part0065

When he did manage to open his eyes, they darted over to the front. He walked to the white marble pedestal of sorts, resting againt the cool balustrade. His hands began to trace the droplets of water inside the shallow pool, as he saw the reflection of the man he had become. He had changed. The illness had eaten into his skin, exposing his emaciated frame, bony limbs and sparse hair. He was growing bald and that was the last thing he wanted. He had been revered as a handsome man always, but now he felt he was changing.

If it wasn’t for his loving sister, Kali would have died perhaps. The illness and the stab had caused him tremendous pain. He couldn’t believe he had clawed his way out with the help of Durukti. She had given him some sort of a tasteless, odourless liquid, blue as the Nagas’ irises. He had swallowed it in one gulp. He took one more shot a few days later and felt instantly better.

That was three days back.

Now, he had slowly started gaining in strength. He didn’t feel sick. No matter what that liquid was, he had come out of the illness because of it.

There were guards and his officials that operated insides of the fort, working on their daily chores. He didn’t care for that. He had forgotten about the politics he had been going through. He stood up, stretching his body a little, when his eyes were drawn to his reflection. It had changed. Slowly, he crept forward and he realized, he hadn’t changed, but the water had—it had turned red. Bloody.

But it wasn’t dark or opaque. It was light where his reflection was visible, and he looked horrible. His skin had deteriorated in the reflection and he had gone bald and hairless. He was wearing a strange scarf around his neck to hide his leprosy. And at that moment, he saw the juxtaposition of various images that swiftly began to come forth in front of him. He couldn’t understand it. A sharp, splitting headache shot across his head and he felt he had gone through something worse than death. His body felt frail and he fell on his knees, his eyes trained at the bloody water, until he saw a few more individuals coming in beside his reflection, standing right next to him. And the worst part was, they were all burnt.

“You couldn’t protect us, brother. You couldn’t protect us,” the burnt reflection of a child said, but his voice echoed as if he spoke from an alternate world. “You left us there. You left your brothers,” they all were speaking in unison. The water began to furiously froth and bubble.

“How should I redeem myself?” he cried out. “How should I? You keep coming to me and I don’t know what I should do.”

“Honor us,” they said in unison, their voice growing in frequency now.

“Honor you how? What do you want me to do?”

The hands lifted out of the water, and the burnt fingers of the ghosts pulled and grabbed him by the neck. He choked until he was pulled inside the bloody water, his eyes wide as he saw the burnt siblings of his, who had no face, no eyes, but were a mere façade. They were indescribably grotesque, just like a burnt victim would be.

“Honor your roots. Seek your heritage,” and the hands pushed him back. Right out of the bloody water, he was tossed over the ground.

And recovering from a deadly bout of choking cough, he realized he was still sitting at the same spot. He wasn’t wet. The water was…blue and everything was stable. It was a delusion, he told himself. Why? A message from the dead to find his heritage—it wasn’t the illness. This was a sign, Kali knew, some sort of an odd sign.

His heritage was dark, but he knew it already. Half the reason he thought the village had burnt was because the ones who burnt it got to know who Kali was and what sort of a family he had been hiding. His kind was a plague. The Asuras. The worst of the kind, the lepers of existence, called the so-called demons, even though they were simple-minded people. All Asuras were supposed to grow into the Dark Age, the so-called prophesized future where murder and chaos ruled the world. He hadn’t told anyone except Durukti who they were. Not because it was dangerous, but because he wouldn’t like the way they would look at him after that. Let him be a mystery, he thought, that would be for the best.

Kali thought of not running anywhere and decided to trudge off to his office, when he ran into Kuvera, who was entering the fort in his typically portly manner, accompanied by a beautiful consort and a few Yakshas.

For a man who was supposed to be controlling the city finances, Kuvera seemed rather modest at first glance.

“I see you are doing well.”

“Yes, I’ll be returning for the Council meeting,” Kali said.

What was he doing here? He didn’t ask too many questions though, for that would come off as blunt. He didn’t want Kuvera to be on his bad side since he was the first one who volunteered to take down Keekatpur, and the rest of the northern kingdoms in Illavarti.

“Are we having that now?”

“I apologize for being too forward,” Kuvera smiled. “But how is your back?” he asked, looking not the least bit apologetic about his intrusive question.

And Kali would have had joy in breaking his fat face, but he chose not to. He was being grumpy for some reason. He would always be calm and quiet, and yet now he wanted to shake off the restlessness from his fingers and his chest, that had a certain heaviness to it. He felt jittery and aggressive for some reason.

“You know too much for your sake, Lord Kuvera,” he said, in a simultaneously placating and menacing voice.

“I’m being polite and inquisitive merely,” Kuvera began, “but I’ve heard it was a Naga that had tried a ploy against you, but then the Gods were kind and had gifted you another life.”

Kali shook his head as he began to move towards his office, passing guards who bowed at him and Kali just nodded in return. “You out of all people know I don’t believe in the bloody Gods. There are no Gods or Goddesses. There are just men.”

“I know. I understand your religious scepticism.”

Kali had been tired of all the opposition by the temple priests, who wanted the Manavs, the progenitors and the first born, to be at the forefront of the ruling kingdoms. The Tribals were the backwards, the less developed in front of them. Now Kali hadn’t practised any sort of measure on the temples, for they were places of worship and one shouldn’t touch the Gods if one wanted to avoid a violent reaction or revolution. They had reached the office when Kuvera continued, “You must not forget that an attack on you means an attack on me. Let me find out why the Naga rebelled.”

