RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA Read online

  This was something else altogether: a carpet of boiling, raging black smoke—an ocean, really, for it stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. He turned his head and saw that the moon, his other namesake, had been banished beneath the ocean of roiling cloudwaves.

  As Rama meant black and Chandra meant moon, so Rama Chandra could be interpreted to mean black moon or dark moon. And so his mother had teased him as an infant in arms, singing lullabies to him of her own casual composition, weaving the words ‘dark moon’ into the homespun lyrics. He had carried those lullabies and the memory of her love and warmth and maternal perfume with him through some of the darkest nights of his life. Yet it was only now, for the first time, that he saw a true dark moon, submerged beneath the ocean of clouds, yet still blazing luminously, like a gleaming silver coin caught by a ray of sunlight at the bottom of a murky pool. It seemed to pulse sporadically, like a heart filling and emptying with pale white light instead of blood, and even through the raging cloudstorm-ocean, its light illuminated everything, searing through the dense frenzy of the smoke waves. As he looked directly at it, it blazed now, like a maddened jewelled eye set deep in the flesh of the forehead of some vengeful deva. The air, Himalaya-cold now, made his skin prickle apprehensively. He shivered and brought his arms closer to his body, clasping them to his bare chest. It made no difference to the pace of his falling—rising—which was so rapid now that he could barely look up without blinking, so great was the force of wind buffeting him. It roared in his ears like the ocean on the shores of Lanka.

  He glanced down again and saw that the lights of Ayodhya had vanished entirely, and the very bowl of the earth itself lay revealed beneath him now, like a dark ball veined with emerald and sapphire threads thickly intertwined. His breath, smoking now as it left his shivering lips, caught in his chest to see it so far removed. Surely even garudas never flew so high. Far in the north, he could glimpse the peaks of mountains as well, and he was much higher than the loftiest peak now…and still flying upwards at tremendous speed. Except, he was not actually flying. There was no conscious volition in the act, nor was he doing anything to make this miracle of flight possible. Unlike Hanuman, who could pound the ground, take a mighty leap skywards and shatter the protective shackles of Prithvi Maa, he had no power to soar bird-like. He was simply falling, it was just that he was falling upwards instead of down.

  He sensed a change in the pace of his falling, a slowing down. It felt like the opposite of falling now, for at the very end of a fall, the earth seemed to rush up to meet you, flying at you like a rushing mass. But as best as he could make out, the cloud-ocean, boiling and raging with purple and gold veins showing through the morass of smoky chaos, seemed to be approaching slower than before rather than faster. A moment later, he was certain of it—his pace had definitely slowed. Shutting his eyes momentarily from the wind, now cold enough that he could feel the prick of icy particles needling his naked skin, he heard it change from a roaring whirlwind to a growling giant, then fade out gradually to a numbing silence. He opened his eyes again to see the cloud approaching closer as he reached the end of his descent—ascent? He felt himself slow until he was almost floating. He opened his arms, bracing himself for impact even though a part of him knew no impact was forthcoming. With an eerie absence of sound or sensation, he saw his body execute a perfect somersault, feeling no pressure of the earth’s pull—or cloud’s pull, either—and as gently as a feather touching ground, he saw his bare feet come to rest upon the dark purple-black cottony surface of the cloud ocean.

  He released a long deep breath and continued looking down for a moment. The substance beneath his feet had no substance to speak of. It was like standing on ground wreathed in dense ankle-depth fog, except that he could feel no ground beneath his bare soles, only a vague sensation of cold wetness. Like standing on dew-wettened grass? No. It was more like the sensation of placing one’s bare foot on the surface of a pond of cool water, feeling the water slap against the sole of the foot, yet holding the foot in mid-air so it did not immerse itself into the water. Yes, that came closer to describing how this felt, except that he was standing with all his weight on both feet, and even so, he was not being pushed down through the skin of the water. He was in fact, impossibly, able to stay suspended, standing on water—or a cloudbank filled with it.

  He took a step or two, mentally bracing himself again, and confirmed it. He could even sense the upsurges and downsurges in the mass of smoke-wreathed fluid through the soles of his feet—for these were monsoon clouds, he felt certain, even though monsoon clouds this pregnant with rain should not have been able to rise this high above the land. Yet the whole thing was incredible. How was he able to walk upon the belly of a cloud? To traipse upside down on the underside of a monsoon cloud, looking up—down?—at the earth itself, far, far below, faintly illuminated by the light of the dark-shrouded moon, a silver-limned orb now hanging suspended in a vast pit of darkness. He had arrived here by falling up, like a wingless bird. Even the unbearable cold, for he could hardly imagine how frigid it must be at this height, had grown bearable somehow; he felt a chill wind wafting across his bare chest and limbs but he was neither freezing nor severely inconvenienced. It was as if he had simply acclimatised. Even more curious was the fact that he was able to breathe and move as normal, as if he was on any earthly surface. It was impossible, a dream surely…or a nightmare.

