Shankar shook his head.
‘You see then? I am flesh and blood, same as you are. A boy, same as you are. Mortal, same as you all. Treat me as any other mortal flesh-and-blood boy, then, please. Not as a prince or a lord or a deva. Just a boy. Is that understood?’
‘The same goes for me,’ Lakshman said. ‘The next one to call me rajkumar or lord gets a whack on the back of the head. Samjhe?’
‘Samjhe!’ they all chorused, looking surprised but happy.
Rama nodded. ‘Now sit down and show us how you make your famous rafts.’
Dumma came and sat cross-legged beside the rajkumars. ‘I’ll show you, Prince Rama!’ He made a face, catching himself. ‘I mean, brother Rama!’
‘That’s better,’ Rama said. ‘But I thought you, brother Dumma, were the expert on naughty stories rather than making rafts. That was quite a shock you gave your guru back there! I think he’s still recovering from the surprise.’
Dumma grinned cheekily, all pretence of contrition gone. He leaned forward, speaking softly lest his guru should happen to overhear—even though the rishi was nowhere in sight. ‘If you like, I can tell you some more naughty stories. About Kama’s Grove. And the things that happened in there.’
‘Watch out, brothers,’ the brahmacharya named Shankar called out. ‘Dumma’s stories will turn your ears red with embarrassment! Don’t be fooled by his cherubic looks. He’s a rascal of the first order when it comes to jokes and pranks!’
Rama looked at Lakshman. ‘Well, I think my brother and I wouldn’t mind our ears turning a wee bit red. Not purple, mind you, just a little pink, and maybe a bit darker too!’
Dumma grinned. ‘Then prepare yourselves, brothers. Because I’m going to start with the story of one of your very own ancestors and how he crept into Kama’s Grove one Shivratri with his new bride. It was a moonless night and your ancestor was amorous to the point of priapism …
THIRTEEN
It was a sizeable chamber, perhaps ten yards by fifteen. But after a moment, as Sumantra’s eyes adjusted to the bluish glow from the guru’s staff, he began to discern another level, lower down.
And beyond it, faintly outlined in the shadows, yet another level. He remembered from the rare past visits he had made to the dungeon that it had three levels in lengthwise sequence. The entire chamber was perhaps forty-five yards long and ten yards wide. Every fifteen yards, it fell by two full yards. The harder the criminal, the lower the level to which he was banished. The lowest level was usually waterlogged from seepage, he recalled. And the water tended to be cold, especially in winter, when the Sarayu’s temperature fell to a degree or two short of freezing.
By the bluish light of the staff, he could see the chains and manacles bolted to the walls on this first level. They were all empty. There was nobody here.
The guru walked slowly to the end of the first level and started down the stairs cut out of the rock. Sumantra paused a moment at the top of the stairs, peering ahead in a vain attempt to penetrate the darkness ahead. All he could see clearly was that the second level was also deserted. But there were dark patches and streaks everywhere, and he thought he could see something caught in the manacles. They look like hands, severed hands.
Even as the realisation came to him, he caught the first whiff of the smell. The dungeon’s unforgettable rankness had reached him even before they had come through the second door. A combination of mildew, rot, old stone and earth, and the various bodily emissions of generations of unfortunate traitors and criminals. But this smell was something new, something unlike anything he had smelled before. It was the smell of the deep forest, of animal sweat and fur, of leather and blood, ash and ghee. He couldn’t think of any single thing that smelt like this. Yet it aroused a churning in his guts that made his bowels turn to liquid fire.
I should have stayed up there with Jabali. Why in Vishnu’s name did I come down here? Fool that I am! I’ll never see daylight again now.
‘Steady, Pradhan-Mantri. Keep your mind free of negative thoughts. Here, take my hand.’
The guru’s hand reached up to Sumantra. He stared at it dumbly for a second, then ventured down the steps. One, two, three … six. He stood at the second level and touched the guru’s hand, thanking him.
‘I can manage, gurudev. Pray, go on.’
