RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (31 page)

“Very well, then,” he said, knowing he spoke for both of them. “We shall come at once. Lead the way.”

The horses whinnied and reared as they came around the curve in the rajmarg. Rama had to pull down on the reins with some force to still them, and even then they tossed their manes, twisting their heads from side to side, eyes rolling up to reveal the whites.

“It would be best if we left the carriage here,” Hanuman said quietly as he dropped down from an overhanging branch. The vanar had raced them here despite Rama’s chariot having the fastest team of Kambhoja stallions; a distance of some miles, and yet he was not even winded.

“Chariot,” Rama said, absently correcting him. Hanuman had urged everyone to constantly correct him when he erred in any way, however slight. He rarely did: his occasional slip-ups were invariably with relation to things that had no counterpart in vanar culture, hence had no vanar term for them. Transports were among those. The very idea of enslaving and harnessing other fellow animals for the sake of their own transportation was anathema to vanars; it hurt their sense of pride to even contemplate such cruel self-indulgence.

“Chariot,” Hanuman repeated softly, memorizing the word. He led the way around the thick sala tree that grew at this particular point on the raj-marg, forming a blind curve which compelled all users of the royal highway to go around it with extreme caution. Sita felt a tingling of anticipation and understood the nervousness of the horses – she could hear them whickering even now behind her, and thought that had Rama not had taken the time to tie their reins to a post, they might well have turned around on their own and raced back to Ayodhya. Even she could sense
something
. Her skin prickled. She reached down instinctively, touching the hilt of the sword she had strapped around her waist. There were weapons in the chariot too: javelins, an unstrung bow, a quiver with steel-tipped arrows, a mace. She wanted to suggest to Rama that perhaps they ought to bring at least the bow and quiver. Just in case…

But Rama was already rounding the sala tree, ducking his head to one side to avoid the drooping roots. She saw him straighten his neck, look ahead, and stop. Beside him, Hanuman stopped as well, and folded his hirsute arms across his chest, as if silently saying, see.

She didn’t want to take the last few steps that would bring her alongside them. Didn’t want to see what lay beyond the curve, what new disaster, crisis, challenge or conflict now loomed in their lives. She wanted to be back in the bed-chamber with Rama, looking out at Ayodhya, bantering and flirting like just-met lovers, content in each other’s company, the sunlight warm upon her face, a beautiful day ahead, a beautiful life…

A peaceful life.

She knew that whatever lay there, beyond that curve, would change this day. Would shatter this peaceful, lazy calm. Would make bantering and flirtation impossible. Would draw a dark coverlet of threat over this warm sunshiny morning.

Yet she had no choice. She was Queen now. And a queen of Ayodhya did not frolic and flirt when crisis loomed; she stood in the frontline, gauging the threat, preparing to meet it head-on.

She stepped forward, stepping to Rama’s left, onto the gentle rise that acted as a natural ledge overlooking the downslope to the riverbank, and looked at what Hanuman had brought them here to see.

Her breath caught in her throat. She had no basis to comprehend what this meant. It was beyond the realm of any possibility or probability. Beyond anything she could ever have imagined, ever. She almost wanted to knock her elbow against the sala tree to her left just to wince and know she was still awake, not dreaming.

“What does it mean?” she asked softly. “What
is
it?”

Rama and Hanuman were silent for a long moment. Finally, Rama spoke slowly, as if he too was coming to terms with the sight and accepting reluctantly that he was awake and truly seeing what he was seeing, “I…” he began, then stopped. “I think…” he began again, then paused.

“I think it is the end of the world,” he said at last.

They gazed together at the phenomenon.

Sita tried to explain the sight to herself. To use logic and language to make the shock of vision more palatable.

They were standing on the shelf of rock upon which the sturdy old sala tree had taken root decades earlier. Behind and around to their right, like the incurve of a bow, the raj-marg curved, leading steadily upwards and out of the Sarayu Valley, thence towards Mithila Bridge and the border of her father’s kingdom, Videha. From here, they looked down upon a plunge of some ten or fifteen yards to the riverbanks. The Sarayu flowed in good strength, its steady roar so much a part of the background that Sita had already learned to ignore it in order to pay heed to other sounds. A rock in the centre of the flow, tumbled there years earlier either through mortal intervention or natural cause, caused the onrushing waters to splash and throw up a high wash of spray that drifted on this gentle breeze to limn Sita’s face.

Several yards further downstream, at the point where the river rushed through a natural tunnel, disappearing for several dozen yards before reemerging on the far side to begin the headlong downhill race to Mithila Bridge where the upflung spray was no more gentle but a steady cloud of mist that hung over the structure at all times, lending it an air of mystery and majesty.

But before that point, before the tunnel began, something new had appeared.

A peculiar shimmering phenomenon hung in mid-air, barely a yard or two above the surface of the rushing river. It was hard to describe for Sita; the closest she could come to words was an arched entrance. Yes, that shimmering thing, gleaming with refracted light in a complex spectrum with more subtleties of shade than any natural rainbow, roughly took the form of a great arch, several yards high and perhaps three or four yards wide. It resembled the victory arch that most Arya cities had, and through which returning war heroes were paraded before being felicitated by their kings and queens. But it was made up of shimmering rainbow-hued light, insubstantial, impossible, yet very definitely there.

As Sita watched, something began to happen. The space within the arch crackled and was shot through with veins of interlocking rays of light of different hues. The effect resembled a calm lake surface into which a pebble had been dropped, causing ripples. The ripples increased, multiplying and increasing in intensity as if more pebbles – or larger stones

– were being thrown at a rapid rate. Sita wanted to step back, afraid at what might follow this peculiar phenomenon. She had never seen or heard of its like before in her life.
What is that thing?

