PRINCE IN EXILE (31 page)
‘Enough! You have spoken too much already, old crone. I command you to silence, in the name of the founder of this great dynasty, mighty Surya-deva himself! Shantam!’
Before Kausalya’s startled gaze, Manthara’s eyes flashed green. If she hadn’t seen it herself, she wouldn’t have believed it. But there was no mistaking that emerald gleam that lit up the daiimaa’s normally black pupils when the sage called out his command. They positively blazed with green fire. Kausalya took a step back, and was caught by Sumitra’s feverish-hot hands.
Manthara had finally decided to show her true colours.
THREE
The daiimaa’s voice was as soft as the hiss of a serpent, yet no less deadly in its challenge. ‘You dare to command me to silence, sage? I advise you to stay silent yourself!’
Kausalya heard Sumitra emit a startled gasp at the daiimaa’s effrontery. Neither of them had ever heard anyone, leave alone an ageing wet-nurse, speak with such rude arrogance to the seermage Vashishta. But that was only the first salvo in the old hunchback’s arsenal. She went on, her voice rising with unleashed fury, her eyes blazing sorcerous green, the green of asura shakti, as Kausalya knew from a thousand childhood tales. A corrosive, searing green flame that seemed to issue from as well as consume the daiimaa’s eyes like a pair of oil-dipped cotton wicks.
Manthara raised a clawlike finger, pointing it at Guru Vashishta. ‘Be warned, whitebeard! Your powers will not serve you in this matter! Too late you see fit to intervene. Too late you arrive like an unwelcome guest at a wedding feast after the last course has been served and eaten. Too late to save your precious Ikshwaku clan, your exalted Suryavansha dynasty, your feeble, fickle, faithless friends. With one masterstroke, your great child-champion has been disinherited from his throne and kingdom, cast out into exile, condemned to fourteen years in a place no less perilous than the nethermost region of hell. What use your great Brahman shakti now? Your yogic mastery? Your millennia of maha-vidya and wisdom? Dust and ashes, offal and filth! That will be your lot henceforth!’
As she spoke, the green blaze in Manthara’s eyes grew brighter, filling the entire orbs, until their garish light fell upon the daiimaa’s face and upper body, overwhelming even the pure yellow glow of the diya.
Kausalya glimpsed Guru Vashishta’s white-clad form sweeping past her. The guru seemed taller than usual, looming above them all, but especially above the daiimaa, who seemed further dwarfed in comparison with the tall sage.
‘You have done enough damage already,’ the guru said, his gravelly voice a sombre and dignified contrast with the daiimaa’s hissing, spitting tones. ‘I should have suspected your evil ways earlier and acted sooner. But you were cloaked by the presence and protection of your mistress. Fool that I was, I neglected to look past the brightness of Kaikeyi’s obfuscating aura, or I would surely have glimpsed how deeply your black heart and sin-soaked aatma were steeped in the dark arts. Instead, I misread the signs and omens and failed to perceive your role in this villainish conspiracy. For that failing I must pay penance.’
‘Yes!’ the old hunchback screeched. ‘Penance you will pay! While I rule the roost like a queen in all but name. Do not delude yourself. You could no more have seen through my outer guise than a greybeard goat can see through its mountain! My master’s shakti is supreme in all the worlds. His time is come. While you and the rest of your clutch of seven, your time is nigh past. Go on then, whitebeard. Cast off your glowing robes and put on a hair-coat. Go out into the wilderness and seek the repentance you deserve. Suffer another millennia or two in silence while my master and I build a new world order, a world where your pathetic devas and devis will be forgotten, their idols smashed down and trampled into the dirt beneath the passage of our triumphant armies!’
Guru Vashishta advanced a step further upon the woman holding the diya. Manthara’s face was all alight with the green glow from her eyes now, Kausalya saw. It was as if the daiimaa had been set ablaze by some sorcerous flame and was literally burning in its rapture. Inside the cocoon of green flame, the old hunchback’s face and body were limned in black, like an outline sketched with a charcoal grease-stick.
‘I will brook no further blasphemy from your withered lips, old hag,’ the guru said. ‘Until now, you have worked your evildoing in darkness and in secret. But you stand exposed now, and you will not escape justice. I command you, yield this instant or face the shakti of Brahman.’
