Chapter 32 The Magical Forest
The clash of steel on steel rang through the small forest clearing.
“I just heard and came as fast as I could. Did I miss anything?” Billadev said, out of breath as he wedged himself between Shota and a soldier of Rajgarh, who had accompanied them on the journey.
A group of onlookers had formed. They had abandoned their own practice to watch the match between Veer and Chandra.
Only a handful of loyal soldiers of Rajgarh remained after learning they would be venturing into the Dandakaranya.
It seemed even the hardy and daredevil bandits of the Borderlands, who were game for stealing from a holy city, had a few qualms about stepping into the notorious forest.
“Did you find anything, Billadev?” asked Shota.
“What?” said a distracted Billadev. The soldier gave him an unsubtle nudge.
“Oh…from the jaunt up the tree, you mean? Nope, nothing. Nothing but acres and acres of forest.” He cast a snide glance at the figure of a man sitting near the fire and lowered his voice.
“Are you sure you believe the words of that bhang-addled addict?”
The man was smoking from a chillum pipe, muttering to himself occasionally, his clothes tattered and dusty, the nose poking out was mostly obscured by a bushy beard and shaggy hair.
“He’s the only one who professed some knowledge of the magical part of the forest. Everyone else has denied any knowledge of it,” said Shota.
They had been searching for the mythical forest of Dandakaranya for close to a month now.
The Saptavarsha had a large forest belt called the Tapovan at its center, nearly dividing the subcontinent into two, except for a narrow road that cut across the forest, allowing for travel.
But the Dandakaranya, which literally meant the forest of punishments, was only a small magical part of the Tapovan.
There were many myths that surrounded this forest, whose mere name evoked fear from men and beasts alike.
It was said that no one who stepped foot in it ever came back alive. Or sane.
No one knew of the Dandakaranya’s exact location or how to search for it.
Partly because, it was said, that its borders were fluid, shifting and ever-changing.
But so great was the mystery and the stories that surrounded it, that it became a legend in itself, its name more broadly known and sometimes adapted to refer to the whole of the forest. While in fact, the Dandakaranya was only a small magical part of the large tropical rainforest of the Tapovan.
“Yes, but the instructions ‘keep to the center and the forest will find you’ seem too vague,” said Billadev, frowning.
One of the many myths, told to them by a tribe they had stayed with a few moons ago, was that the magical forest originated as the final abode of demons who fled from the wrath of the gods. Some of the demons were still rumored to be living there in hiding.
A number of tribal communities had made the Tapovan their home and knew everything to actively avoid running into the magical part of the Dandakaranya, but no one professed any knowledge of how to find it.
They did run across several solitary sages, so deep in mediation they had anthills covering their bodies. Along the northwestern edge of the forest belt, there was an ashram as well, but they hadn’t gotten round to it yet, in their search.
Billadev lowered his voice once again. “Maybe he just wanted money to buy his favorite herb and just fed us some cock-and-bull story.”
Shota shrugged as if to say, “Yes, but what else do you have?”
In the last settlement they had stayed in, this man claimed to have survived the Dandakaranya. Of course, this testimony was disputed by the tribe elders, who warned them that the man was a bhang addict, a liar, and a layabout, quite possibly insane, by his own making.
Along with cryptic clues, they were given advice to abandon their search.
“I don’t get why I had to climb a tree to search when Vihari could’ve easily done it, had Veer asked him to,” grumbled Billadev, massaging his shoulders.
“It’s ’‘cause we all think you’ve been getting too fat from lazing around all day and doing nothing but grazing on the nuts you find,” jibed Shota.
“Hey! I don’t laze around. I foray for us, and if I happen to run across some tasty and perfectly edible nuts, why shouldn’t I snatch them up?”
Billadev reached into a leather satchel tied at his waist and brought forth a handful of odd, pyramid-shaped nuts. “Anyway, I can be magnanimous and share these with you.”
Shota took one and held it up close to his eye, then sniffed it. “You sure these are safe to eat?”
“Of course. I already ate several of them,” said Billadev, then stuffed a handful of cracked kernels into his mouth.
“That just tells me they don’t work on idiots,” Shota muttered under his breath, causing a muffled snort from the soldier. But he cracked the nut and cautiously popped one into his mouth. The nutty flavor burst on his tongue, and to his relief, he didn’t feel any different.
“So, who’s winning?” asked Billadev.
“The jury is still tied on it,” said the soldier. They watched as Veer backed away from a series of swipes made by Chandra’s sword.
“I don’t know if fighting here is a good thing,” said Shota, looking around the dense forest. They were currently camped underneath a huge banyan tree. There was a broken circular platform made of mortar and stones built around the trunk of the tree.
“Oh relax, will you? We’re in no danger here.
We’re still a day’s ride from the settlement.
Don’t tell me you’re afraid the Dandakaranya will come up to swallow us all?
” scoffed Billadev. He nodded to the heated match taking place.
“At least their din will put off any animals lurking around. And I see they’re keeping well away from the fire. ”
“How did he manage to make her agree to this?” asked Billadev after a while.
Shota let out an exasperated breath. “Can’t you guess? Veer riled her about the inferiority of training techniques in Amaravathi and the princess couldn’t take it lying down. They are so predictable, the pair of them.”
