Karni

Karni was shaking as she emerged from the temple.

She was sopping wet, her clothes dripping onto the black stone stairs as she climbed the last one. She stood for a moment, then lowered herself and sat down heavily on the top step, turning to put her feet on the one below. She bent over double, then hugged her knees for a moment, shuddering with emotion and with cold. The water was freezing, and she was icy chilled, but the shuddering was due to what she had seen and heard.

Finally, she stopped shaking and breathed deeply, exhaling. Her breath felt warm and comforting on her cold knees. She looked down at the temple’s first level. It looked quiet and placid, just like it always did. The whole complex was serene and calm. She always liked to spend some time after her prayer, just to commune with the godhead, to allow her thoughts time to gather themselves. It gave her a deep sense of inner calm and strength.

She realized suddenly that she had forgotten the pooja thali. It was probably still in the inner shrine, on the floor before the deity’s altar where she had set it down. She had never actually performed the pooja or sung the aarti, rung the little bell and doused herself in the sacred smoke, partaken of the prasadam, none of the usual little ritual things she liked to do every time.

On the other hand, she had never actually been given darshan of the goddess. Somehow, rituals seemed petty and insignificant compared to the presence of the actual deity. The pooja thali was not important in itself. She could get a thousand of them if she desired. The fact that Goddess Jeel had personally appeared to her, and had spoken at such length, was profoundly inspiring as well as startling.

But what did it mean? Her mind was still reeling with the words the goddess had spoken. Still trying to make sense of all that Goddess Jeel had told her. What had she meant when she spoke of sacrifices and sons? Firstborn sons, at that. Surely she could not mean . . .

“Princess!”

The shout came from the lane leading to the temple precinct. Karni looked up, trying to see through the foggy darkness. When had this fog set in? For that matter, now that she was aware of it, when had the night grown so dark? Where was that large, brilliant moon that had shone down on her when she descended the temple steps? It had been high in the sky at the time, and that could not have been more than an hour earlier. Even if it had set by now, which was unlikely, why was the sky filled with that strange hue? Why were there dark clouds boiling over the city? What were those strange screams and shouts and cries from all around?

She had no time to ponder all these questions. A new one was posing itself to her as she sought and found the source of the shout.

“Princess Karni!” cried Adran, her charioteer, as he came running down the path. She had never seen him look and sound so agitated before. He was normally a very reserved and dignified man, as befitted any charioteer. It was most unlike him to be so upset, running and shouting like a wild man, in a temple precinct of all places.

“Princess, you must leave here at once! We must return to the palace. Please, come with me now!”

Karni rose to her feet. She had a moment of unsteadiness when she was aware of her empty belly and the supper she had missed that night. She had fasted in anticipation of her darshan. It pleased her to offer the prayers after fasting, made her feel sincere in her offering. One must offer something before one could expect something in return. Then she regained control of her body and her senses with a small effort of will, and she stood firmly on both feet.

“What is the matter, charioteer?” she asked. “Is there some trouble with the horses?”

He halted before her, his mustached face creased with anxiety, and joined his palms in respect. “There is something amiss in the city, my princess. I must take you home now.”

“Very well,” she said.

They began walking back up the path. He glanced at her once or twice, curiously. Karni realized her wet garments were making a sound. Adran took in her state and frowned.

“Princess, are you well? Your garments . . .”

“I am wet, that’s all,” she said. “It’s only water.”

Jeel water, she reminded herself. A benediction from the goddess herself, blessing me with her sanctified elixir. People travel thousands of miles for a sip of this sacred water. I have been bathed in it from head to foot! I can die and go straight to heaven now.

A horse whinnied loudly from ahead, and Adran reacted.

He began jogging, picking up speed. Then realized that Karni was still walking at the same pace. She was genuinely unable to run very fast at present, partly because of her fasting condition, and partly because of her wet clothes.

“Go ahead, Adran. I’m right behind you.”

Just as he began sprinting, the sound of a horse screaming jarred Karni’s nerves. Poor creature! What was happening? She had only heard horses cry out that way when under extreme duress, usually when injured in a battle or a violent accident.

Adran disappeared up the forested pathway, and for a moment Karni was alone. The path was desolate, the area remote. She knew there were some wild creatures in the woods, but they were all harmless ones, the kind that one hunted, not the likes that hunted you. If there were any such predators about, they would have ravaged the elephants and horses in the royal stockades. Yet even though she knew the place was safe, Karni began to feel a sense of great dread. She had the feeling that she was being watched.

