Beautiful beyond comparison
. So beautiful that it took an effort to wrench his eyes away and glance around the clearing. His men were as baffled as he was. Their weapons were raised and ready for battle, every last one of them willing to fight the asura to the death, however impossible or futile. But what they were not prepared for was this unexpected reversal.
How could an evil demoness be as stunningly beautiful as one of Indra’s apsaras
?
To confound them further, she was making no hostile actions or gestures. If anything, Bejoo realised, she was being as gentle and careful as she could. If she chose, the Yaksi could simply raise a foot and stamp them down like splayed beetles, reducing them to crushed and mangled corpses. Yet even when she had uprooted the trees and foliage to make the clearing, she had done so without directly inflicting any violence on them. All the injuries were accidental.
After all, she can’t help her size.
The thought made him aware of the absurdity of his situation:
I’m justifying an asura’s actions
!
But the fact was as plain as the perfectly proportioned features of the Yaksi’s face and body.
This was no hideous demoness with crooked fangs dripping infants’ blood, clad in human hides.
In fact, the giantess wasn’t clad in anything. Her enormous body was completely naked of any clothing, apart from a small crown of mogra nightqueen flowers, so redolent they could only be fresh, placed on her bright red hair. This last touch was particularly unsettling. Even Bejoo’s wife put mogra in her hair, especially on nights when she knew he was in a particularly amorous mood. It made the Yaksi seem like nothing more than a very, very large and beautiful woman.
‘Rama,’ she said again, softer this time, her breath as fragrant as a spring field in bloom, her voice as delicate and feminine as a trained gayaka in Maharaja Dasaratha’s court. Her bright green eyes were perfectly proportioned, two almond-shaped pools of light and colour. A delicately shaped nose, long ears with pointy tips, a neck as graceful as a swan’s, and a body so slender—if that was the right word for a woman three hundred yards tall, and forty or fifty yards wide—that she could have driven any concubine in the maharaja’s palace to blazing envy.
Bejoo lowered his glance to her more private assets, and was shocked to find himself aroused by the beauty and perfection of her form. Gandharvas created to seduce the devas would have wept for such a body. He glanced around at his men and wasn’t surprised to see that several had lowered their swords and spears.
But their level of arousal is rising fast
. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind, and glanced away for an instant, unable to believe the stirring in his groin.
This is impossible. There must be sorcery at work here. How can this … this … being possibly be Tataka
?
***
Rama came to his senses in stages, the shakti of the mahamantras reducing in intensity from a raging glacial torrent to a gushing stream and then a more placid thick-girthed flow, until finally it released its hold on him and he returned to normality.
He blinked in the gaudy sunshine, in full command of his wits again, and remembered what had brought him back to his senses in the first place.
Tataka
.
The giantess loomed above him, a sculpted idol of feminine perfection created on a massive scale. He was on his guard, sword still in hand, mind prepared to distrust the evidence of his senses as the result of maya. But Tataka’s beauty was overwhelming. It made him hesitate long enough to allow doubt to creep into his mind.
This being can’t be an evil demoness, can she
?
‘Tataka,’ he said softly, staring up at the giantess.
She smiled at the sound of her name on his lips. Her smile was a wonderful thing, warm and innocent and full of relief and pleasure at hearing him acknowledge her presence. Except for her size, she might have been any woman, only her ears, the pale whiteness of her skin, the bright redness of her hair, and the faint dotting of freckles on her face marking her as different from other Arya women. That, and the very distracting fact of her utter nakedness.
Beware, Rama. Remember who this is
.
‘Tataka,’ he said again. ‘At last I meet you face to face, legendary demon.’
The smile faltered. ‘Demon? Is that how you see me, my prince?’
‘Rama!’ The brahmarishi’s stentorian voice boomed angrily through the clearing. ‘Do not be deceived by Tataka’s shrewd ingenuity. She seeks to distract you with maya. asuras are masters of illusion. Turn a blind eye to her beauty and femininity and fulfil the duty with which I entrusted you. Slay the monster at once!’
Every pair of eyes in the clearing turned to look at the sage. Vishwamitra still stood on the mandala, but the column of Brahman light had vanished. The seer raised his longstaff and pointed up at the giantess, calling out to Rama: ‘Do not delay, rajkumar. Remember what I told you: her power is weakest when the sun is highest. This is why she uses this alluring disguise to delay and entice you. Hold fast to your dharmic duty and slay her at once.’
Rama looked at Tataka once again, then at the brahmarishi. ‘Parantu, gurudev, she appears to be a woman rather than an asura. Kshatriya honour forbids me to kill a woman.’
The sage shook his staff in fury. ‘Do not be fooled by appearances, Rama. This Yaksi is guilty of a thousand crimes. The devas themselves have sought her destruction time and time again. Remember the tale of Kama’s Grove! Of how the devas sought for millennia to rouse Lord Shiva from his million-year tapasya. It was to destroy this very being. Resurrected by Ravana’s sorcerous evil, she assumes this bhes-bhav to confuse you. Neither listen to her honeyed lies nor pay attention to her womanly attractions. Take up your weapon now and strike her down!’
A wisp of hair fell across Tataka’s face. It hung there for a moment, obscuring her right eye and cheek, lending her an air of allure. ‘Would you kill me, my prince? A mere woman?’
Rama looked around, his mind in a turmoil.
‘Rama, do not fear her gargantuan size. Even though she has the strength of a thousand elephants, she is no match for you and the shakti of the maha-mantras Bala and Atibala.’
Rama looked at the giantess then at the sage. He scarcely knew whom to listen to or believe now.
