Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
I remain frozen.
Fear and shock coil inside me, panic close to spilling over.
The stories rush through my head.
Shiva is here. He who with a single glance burned Kandarpa, god of desire, to ashes for disturbing his meditation. Shiva, who forced Vishnu, the Great Lord of Preservation, to shed his incarnation in the mortal realm when the time came to return to his abode. Shiva, who in his form as Nataraj once danced the violent dance tandava, and shattered maya, the greatest illusion of nature that incessantly separates each soul from the infinite cosmos.
He is here.
Shiva is here.
My breath resounds in my ears. Disbelief paralyzes me.
Lord of Destruction. Lord of Yoga. Lord of Dance.
Lord of Dance .
Tears fill my eyes, and though the trees and the forest become mere blurs, he reflects in my sight unblinkingly. I am crying, because although I did not call him through prayer or devotion, he has come for me, to rescue me, to absolve me. He is here in the flesh, even though I have never been worthy, and I do not know now what to ask him, or what to say at all.
Shiva opens his eyes.
He smiles, and there is so much kindness, so much understanding and compassion in his gaze that suddenly, I forget my every worry. My tears warm my skin. They splash on my hands and my bare arms, and the gold scratches I have endured heal as though there is still magic inside me.
I don’t realize I am sobbing, my cries soft.
I don’t realize that I stumble toward him and sit by the tapasvin fire.
I only know that I am finally bleeding all my pain out, healing myself because of his very presence. I only know that I am no longer alone, for he has come for me when he would not come even for his most ardent followers. My own devotion to him is nothing compared to the other disciples’ arduous calls. I can recall my distraction at the hermitage during my prayers to him. I can recall asking others to deviate from his path.
A part of me thinks that I should offer him prayers, or ritual, or flowers. If I had my magic, I would create those, transforming the woody clearing into a rich garden.
Another part of me thinks, what will Shiva care for any offering I can make? He is the Innocent One. He transcends division. He does not distinguish between pain or pleasure, between an orchard or a crematory. It is because he saw no difference between poison and elixir that the devas propitiated him to drink the halahala during the Churning of the Oceans. They knew that of all beings it would do Shiva alone no harm.
Through the blur of my tears, I see his throat now, the poison swallowed millennia ago still caught in it, turning his dark skin a deep blue. Halahala that he holds in his throat, neither swallowing it fully lest it poison him nor spitting it out lest it poison the world. Halahala that even now is in Kaushika’s meadow, existing as a few uncaught droplets, a danger to all the realms. It reminds me of Kaushika and my friends. It reminds me of all I’ve lost.
Fresh tears tremble in my eyes.
“Lord,” I whisper. “Om Namaha Shivaya.” I bow down to Shiva.
Shiva smiles again. “Child of gods. Meneka. Daughter.”
Daughter.
His voice is quiet, calm. It rustles like the softest wind. It coils its way into my heart, comforting me. My tears stop of their own accord.
“I am lost,” I say.
Shiva shakes his head. “Never lost, as long as you have yourself.”
I think whether I have myself at all. Pieces of it. Shards only. That is all I am left with.
“Indra. Amaravati. The war …”
“Evanescent. The only permanence is the truth of yourself. Only that which is real. Child of illusions,” he adds softly, “understand the power of the greatest magic there is, which tries to convince you that you are alone.”
We sit in silence. I expect no other response from Shiva, but breath by breath I reach for understanding. A creature of maya, I do not have the power to slice illusion from reality, but I am familiar with the legends. I am a being of legends myself. Shiva himself is here.
I listen. I try.
After a time, I am calmer. Perhaps it is his presence. Perhaps I have reached for something within me. My tears dry. My trembling body quietens. The pain of everything I have endured still crashes inside me, but it is distant, like the roar of a faraway ocean. The sickness from being cut off from Amaravati reduces to a seed. I watch it, in grief and sorrow. I feel my burned tether, regretful still, but this time the pain does not immobilize me.
“Where did I go wrong?” I ask quietly.
“ Did you go wrong?” Shiva answers gently.
“Indra cut me away from Amaravati. Kaushika hates me. I have lost everything.”
Shiva’s face is tender, compassionate. “Pain is not always a consequence of doing the wrong thing. Hate is not always the opposite of love.”
I think of how unfair that is. How obvious it is. I think of the army Kaushika has collected and the alternate heaven that he is creating.
Shiva leans forward. “The universes are much larger than you can imagine, daughter.” His fingers hover between my brows, and my eyes grow large.
