PRINCE IN EXILE (90 page)

‘Vibhisena.’ 

He started, almost losing his grip on the mashaal-holder— and his balance as well. The chasm beckoned, the lights and tiny rakshasa forms moving about below, blurring until they resembled a malevolent force drawing him down, like a yagna fire seeking a blood-sacrifice. He gasped and pinwheeled one arm, the other seeking to regain his grip on the mashaal-holder, but already he was starting to tip over. 

At the last instant, a hand gripped his shoulders firmly from above, stopping his fall, then lifting him bodily into empty space with the ease of a grown rakshasa picking up a cub. From past experience, he knew that the hand holding him was neither human nor asura. 

TWO 

Vibhisena twisted his head to look around, unsure whether to be grateful or terrified, and saw Mandodhari ensconced in the Pushpak, hovering overhead. The hand that had gripped him was in fact a taloned claw of the carved inscrutably animalistic design of the sky-chariot itself. It released its grip, setting him down on the stairway. Then lowered a gleaming golden platform from its underside. 

He stepped on the platform and was elevated smoothly up to the main cabin of the vehicle. Mandodhari stood there, as imperious as ever, in complete command, operating the celestial vehicle with tiny flickers of her considerable will. 

Vibhisena greeted his sister-in-law with a formal namaskara. 

‘My lady,’ he said as always. 

She nodded brusquely, impatient as always with his insistence on formality. 

She was clad in white as usual, her stern beauty occluded by drooping eyes weighted with a permanent expression of sadness and disapproval. There was pride in her ramrod straight posture and a hint of cruel defiance around the small, tight mouth. But there was also a hint of sensuality in her statuesque rakshasi curves and in the graceful elegance of her gestures and lithe movements. She was a complex creature and not one he enjoyed being around. A sworn bachelor for life, a brahmacharya-vrath, he was uncomfortable around all females, whatever their species, but it was not Mandodhari’s femininity that caused him discomfort so much as her love for control. 

Yet he could not deny that over these past thirteen years, she had been the only reason the Pulastya family, indeed the whole clan, had held together in relative peace. Everything that they still possessed—this mountain habitat, the nervous yet lasting peace, and the continuing loyalty of the other clans—was all due to her strength of will and character. With Ravana incapacitated, Mandodhari had become the mistress of Lanka in name and in truth. At first Vibhisena had been relieved to hand over the burdensome responsibility of dealing with the aftermath of the asura civil riots and later, the rebuilding of the fortress-city. A life of single-minded devotion to religious rites and prayer had not prepared him for the burdens of kingship, no matter that he was Ravana’s brother and, therefore, entitled to the responsibility by rakshasa tradition. But over time, as his initial relief faded, he had come to realise that Lanka had only exchanged one major tyrant for another minor one. His dream of change had been a premature one after all. 

Mandodhari looked down at him with the disapproving air of a mother who had caught her infant creeping out of the house during a winter storm. 

‘I was coming to fetch you,’ she said reproachfully. ‘Did you think to walk all the way down? It is a half-mile to the habitat. And miles further down to the den. You know that. It would have taken you hours at your usual pace.’ 

‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘But I heard the—’ 

‘Summons. And you could not wait. Luckily for you I came to seek you out.’ 

‘Then … you heard it as well?’ 

‘Of course. We all did. The rest are already in the den. I told them that I would come fetch you in the Pushpak. We must hurry.’ As she spoke she simultaneously issued mental instructions to the Pushpak. The floating vehicle began descending at a rate that closely matched the sinking feeling in the pit of Vibhisena’s stomach. He gripped the gleaming gold railings, unnaturally warm as ever, for the vehicle was powered by living energy. It hummed and thrummed quietly beneath his skin and when Mandodhari spoke, he could feel the vibrations of her consciousness passing through the vehicle. ‘He has sent for all of us.’ 

‘All of us?’ 

‘You. I. His sons. Only family for now. He will speak to his generals when he is ready.’ She added quickly, anticipating his next question: ‘At least, that is what he communicated to me. I do not know much beyond those instructions.’ 

‘I see.’ But he didn’t actually. The Pushpak reached the level of the habitat, hovering a few yards above the heads of the milling rakshasas who looked up and shouted a thousand questions— Is it true? Has the master arisen? What caused the quake? Has Kumbhakaran been awoken? Are we at war again?—then zoomed smoothly and silently across the habitat until it reached a squarish pit cut into the ground. Only yards away, the spiralling stairway continued its epic descent along the cavern wall, descending into the same pit. Vibhisena braced himself as the Pushpak swung silently into a perfect position above the pit, then, without any sound or indication, dropped like a stone. Vibhisena’s stomach rose into his throat—or perhaps that was only his mortal soul. Sheer blackrock walls, roughly cut by the pounding hammers and chisels of the kumbha-rakshasas in record time under Mandodhari’s martinet supervision, sped past them on every side, blurring into a steady grey stream that resembled a waterfall flowing upwards. 

As they descended, he somehow found the nerve to speak the question that was emblazoned on his mind. ‘Then it’s true … Ravana … he really is—’ 

‘Awake,’ Mandodhari replied coldly, her face masked by an expression that he could read as neither joy nor unhappiness. ‘Yes. It would seem Ravana is awake at last.’ 

