Durukti had shifted all the villagers to one side and after the Devadatta incident, no one even dared to come in between her and her objective. They were all made to sit down, with Rakshas walking around them, poking them with spears if anyone even fidgeted.

She was so close to her cure, or whatever there was beyond the boulders. She saw Martanja had dug hooks inside the rocks. Five horses had harnesses wrapped around them, on which Rakshas sat. They began to pull in the opposite direction. With each pull, the boulder moved a little, but it was still stuck around the edges of the cave.

Martanja sprinted over to Durukti, who stood at the pathway that led to the caves. He went past the guards and panted for a while before he began, “My lady, the boulder seems to be stuck; I think we need to use more labour.”

“Use your men.”

“More, my lady.”

Durukti clenched her teeth. “Is it possible to arrange for more men?”

“If we try, we can see it’s possible.”

Quite a clever answer!

Durukti grinned at that as she moved away from her guards and watched the villagers, whimpering in the fields, holding onto each other. For them, she would be the epitome of evil, but she had reasons that they wouldn’t understand. All the Gods they loved and pleaded to, and yet they didn’t know that the Manavs had been alienated after the Breaking.

“Use the natives,” answered Durukti. “Tell them to work.”

“All right, my lady,” Martanja blinked.

He left and ordered his men around the villagers, while Durukti thought for a moment. She hadn’t disclosed to Martanja what was in there and she had given him extra money just for not asking questions. But he was a man, that too from the Rakshasi tribe. He was intelligent; he knew there was something valuable inside it.

It wasn’t just the gold and copper that drove him to pull the boulder out, but it was also inquisitiveness. Martanja was a clever chief, who showed he respected Durukti but he surely had ulterior motives. But as of now, she had to stop second guessing and start worrying if the caves really held what it said they did. She was afraid, of course. She had made people lose their sons and daughters, their husbands and wives, for her goal. And if her goal was just a waste of time, she would hate herself forever. But more so, she would never forgive Symrin who had started all of this. If it wasn’t for her, she wouldn’t have ever thought about Soma.

The villagers began to work and they started using sickles and knives to cut the overgrowth around the edges. The ones that resisted, the Rakshas subdued them with ropes. Little by little, the boulder started to move from its position. The villagers kept digging at the crevices.

It was a painful sight for her, but she was so close to what she had wanted.

“DURUKTI!” A voice came, startling her, freezing her to the bones.

Swivelling her head frantically, she looked where the voice had come from. And she saw it. Standing across her guards was Kalki, with a blood drenched dhoti, an axe in his hand, his chest caked in dust and blood.

He began to run. The harness stopped. Martanja instantly yelled to his guards to chase and stop him. The guards that surrounded Durukti went forth, almost twenty in number, as they grabbed onto him. Kalki was able to stave off most of them, blindly kicking out and punching them, hitting some of them grievously with his axe. His presence here meant that all the guards near the clearing had surely been decimated.

How did he escape?

“YOU KILLED EVERYONE!” He yelled, his body held back by the Rakshas.

“I WILL KILL YOU NOW,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Men,” Martanja announced. “Kill the peasant!”

A Rakshas came forward with a blade in his hand, ready to slice off Kalki’s head.

Durukti knew the end of her misery was near. Symrin whispered in her ears before the attack could happen. “My lady, you shouldn’t hurt an already hurt person. If you must remember, he is special, right? Don’t you think when his anger lessens, he can be used to your advantage against the Tribals who are secretly plotting against Lord Kali and you?”

Durukti arched her brows.

“Stop!” Durukti yelled. But not just because of what Symrin said, but also because she didn’t want to upset the villagers any further. Though Symrin was right. Kalki had powers like that of the fabled heroes she had read about when she was small.

Martanja strolled towards her, interjecting her. “I apologize, my lady, but that man is wreaking havoc on our men. We should make an example out of him. He even managed to escape; I wonder what he did back at the camp.”

“He deserves punishment in the city, not here,” she looked at him, “he killed your men, right? According to the bylaws, he has to be judged in front of the Tribal Lords and Lord Kali, before being punished by death.”

If Kalki wouldn’t turn on her side later after deliberate persuasion, she would simply hand him off to her brother to deal with. She didn’t want a headache.

“I thought,” coughed Martanja, coming forward slyly, “you wanted all of this to be discreet.”