My breath seizes. Within my eyes, infinite galaxies form and die. The universe rushes, extending into every direction. Not one universe but a thousand, a million, infinite and continuous. I glimpse creation, the birth of everything; it occurs over and over again. I glimpse destruction, and they are the same thing, for what is birth without death? One leads into the other, a continuum, their divisibility itself an illusion.
The image shifts, and infinite Indras sparkle in my mind within infinite Amaravatis. Billions of Menekas and Kaushikas exist, both with and without each other. I see then that Kaushika’s attempt at an alternate heaven isn’t ambitious. It is useless, ridiculous, unnecessary. Infinite heavens already exist with so many possibilities. For an instant, the cosmic power, the absolute total eternity of Shiva’s knowledge seizes me. I gasp at the sheer scope of it, knowing he has shown me but a speck of what he himself sees when he meditates. Infinity both contains and does not contain parts.
I blink, and the image dissipates, and I am here again, seated by the Lord, the tapasvin fire burning in front of us.
It takes me a long time to recover.
My breath is deep, but it is fast and shallow too—in another world, in a different universe. I pull myself back to my own existence sharply.
This time when I search for the lingering pain inside me, I hold it desperately, as though it is a log in a tempestuous ocean. My pain glimmers, and I lurch toward its heat and sharpness. The one thing I can call my own even now.
When I am steady, I speak, and my voice is low.
“This heaven he wishes to create. It cannot be.” I swallow. “It would be unnatural. It would break the cosmic order of birth and rebirth. Amaravati is where mortal souls are meant to rest. I still believe this.”
Shiva does not reply. He has no need to. This is not his affair to worry about. He transcends this, and I am still mystified at why he is here at all.
I wonder if I should ask him about the halahala and the conspiracy I suspect lurking there. About Kaushika’s vow and his battle with Indra. I wonder if I should ask about the Vajrayudh, and how Shiva himself extracted a vow from the storm lord, or about ancient Indra and his evolution, or the deepest pains in my own heart and if I will ever heal.
Shiva answers me before I can speak. He decides for himself what question he wishes to answer.
“Kaushika is destined for greatness. There is pride in him, but there is purity too.”
Kaushika’s intense gaze burns my forehead. The way his mouth moves when he chants a mantra. The power of his magic, and the sincerity of his beliefs. Despite the distance between us, I feel it—the mirror I saw in him, the darkness that reflected itself back to me.
And purity too , I think.
“Does that mean you will help him achieve his goal?” I whisper. The thought terrifies me, even now, when I am severed from my magic. The wrongness of Kaushika’s meadow and the consequences of war are too horrible to be real. My friends and kin may have abandoned me, but I have not abandoned them.
Shiva does not reply for a long time. I wonder if I have presumed too much. I begin to grow abashed, but then he speaks, finally, and there is weariness in his answer.
“I will take the halahala from his meadow. For it is part of my ancient promise.”
His throat glistens a sharp bright blue. Poison roils inside, fumes and darkness that he holds at bay for himself and the world. His entire body darkens for an instant before it settles, the poison once again under control. In my mind, Indra’s song resounds, one that he sang so long ago lamenting the power of halahala. The gandharvas say halahala is the embodiment of all vices, anger, pride, every dark hedonistic pursuit. What must it be for Shiva to hold it in and never swallow or release it?
Shiva’s gaze falls on me as if he has heard my question. “Do you know why I do not swallow it?”
“It will kill you.”
“If I swallow it, I will destroy it. It will burn to nothing with the tapasvin magic inside me.”
“Then … why won’t you?” I dare.
“Because the Goddess commands me not to,” he says, and I know he speaks of his Shakti.
I am aghast. The three realms could be rid of this terrible thing. Halahala is the one thing that could destroy all of existence. Shiva does not distinguish between poison and elixir, but this could save the order of the universe.
I cannot help my impertinent question. “Why would she ask you to do this?”
“She is ambrosia and poison,” he says, smiling fondly. “She is terrifying Kali and nourishing Gauri. She is everything, and everything more. She tells me that without pain, there is no pleasure. And without either, there is no life. That is why I hold it, child. Because she is right.”
Shakti flashes in my mind, astride Shiva, dominating him. The image changes to how Kaushika and I were, and I blink.
Shiva rises. In his gesture I recognize an end to our conversation. He wishes to return to his eternal meditation. Already, his form is dwindling.
The words burst out of me without thought. I am fearful of how he might answer, but the question has been circling me. I need to know if it’s true.
My voice is a whisper. “Am I even capable of love?”
