Chapter 30 Ashok
ASHOK
Only Kritika was seated with Ashok on the Hirana today. There were no yaksa. Simply the two of them, to act as temple elders and wait for worshippers to heave themselves up the steps of the mountain.
When the final pilgrim left, Kritika departed, and Ashok slowly moved to his feet. He breathed in the cold air around him—the night’s chill had already begun to settle in around the Hirana—and turned.
Ganam stood near the dangerous edge of the triveni, where it was open to the sky and the sheer cliff face surrounding the Hirana. But he didn’t look afraid. Ostensibly he was Ashok’s guard, but his hands were clasped behind him, weaponless. His expression was grave.
“There are going to be more tomorrow,” he said.
“And more worshippers the day after that. The rot’s growing worse.
Spreading faster than fire.” His gaze flickered over Ashok, in a way that was somehow both dismissive and respectful.
“Something’s changed for the worse in Ahiranya,” Ganam went on, as if he couldn’t help himself.
“And no one knows what. Strange, isn’t it. ”
The rot growing worse. The yaksa returned, and the rot spreading great, creeping fingers across Ahiranya. And Ashok himself returning to life. All of it was a sign of—something. He didn’t want to examine it. Didn’t want to consider what it meant.
But instead of playing at the business of rest—of lying awake in a bed, listening to distant waters and the creaking slumber of something or someone else inside him—he walked through the mahal. Listened to the leaves whisper to him, the flowers turn to him.
There was a woman walking along the corridor ahead of him.
She froze when she saw him. Then she moved out of his path murmuring a worshipful word or two.
But her pause had given her guilt away, and as he drew nearer to her, he realized how close she was to rooms marked by Chandni’s silver night-blooming flowers. A forbidding mark.
She’d been to see the child. Bhumika’s child. He was sure of it.
The maid was trembling, her head lowered, but her pallu, drawn respectfully over her face, did not conceal the turn of her mouth. The anger. She loathed him for who he served. Loathed him for what the yaksa had already done.
“Go,” he said. She was still there. Frozen, like a hare under a hawk’s eyes. “I saw nothing,” he told her, stressing the “nothing,” giving her a hard look. “Woman, use your good sense and go before I change my mind. You will not enjoy it if I do.”
She made a noise that was part squeak, part assent. She managed to scramble a brief bow, then ran away as quickly as her legs could carry her.
He watched her shadow on the marble. The flicker and fade of it, in the lantern light from the sconces on the walls.
Ashok made his way to the orchard. It was no longer peaceful. One by one, each tree had turned to rot.
Nothing and no one would be born here, he knew. It wasn’t yet time.
But he watched the trees and thought of waters, deep and old. Waters that hollowed children out and gave them power. Cosmic waters where universes met, and the roots that held all things bound to both of them. The rot was fed by magical waters. The yaksa came from those waters. And Ashok…
He could feel every plant surrounding them. He knew—and did not know how he knew—that they were an extension of him as they were an extension of… others. Through them and through his own skin he reached for Bhumika. Felt for her. Considering.
A flash of an image lanced through his mind: a mortal body. Tendrils of blue and green fading into blood red, grasping its throat, its wrist. Its mind and heart. Bhumika’s fingertips against paper, tracing words that blurred like smeared ink in his mind’s eye.
The memory ran into him like water into well—it drifted into all that he was, consumed, as much part of him as everything else that lay within him.
Roots, he thought, in a voice that wasn’t his own. Old. A creaking, lightning-struck wood of a void. We’re all bound together. We fed the world and the people those waters, and now they carry us within them. And just as we consume them, they may drink in return—
There was something. Something on the edge of his memory and his consciousness. Something so large it threatened to obliterate his fragile self. He…
A rustle in the leaves behind him.
He turned.
Nandi stood there. He looked as serene as ever, the moonlight glancing strangely off his eyes, the rows of teeth in his mouth when he parted his lips. “I found someone watching you,” he said. And shoved someone forward.
The boy gave a yelp as he fell. He was maybe ten, eleven years.
If Nandi had been mortal, he would never have been able to hold him.
The boy was all limbs, with rot bristling on him.
He rose swiftly to his feet but did not attempt to run.
Wise of him. Ashok would have stopped him, and he would not have made it pleasant.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” the boy said stiffly.
“You’re not as afraid of me as you used to be,” Ashok observed, dusting the dirt from his own tunic. “And not as full of admiration, either.”
The boy watched him with guarded, wary eyes.
“You remember me,” the boy said.
“I do, Rukh,” Ashok said pleasantly, baring his teeth in a smile. He leaned back against the tree. “You’ve been a fool, boy. As you always are.”
“I…” The boy’s voice faltered. “I did not think you thought of me enough to—to think me a fool.”
