VASURAVA AND KEWRI WERE asleep when Tyrak’s men arrived. Vasurava leaped out of bed, heart thudding, and thought, This is it, he has finally broken our pact and has come to have Kewri killed. He told his frightened wife to stay inside and went out, barring the door and standing before it. He would kill anyone who tried to harm her. He was not immune to the attacks of others—he had been manhandled enough times by Tyrak’s men to know this to be so—and he did not care. He would rather die than stand by and watch his beloved Kewri be killed. If this was to be his last stand, so be it.
The men were led by Bane himself, clad in resplendent robes and richly ornate armor proclaiming his status as Saprem Senapati. It offended Vasurava’s very core to see a man like Bane given charge of Mraashk’s armies, not merely a man without any sense of Auma or morality, but a known slave trader even before he had allied with Tyrak. Vasurava himself had once delegated a force to stop Bane’s thriving trade in child slaves. They had crippled his operation considerably, if not ended it altogether. He knew that Bane had always borne him a grudge for it. That showed now as the thin, tall man stood before him, slapping a free glove into the gloved palm of the other hand as he grinned.
“Vasu,” he said, then added with heavy irony, “Stone Father!” He looked around. “I thought stone gods resided in Stone Heaven, yet here you are, amongst us humble mortals. What have we done to deserve your presence, lord?”
He laughed. His soldiers laughed as well. There were over a dozen, Vasurava noted, all armored and armed. Clearly, they had not just come to deliver a message. He heard the sound of heavy clinking and glimpsed a length of chain in one man’s hands. What was that for? Were they to be shifted to a dungeon now?
“What are your orders this time, Bane?” Vasurava said calmly. “Did he toss a stick and tell you to go fetch it?”
Bane’s smile vanished at once. “You would be well advised to watch your tongue, Mraashk.”
Vasurava didn’t retort. His first barb had struck home; that was enough.
“Move aside,” Bane said.
Vasurava folded his arms comfortably. “These are our private quarters. None may pass.”
Bane grinned. “Why, Mraashk? Do you fear we might molest your wife?” Several of the thug’s men chuckled at that.
Vasurava would not let himself be provoked by such puerile taunts. He remained standing in their way.
Bane sighed irritably. “We are here on the king’s orders. It is best if you let us do what we have to and leave.”
Vasurava shook his head. “Not until you tell me what you are here to do.”
Bane gestured to the man at the back. He came forward, the chains dragging on the ground with a nerve-rasping sound. “You are to be chained and manacled henceforth.” He pointed to one side of the house. “And restricted to one half of the house.”
Bane beckoned again and a pair of stonemasons approached, their implements in hand. “They are to raise a wall dividing the house into two halves. You will reside in one half, and your wife in the other half.” He added with evident pleasure, “She is to be chained and manacled as well.”
Understanding swept through Vasurava at once. His heart shrank with dismay. Whatever he had expected, this was not it. Violence, a direct assault, an attempt on his or Kewri’s life, these things he was prepared for . . . But to chain Kewri and he and keep them in separate halves of the house? And why raise a brick wall between them? Only a demon like Tyrak could conceive of such a move.
Bane grinned, seeing Vasurava’s expression. “When one wishes to rest the bull, one puts the uks in another pasture and raises a fence between them.” He took hold of the chain in his soldier’s hand and shook it, making it jangle loudly. “And to keep the bull from jumping the fence, we chain its leg.”
He grasped Vasurava’s hand roughly and clapped the manacle on it. “And that is how you make sure there are no calves born.”
The sound of his soldiers laughing filled Vasurava’s ears.
Now he sat on one side of the wall. Kewri was on the other side. He could hear her, but it was not possible to see her from any angle. The chains and manacles made sure of that. Everything they did, they were compelled to do within reach of the chains, each barely a few yards long. His heart wept at the thought of Kewri chained like a common criminal in a dungeon. What crimes have we committed, Lord? Why do you make us suffer thus?
They talked through the wall, Kewri and he. They talked more than ever. The separation was agonizing. Only a few yards away, and yet so far.
But as the days passed, he realized how devilishly simple Tyrak’s plan had been. Without harming Vasurava or Kewri, without breaking the pact between them, without killing his sister or brother-in-law, he had made it impossible for the eighth child to be conceived.
