RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (8 page)

“Come,” he said simply. “You do wish to know, don’t you?”

Rama hesitated. Then shrugged. He had awoken to a voice, the voice of his dead arch-enemy. It had summoned him. On the dead rakshasa’s command, he had leaped off the balustrade of his palace verandah. Instead of falling to his death on the tiled courtyard, he had fallen
up
, to a realm made entirely of clouds. He was looking over a re-enactment of the battle of Lanka, perfect in every detail to his eye. And now a strange man, a rakshak perhaps, was asking him to walk up the side of a cloud-mountain. He may as well follow this madness through to the end, go where this stranger took him and get to the bottom of this mysterious waking dream. He began walking.

The man waited for him to catch up, deferred to him when he approached, making it clear that he was not seeking superiority over Rama, and if anything, was being suitably humble before the king of Ayodhya. They walked together across the impossibly solid cloud-field, the slope rising steadily above. They reached the place where the mist coiled and clung, obscuring view of what lay beyond and above. He paused. The man paused beside him. He looked back, down, wondering at the battle scene he had seen. He hesitated, not afraid, for fear was a warrior’s most loyal companion, but considering. What sorcery was this? It was like nothing he had heard of or experienced before, there was something totally alien about its nature and deployment. What purpose had the ghostly vision of the Lanka war served?

He looked at the face of the rakshak. The man looked back impassively, yet not unkindly.

“We must go on.” His voice was deep and resonant, and pleasant to the ear. It was the voice of a man whose life had been spent in service to persons such as Rama, a raj-rakshak, a royal guard. Again that sense of maddening familiarity danced at the periphery of Rama’s memory, but he could not place the man, or why he seemed so familiar.

“What lies beyond?” Rama asked, the mist swirling around his feet. It felt neither cold nor wet, simply like a gentle breeze nipping at his ankles.

“The answers to all your questions,” said the man.

Rama stepped forward, into the mist. The man walked beside him. Together, they passed through.

Three

The traveller reached the top of the rise and paused.

The view was breathtaking. Ayodhya the unconquerable lay spread before him like a bagful of precious gems carelessly strewn across the lush green carpet of the Sarayu valley. The river herself wound her way sinuously around the natural hillocks and rocky banks upon which the city’s architects had built their structures, integrating their city planning with the natural lay of the land. At a glance, the city itself seemed as much a part of the vast valley, as if it had always existed and always would. It was the Arya way to build and live in harmony with nature, for all things were the fruit of Prithvi Maa, and only by her gentle grace and forbearance could mortalkind survive on this realm. Yet even judged by that standard, Ayodhya’s city planning and architecture were a sight to behold; a melding of man-made aesthetic and natural beauty that made one want to gaze at it for hours.

The traveller did not have hours to spare.

Already he feared he might be too late. It had been several days since Rama and his entourage had returned to Ayodhya. He had set out within moments of the end of the war of Lanka, knowing full well that speed was of the essence, but the Ayodhyans had travelled by Pushpak, and even his swiftest walking stride could hardly match the blurring speed of the celestial vehicle. Now, he fretted that he might have arrived too late, that the fateful decision that he sought to prevent might already have been taken and events set into motion that could not be undone. He prayed it was not so, that his long arduous trek had not been in vain. For the event he sought to prevent would alter not only the course of his own life, that of Rama and those near and dear to him, but the lives of all presently alive, mortal and otherwise. Its impact would be felt at the end of the farthest corridors of history, in unimaginable ways at inconceivable future times. He used the brief moment of respite that he had allowed himself now to send up one final prayer that he might yet be in time to prevent that terrible turn of events.

