Rajiv Menon -- ThunderGod (8 page)

As he opened his palm and beheld the pendent, all the arrogance seemed to drain out of him. He bowed to Mitra.

'Forgive me, my lord. The stars told us of your imminent arrival, but I did not expect so many of you. I, Thora, chief of the Pakhtu, welcome you to our land. You and your people are now our honoured guests.'

There was a marked relief amongst the Devas when they heard these words. While not ones to shirk from a fight, the punishing journey had left them in no shape to do battle.

'On behalf of my people, I thank you Chief Thora. Please accept this little gift as a token of our gratitude.'

Mitra summoned the chief herdsman.

'Bring out a hundred of our fattest bulls.'

The Pakhtu chief could not hide his joy. In a land with precious little resources, this much meat was a bonanza.

'Our hungry children will sing your praises. Make this place your home; in a few weeks, when the ice thaws, I will be back to guide you on your journey ahead. Farewell till then, my friends.'

The chief and the shepherd boy left the canyon with their new herd.

***

The canyon served them well as a camp. The high cliffs sheltered them from the icy wind, and, though they were still well above the tree line, it afforded them plenty of fresh grazing for the horses and cattle.

Mitra organised the funerals for the people who had passed away during the journey. In the absence of wood, the bodies were doused in clarified butter and set ablaze. Mitra then called out the names of the fifty warriors who had fallen at the pass. All the members of the tribe greeted each and every name with loud cheers. The loudest cheer was reserved for Daeyus. Every Deva screamed at the top of his voice, in the hope that their raja would hear them in his heavenly abode where he dined with the gods and their ancestors who had fallen in battle.

Mitra then sat down and watched the high priest take centre stage. Susena started with a prayer for the departed souls. He then thanked the Sun God Surya for delivering them through this trying ordeal. Once he was finished, he turned to address the gathering. Mitra noticed that the high priest's voice seemed to change, acquiring a strange high-pitched quiver to it.

'My people! The gods have been kind to us thus far, but I think it is unwise to test the limits of their generosity. The omens had foretold this great peril and I had tried to warn our great king.'

Susena took one of his dramatic pauses and began to pace up and down as the crowd waited anxiously for him to explain what he meant. Mitra noticed a feverish glint in the man's eyes, almost like he was under some kind of spell.

'Our great Raja Daeyus, may Surya grant peace to his soul, was the victim of a cruel deception. This child he believed was his son is actually a demon born to rid Earth of humanity. That is why the Elamites pursued us. They had nothing against the Devas; it was this cursed child that they wanted.'

He paused and surveyed his audience. There was no sign of protest or dissent; they seemed enthralled by this astounding revelation. Susena continued triumphantly. 'As long as this demon is in our midst, our hardship will never end. If he is allowed to live, he will be responsible for the destruction of not only our clan, but of the entire human race.'

In her temple, Ishtar waited with bated breath. It was she who had presented herself as a gift to Susena on the night of the failed sacrifice. It had been child's play for her to draw out his power along with his seed and to plant in him a tiny essence of herself. It was this she used now to control him. Susena, the high priest of the Devas, was now her plaything, with a single point agenda inscribed in his mind: death to the demon Indra.

However, as with all human beings, there were certain aspects of the mind she could not control. In this case, it was the man's ego and his penchant for grandstanding. She had also not taken into account the presence of Mitra. She had a healthy respect for the seer and she now hoped that her minion had not taken things too far.

Mitra looked towards Vasu in shock. Daeyus' trusted lieutenant said nothing. Mitra stood up, his eyes flashing with anger. 'Enough! I will not stand here and have the memory of a great raja insulted.'

Susena quickly lost all his bluster and hurriedly stood aside. Mitra gave him a withering look as he continued. 'Devas! I am not of your clan, yet I, an Aditya, stand here amongst you in the service of this boy. It has been written in the stars. This boy, Indra, will be a great warrior such the world has never seen. He will unite the northern tribes to fight as one nation. He will be a greater raja than his illustrious father.'

Loud cheers greeted this statement. Mitra looked at the high priest, who stood there with his head down, humility personified. The seer realised there was very little he knew about Susena; he decided to soften his stand until he could learn more about the high priest and his true intentions.

'The wise Susena is right--the omens did foretell the birth of a destroyer. But it is the cities of your enemies that this child will destroy. They will cower within their high walls and tremble at the very mention of his name. He will etch the name of the Devas in letters of gold on the pages of history. It is I, Mitra, who speak these words.'

Mitra sat down to the rapturous applause of the crowd. Susena gestured for the crowd to be silent; he then bowed low to Mitra and spoke once again, this time in his deep baritone.

'Forgive me, great master! I made a mistake in my interpretation of the signs. My knowledge is merely a drop of water against the ocean of your intellect.'

Mitra looked at the bowed head and realised that he had made an enemy for life. Susena now raised his voice in a chant.

'Long live Prince Indra, future king of the Devas!'

All around him, the crowd took up the chant. Mitra watched Vasu echo the chant and then look towards the seer with a smile. The smile did not reach the regent's eyes.

Mitra was not pleased with himself. He had allowed his anger to show, and he knew that he and Indra had now made a powerful enemy. Luckily for him, in spite of their current predicament, the great love that the Devas had for Daeyus was intact. Mitra would have no trouble finding trustworthy men to guard young Indra, but that alone was not going to be enough. As an Aditya, he had no real say in matters concerning the Deva clan. For the young prince to survive, he would need a powerful ally from within his own people.

