Chapter 28 Bhumika
BHUMIKA
The yaksa loved being upon the Hirana. And the Hirana loved them in turn.
Its walls shone, lustrous with leaves and flowers that grew in profusion through new fractures in the stone.
The effigies of the yaksa gleamed with vines and soft blooms. Sendhil liked to tend to them.
He took great satisfaction in gazing at them, as vegetation unfurled gently around them.
Once, he said to Bhumika, “They’ll all return soon. All of them.”
She looked at the statues. Innumerable yaksa, she thought distantly. One for every village, family, tree, flower.
“I look forward to the day,” Bhumika said in return.
More than the Hirana, the yaksa loved worship.
An endless stream of people rose up the Hirana with their offerings, and bowed their heads, weeping and awed before the yaksa.
No guards stopped them, any longer, from milling at the Hirana’s base.
No guards dared, and Bhumika would not ask them to do so.
The worshippers begged for good fortune.
They begged for a better Ahiranya. And so very many of them begged to have the rot on their bodies cured.
A woman bowed before Chandni now. She, Sendhil, Sanjana, and Nandi sat upon the triveni in a semicircle, expressions mild, curious. Bhumika stood behind them with Ashok at her side and a mask on her face. She watched.
“Please, ancient one,” the woman whispered, trembling.
There were deep violet flowers rising from the knot of her bound hair, snaking their way down the exposed line of her neck.
When she raised her face, Bhumika saw a cluster of buds at the corner of her mouth.
“Please, I beg you. Cure me. I will give anything I have. Please.”
The yaksa were still. Then suddenly, Chandni leaned forward. She touched a hand to the woman’s cheek.
“What offering have you brought us?”
“Food,” the woman said tremulously. “All the food I have. I… I have nothing else.”
“Worship us, and I promise the greenness in you will grow no larger,” Chandni murmured, gazing at the woman. Beneath her fingers, the woman flinched, then went still. “See?” said Chandni. “You feel it. What you call rot won’t grow. You will live. Keep your food, small one, and live on.”
“Th-thank you,” the woman said. Teary. “Thank you.”
She prostrated again, and again. Rose to her feet, and bowed her head once more.
“And when you have a child,” Chandni said, a gentle smile curving her mouth. “Bring them to us. Let us see if they are worthy of rising to our temple. That is the only offering I demand of you.”
Bhumika could not control what she felt—the horror that poured through her in a wave. She wondered if the yaksa could feel it; if they could taste the salt of her fear, the frantic thrum of her heartbeat, the nausea rising in her stomach.
After the woman had stumbled away, still whimpering her thanks, Bhumika said, “Priya used to do something similar.” At her side, Ashok gave her a look.
Hungry, yearning. She didn’t look at him in return.
“She would halt the rot inside people. In plants. It was no cure, but it was survival.” She paused.
Then said, “Is that what you have done?”
“Such curiosity,” Sanjana said, delighted. And Chandni replied, saying, “Yes, daughter. Your kin’s gifts are from us, after all. As are your own.”
Bhumika clasped her hands in front of her, seeking calm. Forcing it into her voice as she said, “I wish you had allowed me to summon her home.”
“She cannot come home,” Sendhil said. “Not yet.”
She lives, Bhumika thought, relief rushing through so fiercely that she feared she might crumple, then and there. She lives, she lives.
“We want no one to leave Ahiranya,” Nandi said. “And we want no one to come. So no one shall.”
No one to leave. No one to come. Relief gave way to swift creeping horror. She thought of the merchants who regularly crossed the border. The Ahiranyi who traded regularly with neighboring cities.
“No one shall,” she repeated faintly. “I understand.”
“Bhumika,” Ashok murmured at her side. She forced her hands to relax, and the tension in her shoulders to ease. Behind her mask, she closed her eyes and did not answer him. “Bhumika,” he said again.
A new group of worshippers entered, and he fell silent. But his eyes stayed on her.
There had been no Srugani or Aloran merchants for weeks.
She had thought they were too frightened to come, or simply too wise.
When she had considered them, it had only been to wonder how the world beyond Ahiranya was reacting to the news of the yaksa’s return.
Did they fear the rise of a second Age of Flowers?
Were they already rallying weapons and soldiers, working together to try to obliterate Ahiranya’s power once more?
She could not ruminate on the question. She had so much to worry about in her own home, her own temple.
But she had her answer now, regardless.