He took up his stout staff, worn and battered from the long walk, and numbed his mind to the ache and pain from his bruised feet. They were unaccustomed to such travel, for the past year had seen him engaged more in meditation and contemplation rather than physical activity, and his body, so long abused by harsh living and the numerous injuries, scars, old wounds and fresh marks of a violent existence, had only just begun to soften and grow accustomed to the peaceful ascetic life when he had risen to undertake this mission. He had pushed it hard these past several days, walking constantly with only the barest minimum of rest, sleep and frugal nourishment. Roots, herbs, a fruit or two…he had eaten little, grown even leaner than whip-thin, and he longed for a good, hot meal and a pallet to rest his weary head.

But there was no time for eating or rest.

He had work to do. Vital work. A Queen to warn. A King to appeal to. And, if his foreboding was right, a kingdom to save—perhaps even an entire civilization.

And to achieve any of those, he had to reach on time, before that fateful decision was made. Before the die was cast whose rattling echo would haunt the halls of itihasa for millennia to come.

If he reached even an instant too late, then this breathtaking view of great, noble Ayodhya would be worth no more than a mouthful of ash. Ayodhya herself, the unconquerable, would finally fall. Not to an army of asuras, or even mortal enemies. But to the greatest enemy of all. The enemy within.

He gripped the staff tightly, marked the progress of the narrow winding pathway down the side of the steep slope that led downwards to the rajmarg on the north bank of the river, and began to descend.

As he descended, the sun appeared over the eastern rim of the valley, sending blades of golden light across the perfectly blended amalgam of mortal and natural aesthetic achievement that the world knew as the capitol of the Kosala nation, home of the Ikshwaku Suryavansha dynasty, seat of the sunwood throne. Sunlight glittered on the tips of the Sarayu’s wash, caught the wings of butterflies traipsing through the North bank woods where a certain crown prince had once whiled away youthful hours in daydreaming and kairee-munching, blissfully unaware of the years of toil and violence that lay ahead. It caught the tips of blades of new grass shoots emerging from the rich, alluvial soil of the valley where a nest of baby kachhuaas swarmed blindly, tiny mottled shells clattering over one another as they sluggishly fought their way toward food, light, water, survival. With the new day, the struggle for life and survival had begun anew.

The traveller strode toward Ayodhya.

***

As the traveller completed his descent and reached the raj-marg, turning his aspect and his feet in the direction of the city’s looming first gate, a figure crouched upon a high branch on the far bank of the river watched him curiously. It had observed the stranger from the moment he had appeared over the rise and stood, contemplating the view, for if there was one thing that the being that crouched upon the tree did exceedingly well, it was to watch, to observe, to spot what most others might fail to notice, or notice too late. He knew that the sentries posted by the city did an exceedingly good job of patrolling and defending the outskirts of the city and its environs, and that they were especially alert in these warlike times, but even their garuda-sharp eyes could not cover every inch of terrain at once, and their disciplined quad-sweeps could be bypassed by a shrewd intruder or two—not for long, but it
was
possible. The watcher did not brook martial discipline much, particularly the variety favoured by humans; he had found that most conflicts were won by a combination of shrewdness, stealth and ferocious explosive force applied at the least expected time and place. He had enough firsthand experience to know whereof he spoke. He also had enough firsthand knowledge of the wily ways and methods of foe that fought not by the Arya rules of war nor cared for the kshatriya code of conduct. He did not know of any such foe still extant but that was beside the point. He had made a vocation of watching and observing, and old habits died hard, especially among his species.

That was what found him here this morning, and every morning, routinely patrolling the outskirts of the city in a route so random and individualistic that it was perhaps more effective than the regularly timed quad-sweeps of the Ayodhyan defence system. It was this idiosyncratic loping through the trees—for that was his preferred method of ambulation—in a zigzag pattern completely unpredictable and unique to each new day, that had brought him this glimpse of the traveller on the rise. The traveller who was presently vanishing into the dusty haze that overhung the raj-marg in the wake of his swift progress. The watcher made no attempt to follow the traveller or to seek out the nearest quad of PFs making their methodical sweeps of the area—he scented there was one not three hundred yards away, working its way through a thicket on the same rise the traveller had descended from only moments ago. He knew the traveller would be accosted in moments by either the PF regiment permanently stationed on the raj-marg or the bristling gate-watch who were ever-vigilant under the command of newly elevated General Drishti Kumar. It was not the traveller himself that concerned him now; it was the reason for the traveller’s visit.

