The Spectral Releam
Thianvelli, Giridah Fort
Virat watched the moon traversing the night sky through the bars of a window. The torches burned in their brackets at the perimeter of the room but delivered no light brave enough to dispel the darkness of this place.
Guards waited outside, content to leave him alone inside, keeping watch through the open door. Virat’s focus was on the yantra he had drawn seven days ago. The time was finally drawing near to when the magical ritual would deliver his prey into his hands.
Ever since his false death, Virat had developed an uncanny affinity with the spectral realm. It was the place his soul had gone to, after his physical body died.
Before he was able to come back, taking on a new name of Maayavi.
Both time and space had no meaning in that realm. If someone were to ask him how long he had remained trapped, he could say a few days or a few years, and he would be both right and wrong.
But eventually he did escape, finding himself inhabiting a dead body that was on a lit funeral pyre. Fortunately, it had been raining, so his new body wasn’t too damaged, but the experience had left him with a visceral fear of fire ever since.
The graveyard keeper had stood with his mouth hanging open, watching him with horrified eyes, as Virat climbed down from the pyre.
But the keeper didn’t survive for long after that, becoming Virat’s first victim since his return to the world of living.
That was when Virat had discovered he could inhabit other dead bodies.
The bone dagger he had fashioned from his own femur came later, once he was able to research more on that topic.
A slight crackle drew his attention toward the yantra once again.
The time arrived and as expected, the lines of the yantra went blinding white, sizzling with energy.
Pale disembodied hands made of white smoke appeared inside the yantra, right above the homam.
They seemed to reach inside some place and were pulling something out. Someone out.
A terrified, wide-eyed boy of seven appeared in the homam. The fire inside had died, leaving the grotesque reminder of a sacrifice, a human spine pierced onto a spear.
It was always a quiet pleasure, one of the few he had left, to see his plan come to fruition. The ritual he had employed was one he designed himself, using the same principle of what had happened to him when he had died.
It would have appeared to people around Aditya as if the prince had disappeared into thin air. But in reality, he was spirited away into the spirit realm. And brought to this location, into this yantra, which acted like a homing beacon.
Aditya stood quaking, unable to escape, still held prisoner by the ghostly white hands.
A shout from outside informed Virat that the guards knew of Aditya’s arrival too. But they wouldn’t approach the yantra yet, too terrified to do so, even though Virat knew the spell had now depleted itself.
If the guards knew, then it wouldn’t be long before Ketuvahana found out about Aditya’s appearance here. Virat needed to work fast.
He offered his hand to the boy, who stared at it for a long time, making no move to accept it.
“Go on. Take my hand,” coaxed Virat, though it came out as a flat command. “Everything inside this yantra is considered the edge of the spirit realm. I’m the only one who can reach in and pull you out. How long do you plan on staying there with ghosts for company?”
The spectral image of a skull appeared in front of the boy, who shrieked in alarm. Aditya held out his arm hastily and Virat grabbed him, slipping the nagamani bracelet over his thin wrist and then pulled him out, just as Ketuvahana and others arrived inside the tower.
Virat let go of Aditya, who shrank back, his wide eyes on Ketuvahana and the guards that accompanied him.
“Good job, Maayavi. You’ve done wonders,” said Ketuvahana, his gaze not leaving the cowering boy. At his signal, his soldiers were closing on Aditya, cutting off his escape.
“I’ve delivered as promised,” Virat said aloud. “But I need to go now. I shall return in exactly a fortnight. A sudden matter has come up that needs my immediate attention.”
He paused and stressed his words. “Aditya mustn’t be killed before I return. I’ve left a protective charm on him. Beware. If you decide to harm him in any way, you’ll come to a nasty end.”
Ketuvahana tried to intercept him as he took his leave, but appeared to think better when Virat leveled a look at him.
Virat left then, the hiss of snakes and the accompanying shout of terror bringing a rare, pleasant smile to his face.
The information he had just received, the reason he was leaving in a hurry instead of staying, was indeed a brilliant stroke of luck. The whereabouts of another person who could operate the lotus key, one who wasn’t a wanted political prisoner like Aditya, was no laughing matter.