Leaning lightly on the head-tall wildwood staff, his large frame silhouetted against the dusky purple of the pre-dawn sky, he resembled nothing so much as a warrior-king surveying his battlements. He would have looked at home on a royal chariot, gripping the carved bonewood of a longbow, polished armour gleaming in the cold sunlight, contemplating the battlefield’s lie.
Even the gentle northern wind that rustled the vast rolling banks of kusa grass below seemed to pause briefly, awaiting his command. The waters of the Sarayu, ice-pure and crystal-clear, stilled their gurgling momentarily. The world grew silent, marking the moment, as he spoke aloud a sacred mantra. Not just a mantra, a maha-mantra. The sacred and omnipotent Gayatri.
As he spoke, the lines of destiny swirled around him. The faint blue hue of Brahman, the raw energy of spiritual enlightenment, caressed his form, an invisible cloak of power. From here on, every step he took closer to Ayodhya would bring about change, historic change. For on this cool, crisp morning, the last night of winter, the first day of spring, he was about to make a king. Perhaps the greatest king of them all. What he wrought today in that city by the river would reverberate down the corridors of human history.
Gripping the hefty staff more firmly, the seer-mage Vishwamitra stepped back on the well-worn cart track of the king’s highway and began the long downward trek to the first wall. The city itself was still a whole yojana distant and he wished to be there before daybreak. But first he had to alter his appearance. It would not do to appear as himself. The unannounced appearance of a seer-mage of his legendary status would become the talk of the city, bringing Brahmins by the hundreds out of doors to pay their respects, which would only delay his urgent mission.
Without slowing his pace he spoke the mantra of transformation. The glow of Brahman grew brighter around him as nature itself responded to the sacred incantation. Countless tiny motes of bluish light began to swirl around him, blurring his form. A large boulder lay off to one side of the road and he stepped off the path and into the knee-deep kusa grass, droplets of dew clinging to his dhoti like beads of quicksilver. As he strode around the rock and passed out of sight, his body shimmered as if seen through a curtain of smoke.
When he emerged scant seconds later on the far side of the boulder, it was no longer as the great seer-mage Vishwamitra. The man who stepped back on to the cartwheel-ridged mud road was a muscular, dark-skinned young man with the traditional animal-skin loincloth, bone necklace and body-pierce adornments of a sudra hunter. A bulging game bag was slung over one shoulder, a gleaming sickle-spear clutched in the other hand. A few scattered motes of blue light trailed behind him, winking out slowly like fireflies extinguished by rain.
The hunter strode towards Ayodhya.
FOUR
High on the hill, a dark shadow detached itself from a small grove of eucalyptus trees. It hopped forward cautiously, reached a mossy ledge overhanging the path below and peered over the rim. Its keen eyes easily picked out the figure of the sudra hunter far below, striding north at a determined pace.
The disguise did not deceive it. It was familiar with creatures that changed their bhes-bhav at will. Even at this distance, the seermage’s aura was as keenly visible to its preternatural senses as a halo around a blue-skinned deva. Its bright golden eyes followed the hunter’s striding form until he disappeared over a rise a mile distant. Then it chittered and scratched repeatedly at the mossy ledge underfoot. Its yard-long talons drew deep grooves, sending the thick damp moss flying in shredded strips, exposing the rock. The tips of its claws drew sparks from the rock as it raised its head and issued a blood-curdling scream. The cry was almost human and the traveller on the path below heard it and recognised its source, but strode on without slowing. An ordinary sudra hunter would have been terrified out of his wits; the great seer-mage Vishwamitra barely gave the cry a second’s attention.
The creature chittered again, frustrated. It now wished it had attacked the traveller while he was still in the dense jungles of Bhayanak-van, the darkwoods. The seer-mage had been aware of its presence from the very outset, it knew, so it had made no attempt to conceal itself. But rather than glance up fearfully at the gigantic shadow lurking overhead as most ordinary mortals would have done, the sage had simply strode on relentlessly, as if it had been a mere raven or crow flying overhead, not the legendary Jatayu itself, first of its name, a name that struck terror into the hearts of mortals across the Arya nations. Furious at being ignored, weary of circling endlessly to compensate for the far slower pace of the earth-bound mortal, Jatayu had longed to plunge down, down, strike at the dhoti-clad human and rip him to shreds.
