PRINCE IN EXILE (110 page)

The thrumming vibration in the ground grew. It felt now like a great force was shaking the entire clearing, threatening to tear the whole plot of land free from the earth and fling it up into the air. Lakshman didn’t know what creature or force could cause such an effect, but whatever it might be, it was behind the hut. That was where Rama was headed, and he went as well. 

They ran around the hut, ready to face whatever might be there waiting for them. 

NINETEEN 

The earth embraced them. Ravana’s heads cursed aloud in a half-dozen different tongues all at once. The golden sky-chariot, instead of ascending as he had commanded, had thumped down onto the ground. It landed with a bone-jarring impact that shook Sita to the core. But she cared nothing for the pain.
Hold me tight
,
mother Prithvi
, she cried out silently.
Embrace me and never let me go
. The entire surface on which she lay vibrated furiously, shuddering like an elephant in its death throes. Ravana’s voices were raised in a cacophony of incantations, chanting mantras similar to yet wholly unlike any she had heard before. She guessed that they must be the asura subversions of the smritis, the secret verses of power that the seven seers had composed to aid mortalkind in its war against the asuras. To be able to subject those powerful verses to his own ends proved how great Ravana’s power must be. Yet even his incantations were futile. Sita could barely see what was going on, with her head and body clasped by the metal straps and mouldings, and everything was shaking and vibrating so much, she could barely think straight. She clung to the single prayer that had come to her.
Hold me
,
Prithvi-maa
.
Never let me go
. 

With a roar of rage, the lord of Lanka turned to her. ‘You!’ he thundered. ‘You are the cause.’ 

Even as he roared the words at her, spittle flying from his many mouths, Sita felt the celestial vahan change. Flaps of golden metal emerged from the sides and ends of the roughly rectangular chariot, rising up and arcing overhead towards each other. They met overhead and fused together to form a seamless surface, perfect as a goldsmith’s melding. Sita cried out involuntarily as the sky was blocked out. Now she was enclosed in a golden coffin, cut off from any view of sky, forest or earth. At once, she felt her connection with the world at large severed, as palpably as if a vein in her body had been cut, or an umbilical cord snipped. She felt the power that had coursed through her only instants earlier, filling her with optimism and exultation, vanish out at once. The vibration beneath her ceased. 

‘
Now
try calling to your devas,’ said one of Ravana’s heads, leering down at her. ‘See if anyone or anything can help you.’ 

Earth mother
.
Heed my plea
. 

Another head grinned balefully, a third snickered. ‘She can’t hear you now. But your husband and brother can. They’re here, only yards away. Why don’t you ask them for help?’ 

*** 

Rama and Lakshman came around the side of the hut and came face-to-face with a pillar of earth. The ground itself behind the hut had risen up, it seemed, like a living pair of hands growing out of the soil. These two tree-thick pillars of mud were attempting to hold on to an object the likes of which neither of them had seen before. It was shaped like a longish, roughly rectangular palanquin. Unlike as the comparison was at this place and time, it was the golden surface of the object that made it appear to be like a royal carrying-car, a palkhi. There were even jewels studded in its sides, in a pattern that resembled nothing they had seen before. In any case, the palkhi—if indeed it
was
some sort of palanquin—was suspended in mid-air, about ten yards off the ground. It appeared to have no wings, no means of support, yet it was suspended. The two pillars of earth rose up into the air, clasping the palkhi tightly. Rama could see earth crumbling away at the point where the pillars were pressing hard against the suspended palkhi. Then the whole spasmed, the palkhi jerking upwards, and more dried mud and pebbles fell, flowing in a steady shower. He sensed rather than heard or saw the tremendous effort exerted by both the palkhi, pushing upwards, as well as the two pillars of earth pulling it down. It was as if the earth itself had reached out and sought to restrain the floating object. 

‘Bhai,’ Lakshman whispered urgently. ‘What should we do? Should we shoot?’ 