No one knew the yaksa lived. No one had passed the borders alive to tell the tale.
She stood in the mahal’s rose garden, with her crown mask pressed to her face, and reached into the green. Far, far—through thorn and soil, through roots, to the borders of her kingdom. Tangled as she’d been with attending on the yaksa, she had not looked. Not seen.
She took off the mask. Her hands shook.
“Jeevan,” she called out, voice thin. He stood at the edge of the gardens, waiting for her. Whatever look he saw on her face made him stride swiftly toward her, his usually impassive face softened with concern, dark eyebrows furrowed.
“My lady?”
“I have an order,” she managed. She touched the back of her hand to her cheek.
It came away wet. No matter. “The borders. Close them. If anyone—Ahiranyi or outsider—attempts to leave, make your men turn them back. Tell your men it is their only responsibility. Tell them this task is a matter of life or death.” She turned the mask over in her hands.
Stared at the varnished wood, the glow of it under sunlight.
“The yaksa,” she went on, “do not want anyone to know they live once more. And they will not ask anyone to stay in Ahiranya, or politely request that no one leaves. They will kill them. Like the rider you sent, left at my door. They…”
He touched his knuckles to her hand. His hand was so much larger than her own, flecked with scars. She quietened and looked up at him.
“It will be done,” he said.
“Careful,” she said in return. “The mask will burn you.”
“I am not afraid, my lady,” he said solemnly.
“Foolish,” she said. “I will simply have to protect you, then.” She folded the mask into her pallu. He lowered his hand, and stepped back. “Go now,” she said.
He hesitated.
“Don’t remain alone,” he said. “My lady, go to your daughter.”
She shook her head.
“I will go to my work,” she replied. “But thank you, Jeevan. I…” She swallowed. She did not like to be vulnerable. “Thank you,” she said again.
Ganam met her in the corridors later; sidled casually up to her and said, “Rukh and I are going to train,” he told her. “During the midday rest. If you want to see his progress…”
“I’ll come to the practice yard,” Bhumika said.
When she arrived, after settling Padma for her nap, the two rebels were sparring, scythe blades sparking in the hot sun. She watched for a moment, from the shade. Then, when they both paused, she said to Rukh, “You’re improving.”
“Thank you, elder,” Rukh said, panting. He wiped sweat from his brow. Hooked the scythe against his hip. The movement was almost beginning to look practiced. “Ganam, can I…?”
“Go on,” he said. To Bhumika he said, “I’ll keep watch. You talk.”
Rukh told her the way the yaksa vanished, sometimes.
Into the orchard, only returning when all the trees were twisted and strange.
Out toward the forest. Even into the Hirana.
“Melting the wall away,” he said. “Opening a corridor and walking through it. I guess they’re going to the deathless waters? ”
“If you witnessed that, then you are taking too many risks, Rukh,” Bhumika said sharply. “I asked for your assistance. I don’t require you to put yourself in danger of death, you understand?”
“They don’t notice me,” said Rukh. “They never do.”
“They may be pretending not to notice you,” Bhumika said.
Talking to Rukh always reminded her of talking to Priya when they were both only girls—an act of trying to direct wild, aimless energy to a useful purpose, without giving the fire of her more fuel.
But Rukh was gentler by nature, which was a relief.
He took to direction and praise like a plant thirsting for light and water.
“But you’ve done well,” Bhumika said, and as she’d expected, he brightened. Smiled at her.
But his smile quickly dimmed. “The one who looks like a little boy,” he said. “He’s—he doesn’t know I’m watching, but…”
“But?”
“He always wants to be around other children.” Hesitation. “I don’t want to scare you, elder,” Rukh said. “But he thinks Padma’s interesting. He likes following when Khalida takes her outside.”
Bhumika’s insides went cold. She thought of Padma sleeping against her chest; the warm weight of her, the softness of her curls, the rise and fall of her breaths. She abruptly wanted to be with her daughter again, desperately.
“Thank you for telling me, Rukh,” she said.
He looked at her and nodded resolutely.
“I’ll try and find something better,” he vowed. “Something more useful.”
“I told you,” Bhumika said. “You need to take care. No foolish risks. Promise me.”
He nodded again, quickly this time. Then, as if they’d never spoken, he and Ganam resumed their sparring.
Passivity had never suited Bhumika.
No one was coming to save her from the strange circumstances she had found herself in. She would have to find her own solution.