At this, Shiva’s gaze turns sad, sorrowful.
“Oh, my child,” he says. “You are love.”
He fades, his voice a murmur on the wind.
I STAND UP .
All that remains are bael leaves fluttering. Vaguely, I think how there are no bael trees around.
It is Shiva’s power, but is it magic at all? Magic seems dull around him. As the Destroyer, he decimates the illusion of any magic.
I make my way to the cliff.
I stand at its edge, and below, the river winds in a ribbon of blue. The moon has returned to the sky now that Shiva is back at Mount Kailash. Did Indra notice the moon’s absence in his skies? I imagine the lord of heaven alarmed while he is in conference with his devas. I imagine him, worrying and rash, thinking that it is Kaushika whom Shiva responded to.
I stare at the heavens. Amaravati glints in my eyes, its halls and pathways forming in the constellations, beckoning me. Indra took away my magic. I thought I was nothing without it.
Bathed in moonlight, blessed by the Great Lord himself, I close my eyes.
I dance.
F OR THE FIRST TIME, MY DANCE IS FOR NO ONE ELSE BUT ME .
The mudras spin out of me without preparation. Strength of a Diamond. Spark of Agni. Flame of the Heart.
I feel them burning where my tether to Amaravati was cut away. Even though I breathe deeply, I can no longer sense the flow of my prana as I once did. Indra’s gifts, both of those.
This dance is not augmented by any magic. Instead, the mudras come from a place of creation within my heart. No illusions flow out of me; I do not need them. My dance is expression enough.
My feet spin, arms thrown up to the sky. Dark green echoes in my vision, the circling of the trees, the night sky, the sliver of a returned moon. I close my eyes, aware I may trip and fall. I am too close to the edge of the cliff. This is dangerous.
I dance.
I tell a story. It is of a time before the Churning of the Oceans, a story of how apsaras were created. There are gaps in my knowledge, but it doesn’t matter. My movements fill the gaps, making any spaces of loss meaningless.
Here we are, born as creatures of the water, when the three realms were nothing more than a congealed mess of swirling oceans. When Indra, Surya, Vayu, and all the other devas were nothing more than amorphous, barely sentient creatures themselves.
The world evolves. Indra and the other devas grow in shape and power. Apsaras, who were once barely more than fish, become water nymphs. My mothers and sisters from a different age transform, and their beauty is like the dawn of a new day—innocent, shining, full of possibilities.
Indra evolves. He takes the form of a man. He arrays his devas. He builds Amaravati with his bare hands and rules the city. He promises to follow the cosmic order of birth and rebirth. Promises to keep safe those who are pious before it is their time to return to the mortal form.
The three realms take shape. Rules develop, change, and die. Busy, busy, life goes on in all of them in some form. Indra approaches the apsaras—the most beautiful creatures of all the three realms, who flit from stars and clouds to rivers and streams, free. He offers them a home. “Bind yourself to me,” he says, “and I will give you permanence.”
We agree. We choose to serve him in return for a home in his beautiful city. We dance for Indra. We fall in love with the devas. We lie with them and the gandharvas. We bear children, always another apsara, whom we train into our art. Dance was always our form. We have only perfected it now, when before it was mere movement in water and dust.
Our devotion to Amaravati is rewarded, and the city succors us with each dance. Illusions drip from us, an enchantment even Indra did not know would occur. We are forever young, forever beautiful. We do not know the meaning of promiscuity—it is an ugly word. For us, our dance, our very bodies, are instruments of love.
My feet spin, and there is joy in my steps. Freedom, ecstasy, peace.
I tell my story, and I allow Shiva’s wisdom to flood me. Everything I felt for Kaushika, all that I’ve felt for my friends, Anirudh, Kalyani, Rambha, even Indra and the city of Amaravati. I inhale that love, letting it soak my body, letting it soak me . My tether awakens, snaps around, and Shiva smiles.
And I understand what he means.
Mortal and immortal magic do not matter.
Love is a form of magic too.
Something sparks with this realization. Awareness flaps its wings inside me like a vivid butterfly. I dance, gasping, unable to stop—and Amaravati’s force floods into me, a golden power, a dam that has been bursting to receive me. My own wild prana slams into my heart, tapasvin power I cannot be denied. Power is power, and I— I am a creature of power too.
My eyes snap open. Around me is the legend I told myself. Illusions of devas glimmering. The Churning of the Oceans as asuras try to take the amrit that was once promised to them. The world before the three realms, water and fluid coagulating. The legend of the apsaras and how we came to be. The legend of Indra and how he built Amaravati. And finally, embedded within all of these stories, the one I care about the most.