Standing behind the guru, with Sumitra in turn behind her, clinging to her arm, Kausalya saw the look of rage that passed across Manthara’s wizened features. The old daiimaa glared at Vashishta with an expression of such intense hatred that even Kausalya had to force herself not to turn her face away. The very fact that the old woman had stood up and confronted the legendary seer-mage so boldly thus far was itself shocking. Their worst fears had finally been proved beyond doubt. Manthara was in the thrall of the demonlord of Lanka, that much was clearly evident now. No other force in the three worlds would defy Guru Vashishta face to face, nor be able to accomplish so many dastardly deeds so near to the great seer’s presence. It was shocking to see that the daiimaa was so foolish, or so powerful, that she would dare to stand up to the guru himself. It made Kausalya cry out in the fastness of her own besieged mind:
How could we have raised this serpent under our own roof and not seen her for what she truly was all these years?
Yet the answer was as simple as faith itself:
Because we trust our own. We trust them unto death.
For several moments the confrontation teetered on a knife-edge. The witch, for that was how Kausalya knew she would think of her henceforth, stayed deathly still in her sorcerous cocoon of green asura fire, glaring at the sage as if she would do battle with him to the very end before yielding so much as an inch. Nor did the guru himself yield an inch, his eyes flashing blue with the cold fire of Brahman, his white beard and flowing mane of hair lending him a terrible grimness.
Then, before Kausalya’s astonished eyes, Manthara turned around, putting her back to the guru and the two queens, and bent down. The daiimaa shattered the glass jal-bartan she was holding on the floor of the kosaghar, splitting it into jagged halves. She took one wickedly curved half and put it to the throat of the unconscious maharaja. The hand she used was encased in a mashaal-like blaze of green flame, casting a horrible deathlike pallor upon Dasaratha’s face.
‘Come then,’ she hissed at the sage. ‘Let us see how powerful your Brahman shakti truly is when matched against my master’s powers. Let us see if you can save the life of your precious Ajaputra before I turn him into yet another blood-sacrifice to my master, Ravana!’
‘Release him at once,’ the sage thundered, his voice echoing and reverberating off the walls of the narrow confined chamber, ringing up and down the corridor-like length of the kosaghar. ‘In the name of almighty Brahma, I command you on pain of death!’
Manthara sneered, lifting part of her upper lip to reveal a mouthful of ugly yellow-black teeth. ‘Brahma will soon be a forgotten god, seer. By the time the kalyug comes, even his most ardent devotee will have to search the land to find a single shrine. Name some more powerful deva if you will. Or better still, admit defeat and back away.’ She turned her hand then, showing them a glimpse of the maharaja’s neck. A small drop of blood emerged from the spot where the tip of the jagged glass was held to his throat.
‘NO!’ Kausalya screamed. Sumitra’s voice clashed with hers as the other queen added her own plea. ‘Don’t hurt him!’
Manthara leered up at them. ‘You see, sage? How something as worthless as a single mortal life can undo all the efforts of mighty Brahma? That is why your deva will be forgotten in time, while my lord will be worshipped well into the last yuga of the world, until the final turn of the samay chakra itself. As long as the wheel of time turns, Ravana’s name shall be set above all.’
The guru’s voice was quiet and calm. ‘You delude yourself, witch. Or your master deludes you. What has he promised you in exchange for all this evildoing? A beautiful form, unmarred by your childhood deformities and misshaping? Power and wealth? Adulation and glory?’
Manthara cackled. ‘More than you will ever have, whitebeard. My master is generous in his gifts, just as he is cruel in his punishments. He is not one of your devas, who demand eternal service and suffering without ever rewarding you for your servitude.’
‘That is because we know, as does every good soul that has ever existed, that serving the force of Brahman is reward enough,’ replied the sage calmly. ‘But your master deceives you. Did he ever tell you that it was he who gave you those deformities and inflicted upon you such hideous misshaping? Did he reveal to you that he picks upon mortal souls at random, inflicting such adversities upon them in order to twist and warp their minds and hearts, making them all the more pliable to his vile purpose? Did he reveal this to you as well?’