Rama shook his head. He didn’t think arrows would pierce that golden palkhi. Even if it had been just a gold-plated ironarmoured palanquin, the kind used to ferry royals and nobles in Ayodhya, it would be impervious to arrows. Perhaps a heavy javelin, one of those metal-tipped ones that weighed as much as he had back when he was a boy of fifteen, might pierce it. But what would that achieve? If Sita was inside, he would risk hurting her and in any case, he had no such weapon. He stood for an endless moment, unable to decide how to battle this bizarre enemy. The rattling of earth falling, the thumping jerk of the flying palkhi, the startled cries of wheeling flocks of birds overhead, and the thudding of his heart, all merged into a cacophony. 

A cry rang out. ‘
Rama
!
Lakshman
!
In here
!
Inside the golden vahan
.
He has me trapped
!
Help me
!’ 

The cry was muffled and distorted, as if Sita’s throat was constricted somewhat, but there was no mistaking her voice. It was all the motivation he needed. 

He dropped his bow and ran to the place where the pillar of earth grew—there was no other word for it—out of the ground and reached for the palkhi. He threw himself at the pillar, seeking to grasp it and climb. At first his hands scrabbled madly for purchase, breaking off nails, scraping off skin; then, he fought desperately and his fingers gouged out handholds, his toes kicked 

footholds, and he clung on. 

Lakshman leaped up beside him. ‘Use your knife, bhai!’ 

Rama was already reaching for his blade. He plunged it into the soft, yielding earth above his head, and used it to pull himself up another foot or two. The pillar trembled wildly beneath him, and from time to time the palkhi bucked and jerked, like a wild horse under rope restraints. From the force of its jerks and the porosity of the earth pillars, he knew the outcome was inevitable. At any moment, the golden flying car—for what else could it be—would burst free and soar away to wherever it had come from. Taking Sita with it. His only hope was to climb atop the palkhi itself and cling on until he reached that destination. 

If he couldn’t stop it from taking her away, then he could go with her at least. 

He climbed, tearing nails and skin and even flesh on the mud pillar which had hardened at the tops almost to the consistency of rock in order to grip the flying palkhi. He gained the top of the pillar and clambered aboard the top of the golden vahan. It felt warm and throbbed like a living being beneath his touch. He spread his arms and legs, embracing it. 

Lakshman climbed up beside him, a cut on his cheek sending trickles of blood down his chest. He stabbed the corner of the palkhi with his blade. Rama was not surprised to see the blade deflected without so much as a dent appearing on the smooth, flawless surface of the palkhi. This was no mortal construction. Their weapons were useless against it. 

The palkhi jerked once more, bucking with a force great enough to throw off elephants. Because he was wielding his blade, Lakshman had only a one-handed grip on the palkhi and he lost his balance at once. Rama lunged out and grabbed Lakshman’s arm as he went over the side. Lakshman hung, twisting, and over his shoulder Rama saw that the pillar of earth on that side was fighting a losing battle. The last jerk had lifted the palkhi another few yards, and they were now at the height of the neighbouring treetops. The earth-pillar was thinner and weaker, breaking into bits, and there was more earth falling than rising. Rama felt the object beneath him thrumming and vibrating as if preparing for one massive buck that would free it once and for all. 

‘Rama!’ Sita’s voice was shrill with terror. It sounded like it was coming from right below Rama’s knees. 

Rama looked briefly into Lakshman’s eyes, and, when he saw that his brother was all right, he secured Lakshman’s hands to the side of the palkhi. 

‘Rama, hurry! He’s—’ 

Her next words were drowned out by a great subsonic boom that Rama felt in the innermost crevices of his ears. He resisted the impulse to clap his hands over them and stabbed down with his blade, seeking to penetrate the palkhi. On the third stab, the blade snapped off and flew away. The pillars of earth on either side had collapsed and a mighty wind had risen instantly. It spun madly, turning the loose soil into whirling dervishes. The air around the palkhi was a maelstrom of whirling earth, obscuring everything else. Rama squinted against the blinding dust and dirt and felt around the edges of the palkhi, searching for a crack, a crevice, an opening of some sort, anything … 

‘Rama.’ Her voice was fainter now beneath the roaring of the wind and the rattling of the dirt against the sides of the palkhi. The vahan was spinning slowly, in the opposite direction to the wind-dervish, and Rama felt rather than saw that it was rising up as well. He could see nothing except flying dirt and grey glimpses of what might be the sky beyond it. He searched on desperately but determinedly for a way into the golden box. 