Up ahead, at the end of the dark pathway, the horse was still screaming, and now Adran’s hoarse voice began to speak, saying something she could not fully comprehend.

“Daughter of Karna Sura . . .”

She exclaimed. That was Adran’s voice, but was it really Adran speaking the words?

The woods around her were dark. Even the sky above was barely visible. What little of it she could glimpse was obscured by dark seething clouds driven by a great demonic wind. The slashes of sky visible through the rents and rips in these driven clouds were sometimes blue, sometimes red, sometimes jet-black. The moon itself seemed to be still there, still high, but eclipsed by some other body. It made no sense because there was no eclipse predicted for tonight, yet something was eclipsing the moon. She wished she had a light by which to see. As it was, she couldn’t even make out the path on which she walked.

“Sister of Vasurava . . .”

She tried to walk faster.

A wind rose from nowhere, carrying a foul stench. It was surprisingly warm, smelling of strange, exotic odors: sand, sun, salt, and corpses—the rank battlefield reek of putrid carcasses. She covered the lower part of her face with the end of her garment, the damp cloth helping to mask the awful stench. The wind assaulted her from all sides, driving dust and dried leaves into her face. From whence had this ghastly wind risen? She could not hear any leaves rustling, see no trees bowing, yet here on the ground, she was being assailed relentlessly.

“Wife of Shvate . . .”

She could not make out where the voice was coming from. One time it seemed to originate from the right, then from behind her, then directly above her. She was shivering again, despite the warm wind. The wind driving against her cold garments was causing her to shiver, the foul stench and strange whispers adding to her distress. She tried to walk faster, knowing she must be close to the chariot now, knowing it could not be much farther.

“Mother of bastards . . .”

She cried out as if physically struck.

This time the whisper had sounded just behind her shoulder, spoken almost directly into her right ear. She turned and flailed with her right hand, but her hand met nothing but air and driven dust.

Karni stopped running.

Stopped walking.

Came to a complete halt.

Both her fists were clenched, her legs spread slightly apart in a fighting stance, her eyes furious. Her belly might be empty, but her spirit was full of strength.

“Enough!” she cried out. “I am not just a daughter, sister, or wife. I am a woman. I exist in my own right. My name is Karni, and I take abuse from no one—mortal, god, or demon. If you want to speak with me, then show yourself. Show yourself and speak to me, person-to-person, face-to-face. Coward!”

A brief moment of silence.

Then a hissing sound that echoed all around, nowhere and everywhere at once, susurrating through the woods, filling the night with the sound of a thousand serpents.

Then, silence again.

The wind died down as suddenly as it had risen.

The foul stench dissipated.

The miasma surrounding her—she was still not sure whether it was fog or just the lack of sufficient light—cleared to reveal the pathway, the silhouettes of the nearest trees, and on the trail just ahead, the shape of the chariot and horses and a man.

“Princess!” shouted the familiar hoarse voice of Adran. “Make haste! We must not tarry here.”

Karni lifted up the wet hem of her garment and ran the last several yards. She reached the chariot and leaped onboard, her bare feet slapping loudly against the metal-plated wooden floor. Adran was standing in his driving position, reins in hand, head turned to watch her climb aboard. She saw a horse lying on its side nearby, and noted that only one horse was now hitched to the chariot, whereas there had been two earlier.

“The horse?” she asked, unable to coherently string words together in a complete sentence.

“Attacked,” he said grimly. “Wounded too badly to survive. I had to put it down. Shall we go, my princess?”

“Yes!” she said.

He urged the single horse forward, driving it with a whinny and a thumping of hooves. The familiar sound of the chariot wheels rumbling on the dirt path, the familiar motion of the vehicle as it began to move through the dark woods, carrying her back homewards, toward the main palace precinct—all of these things comforted and eased Karni’s anxiety. She glanced back as they passed the fallen horse, and she grimaced as she glimpsed the poor beast’s belly ripped open, intestines strung out. What manner of creature could have attacked the horse? There were no predators here in these woods. Were there? Then who was it that whispered to her in the darkness? Who—or what—was it that attacked and killed the horse so brutally?

The chariot raced through the night, toward the city, toward home, toward safety.