Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
B attle looms in the skies.
I watch it happen, in the storm clouds that race, the rain that thunders, the winds that churn. I stumble through the forest, trying to find my way back to the hermitage. To warn Kaushika that Indra is coming for him. To beg for his forgiveness for everything I did.
Yet with Amaravati cut away from me, my vision sways. I fall and stumble, a repelling in my stomach like a swallowed poison. I do not know if this is what occurs when an apsara is cut away from her magic and the city. I did not even know it was possible. Exiled apsaras are not spoken of in swarga. Their punishment is to remain forgotten until they can prove their devotion to Indra and become worthy of acknowledgment again. Am I dying? Only desperate hate and powerful magic can destroy an immortal, but Indra implied I might not survive the next few hours. It is too difficult to piece together these thoughts.
Pain seizes me with every movement as I stagger from tree to tree. Leaves, stem, bark. They touch me, caress me, stab me. Sometimes my vision clears, and I turn this way or that, thinking I see something familiar. Other times, everything is a haze, and I move only through sheer will and by rote. Do hours pass? Do days? I sleep, but I do not remember waking. I look at my hands, trembling, and I see Kaushika’s fingers interlocking with mine, weaving in and out curiously, restlessly. I cannot remember his face from when he loved me. I can only remember his revulsion.
In my mind, the loss of my magic and the loss of him merge . My choices, my confusion, my betrayals. Where else were they to lead me if not here, in this forest so close to him yet all alone? Even my own reason abandoned me, by the end of it. Maybe the kalpavriksh tried to fulfill my wish. Maybe I didn’t let it.
I wander deeper. The trees grow thicker, and darkness falls faster. Time loses meaning. I see Amaravati in dreams and nightmares. The apsaras’ grove where I grew up. The gardens and gilded fountains of the city. The glittering performances during Indra’s harvest festivals. Memory taunts me with what I cannot have.
Sometimes I think I see the sun shining above, but I do not know if it is truly daylight. What if this is simply the devas preparing for war, confusing the lands? It is their right. I falter and begin a prayer to Lord Surya, or to Vayu, or Agni—they are lords in their own right. They bear me no grudge, no ill will. I am nothing to them, just a devotee. They will hear me if I call.
My prayers turn to dust in my mouth. Even if they hear me, they will not cross Indra. I see them, arrayed around him in his throne room, all of them dazzling, magnificent, yet none more so than the king. Clouds churn, dimming the sunlight.
I catch my reflection in a passing stream. I blink at it, barely recognizing myself. My eyes are haunted, gold scratches on my face, tears streaked with mud. Once I had danced for the gods themselves. I would crook a finger and kings and queens would fall at my feet. This is what I have become.
My hands brush against Kaushika’s wooden crescent. It weighs me down, useless when I am cut off from my own prana. Once or twice, I try to use the mantras I learned at the hermitage. My voice is a croak and I hear him in my mind, the beauty of his songs, the magnetism. My fingers tremble, trying to form a rune instead. To give me clarity or bravery or peace. It does not work.
Indra’s intent burns in my heart . A dull sort of horror grows in me, urgent and quiescent at the same time, as I watch my own inevitable destruction come closer. It is a raging storm of rain and fire, and my cut tether to Amaravati flails inside me, whipping in a dark, hollow wind, looking for completion and connection. The sickness spreads from my stomach to my limbs. I fall every few steps, then crawl, before I can take a breath. I move again, dragging myself on the forest floor.
Urgency claws at me, even as I scrabble at the earth to force myself to stand. I think again of Indra and Kaushika, and the hateful intent in both of them. The war will be fought. Perhaps it has begun already. Will Indra kill Kaushika with the vajra? Will Kaushika overthrow Indra? I glance at the skies, and Indra’s incandescent rage flashes in the clouds, threatening hail and lightning. I imagine him consulting his devas, all of them in battle raiment. I imagine Kaushika, along with Anirudh and the rest, doing the same.
I abruptly chance upon the cliff where I’d spoken to Rambha. My feet are bloodied. The sickness has reached my heart. I breathe hard, swaying. Moonlight glints over the jewel-like water below, waves susurrating. How easy it would be to simply fall. I think of whether that would be better than what is happening to me now.
My throat begins to close, and I choke. I stumble to the closest knot of trees, the river visible only as a shining ribbon. I collapse in the copse.
My mind grows sluggish.
A prayer escapes me, a song to an indifferent god. To neither Indra nor one of his devas but to one who exists far beyond the petty squabbles of the mortal and immortal realms. The prayer is merely his name, a call if I were intentioned so, but to call him is not my intention. I do not presume. There is comfort in knowing he is indifferent. What I have done, and what I am … it does not matter to him. There is peace in that.
I only realize my eyes have been closed when I open them.
I breathe for long minutes, noticing the pain in my body subside. The sickness is still there, but I feel detached from it, as though I am simply watching it take me over. This must be what death feels like for an immortal. It is not so bad.
Then I realize the quiet of the trees has changed. A thrum of energy pulses through them, slow and silent, like a universe breathing.
It takes me a long time to rise to my feet.
I move as though hypnotized, by instinct alone. My heart skips a beat as I see a man sitting in a small clearing a few feet away, his back to me. Was there a clearing here before? I cannot remember. At first, I think it is Kaushika; there is a surge of energy around this man I have only seen before with him.
But it is not Kaushika, and disappointment stabs me, as does relief.
Curiosity weaves through it, and I approach quietly at an angle, so as not to draw attention. The man is dressed in a tiger skin wrapped loosely around his waist. A mass of beads covers his arms, but as I look closer, I notice they are not beads but seeds, strung together in a childlike fashion to mimic jewelry. He must be a deva, but he is not of Indra’s court, not dressed this way. Indra’s devas are resplendent, which means he is a minor nature deity, perhaps the one this forest belongs to. A necklace coils around him, moving sinuously—
Not a necklace. I startle.
A cobra, twining around his neck lovingly, its head erect, its eyes glittering with awareness. I pause, my heartbeat slowing. I am mesmerized by the snake and how it moves around the man, as though they are friends. As though it is tame, even if everything about it screams of wildness and poison.
The man seems oblivious to any danger. His eyes are closed, hands extended to an emerald-green fire that changes colors even as I watch. His skin is so dark, it looks like an inky blue. If it weren’t for his aura, shining with a dark light, I would hardly know he is there. It outlines him, both within him and beyond him, illuminating all of the woods with a dusky, radiant glow. Its scent eludes me, as though scent itself is a limited perception. Wiry and slim, he is no taller than I am, but I blink and he is as tall as an asura, his head and shoulders towering into the heavens. I blink again, and he is unmoving, seated by the strange fire.
His muscles gleam in quiet strength. Apart from the tiger skin around his waist, he is naked, but the effect is not sensual. It is … spiritual. His hair is matted, a tangle of long, thick curls. Twinkling within it is a crescent similar to the one I wear in my own hair, except mine is made of wood. His looks like it is the moon itself—
My eyes grow wide.
They flicker upward, where a minute ago the moon was gleaming.
It is gone now.
It is in his hair, tangled among the locks, pearly, luminous.
I am suddenly aware of my every inhalation. My every exhalation.
This is no mortal man. That fire is no ordinary fire.
It is spontaneous, self-contained, its presence a fuel to itself. Tapasvin fire.
I am looking at neither a deva nor a sage.
He is here.
Shiva.