Vashishta turned and began the descent to the third and lowest level. Halfway down the steps, he paused abruptly. Sumantra was forced to stop as well. The guru raised the staff as high as he could reach, and flexed his arm. The light blazed brighter than ever, turning almost pure white in intensity.
Sumantra was straining to see beyond the guru’s head and shoulders when the door of the dungeon suddenly slammed itself shut with a clanging impact that hung in the air like the echoes of a temple bell. He turned to stare up through the darkness.
The door was barely visible at the top of the stone steps, only the iron bars gleaming faintly in the light of the staff. But the sounds coming from the far side were unmistakable.
The door was being bolted and barred shut
!
He was starting up the steps when the guru’s voice stopped him. ‘Keys will not work on that door now, Sumantra. The force that bolted it shut wishes us to remain here until its work is done.’
Sumantra turned back, staring at the back of the guru’s head. From this height, three steps up, he could see a little of the third level now. The seepage that had accumulated at the bottom of the pit over the years was now a slime-covered pool of dark fluid. That was all he could see. Just black water. Nothing else. And nobody. The stench he had smelled was coming from that pit.
From something within it.
As if sensing his thoughts, a voice spoke from within the foul-smelling black water.
Come, Brahmin. Come to me and see what gifts I have in store for you and your mortal companion.
And with a sputter of sparks like a mashaal being extinguished, the blue light of the guru’s staff winked out, leaving them in pitch darkness.
***
In the darkness of Kama’s Grove, the doe’s downy fur glowed golden as a gilded idol. Supanakha moved slowly between the close-growing trees, stepping nimbly and delicately. Her wound of that morning was fully healed and she moved with an almost dainty gait, fully immersed in her role as a naïve forest-dwelling herbivore. She nuzzled the ground, as if searching for food or seeking the trail of her fellows. At times, she paused to raise her head, seeming to hear sounds inaudible to human ears, and shuddered briefly before moving on, away from the clearing.
The light from the ashram lanterns faded gradually, and the sound of the brahmacharyas chanting Shaivite bhajans as they worked at the raft fell slowly behind, until they were mere murmurs on the wind, ghostly hints of human presence felt rather than actually heard. The floor of the grove was soft and mulchy beneath her hooved pads, as if it had drizzled lightly in the past evening. The scent of freshly dampened earth was rich in her nostrils, as were the smells of the berries of the grove and the overall pungent effervescence of botanical growth. The leaf-carpeted ground was pleasant and cool to walk on and she found several choice tidbits to munch on as she strolled leisurely.
She had changed back into deer form before entering the grove. She had considered darkening her fur to blend in with her surroundings but the thought of changing her golden sheen to a dull, lacklustre brown or even a matted black offended her sense of aesthetics. What if she should come across Rama and he should see her in that unattractive form? Why, he wouldn’t even recognise her. It occurred to her that if he came across her in her natural rakshasi form he would hardly recognise her either, but she dismissed that thought impatiently. Rama would see her as she chose to be seen. She owed him that much at least for having saved her life.
She slunk slowly through the grove, moving from tree to tree cautiously. She had moved away from the clearing when the katha-vidya session ended. The minute Rama had risen and joined the other Shaivites, she had wished him good night silently, sighing as she watched his slender form move away.
There had been many moments during the fireside tale-telling when she had feared being caught. After all, the brahmarishi had potent magic; surely he could sense the presence of one rakshasi so close by? Then again, her disguise had always proved quite effective. In this garb, she
was
a doe. Even a brahmarishi would be hard-pressed to perceive her as anything but.
Still, she had shivered deliciously, thrilled by the magnitude of the risk she was undertaking. And yet nothing had happened. Not only had Vishwamitra failed to notice her, even Rama, who had been preternaturally alert and on guard the whole evening, hadn’t sensed her presence. Now that had been disappointing. At times, she had almost wished he would see her. Perhaps even leave those other mortals and come visit her in the grove. After all, this was Kama’s Grove and this was Holi Purnima, a beautiful full-moon night in the most romantic lovers’ rendezvous. And if he had come, she would have taken on the most gorgeous feminine form imaginable, more alluring than any of Indra’s apsaras, and she would have thanked him for saving her life. She would have spent all night thanking him, in fact.