Rama glanced at Hanuman. “Was it doing this when you saw it first?”

Hanuman shook his head slowly. “Nor was it there at dawn this morning. It only appeared perhaps half a paw before I came to report its presence to you.” Vanars measured the passing of time in widths of a paw raised overhead to measure the sun’s or moon’s progress across the sky. ‘Half a paw’ would probably mean about one twentieth of a day. “I thought it best to report it to you directly, my lord.”

Rama put a hand on the vanar’s shoulder. “You did well, my friend. In reporting it to me, as well as in being discreet.”

Sita wanted to correct Rama, to say aloud that she wished now that she had insisted on bringing along armed PFs, instead of dismissing their personal guard as Rama had done, quite curtly when Saprem Senapati Dheeraj Kumar had grumbled openly about the king himself disregarding safety protocol. She wasn’t sure if a few quads of well-trained, well-armed soldiers would make any difference if that thing hanging over the river proved hostile or dangerous, but their presence would have made her feel better right now, especially if she was correct in guessing what was happening.

“Something is coming through,” Rama said, echoing her own realization. The shimmering arch had begun blazing and crackling with increased agitation and it was evident that some major change was about to take place. Already she could see something forming in the central space – was that a mortal figure?

“Or someone,” she added, then waited, breathless.

EIGHT

Old friend.

The words were not spoken. Rama felt them as a vibration within the bones of his chest, thrumming and humming in the very marrow, as if the means by which they were communicated went far beyond oral speech, was in the realm of blood and bone, flesh and life-force. He felt the ensorcellment holding him in thrall melt away like an ice floe washed down the Sarayu in spring. He could move once again. But to his surprise, when he attempted to climb down the ladder of the high spot, he found his limbs responding oddly, as if he were moving through deep water rather than air. Even as he tried to make sense of what was happening, he felt himself rising, rising, and looked down to see the high spot already yards below, and his feet unanchored to any firm footing. He was floating in mid-air. As he had seen Hanuman do many times. Speaking of Hanuman, the vanar too was freed and floated now beside Rama. The golden furred face gazed with some puzzlement at Rama who inclined his head, blinking once for reassurance. The vanar nodded in response, resigning himself. Together they floated in the grip of the strange new shakti that was now controlling their physical forms – and were deposited, as gently as feathers, upon the ground near the spot where Sita stood, staring in abject amazement.

The light bathing Sita’s profile, blazing white light tinged with blue and shot through with myriad hues, was like no natural light Rama had ever seen before. It was like light one might see in a dream, not in reality. Blazingly intense, yet with no apparent source. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. And there was that sound. Like a humming. But not quite. More of a…sussuration. Like an invisible ocean made of something other than water. Or the sound of countless voices all speaking at once, but heard from a very great distance, till they were all reduced to a single concatenated shirring. A chorus of apsaras could not have sung as sweetly.

The instant he found his feet again, he went to Sita. Touching her forearm gently to avoid hurting her injured wrist, “Are you well?” he asked softly.

She failed to hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the being that had come through the Vortal. Rama said again, more insistently, “My love? Vaidehi?” But she still did not answer.

So finally he turned to look at what she was looking at.

At the light.

The blinding, blazing, eye-searing light.

And the instant he looked, the light faded away, and was extinguished.

And only a figure stood there, looming above the still-prostrated Ravana. A figure as dark-skinned as Rama himself, despite the ashes smeared across his body. With a throat as dark-mottled blue as deep midnight sky. A serpent coiled around that stained throat –
neel kant
– unwinding and winding its coils as it pleased, hood bared, forked tongue flicking and hissing. His hair matted in a hermitic bun above his head. And that face. The face. With the third eye nestled in the centre of the forehead, closed now, mercifully. And that aspect so fierce that it had been known to freeze naked flames and melt stone to lava on occasion.

But at this moment, it was not fierce or ferocious. The third eye slept. The serpent –
Takshak, his name is Takshak, the last of his breed
– hissed out of habit rather than bad temper. And the voice that spoke now, thrumming in the bones of Rama’s entire being, like a drumbeat sounding from within, a dumroo kettledrum in place of his heart, was gentle and kind, filled only with empathy and compassion, warmth and friendship.

It is good to see you. As always.

Rama realized the words were meant for him. He also realized that he had no need of vocal cords to express himself.

And you.

The three-eyed one smiled and spread his arms wide, as if desirous of embracing Rama. Then he stopped himself, seemed to recall something, and lowered his arms.

Would that could I greet you as friends should. But your present form…

Rama glanced down at his body.

… it would not be able to withstand my touch.

Without knowing how he knew, Rama knew that this was true.

Yes, he responded silently. I am but mortal. And you, Mahadev… He paused. A part of him listened to his own words echoing through the ether, travelling outwards like invisible despatches to unknown destinations … you are yourself. This mortal flesh cannot survive an encounter with one such as yourself.

True, Shiva responded with a tinge of sorrow. It is the eternal barrier between the dwellers of the mortal realm and those of us from the other lokas. But we must accept the limitations of the mortal form, for oftentimes that deceptively fragile container of flesh, bones and fluids is our only tool to accomplish that which must be accomplished. Had it been possible for devas alone to serve the end of the great brahman, then why should mortal beings have been created at all? Nay, brother of my mind and heart, your present mortal form was your sole means to achieve your goal. And you chose wisely indeed. For the mortal you selected as your vessel in this amsa is truly a rare example. This Rama Chandra of Ayodhya is perhaps the finest of all mortal men I have heard tell of. He deserves the appellation they have coined for him: Maryada Purshottam. Truly he is One Who Achieves His Goal, against all odds.