PRINCE IN EXILE (48 page)

So she had come here. To play one final hand. Here, in this place of power, she would offer one last sacrificial rite, a final balidaan to the Dark Lord of Lanka. If Ravana yet lived, as she still fervently believed he did, then he must hear her plea. The Seer’s Tower was known for its ability to amplify prayers, shakti and supernatural force of any kind. Why not asura sorcery? So what if she no longer seemed to have the ability to cast even the simplest cloaking spell. She would do what she had done a hundred times before: cause herself untold pain as a means of showing Ravana how dearly she was devoted to his cause. And by doing it here, in this powerful place of magic, he would not be able to ignore her demonstration. He would come to her again, as he had before. And all would be well again. After all, she mused as she readied herself for the final sacrifice, she had carried out his plan with brilliant effectiveness. Rama was exiled, doomed to battle the rakshasas of Dandaka-van. He would barely survive the month, let alone fourteen long years. The Suryavansha family was broken, shattered to shards like a crystal goblet. So what if Rani Kausalya ruled as regent in Rama’s name? 

If Ravana granted her shakti once more, Manthara would undo that as well. The fate of mortalkind hung by a thread. What Ravana himself could not accomplish with the largest asura invasion ever mounted, she had achieved with simple harem politics and shrewd deceptions. And now, with her master’s aid, she could finish the job she had so well begun. 

‘Hear me,’ she said aloud, removing a dagger from her waistband as she moved to the edge of the rampart, to the place where the stone floor ended and nothingness began. Far below her the lights of Ayodhya gleamed, subdued but still brighter than the lights of any other mortal city. ‘Hear me, my lord, hear the plea of one who has served you loyally and truly. Give me your shakti once more. Infuse me with your strength and let me serve you once again.’ 

And she slashed herself with the dagger. The blade bit deep and hard, drawing a gush of blood.
Ah, lord, that hurts
. 

There was no answer. Only the wind, howling like a pack of wolves about her ears. 

‘See my devotion, master,’ she called out, her words whipped away by the wind. ‘See how I suffer to serve you. Answer my plea. Give me your shakti again.’ 

Still no answer. 

She cut herself again, a mortal wound this time. She staggered, barely able to remain upright. Somehow she managed to stay on her feet, her vitals a nest of fire-serpents gnawing and writhing. She put the last of her failing strength into one resounding wail of utter desolation. 

‘HEAR ME, MASTER! SAVE ME! I GIVE MYSELF INTO YOUR HANDS.’ 

And then she jumped. 

The night air was cool and pleasant on her face as she went down. Her blood gushed around her, flying up into the air, catching the bright lights of the city below, like a shower of rubies raining upwards to heaven. She fell towards the city. 

Ravana!
she cried out.
My Lord, catch me! 

There was still no reply. 

The night receded into silent darkness around her, a black shroud falling over the universe entire. Her bowels gave way, her bladder lost control, her life-blood poured out of her gruesome wounds and was whipped away by the tearing wind, and then she was screaming wildly, knowing at last what she had not known all these years, seeing the truth beneath the pathetic ritualistic barbarism of her dark devotion, the skull beneath the skin of her foolish faith. She screamed, and for an instant, a sliver of a fraction of a second, she glimpsed the larger purpose behind it all, the great hand that moved the forces that moved those who thought they controlled all others. She glimpsed the face of Brahman itself, manifest and terribly physical. And for that brief flash of an instant, she knew all. And the knowing was more terrible than the ignorance that had shrouded her mercifully all her life. For complete knowledge cannot be contained within the constraints of a mortal mind, just as divine love will not be confined within the tiny sphere of a mortal heart. And in that penultimate moment, Manthara was given possession of both, complete knowledge and complete love. Love and knowledge, the most terrible of all burdens. 

Then she struck the pavement three hundred yards below, and all knowledge, love, and life ended. 

KAAND 3

ONE 

Ravana
. 

The cries resounded through the ash-filled skies of Lanka. As the Pushpak moved smoothly above the ramparts and abutments of the fortress city, a million asura eyes turned skywards, gazing with fearful awe at the returning sky-chariot. Spirals of smoke rose desultorily from parts of the city where violence had erupted. The inter-species skirmishes and mini-battles that had begun breaking out even before Vibhisena had entered the volcano were still raging unchecked. They fell momentarily still as the shadow of the gliding Pushpak passed across them. To those below, the celestial vehicle must have made a compelling spectacle, its intricately designed structure gleaming burnished gold, silhouetted magnificently against the angry orange-red sky. 

The volcano had ceased its eruption but the lava spewed out by its explosive spurts still flowed red-hot, winding its slow, sluggish way to the ocean. At the edge of the turbulent coast, flowing lava and raging sea met in a sizzling clash, exuding boiling gouts of ash-filled smoke that rose in thick, ominous coils. At the contact line of lava and brine, massive hundred-foot-high spouts of spray flew into the air like eruptions from a geyser. Steam roiled off this line of contact. The ocean was strewn with corpses of various species of asura killed by their rival species in the ongoing battle for control of Lanka. These corpses, as well as the carrion birds and sharks that fed greedily on them, floated on the incoming tide, igniting on contact with the lava. Many burst into flames. As Vibhisena glanced back, several carrion birds and a herd of shark writhed furiously in their death throes, burning black; their fellows feasted on their charring remains even before the flames could die out. 