“Dumb bastard. Doesn’t know the first thing about wooing women,” opined Billadev.
Shota watched as Veer pinned the princess against a tree, his sword at her throat, barely stopped by her own weapon.
“I wouldn’t say that quite yet,” said Shota slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“Look at them,” he said.
Billadev obeyed his instruction.
“Doubt they would allow themselves to be that close if they weren’t involved in a match. Fighting gives them an excuse.”
Billadev chuckled, while muttering, “Devious bastard.”
* * *
“Give me back my weapons, you accursed thief,” Chandra snarled as his hand swiped at her waist. Again. She had thought, initially, that these not-so-innocent touches were part of his strategy to unnerve her, until she realized he was using his sleight of hand to divest her of her jewelry.
Her metal bangles, her arm bands, and even her hair ornaments oftentimes doubled as weapons. How exactly he knew the purpose behind each and their locations, since some were hidden, she had no idea and didn’t want to think about it.
“How are you going to defend yourself when you have no weapons, Princess? Come on. Forget the weapons and defeat me,” he taunted.
“I would if you did anything except defend yourself,” she snapped in frustration. From the time they had started the match, she was reduced to making all the offensive moves while Veer causally did nothing more than defend himself.
“Or you could do something to provoke me?” he returned.
Chandra’s sword drew a line of fire across his stomach.
That wiped the supercilious expression off his face.
He stared at the wound in incredulity. She felt a little guilty, but the infuriating man just gave a challenging grin.
“Now that’s more like it,” he said and changed the pattern of his fight.
Chandra realized very quickly how much he had been holding back.
Her strength lay in bow and arrow; she was a better shot than anyone in Amaravathi, but in stakes of hand-to-hand combat, she was only average.
She usually compensated with her quick thinking and being light on her feet.
And the advantage of her myriad of hidden weapons.
But fighting Veer, she discovered, was a whole different experience.
He followed no rules except his own. And despite his large frame, he was surprisingly flexible and fast. If she hadn’t seen the mocking glint of his midnight eyes as she was driven back under his onslaught, she would have thought he was probably “borrowing” some hapless animal’s abilities.
* * *
“Give it up, Princess,” Veer taunted, pressing his sword closer. Their locked blades slid with a scraping noise.
Her throat moved as she swallowed.
“I yield,” she bit out.
Weirdly disappointed, Veer stepped away, giving her back the weapons he had filched, inclining his head in a mocking bow. But as he walked away, a grin slashed his mouth, hearing the challenge in her parting words, “I’ll defeat you one day.”
He wiped away the smile, catching the smug looks on his friends’ faces, sending them a scowl instead and changing direction. He was in no mood to endure ribbing from them.
The addict sat quietly on a stone, puffing on his reed pipe. He opened bleary eyes as Veer walked by.
“You might want to surrender the next time you fight her, Prince,” he said in a reedy voice.
Veer stopped. “What?”
The addict took a deeper drag and blew out the smoke. It wrapped itself around him like the coils of a serpent. Veer saw his eyes were closed in bliss. He wondered, not for the first time, if it was worth it to pay this man to come with them. Shaking his head, Veer continued on his way.
* * *
Night fell and the forest came alive in a different way. The moon was barely seen traversing the sky through the thick canopy of leaves, except in flashes of white.
The group of seven people lay fast asleep underneath the sheltering branches of a banyan tree.
Even the man who was supposed to stay awake keeping watch fell to the ground in an untidy heap, his spear pinned underneath him.
Succumbed to the curiously potent call of a dreamless sleep that draped over them like a blanket.
The addict was nodding, his ever-present pipe slipping from his fingers.
A dormouse poked its nose out of his home, a hollow in the base of the hoary old banyan and sniffed the air expectantly. The time for hunting was beginning. It cautiously made its way out but stiffened suddenly.
A transparent barrier of power shifted soundlessly.
The Dandakaranya was changing its dimensions again.
The addict woke up with a start and stared wide-eyed into the night, but then started laughing quietly into his cupped hands. The next instant, he vanished.
The dormouse wasn’t so lucky. It tried to run as fast as it could from the encroaching bank of power but failed to outrun it.
Trees changed, shuddering as if waking from sleep, as the line that marked the dimension of the dark forest passed them, enclosing them in its domain.
The banyan glowed with an eerie blue light that shone from the undersurface of every leaf, creating a reverse negative image.
A bed of night blooming, tube-shaped flowers burst open, spilling forth a cloud of luminescent poisonous pollen.
The broken stone platform underneath the tree glowed with carvings in a weird alphabet.
The unassuming boulders scattered about the place rose to the air and piled on top of one another, fitting precisely along the broken margins, so they formed four sturdy pillars topped with a circular stone around the banyan tree.
The two-note call of impending danger sounded. The dormouse squealed uselessly as an owl-kite swept in from the depths of the forest, claws outstretched. A razor-sharp beak snapped its neck, and the dormouse knew nothing of the claws tearing through its flesh.
The people under the trees slept on, unaware of their surroundings.
A being deep in the forest observed them through the very human eyes of the owl-kite.