The solution presented itself to Mitra a few days later. Vasu invited him for a great feast to celebrate the birth of his daughter. After a scrumptious meal, an emotional Vasu hugged Mitra.

'My lord, please forgive me if I offended you in any way. I look forward to your continued guidance on our perilous journey ahead.'

'You shall have that, my lord regent. Now if you will excuse me, it is time for my meditation.'

Vasu, a little drunk from all the celebrations, was not willing to let Mitra go that easily.

'You will have to do me one more honour, my lord. I would like you to bless my daughter and give her a suitable name.'

He asked for the child to be brought forward. As Mitra held the beautiful baby girl in his arms, a solution presented itself to him.

'I name this child Indrani, and on behalf of His Majesty the young prince Indra, I ask for her hand in marriage.'

There was a moment of silence. Nobody had expected this announcement. Vasu was the first to react. He clapped his hands in joy.

'Wonderful! My daughter could not have got a better match in the entire wide world. Thank you for doing my family this great honour, my lord.'

A loud cheer greeted this statement.

Mitra studied Vasu carefully; the regent seemed genuinely pleased with the unexpected turn of events. He now looked around for the other principal player in the equation, but the high priest had left as soon as he heard the announcement.

***

The next couple of weeks were filled with bright sunshine. Vasu put his young army through its paces by arranging a series of drills and mock combat. Mitra too joined in the war games, and everyone clamoured to cross swords with the legend. It was a story they would be able to tell their grandchildren one day. The master soon proved that age had not diminished his skills as a warrior in any way; he was still a superlative swordsman with boundless stamina. He ran through at least four or five opponents in a session. His victims, less than half his age, dropped their weapons in exhaustion and requested to be relieved.

Susena watched Mitra in action, resentment simmering in him as Ishtar fed his insecurities. In the old days, priests had been highly respected and feared in their tribal society. King and commoner alike consulted them in the all-important decisions of life. Daeyus, however, had shown a scant disregard for priests and all their rituals and divinations, and the Devas had followed his lead and slowly begun to turn away from them. Susena knew that with Indra on the throne, Mitra would be his advisor on all matters concerning the divine, and there would be no place for the high priest in the scheme of things.

Ishtar let these thoughts fester along with the constant reminder of the threat Indra posed to the survival of his tribe. She had underestimated Mitra again; his announcement at the birthday celebrations had been a political masterstroke. Now Ishtar would have to make sure that this egotistical ass that was under her control proceeded with extreme caution.

Indra, now old enough to crawl, was a child with boundless energy. The slightest chance he got and he would be off, chasing butterflies, beetles or any other form of creepy crawlies. If these unfortunate creatures happened to get caught, they found their way into his mouth very quickly. A worried Mahisi employed a small army of young slave girls to watch over him and he in turn made sure he kept all of them busy.

One of these girls had caught Susena's fancy. He now watched as she finished her duties and made her way through the camp. Unlike the other girls, she did not head straight back to the slave encampment but followed one of the streams in the opposite direction where it disappeared behind a circular formation of rocks. Susena made a mental note to himself that this one would bear watching.

The young girl entered the stream near the rock formation, still clad in her dirty, knee-length tunic. She dived into the water and made her way through an opening in the rocks. As she came up for air she was within the circle in a still, deep pool. This place offered her total privacy. She swam to a ledge and took off her tunic. A cloth was tightly wrapped around her chest, which she now proceeded to take off hurriedly.

Basit let out a deep sigh as the last bit of cloth was unwound, and her perfectly-shaped breasts emerged. She massaged them gently to allow the blood to circulate. This deception, though painful, was necessary. She had started her moon sickness over a year ago, yet she had cunningly concealed it from everyone. Even the unusually sharp eyes of Mahisi had not been able to detect anything.

Every month she gritted her teeth and bore the severe cramps, showing no outward signs of any discomfort. Her childhood was the only shield protecting her from the inevitable fate that awaited every beautiful slave woman. If her secret were discovered, Basit knew that the very men who now joked with her and laughed at her antics would turn on her like a pack of wolves. She hated her breasts and the fine down of hair that was now growing between her legs. She lay back on the ledge and allowed the sun to soak into her honey-coloured skin. These were the only few moments she got to enjoy being a young woman, and she was going to make the most of it.

She closed her eyes and thought about her days as a child, in her land along the banks of the great river Nile. She had been one of the privileged girls who had been selected as initiates to the temple of the great goddess Isis. She remembered the first few years she had spent in the temple, days filled with play and lots of religious study. Until the day the arrival of an army of horsemen had turned her perfect little world upside down.

Basit had watched from a little hiding place behind the altar as these men rushed into the sanctum sanctorum with drawn swords, showing utter disregard for the sanctity of the temple. The priestesses were rounded up and raped right there in the presence of the giant statue of the goddess. One by one the men took turns on the women, and Basit had spent the whole night listening to the screams of young priestesses who were like her older sisters.

The survivors and all the initiates were rounded up and marched across the desert along with the other men and women of the town. Along the way, Basit realised that she'd been left alone because the men saw her as a child. She'd barely survived the long and arduous journey that ended at the slave markets of Ecbatana. There she was bartered for a good Scythian horse and she found herself in the hands of Krupa, commander of the Devas.

Basit opened her eyes with a start as she came awake. The sun had disappeared behind the tallest rock. She gathered her clothing hurriedly and started to get dressed.