But its orders had been clear:
follow and observe.
Nothing more, nothing less. The Dark Lord of Lanka had been explicit in his instructions.
It scratched the ledge one last time, hard enough to draw a cracking noise like a dry twig being split. Its great talons had caused a fissure in the rock. Turning its enormous bald head skywards, it considered its next move. It had a long way to travel, in the shortest time possible. Lanka was a whole subcontinent away and the news it carried was important. The Lord of the asuras would not be pleased to learn the seer-mage Vishwamitra’s destination, but he would certainly be pleased at his spy’s diligence.
It spread its wings; first the left one, then the right, unfolding them slowly, painfully, sighing as it did so. They were weary from the long journey. What was more, its belly rumbled with hunger. It had been able to snatch a few small prey on the wing, a pair of parrots, a duck that had strayed from its fellows, even a juicy pregnant bat. But they were barely snacks for its enormous appetite.
If it could just stay awhile, forage around until it found the burning ghats where it knew these Ayodhyans must cremate their dead, it would have food aplenty. After all, if it was part-human, it was also part-vulture. And the vulture part craved human flesh.
But Lanka was thrice as far as the distance it had flown already. Even with brief rests, the journey would consume precious time. Hopefully, the seer-mage would stay in the city that long. These holy men usually took their time when they made their rare forays back into civilisation. And this particular one had broken his retreat after a considerable time, even by Jatayu’s count. Over two hundred mortal years, it reckoned. Which meant there had to be a very good reason for Vishwamitra’s visit to Ayodhya. Which meant in turn that the Lord of Lanka would not appreciate the news being delivered late.
Sighing in frustration, Jatayu began the arduous task of flapping its mighty wings, trying to work up enough wind to elevate itself off the ground until it found an air current. For yards around, the grass was flattened by the tremendous force of its flapping. A family of hares creeping from their hole were pressed to the ground, their long ears laid flat on the earth to either side of their heads. With a final ear-splitting screech of effort, Jatayu launched itself off the ledge, plummeting downwards like a boulder for several heart-stopping seconds before it found a small wind-wave and clung to it fiercely. The wave strengthened and it straightened out scant yards above the trail the sage had taken. With one more massive effort, it rode the wave out into the Sarayu valley.
Airborne at last, it drifted for several minutes, climbing steadily higher to find a current flowing in the direction it wished to go. It saw the seven gates of Ayodhya far below, ringing the mortal city like a set of concentric necklaces around a queen’s throat. The river Sarayu undulated like a silver cord through the lush valley. The magnificent palaces and mahals at the centre of the city straddled the roaring river with a variety of vaulting arches and inbuilt bridges in a large complex system of architecture. It was an amazing sight and Jatayu accepted grudgingly that it had never seen a mortal city as intricately designed as this one. So this was the great Ayodhya the Unconquerable. As it drifted on a strong up-current that flowed parallel to the river, the sickly-sweet odour of mortal flesh came clearly to its hunger-heightened senses. All the beauty and splendour of the magnificent Arya architecture was forgotten as its appetite was provoked again. To Jatayu, that was what this great city was ultimately: a giant feeding trough. Soon, it knew, its lord and master would beat down the proud walls of this so-called unconquerable city, and Jatayu and its kind would feast to their heart’s content.
The giant man-vulture issued an ululating cry, mocking the city and its inhabitants and their puerile quest for immortality before riding the air current southwards to its distant destination.
The sound that issued was a single word, split into three extended syllables by the bird-beast’s cry:
‘Ra-van-a!’
FIVE
The guards on watch at the city walls below heard the cry of the bird-beast and started involuntarily.
A grizzled veteran at the seventh gate glanced up and glimpsed the shockingly large silhouette that was sketched briefly against the deep-blue pre-dawn sky.