The one thing that had succored them both, had kept them moving forward purposefully through the terrible years and days and nights, was the knowledge that someday the eighth child would come. The Slayer of Tyrak. Now there would be no slayer, no end to this perpetual nightmare. And what of the future? Were they to live like this till the end of their lives? Perhaps from time to time, Tyrak would degrade their lives further in some new way, finding new methods of harassing them, torturing them indirectly. Perhaps someday he would wall them in completely as he had done his own father and mother, neither of whom had been seen since that day seven years ago, though they were believed to be alive inside that hellish prison. A life lived thus, Vasurava mused bleakly, was worse than a good clean death.
He turned and looked at the newly built wall. It loomed five feet thick and reinforced with rods of iron. It was as solid as a fortress wall. Even if he attempted to dig through somehow, he would be found out within a day by the guards who patrolled the house constantly. And the attempt itself might worsen their plight.
He sat back, shoulders slumped despondently, and slept.
When Vasurava awoke, the first thing he noticed was the light.
Night had fallen. The house was dark. The patch of sky visible through the open window was black as pitch. If there was a moon, he could not see it through that narrow portal, nor any stars.
But the wall glowed with light.
He blinked and looked up, certain he was dreaming.
A shape very much like a large oblong had appeared on the wall at eye level. It seemed to be formed entirely of some kind of brilliant bluish light. He had never seen the likes of it before. It glowed rhythmically, pulsing and throbbing slowly, like . . . like . . . a heartbeat? Yes. That was exactly what that pulsing rhythm resembled, a heartbeat.
Slowly, he came to see that the shape of the light was the shape of an egg. A very large egg, perhaps the size of a man’s belly.
Or a woman’s womb.
Yes. That was precisely it. It was not an egg but an embryo. An unborn infant, nestled within the safety of its mother’s womb, pulsating with life. And the light, this wondrous bluish glow he was seeing, perhaps this was how the world appeared to an embryo within the womb.
Even as he thought this, the light began to take clearer shape and form. Now he could see the shape of the womb, the fluid sac that acted as a vital protective shield cushioning the unborn life, and within it, the unmistakable shape of the infant child itself, curled in that primordial fetal pose.
He slid backward on the ground, suddenly afraid. The chain clanked in protest. He was at its farthest limit. The manacle dug into his shin and calf, cutting open the scabs of crusted blood and making his wounds bleed again.
Do not fear me, Father.
He exclaimed.
I will never harm you.
Vasurava felt himself shudder, then fought to regain control of his senses. “Who . . . who are you?”
I am your son.
He did not know what to say to that. His son? Which son? he was about to ask. For he had had several, all dashed to death by their brute of an uncle. Surely this was the restless aatma of one of those poor unfortunate dead. But the voice sensed his confusion and clarified it:
Your unborn son. Your eighth child.
Vasurava resisted the urge to gasp aloud. With an effort, he said, “But you have not yet been conceived!”
That momentous event shall take place tonight, in a few moments.
“But . . . how?”
Through the power of Auma, guided by your will, I shall be transported into my mother’s womb. All you have to do is will me there, and thy will will be done.
Vasurava was silent. He knew what the child was saying was true. He accepted it as he had accepted all the miracles of Auma. He felt his mind grow calmer, his pulse steady, his heartbeat return to its usual pace.
“But after that, what next? The moment Tyrak hears that his sister . . . your mother . . . is carrying the eighth child, he will not sit idly by.”
I shall tell you what you have to do. All will be well. Just do as I say, Father, and I shall take care of the rest.
Vasurava thought a moment longer, then nodded slowly. “Yes. I shall.”
Then let us begin. Focus your mind on me, become one with me, and the rest shall come to pass.
Vasurava looked deep into the blue egg of light, at the being that floated there, suspended in that ethereal sac of sacred illumination. And slowly, by degrees, he felt his consciousness rise up out of his body. He felt his spirit soar up, up, up, high above the ether, and down, down into the blue light . . . the blue light of Auma that the sacred Ashcrit verses of the great texts referred to . . . and a great sense of peace and fulfillment swept through him. Every anxiety wiped clean. Every worry washed away. Every pore of his body alive with energy, with shakti.
He felt that energy pass from him through the wall to the other side . . .
To his beloved, Kewri.