But that was expecting too much.
Now, miles away from the clearing, she shivered again. She had wandered aimlessly with her fantasies, hardly aware of where she was going. She was deep in the heart of the grove, in a place where the trees grew so thickly, the moonlight could barely reach the forest floor. As she moved on, lost in her reverie, the trees parted and opened out into a small clearing evidently created by lightning striking a tree and burning away a few dozen square yards of the grove. The smell of burnt timber and leaves still hung in the air, and as she moved across the clearing, the moonlight shone down as bright as silvery daylight, catching the motes of ash that were churned up by her hoofs. She was so absorbed in her reverie that she failed to notice the strange disturbance taking place only yards away.
The trees were shuddering violently. Twisting and bending apart. One particular tree, the same gnarled dead trunk that had been struck by lightning at some point in the recent past, was the centre of the disruption. Its bark rippled like the surface of a lake in which fish thrashed about just beneath the surface, unseen. The wind grew stronger in the windless grove, raising micro-tornadoes that caught up leaves and loose soil and spun them like dervishes up to several yards high.
A miniature storm cloud clustered into existence above the stump of the blasted tree, little bolts of lightning snaking out from its depths to strike at the stump. It was only when the lightning was followed by a deep ominous growl of thunder that Supanakha became aware of what was happening.
As she stared at the unnatural storm-in-the-clearing, her eyes widened, her nostrils flared, and her heartbeat quickened to flight speed. A red eye began to grow in the centre of the storm cloud, and she tried to back away slowly, her hind legs stumbling against the roots of a tree, her rear end striking the trunk of another. She shuddered violently, nostrils flaring, snout raised in that characteristic posture of a beast-of-prey confronted by a feared predator.
The trunk of the blasted tree began to uproot itself with a groaning vibration that reverberated through her body. The dust dervishes grew fiercer and faster and rose higher into the air, cutting cylindrical passages through the leaves of the overhanging fruit trees. With a shower of red sparks and a flurry of lightning bolts, the stunted tree-trunk separated from the ground, its dead but deep roots clogged with clods of soil, and began to alter form. As it grew greater in height and slimmer in shape, Supanakha herself began to change back into her natural rakshasi form.
With a snort she fought the change, unwilling to return to the world of her own kind.
Let me stay a while longer
, she pleaded silently, her eyes wide and round with desperation. Just long enough to meet him again, just once.
The tree-trunk had become something obscenely unlike any natural tree-trunk. Unlike anything that could possibly grow organically from the rich belly of Prithvi Maa.
It was a being almost nine feet in height, with its heads adding perhaps two feet more. The being’s body was surprisingly proportional, much like that of a human. It could have belonged to any Arya Kshatriya, one who had spent a fair amount of time in rigorous physical activities. It was a superbly formed masculine body, muscled and toned to perfection. The skin was the colour of dark honey, almost blackish when seen in the darkness of the moonless grove, but glowing with a golden inner sheen on closer inspection. It reeked of good health and conditioning. This superbly formed body was clad in the minimum of clothing, just a warrior’s leather langot modestly concealing its maleness. Metal-worked leather straps were lashed across the chest and shoulders and waist and thighs in a puzzling pattern that made sense only when you perceived that their purpose was to carry weapons, not clothe the body. And weapons they did carry, a dozen or more, sheathed or clasped on every limb of the magnificent body. Each an exotic artefact of a different, alien design, some clearly intended for combat against creatures not human, others capable of inflicting brutal wounds on mortal bodies, yet others of no discernible purpose. Supanakha knew that they were weapons designed to be used against all the three species: asuras, mortals and devas. This creature had only natural enemies, no natural associates. The ultimate predator, fighting everyone, trusting no one.