‘What in Shiva’s name was that?’ asked his companion, a much younger man, barely old enough to sport a beard. ‘Did you see the size of that thing? It must have a wingspan of at least twenty yards!’
The veteran shrugged. ‘Trick of the light. Like I told you before, this is the time of day you see the strangest things.’
The young guard stared at his companion. ‘But you must have seen it. It was right above us. It looked like a giant vulture. That round head, long hooked beak, that hunched back. But there was something odd about the body. It was broader than a bird, differently shaped, almost like a—’
‘A man? A giant man-vulture, is that what it looked like, young novice?’ the older man responded sharply.
‘Exactly!’ The young soldier looked eagerly at his senior. ‘Then you saw it too?’
The old man hawked and spat over the rim of the stone wall. The gob of phlegm glistened in the light of the gate-lamps. He watched it splash into the still waters of the moat far below before he answered in a disinterested tone.
‘There are no giant man-vultures, boy. Not any more. A trick of the light is all we saw. One sees strange things on purnima. The full moon dazzles the senses. Now, get your thoughts back on your work. It’s almost time to open the gates.’
Still the young guard pressed on.
‘But Somasra, you saw it too! It was a Garuda. Just like the ones in the frescoes at the War Museum. From the asura wars.’
The veteran snorted derisively, choosing not to reply. It was a silent message to the young novice to let the matter drop. First of all, the veteran thought to himself, if that thing they had glimpsed had indeed been a man-vulture, it would have been called a Jatayu. A Garuda was a man-eagle, the great flying mount of the devas and a holy icon. A Jatayu, on the other hand, was not man’s friend. But one of the failings of youth was that it tended to be slow to heed warnings, or heeded them too late.
The novice spoke impetuously, ignoring the silent message. ‘You were there, Somasra. You fought in the Last War with my father. You’ve seen creatures like that before, haven’t you? How can you say they don’t exist?’
That was more than the veteran could take. He turned on his companion sharply. ‘Because they don’t, is why! You talk about the Last War? What do you know of it? You were not even a seed in your father’s gonads when the last asura war ended. That was twenty-two years ago this past Shravan. Who are you to speak of such things?’
The young soldier’s face turned sullen. He knew how sensitive the old veterans were about talking lightly of the old days and old ways. His father had thrashed him once for simply repeating a play-yard rhyme about rakshasas; he had been only seven at the time. He never made fun of asuras or the asura War ever again. Still, he knew what he had seen just now. And it was no ordinary bird.
It was the old guard who spoke again, gruffly, after several minutes of tense silence. ‘What do you greenhorns know of asuras and suchlike? Giant man-vultures? Jatayus? Jatayus, not Garudas, mind you!’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Aye, I fought with your father, shoulder to shoulder. If not for him, I would not be standing here manning this wall today. Your father was a good man, Vishnu take his atma. He and I saw enough beasts out of hell to last a hundred lifetimes. That’s why Maharaja Dasaratha formed the PFs, to give us veterans a regiment of our own. He almost disbanded the entire army, that’s how much he wanted to put the war behind him. We all did. Because some things are best forgotten.’ He stared into the distance, as if seeing straight into the past. He shuddered once, shook his head, and spat again into the moat.
The young soldier spoke cautiously. ‘I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, Somasra. It’s thanks to you all that we live in times of peace today. I know that. Every Arya in the seven nations knows it.’
The veteran nodded once, acknowledging the apology. ‘You’re lucky, is what you are, to be born in the first time of peace since the rise of the Arya nations. But don’t just thank us PFs. Thank the good Maharaja Dasaratha. He was always at the forefront of the Arya armies, fighting right beside us, and it’s thanks to him and Maharaja Janak and the other clan-chiefs that we were able to rid the land of the last asuras. Why, Dasaratha was away fighting so long, he was in his fortieth year by the time the wars ended, and he hadn’t even begun a family yet! Imagine that if you will! Most of us are grandparents by that age, and his queen, bless her atma, had not produced a single heir till then. Even after his return, it took another ten years and two more queens to give him his heirs. Truly, he gave his best years and best men to the cause. He planted the banyan tree of peace and prosperity beneath which we all shelter today.’