As it so happened, he knew the traveller. Not personally, for he had never had occasion to meet the man face to face. But he had watched him fight alongside his lord and lady for years in the forests of Janasthana, during those harsh years of his lord’s exile, watched him risk life and limb countless times in the service of Rama’s war against the rakshasas of the region. Watched him fight fiercely, despatch any number of the brutal creatures that had plagued Rama and his companions since the feral cousin of Ravana, Supanakha, had maddened her cousins and their clans into declaring war against Rama after he had spurned her. Yes, the watcher had watched as this man, this traveller now come to Ayodhya, had fought as fiercely, brutally, bestially, as any rakshasa himself, driving fear into the hearts of even his own exiled fellows. For while they fought to live, to survive, this one had fought as if driven by some inner demon, a rakshasa of his own making, and inflicted more violence and harm upon his foe than was necessary to simply survive: he fought to decimate, to destroy, to eliminate completely.

Of course, that was in the past. For the watcher knew that this man had parted ways with Rama after the battle of Janasthana. He had heard that he had dropped the sword and taken up the cloth, so to speak, turning from the physical rigours of warriorhood to the spiritual rigours of priesthood. He had heard of the immensely disciplined tapasya undertaken by this former bandit and bearkiller, of the enlightenment he had received while meditating within a nest of fire ants—a story that was fast becoming a minor legend in some parts—and of the life of peace and philosophy he had taken up with enthusiasm thereafter. But all this had been received in bits and pieces and he had not paid much attention to it, being somewhat preoccupied with a war to wage and a considerable army to manage, several armies as a matter of fact. And he had never liked and trusted the man himself back when he was a warrior in Rama’s camp of outlaws and exiles in Janasthana, had felt the intrinsic distrust and burning hatred of any human who had made a habit of slaying creatures of the land. Bearkiller, the traveller had been at one time, long before he joined Rama’s ragged band of exiles, and his face had borne permanent testimony of ravages wrought by a much earlier attack by one of the same species that had lent him his name and earlier reputation. The ugly face-altering scars that disfigured his visage were now mostly concealed under a dense growth of beard and an unruly head of hair. The muscular body that had displayed the scars of countless conflicts as well as earlier encounters with the furry nemesis that lent him his nickname was now covered with a red ochre garb that flowed from head to foot; along with the wildwood staff he gripped in one hand, it lent him the appearance of a tapasvi sadhu quite convincingly.

But the watcher was not convinced.

To him, the man that he had first heard called Bearface, later , and now Valmiki, was not one to be trusted entirely. He did not trust his motives, the extreme alteration in his appearance and vocation, or his reasons for coming here to Ayodhya now, at this particular juncture in time and history.

So, while he had chosen to let him pass, to be dealt with by the PFs and gate-watch, he intended to race back to the palace ahead of him. To alert his lord, Rama.

Yes, that was what he would do, must do.

His mind made up, the vanar named Hanuman uncurled his long, muscular tail from the branch on which he had sat perched contemplating until now, and with one supple surge of his powerful muscles, propelled himself from that sala tree to the next. In moments, he was a blur loping and swinging through the trees, moving not unlike the smaller, less-muscled simians that his kind were often mistaken for by foreigners, yet with a sinuous grace and sheer power that no monkey could ever emulate, moving faster through the trees than most land animals across the ground.

As he raced through the trees, startling squirrels and confusing birds by flitting past them even before they were able to burst into flight, the sun crested the top of the craggy northeastern ranges and shone its golden beam into the valley of the Sarayu, sending its message of warmth and brightness into crannies and crevices, stirring sleeping reptiles and compelling creatures of the earth to emerge blinking sleepily in the light of a new day.