespan…the past…the site where Ayodhya shall be built someday.
Ayodhya herself being at least six centuries old, that would make the rakshasa lord a millennium old, perhaps millennia even?