The legend of Meneka.
She is there, amidst it all, watching, understanding. She is immortal but young, and she finally understands herself and her history. She sees where she came from and her own choices. Kaushika kisses her. Anirudh wraps his arm around her. Rambha tips her chin up. Meneka is here, surrounded by her friends and her mentors. She is in Kaushika’s hermitage, studying the mortals, and at Amaravati too, among the devas. She is alone, but she is never alone. For I am here too.
I fall to my knees, but the illusion still glimmers, powered by my sheer emotion. Indra, Amaravati, and all the other apsaras shine in the distance, but Meneka walks up to me. She kneels in front of me and lifts my chin. Her touch is as light as air. She smells like morning’s fresh hope.
Meneka smiles.
I smile back.
I see you , we think. We blink—
And she’s gone.
The rest of the illusion glimmers, fading into golden dust. Within me, my tether to Amaravati blooms rich and fluid, still bursting with power. I breathe deeply, and my own prana floods me, alongside the tether, both powers that I understand now were never gifted to me by Indra.
Wood and dust and heat create their own mirage. I breathe, and my body lights up, my own aura visible to me for the first time. Within me, my chakras glow, not merely the seven everyone can name but thousands of smaller ones. Prana flows in a rainbow river of radiance, and I watch it twining through my blood and bones, indistinguishable from any other part of me . Give yourself permission , Kaushika’s voice says to me from a lifetime ago, and I unlock the chakras as though I have always known how to do so.
Mortal and immortal magic braid together, consuming me.
Strands of prana seep into my very soul, water meandering and finding its path to the most concealed parts of me.
My back arcs, and my breath slows.
I twist my wrist, and before the mudra is complete, an illusion shoots out, rich with Amaravati’s gold. The heavens roar, a crack of thunder, and I look up. Lightning flashes again and again, and dark clouds storm the sky, gathering right above me in response to my magic. Rain begins to pour, in punishment and rage, and I know Indra can see me. Despite everything, he is my sire, and I am his devotee. This place is not warded from his view. I have taken back Amaravati’s power despite my exile. I have disobeyed him again. He is coming.
Let him come.
I stand and shake my arms out, dispelling stormwater.
I am intoxicated by my own power. I am more clearheaded than I’ve ever been. A chant threads through me, one I did not know I had learned. It is a similar chant to the one Kaushika used to open a portal, and the air in front of me ripples.
I stare at Nanda in her stone form. She undulates, the stone raining, howling. The portal brought her here, closer to me, and runes escape from the ends of my fingers, the circle of freedom, the lingam of Shiva and Shakti, the sickle of healing. I press the force of my braided magic into the stone, and it weeps.
Then the obelisk bursts.
Tiny splinters of stone explode but do not harm me, turning into airy dust even as they touch me.
Nanda staggers from the dust and falls to her knees, a sob tearing from her chest. I lean down and lift her up, and I see the words in her eyes. Purehearted sage.
“Sister,” I whisper, and she places her head on my shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably, unable even to form my name. Tears flood my eyes too, not just for releasing her but because I have been the one to do it. Both of us grip each other like we are in a stormy ocean, powerful and free for water is in our nature, but terrified too because of its freedom and danger.
I stroke her hair again and again, careful of the jewels she is wearing, sensing the magic in them. I want to ask her about Magadhi and Sundari, the two other apsaras besides us who were sent to seduce Kaushika. But she would not know; they were sent after her. Did Kaushika turn them into stones too? Why, then, would he not mention it when he spoke of his mistake with Nanda?
I say none of these things. I simply hold her, murmuring to her that she is safe. That I am here now, and I will let no harm come to her. Nanda quivers in my arms, sobbing quietly, and I think of the horrors she has experienced. Was she aware of herself the entire time she was trapped there? I hope not. I hope it was simply like an enchanted sleep and this is an awakening. I know it is an awakening for me .
The trees rustle, and we hear voices raised in argument. Someone else is here. The downpour has lessened into a faint drizzle but Indra has likely sent his minions already. A wry smile grows on my lips. Nanda draws back from me, still too overwhelmed to speak, but a quiet resolve buds in her eyes. She dashes her tears from her face and nods to me once, magic already curling around her fingertips. She is an apsara, a soldier. She knows what we must do in the face of any kind of danger, whether sent from the lord or otherwise. She was abandoned by those who should have protected her. Just like I was. We are ready.
We exchange one final glance, magic glinting over our bodies.
Silently, we approach the sounds.