For the first time since entering the kosaghar, Kausalya saw the daiimaa’s face lose its snarling expression. The look of shock that replaced the snarl was heart-rending to behold. The daiimaa’s hand, pressing the jagged glassedge to the maharaja’s bleeding neck, faltered and moved away, shaking in a spasm as if it would drop the makeshift dagger. But almost immediately the woman caught herself, and a wry grin replaced the look of abject shock that had been upon it a moment earlier.
Then a subtle shift took place in the balance of shakti between the two opposing forces. Something flickered in the daiimaa’s eyes, a blurring, as if she were distracted by some inner thought. As if she heard a voice speaking inside her mind, Kausalya thought. And slowly, like an oil fire that had been starved of fuel, the daiimaa’s green aura receded. In a moment, Kausalya could see Manthara’s face and body again. The last vestiges of the sorcerous light flickered at the periphery of the daiimaa’s head, then faded away, leaving a few straggling motes of emerald light that swirled and were lost in the long shadows of the kosaghar.
‘Well tried, whitebeard,’ she hissed softly. ‘You almost had me with that lie.’
‘It is no lie, Manthara,’ Vashishta said with new gentleness. ‘You know it as well as I do. Use your newfound powers to examine the veracity of my words. Look back upon your own past. See the exact moment when Ravana reached out with his vile sorcery and twisted you within your mother’s very womb. Witness each new blow and misery he inflicted upon you during your tender years, corrupting you further, alienating your from your fellow mortals. Trace the whole history of his workings upon you, as he has worked upon countless other weak souls before you. See it all for yourself and judge whether I speak truly or no. And then decide whether you are truly going to be gifted with all the foolish baubles he dangled before your mesmerised eyes, or cast aside like any of his other minions after they had completed his work. For make no mistake of it, he will cast you down as he would cast a gnat or an ant, not even looking to see if you remain alive or broken. For once you finish his work, you are finished in his eyes. He has no more use of you.’
Now it was Manthara’s turn to scream, ‘NO!’ The cry was magnified by her sorcery, filling the kosaghar with an earsplitting echo that seemed to go on for ever. When it ended, the daiimaa was on her feet again, the glass shard tossed aside with a clatter. ‘I will not stay and be duped by your Brahman sorcery, whitebeard. I don’t know how you began to weave this spell, or by what mantra you caused it to enter my mind, but I will not stay to be further deluded by its influence. But mark my words, we shall meet again. And the next time, I shall finish with you. Then we shall see whose shakti is greater!’
With those final words, the daiimaa turned and shuffled towards the wall of the kosaghar, heading directly for it without stopping. Just when it seemed she would strike the wall and be thrown back, a blinding flash of green light seared Kausalya’s vision, causing her to fling her arm up to shield her dazed eyes. When she could see again, her eyes adjusting once more to the dim gloom of the chamber, only a few motes of green light swirled at the far corner. Manthara was gone.
‘Her power is great,’ the guru said. Kausalya was shocked at the weariness in his tone. ‘Truly, I was deceived by some great master of asura sorcery all this time. How could I have allowed her to grow into such a sorceress under my very nose?’ He sighed deeply. ‘And yet, this too is part of mighty Brahma-dev’s great plan. In his infinite wisdom he has found a place for her too, as much a pawn in the great game as I myself.’
Before Kausalya could speak in response to these strange comments, her eyes adjusted sufficiently to the gloom to see the figure that lay beyond the guru. All this while he had been concealed by Manthara, but now Kausalya could see him clearly. Dasaratha lay with his back to a pillar, feet sprawled out before him, head bowed on his chest.
She flew to him, crouching down beside her husband, feeling his cheek, his face, trying to see his eyes in the dimness. ‘Dasa? Oh, Dasa, say something. Speak, Dasa!’ Sumitra was with her too, saying much the same words, touching Dasa with anxious hands, trying to evoke a response from the maharaja. But Dasaratha only lay there with half-open eyes, barely breathing, his skin as cold and clammy to the touch as a fish freshly drawn from the Sarayu in the last chill of springmelt.
‘Guru-dev,’ Kausalya said, turning her face up to the guru now standing beside her. ‘Your ability to see transcends our weak mortal vision. Tell me truly, what ails my beloved husband? Why does he not respond?’