With a thrumming release of energy that he felt in every bone in his body, the palkhi tore free of the wind-and-dirt dervish and rose vertically up into the air. It paused briefly, as if contemplating its next move, and in that tiny instant of immobility, Rama could see nothing but the blinding blue dome of the sky above. 

The palkhi, or sky-chariot, or whatever it was, turned over. Rama suddenly found himself on the underside, and his own weight betrayed him, pulling him down. He clung to the sides with his fingertips, straining fiercely, determined to hold on to the end, but the vahan did something unexpected, its sharp boxy corners morphing into rounded curves, and his fingers lost their purchase. 

He hung suspended for what seemed like eternity. His entire consciousness was fixed on the golden box in the sky above him, lit from above and one side by the sun. He heard his wife cry out in a desolate voice, as if she knew that he was gone, then the golden thing simply shot away like an arrow propelled from an unseen bow, and fled his field of vision. He closed his eyes, crying out her name, and fell. 

*** 

Jatayu shuddered with weakness and fear. Its rheumy cataract-obscured eyes could make out the golden Pushpak in the distance, set against a clear, cloudless, blue sky hanging above the jade green of the jungle like a gold jewel-box on green velvet. The chariot seemed to turn over, dislodging something small and flailing from its underside, then shot directly towards Jatayu. The bird-beast gasped a last prayer to the lords of the air and earth, from whence it came and whence it would go, and launched itself off the treetop. 

It was much too old for this madness. But there was nobody else to do it and it owed a debt. A great one. 

Either the devas had granted it one last boon or its judgement was perfect. It fell off the treetop at just the right time. Its claws lunged down just as the Pushpak passed beneath its scraggy belly, and gripped the celestial vehicle with every last ounce of strength. It was small enough for its enormous claws to close around it. No doubt the lord of Lanka had ordered the Pushpak to reduce itself to this small form in order to maximise the speed of its flight—and because he needed only sufficient space for himself and his abductee. 

The vahan barely slowed in its progress. 

Jatayu experienced a moment of complete weightlessness as its weight was taken up by the shooting sky-chariot, then a breathless nausea as the vehicle adjusted to the weight and carried on. The world turned into a rushing wind-torn tunnel of madness. Jatayu was pressed down and back, shoved at by the invisible shakti of Vayu, the wind god, seeking to push it off the insanely speeding vahan, but it clung on with all the shakti at its own command. Sheer willpower held it on as the golden vahan shot across the rippling jungles like an arrow across a jade ocean. The wind literally tore at its moulting feathers, stripping it down to oozing flesh and even bone. Its ligaments were stretched to breaking point and it felt screaming pain in every joint and muscle as its frail body was torn at a dozen places. And still the vahan sped on, pursuing a zigzag course across the undulating forests. Each time it changed trajectory, new portions of Jatayu’s body were ripped and broken, and one time it felt an entire patch of its left wing separate and disappear. Blood was streaming from all across its tortured body, and at one point, when the craft changed direction in a sharp right angle—impossible to imagine, yet easy as air for the vehicle of the devas—it glimpsed the stream of scarlet globules of its own lifeblood suspended in a lambent trail that stretched back over many miles. A pair of talons snapped off at the pressure of the sharp turn and it saw them fly horizontally backwards, propelled by the mind-boggling speed of the vehicle, to hang in mid-air. They vanished to pinpoints in an instant, still suspended in mid-air like flies in amber, for it was hurtling forward at a rate far greater than the rate at which they were falling.