*** 

Supanakha dragged herself up over the last jagged spur of blackrock with one final effort, then collapsed face down. She lay panting on the ledge. When she was able to raise her head up again, she hawked, then spat blood and a few teeth onto the cold stone. After regaining her breath, she pulled herself around in a half circle and looked down. It seemed a ridiculously short way back down to the beach from up here. Above her, the cliffs continued to rise above for several hundred feet yet. But when falling, it hadn’t felt like a short fall. An earthquake, of all things. Had it been waiting for her to start climbing just so it could rattle and shudder and dislodge her grip, forcing her to fall twenty-odd yards? As if she hadn’t been through hell and high water just to arrive at the shores of Lanka from the distant jungles of Janasthana. 

She forced herself to rise to her feet. Getting up on twos felt impossible, but she managed to struggle to all fours, and stood shakily, feeling exactly the way she once had when she birthed a litter of cubs. She had no idea what had happened to them but the memory of how weak and helpless she had felt at the time filled her with a rage that made her shake. She forced herself to breathe and turned around to look the other way, so she could examine the interior of the cleft. It was much larger than it had seemed from the beach. The roof rose a good thirty or forty-odd feet above her head, and was studded with yards-long fingers of rock pointing down threateningly. Some of those formations looked as if another tremor might easily shake them loose, and an image flashed of one of the pointed jagged things impaling her like a scorpion pierced by a sword tip. She snarled, her hind legs quivering and threatening to give way, then forced herself to slink slowly forward, working her way step by painful step into the darker interior of the crevice. It smelt dank and crusty, like the rotten carcass of some tentacled undersea creature that lay in the shadows. The daylight from the opening faded suddenly as she crept around a large boulder slimy with barnacles. The rocks underfoot were slippery and there were fish skeletons and shells everywhere, digging into her paws, threatening to slice her open with every hesitant step. Not too long ago, this crevice had been undersea, like much of Lanka, and she guessed that when the island had been raised up bodily by Ravana’s powerful sorcery, several living things had died a gasping death up here. 

Very clever
,
Cousin
.
Your senses remain as sharp as ever
. 

She stood still, her hackles prickling. It had been years since that voice had spoken within her head but she recognised it instantly. She smiled a catty smile. So he was still alive. ‘Ravana,’ she purred, her voice hoarse from the weeks of swallowing sea water and retching it out again. 

Alive and waiting
.
I have waited a long time for this day
,
Cousin dearest
. 

She looked around, her eyes scanning the dim expanse of the cave. All she could see were rocks and boulders, jutting out like a densely packed crowd of misshapen asuras. ‘Where are you?’ Her voice sounded hollow and strange in the rocky cave. 

A long way up this passageway
.
Don
’
t worry
,
you
’
re heading in the right direction
.
Keep coming
. 

She frowned, instantly suspicious. Why was he being so damn polite? That wasn’t like Ravana at all. A thought occurred to her. ‘Did you shake me off the cliff the first time I climbed up? That earthquake, I mean. It was your doing?’ 

On the contrary
,
my dear
.
It was your touch upon the rock that woke me from my long slumber
.
The blackrock of Lanka is linked to my mind
,
it needed only your touch to rouse me
.
That was the shuddering you felt
,
my awakening
. 

She blinked. ‘
I
woke you?’ 

We waste time talking
.
The sooner you come to me
,
the sooner I can be up and about again
.
Keep going up this way
,
and when you come to a fork
,
I
’
ll guide you through
— 

‘Wait. You mean that my coming here was responsible for awakening you from your coma? And now you need my help to get you moving about again?’ 

A brief surge of irritation, searing but impotent. As suddenly as it came, it was gone. That was another first. Ravana wasn’t the kind to restrain his emotions.
Cousin Supanakha
,
it
’
s so much simpler to show you than to explain
.
Keep going and all things will become clear very shortly
. 

She purred softly, her weariness and aches suddenly forgotten. This was a rare turnabout. Suddenly, all the possibilities of the situation began to flash before her eyes. ‘First tell me, if I do as you say, complete your awakening, will you do what I ask?’ 

I
’
m sure we can work something out that will be of mutual benefit
. 

She leaned back on her haunches, in an attitude of classic rakshasi stubbornness. ‘First promise me that you will do what I ask.’ 

Our goals seem to be one
.
So
,
yes
,
I don
’
t see any problem with your request
. 

‘No,’ she said loudly, echoes running away down the cave. ‘First I want your promise. You will do what I came here to ask of you. Otherwise, I’ll just turn around and leave.’ 

And she matched action to threat, turning around to face towards the entrance again. Her tail, dead as a dormouse until now, switched once with unexpected vigour. She had him now. She knew it. She didn’t know why or how, but for some reason, her coming to Lanka and setting foot upon the island had awoken her long-comatose cousin. Now
he
needed
her
in order to recover fully! What a delicious situation. 

Yes
,
yes
!
I will do as you want
.
Are you satisfied
?
Now come to me
.
Get a move on
. 

She smiled and sighed the deep sigh of a satiated cat. Rising once more to her weary fours, she turned and began padding into the cave, picking up pace as she went. Her tail switched happily from side to side. Suddenly, it seemed well worth the effort of the long journey and that wretched sea voyage. Even worth swallowing that wretched kelp for want of any other nourishment. Well, perhaps not the kelp, but otherwise, yes, it did seem like a good idea to come here after all.