“I have the measure of you. It didn’t take long in my first life, and hasn’t in this one either. You’re the same.” He gave Rukh a sidelong look. “The yaksa know you’ve been watching them. You’re a good spy. But not good enough.”
“Everyone watches them,” the boy said thinly. “We’re… we’re admiring them. Worshipping.”
“How did I send you to spy on my sister when you’re so bad at lying?” Ashok marveled. He took a step closer. The rot on the boy felt strange. The rot…
“My sister froze it in you, didn’t she? Choked it to stillness.”
Rukh didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to breathe, as he watched Ashok, who watched him in return.
“How was it done?” The boy was silent. How had he forced words from throats, before his death? “Tell me or I’ll do something,” said Ashok. “Break your arm, maybe.”
Apparently that was a realistic threat, because Rukh said, “I don’t know how she did it. However the yaksa do it, I suppose.”
Ashok held out a hand. Palm up, fingers slightly curled. Beckoning.
“Come here,” he said. “I want to feel it for myself.”
Ashok had always known how to scent fear—how to use it to coax loyalty or obedience or cowering surrender from an enemy.
He’d made plenty of grown men snivel and beg before ending their lives.
And this one was only a boy—guarded and stiff, staring somewhere over his shoulder. He could be manipulated.
He wouldn’t run.
“I wish you could see the way the roots grow from you,” Ashok murmured. He took a step forward. “Boy. Give me your hand.”
Rukh didn’t move, so Ashok reached out.
He took Rukh’s rigid, unwilling hand into his own. Turned the palm over and then back, then raised the entire limb up to the light.
He felt the magic winding through the boy’s body. Yaksa magic.
“I could rip this from you,” he said. “I could set you free. But our magic is bound up in you, and I don’t know what would be left behind.”
“Taking it out would kill me,” Rukh said, in a voice that only wavered a little. “Priya told me so.”
“Do you think I’ll kill you?”
“What could I do to stop you?”
Ashok snorted. “So much bravado, from such a small creature.” He tightened his grip. “Nothing,” he said. “There is nothing you can do.”
Rukh made an animal noise, and tried to pull free. Ashok’s hand tightened an increment further.
“No,” Ashok said.
“If. If you’re going to. I just want it to be quick.” His voice was shaky, but his expression was defiant.
“No,” Ashok said softly. “No. I won’t hurt you any further. She’d never forgive it.”
She. Priya. Somehow that still mattered to him.
“Everything has a price,” he said. “Everything demands sacrifice. I had to be sure. You understand that, don’t you?”
Rukh stared at him, blank and uncomprehending. And Ashok reached out with magic. Reached into him.
Priya had withered the bonds between Rukh and the magic within him. But Ashok did more.
The rot comes from the waters, the old voice in his heart said. The waters fill mortals with magic.
The waters fill them with us. Our gifts. Our knowledge.
When waters ebb, they leave their mark behind. The memory of water. The hollow.
When waters leave, they demand their price.
He reached for the magic within Rukh. Poured more into him—more knowledge, more strength, more flowering rot, more of the cosmic rivers that had changed them both. Watched the leaves rise along the boy’s spine—heard the boy cry out—
Ripped him free from the waters. Left him hollow.
A sound of agony escaped Rukh’s lips. He fought, trying to escape Ashok’s grip. Then sagged. Down to his knees.
Ashok kneeled with him.
“Look at me, boy,” he said. “Wake up.”
He repeated himself. Once, twice. Finally, Rukh’s eyes opened. Slowly, painfully.
“Tell me what you learned, when I dragged you under,” Ashok demanded. “Tell me what you saw. What do you remember? Do you remember?”
Rukh squeezed his eyes shut.
“I know who you really are,” Rukh said tightly. “I know—so much—”
“Because I showed you,” Ashok said savagely.
His pulse was beating behind his eyes. Tell me who I am, he wanted to beg.
Tell me. “Do you remember my sister’s name?
No, not Lady Bhumika,” Ashok said, when Rukh’s gaze flickered, confused.
“My other sister. Do you remember how you came to meet her? Do you remember how you came to trust her enough to betray me and leave my rebels behind?”
Silence. Panicked silence. That was answer enough.
“How does it feel, not remembering? How does it feel, now that the waters have stolen her from you, and left a tale of my secrets in their place?”
Rukh said nothing. He was breathing shallowly, too fast, his face sallow. If he’d recovered himself well enough to fear what had happened to him, then Ashok considered that a good sign.
“Thank you,” Ashok said. Placed a hand on Rukh’s forehead. “Rest now.”
He let everything fall back into place. The waters poured through Rukh once more, and he was back where he belonged, in the grip of the yaksa, where Ashok could feel the presence of the rot in him. Back in himself.