  Then he looked around and saw the shapes coalescing around him across the seascape of cloud for as far as the eye could see, an army of writhing, threshing, frenetic forms locked in the ugliest dance of all. After a lifetime spent locked in the frenzy of that same mad dance, he knew at once what it was. He was looking at a theatre of war.

  Not just any war.

  The war of Lanka.

  His war. Against the rakshasa hordes of the lord of asuras. The war he had fought to regain his abducted wife Sita.

  He was standing on what seemed to be a hillock of cloudy mass, elevated over the rest of the cloud-field. Several yards below him, ranged on every side for as far as he could see, ghostly shapes thrashed and writhed and engaged in mortal combat. His heart clenched as he recognized familiar companions and fallen foes, and identified enough familiar details to know that this was indeed the battle of Lanka taking place once more, this time fought by ghostly replicas of the original combatants but otherwise perfect in every detail. Rakshasas and vanars, bears and rakshasas, and in the distance, even a silhouetted Rama and Lakshman, arrows flying from their two bows as if from a single arrow-machine, raged in blood-lust. It was unnerving, unsettling, to see the carnage that had cost him so dearly repeated once more. The blood and gore and ichor might be vaporous, the figures mere simulacra, but the action and the memories it evoked were all too real, and awoke terrible dread in his heart. He heard himself moan softly, agonized.

  A soft chuckle reverberated in his left ear. He swung around, startled and ready to lash out, bare-handed if need be, prepared for anything except the apparition that appeared.

  A man stood beside him. Not a rakshasa with ten heads and legendary sorcerous powers. Not the king of asuras, conqueror of devas and yaksas, terror of the three worlds. Not He Who Makes The Universe Scream.

  Not Ravana.

  The man who stood before him was no rakshasa or asura. He had two arms, two legs, two eyes, one head … he appeared normal and mortal in every way. He was well-built in a way that clearly indicated he was a kshatriya by profession, with well-developed musculature and sharply indented angles that suggested an active and vigorous lifestyle. His bristling, oiled moustache was matched by unruly, long hair, tamed by a wooden clasp behind his head. He was clad in a simple yet well-woven dhoti and anga-vastra. Even at first glance, there was something about him that instantly caused Rama to associate him with the specific sub-varna of kshatriyas called rakshaks. A sense of coiled power in those heavily muscled limbs and torso, coupled with a relatively less developed lower body suggested that he was more suited to
house guarding and site protection than the leaner, wirier physique suited to the rigours of long travel required of any serving soldier. At best, he could be a mace-wielder, but he lacked the exaggerated shoulders and back muscles that macers were known for. No, Rama thought, all in the space of the time it took him to take in the stranger’s appearance, this was almost certainly a rakshak.

  “Who are you?” he asked, on his guard, but not adopting a fighting or defensive stance. There was no sense of threat from the man, no suggestion of impending violence. Still, he was prepared for any sudden move, any sign of treachery. “Where is Ravana?”

  The man smiled. There was something not unpleasant about his features, something vaguely familiar, like a family resemblance. He arched his thick eyebrows, his broad, high forehead creasing with a trio of horizontal lines. “After all we have been through together, do you still not know me?”

  Rama frowned. He glanced down briefly at the war raging below—or above, depending on your perspective. It was still in furious progress. “I don’t understand. What is this place? How are we able to witness events that have gone before. Why have I been brought here? I heard a voice…Ravana’s voice…it summoned me …” He indicated the ghostly conflict raging around them. “What is this? Sorcery or illusion?” And, with a sudden ferocity that surprised even himself, “Who are you?”

  The man’s face recomposed itself into a conciliatory expression. “Patience, Ayodhya-naresh. All will be revealed.”

  The man turned and walked away, up the sloping side of the cloud-hillock on which Rama stood. Rama saw now that the hillock rose sharply behind him to ascend upwards into a mist-wreathed darkness. He looked upwards, where the convex bowl of the earth had been only moments earlier, and saw only darkness wreathed in mist. He looked back and saw that the ghostly images of warriors had vanished, leaving only an undulating ocean of dark monsoon cloud, pregnant and heavy with the promise of rain. Apparently, the stranger intended to take him someplace higher up, up some kind of cloud-mountain, the top of which was obscured in the strange mist that had sprung up unexpectedly and was curling around Rama’s ankles and feet now. Rama remained where he was, surprised, and more than a little chagrined. He did not like what he felt; did not want any of this. It felt strange, like a dream that was surreal, exotic, enticing, yet with a constant sense of dread, of mortal threat, lurking behind the strange exoticism. The man stopped when he realized Rama was not following him, and looked back. He was already several yards up the mountain.

  “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.