Kali sat on his seat and contemplated.

“Or you don’t think he rebelled?” Kuvera came forward, sitting in the opposite armed chair. “Oh no, you don’t think it was Vasuki, after all, do you?”

Kali had a certain distasteful feeling about how Kuvera was leading up to this, but he couldn’t help it and admitted flat out. “Koko and Vikoko investigated, and they said the Naga was not from here, at least not a part of any enlisted regiment.”

“Then it just couldn’t be Vasuki.” Kuvera leaned back with a straight face. “I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t risk it all by bringing an outsider to do this work so you won’t get suspicions about him. That just sounds very unlike him.”

Kali clenched his teeth. Where was the fat man going with this?

“I’m sure it isn’t Vasuki. He just likes you a lot. He believed in you the most. I’m sure it was my money too, but it was his persistence…”

Kali laid his hand in the front and banged it over the table to cut the king of the Yakshas off. “After Takshak died, he blamed it on me and said he would take care of it himself and I wouldn’t like it the way he would do it.”

Kuvera lifted his eyebrows innocently. “Dear Gods, you are being targeted by him after all. I thought he would keep the differences aside and be a good man. I’ve never told you why I stole the mani from him, which he loves so much. Not because I like shiny things, but because I wanted his ego to be brought down. The mani made him beg to me, and I liked that. It brought him to the level where snakes are supposed to be, you know.”

The mongoose wrapped around Kuvera’s neck tighter. He had even named it, which Kali failed to contemplate. He didn’t care much about Kuvera’s mongoose, but it was funny how his animal and Vasuki’s reptile had one thing in common—they were both arch enemies in reality and in nature.

“We don’t know yet,” Kali said, sighing. “These are just assumptions.”

“I know. I hope you do the right thing, Kali. I don’t want you to be hurt. You have returned and you are strong and I want that you get all the riches possible.”

Kali stamped his feet and went for a pair of dice he had kept in a small, wooden box. He began to rub them together as if he was about to throw them, but he didn’t. He continued to rub them, in order to alleviate the growing sense of unease building inside him.

“Do you think if it comes to be proven, we should plan something against Vasuki?” Slowly, Kuvera brought up the issue after a brief silence that Kali was enjoying. And before Kali could even say no, there was a knock at the door and Koko entered with his thickly covered armour.

“My lord, we have a street offender that Lady Manasa, sister of Lord Vasuki, caught,” Koko said.

Kali and Kuvera shared a brief glance. What were the odds that the person they talked about was mentioned a second later by another person who didn’t even know about their conversation?

“What had he done?” Kali asked. Offenders were hundreds in number and they would be brought here to meet a higher-order official to decide the fate of the offender.

Koko came inside and placed a folded paper. “He was promoting seditious comments about the state and had been influencing the public.”

Casually lifted the paper and unfolding it, Kali asked, “Were they influenced?”

“I wasn’t there, my lord, but to my knowledge, I’m sure they weren’t.”

Kali saw the paper. It was a diagram of his face with abuses written over it.

“Should I send him for laborious exile or for a fifty day imprisonment, my lord?”

Kali scratched his head, as he burnt the paper in the fire lamp. He looked at Kuvera, who was surprised by his act. Kali was glad there was a flicker of nervousness crossing Kuvera’s face.

“Outside, my lord,” Koko said.

Kali opened the door, with Kuvera and Koko following and saw Vikoko standing with two Manav guards, holding the offender. He was young, just a boy, perhaps in his twenties. He had a handsome, cherubic face. For someone like him, Kali was surprised that he was promoting propaganda against Kali and his people. It were kinds of people that angered him, who had absolutely no idea how much hard work Kali had put in to reach this stage in his life.

Kali came forward, watching the boy who was looking down. He was surely embarrassed, perhaps seeking forgiveness genuinely. But Kali had other plans prodding him. Kali didn’t utter a word and he didn’t let the boy say anything as well. He grabbed the javelin that the Rakshas had, plunging it inside the boy’s chest. Kali lifted the javelin to accommodate the boy’s body weight with ease, as he began to walk with it, leading it away from the corridors until he was out in the sun. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he dug one end of the javelin on the ground while the other one was up high, almost blocking the sun. The body of the boy writhed over the javelin, as he got impaled deeper, his flesh slowly sliding down the pole.

All the nobles and the women in the fort watched this scene, horrified, whispering to each other. He turned to face Koko, Vikoko and Kuvera, who remained stunned by the act he had just performed. He was surprised himself, but he was glad too.

“Listen,” he calmly said to Koko, “call an artist and make a sketch of this and spread it across the entire city. Anyone who goes against the state will face this consequence. I’m tired of this community’s irritating wretchedness.” Kali yawned. Turning to Kuvera, “I suppose I should get to bed.’

Kuvera watched him for a while, incredulously. “Uh…” he coughed gently, “yes, I suppose you should. You must be, um, tired, yes.”

Kali nodded with a smirk. He moved away from Kuvera, and the impaled body behind him, which was drawing in a crowd; but his smile didn’t wear off. He had begun planning things for all the Tribal Heads now. He had plans for Vasuki as well, but it would take time, for he knew the visit by Kuvera meant one thing—he couldn’t trust anyone anymore from the council. He had to depend on himself and the ones he could trust.