‘Gurudev,’ he said. ‘Please, I beg you, do not force me to violate dharma by killing a woman. I have done all you asked and will do all you ask in future. But this command is beyond my ability to fulfil.’
Vishwamitra brought his staff down in fury. Where it struck the ground, the earth itself split wide open with a blast of light and thunder. The elephants and horses, skittish and wide-eyed in the presence of the Yaksi, reared and trumpeted.
‘Rajkumar Rama! Dharma is duty performed for the greater good. This duty you must perform for the welfare of all the four castes, for the sake of all mortalkind. A king must do what serves his subjects best, even if it seems unrighteous and distasteful, for such is his dharma. Hear me well, rajkumar. Lord Indra, most honourable of devas, was compelled to kill the daughter of Virocana because she sought the destruction of Prithvi herself, the very planet we inhabit. Lord Vishnu the Preserver killed Bhrigu’s wife, mother of Kavya, because she plotted to murder Indra. In ages past, other Kshatriya kings and princes such as yourself have committed this painful duty of stree-hatya and they suffered the same doubts and hesitation you are experiencing. You are not the first and you will not be the last warrior to kill a woman. It must be done. Suppress your pity, swallow your misgivings, take up your bow and kill Tataka while the sun approaches its zenith. Kill her now, Rama!’
Tataka rose to her feet, blotting out the sun again. The giantess awaited Rama’s decision with a passiveness that was almost heartrending.
If she was a fanged and clawed monstrosity rushing to tear my heart out, would I have hesitated this long
? And yet, something stayed his hand.
Vishwamitra spoke again, his tone softer and filled with compassion for Rama’s plight. ‘Rama, listen to me, boy. I know your pain. You are noble indeed to have such lofty ideals. But it must be done, and it must be done now.’ The sage paused and then added: ‘If not for yourself and your people, then do it for your brother.’
Rama frowned. ‘My brother?’
The sage raised his staff and pointed to an object on the ground nearby. ‘See for yourself and weep, brave prince of Ayodhya. There lies your courageous brother, Sumitra-putra Lakshman, reduced to a heap of shattered bones and tattered flesh, a victim of this same Tataka. Look at his remains and tell me now, do you still believe this demoness to be nothing more than a beautiful woman?’
Rama was across the clearing and by the side of the corpse with a speed that left the watching Kshatriyas blinking in surprise. He bent and tried to collect the heap of gristle and bones that was all that remained of his brother—
my brother in arms
. It was less than nothing, neither a whole corpse nor a bone-white skeleton. Even as the maha-mantras worked their feverish power and the shakti flooded his brain and body, he still retained the ability to recall something of his other identity, the Rama Chandra he was when not under the influence of Bala and Atibala. That Rama brought to this moment a sackful of memories, images, emotions, sensations, half-remembered phrases and words that had seemed insignificant at the time and were more precious than a prayer now. Years growing together, scraping knees and bruising hearts, mastering arts both martial and mortal, learning to kill and learning to love, the importance of family, the necessity of duty, the meaning of dharma, the cycle of karma. It all flashed through with the white-hot intensity of a bolt of lightning leaving the heart of a thundercloud. A clap of thunder followed, deafening. The wheel of time, that great samay chakra which stopped for no man, deva or asura, revolved another fraction of a fraction of a notch of a turn. He raised the heap of his brother’s remains and cried his anguish to the skies.
‘
Lakshman
!’
The Bhayanak-van reverberated with his grief.
Rama rose and walked with the bundle of his brother’s mangled body in his outstretched arms, an anguished devotee bringing a strange offering to a heartless god. He stopped before the sage, bending his knee. He lowered the remains to the ground carefully, as tenderly as a mother laying down her sleeping infant. Then he bent and touched his forehead to the ground. Grit and dry leaves rubbed against his feverish skin, grinding against the bone of his skull like spices in a silbutta. When he raised his face, his forehead was marked with the grey soil of the haunted jungle, like a Shaivite adorned with ash.
The rage returned with a suddenness that was terrifying as well as thrilling. Pure emotion surged through Rama’s veins, rising like a flash flood to overcome his anxieties, guilt and doubts. His fist clenched, seeking weapons, any weapons. His nostrils flared, sucking in air greedily, and he lowered his head to allow the blood and oxygen to reach his brain unimpeded, like a bull preparing to charge.
Even the Vajra Kshatriyas took a step back, frightened at the transformation of Rama. Once again he was a being of Brahman, a tributary of the great river of celestial power.
‘
Mahadev,
’ he said, his voice strange and terrible.
‘You are supreme in your knowledge of the divine shastras. Brahma himself gave you vidya of all mantras governing life, death, rebirth and resurrection. No task is too great for your shakti. I implore you, return my brother in arms to the world of the living.’
Vishwamitra shifted his hand higher on the staff, gripping the knob of wound thread at the top.
‘There is a price to be paid for every spell that alters the balance of life and death. The Lord of Death, Yama, keeps precise accounts. The scales must ever be balanced perfectly. There are no exceptions. If you would have me apply to him to restore Rajkumar Lakshman to his former state, you must pay the price for his life with another.’
Rama’s eyes flashed blue and gold, burning bright even in the light of high noon. ‘
I will pay the price with my own life if need be.
’
‘That will not be enough. The price for resurrection is dear. One mortal soul will not meet Yamaraj’s bill.’
‘
Then I will offer a dozen souls. A hundred. A thousand
!
Name the price, Sage, and I will pay it. I will reap a harvest of blood such as was never seen in all the three worlds.
’