Durukti nodded. “It’ll be. For all they will know, this was a compulsory act to subdue the rebellion that was brewing against the Tribals.”

Martanja looked at her for a while, hardly believing that a person could be so cold and calculative yet warm and desirable at the same time, at such a young age. Durukti pursed her lips, amused by her improvised plan. “I suppose you should continue working, chief. You don’t want to be late. If that boy stays there for long, he’s going to crumple your army.”

Kalki was tied up with a rope, his mouth strapped, with five spears close to his neck. Even if he would try to struggle, he would be stabbed.

“For your sake, just stop moving. I’m trying to save you. Don’t force me to kill,” Durukti calmly said, trying as much as she could to hold her emotions back, to sound cold.

Kalki’s eyes spoke a thousand words. He looked as if he didn’t care that she was doing him a favour and he would rather die than take her up on it. But it was all his anger and hatred towards her that spoke through his eyes. A sentimental person is a dangerous entity.

Durukti focused her attention back at the harness. She came forward, her robe slowly tracing the ground. She saw it was near, her goal. Her eyes flashed with brilliance. The boulder shifted and manoeuvred away from the opening. The horses tried moving faster, as the villagers continued to chip away at the rock. And then the rock was pushed apart. They all began to rush away, with some getting trampled under it.

Durukti said to Martanja, “Go and tend to them, I’ll see the inside.” She wanted to get rid of the Rakshas, so that he did not see the so-called Somas. Martanja gave a reluctant nod and moved to the fields with his men. Half of them stayed with the yelling Kalki, as they tried to stop him. He wasn’t able to properly shout, for his mouth was closed. Durukti looked at him unapologetically, before moving towards the caves, her heart thumping furiously.

“You should very well hope I’m going to see something wonderful inside. Otherwise…” she eyed Symrin, who barely managed to swallow a lump of nervousness.

Three Rakshas followed her. At the entrance, the Rakshas lit the fire lamps and she could hear how the lamps made a sound when they were lit. It smelled of putrid dampness. When she trained the lamp light against the wall…

She didn’t see anything.

She shot a glance at Symrin, who was looking back at her.

As she went deeper, Durukti crossed the walls that were tainted a bright sapphire blue, she saw there were inscriptions carved on it, comprising of various symbols and glyphs. She touched it; the symbol was of an infinity that was wrapped inside a zigzag structure.

“I’m sorry, my lady, I was told…I was told…”

“You know what this is?” Durukti had a pallid face when she asked her foolish handmaiden. “This is the symbol of Vishnu the Preserver.” She moved towards the other glyph which had a strange design. “This is a shape of a horse, a white horse,” and she came to the last one, “and this is victory.’

“My lady, I thought they were…” her voice had been echoing, Durukti just noticed.

Durukti shot a finger up, against her lips, to silence Symrin. She walked forward as the cave turned out to be leaking some kind of liquid. She touched it; it was blue in colour, perhaps tainted with the colour that had leached from the walls.

“Speak again now,” she instructed the girl.

“Yes?” meekly Symrin said.

“Loudly, girl!” rasped Durukti. But she couldn’t really hear Symrin’s voice for her own voice echoed so much that Durukti knew what it was.

Durukti grabbed the fire lamp from one of the Rakshas and tossed it across to the front.

“My lady!” exclaimed Symrin.

But what the lamp did was extraordinary, as it broke forth, and the fire caught on. The light was emitted, and lo and behold, the wall in front of them morphed with blue stones protruding out jaggedly. The funny part was; it had been the fire that led her to the Somas.

“This is it,” she said.

Symrin’s face brightened. “Yes, madam, I was right.”

Durukti came forward with a smile dancing on her lips, touching the blue fossil, and with a snap of her finger, she broke it. It had seemed crystalline from afar, but was in fact quite malleable and soft. And as she chipped away at the ends, a strange blue liquid poured out over her skin.

She smelled it, but it smelled of …nothing.

She dipped her finger and even tasted it, it was just some liquid.

“Are you sure this is it?”

Symrin beamed. “Yes ma’m, we have just found the cure for your brother.” And despite the smile she gave, there was something unsettling about it that Durukti couldn’t understand. But perhaps it was her unwarranted suspicion that probed her into thinking this. Perhaps, she should be happy. And she struggled with a smile, even though she knew to save one, plenty of lives had been lost.