The odour that rose from this combination of toxic slag, volcanic smoke and asura offal would surely be life-threatening. Vibhisena turned his face away from the dark cloud through which they now flew, compelled by an instinctive urge to hold his breath, even though he knew full well that the Pushpak kept clean fresh air circulating for its passengers through its inscrutable mechanisms. As the cloud obscured the external view, he turned his head to glance at the figure seated within the central palanquin-like deck of the chariot. 

The king of rakshasas sat exactly as he had been placed when extricated by Vibhisena’s Brahman shakti from the stone cage in which he had been imprisoned like a primordial insect in amber. He had not stirred or spoken a word since being freed. Vibhisena had thought it simple exhaustion at first. After all, it had taken an epic effort on Vibhisena’s part, and the application of all his knowledge, skill and physical strength, as well as the evocation of the natural forces of the volcano and the fumes and vapours exuded from the supernatural opening to the hell worlds. Vibhisena himself was exhausted by the time the deed was finally accomplished. 

He took a moment to savour his accomplishment, even as a shadow of a doubt clouded his joy. Yes, Ravana was alive and whole, flesh and bone once more. He looked much the same as before, exactly as he had looked the day he left to invade the world of mortals. Vibhisena’s mind probed and swiftly returned the conclusion that, physically, the Ravana seated in the Pushpak before him was as healthy and robust as ever. 

But other than that, he might as well be dead. 

There was no similarity to the Ravana whom Vibhisena, and so many countless others, knew so well. This being that sat on the golden bench of the Pushpak a few yards from him, while outwardly identical in every way, was no more than a pale effigy of the Ravana that had been left to conquer Prithvi and subjugate all mortalkind. Strictly speaking, he was alive, if the action of a chest moving with the intake and output of breath alone could be taken as proof of life. 

But simply living and breathing alone did not make Ravana Ravana. 

The demonlord had not spoken a word since being freed from the Brahman cage. Not so much as one curse had left his leathery lips. His heads drooped inwards like wilting lilies, their faces blank and expressionless. All of the ten pairs of eyes were closed, even the central face slack-jawed and lifeless. 

As he continued to observe his brother, Vibhisena felt a twinge of concern. Had he truly succeeded in resuscitating Ravana? Or had he only freed a wisp of shadow, fleshbound and alive only in its vital signs, a soulless walking corpse? 

A piercing screel penetrated the dense smoky air, coming from somewhere high above. At the same time, the Pushpak was engulfed by a thick cloud of smoke and ash, partly the product of the volcano, partly the offal of some asura clash below. Vibhisena glanced skywards but saw only the blurry haze of the morning sky full of smoke and steam and ash. The sun was a miserable gold disc skulking in the east, obscured by the malicious fog that cloaked Lanka. The penetrating cry was repeated, and this time Vibhisena recognised the familiar pitch and tone of Jatayu. Like its earthbound asura colleagues below, the vulture king was expressing its agitation at the unexpected return of Ravana. There was more than a trace of acrimony in the cry. Ravana dead was better loved than Ravana alive, it seemed. 

The Pushpak cleared the cloudbank, allowing a relatively more lucid view of the ground below, obscured only by twisting ribbons of smoke. Something had changed in the few moments that it had been hidden by the cloud. The sound of violence, suspended until now, seemed to have resumed with even greater ferocity than before. The naga and uraga quarters of the city were ablaze. Through the shifting curtain of smoke, Vibhisena glimpsed flashes of combat: metal weaponry glinting in the cold inhuman light, the glistening scales of striking serpent-demons, the ichor-splashed hoods of the enormous uragas battling their serpentine naga cousins. 

Vibhisena shuddered as the sound of exultant roars and the terrible screams of victors and victims wafted upwards. The absence of any action or command from the Pushpak had been taken as a message of sorts by the feuding species below. Ravana would not have simply flown overhead and allowed such unbridled mutiny to go unchecked. The asuras of Lanka had tacitly decided that Vibhisena had failed in his task: from below they could not see the ten-headed figure seated silently in the Pushpak. They assumed their master was dead. Finally. And so the killing went on unabated. 

But it will stop. I will find a way to make it stop
, he promised himself.
Perhaps in a way it is better that Ravana is so changed by the imprisonment; perhaps now I can bring peace to this tortured land at last
. 

He admonished himself guiltily for seeking gratification in his brother’s deathlike condition, but the thought persisted.
Finally, the era of violence approaches an end
. The bulk of Ravana’s blood-thirsty hordes had perished at Mithila, wiped out by the Brahm-astra. If these last few hundred thousand survivors decimated one another, so much the better. It would make his task that much easier for him. Now there would be a chance, however slight, to bring peace back to Lanka. And from the ashes and ruins of this new inter-species civil war, he would build a new Lanka. A Lanka pointed firmly towards peace and prosperity, and the pursuit of Brahman. 

His eyes watering from the smoke, he peered out across the city. The dark mossy structures of the island-kingdom extended like a living carpet, roiling and undulating over seventeen volcanoes, most dead or sleeping. Every square inch seemed to be covered with the grotesque architecture of asura habitats, misshapen and deformed in design to the normal eye, a nightmare necropolis of strange slithering creatures, writhing monstrosities, and bestial species. Ringing the whole netherworldly map was the black fortress, a gigantic stone serpent coiled roughly around its possessions. The fortress’s size was deceptive: it was far larger within than its outside extremities suggested. Even Vibhisena, brother of its lord and master, did not have full knowledge of its countless labyrinthine chambers and dark monstrous secrets. Over time, the asura sorcery that had raised the fortress had spread like a virus to infect its neighbouring inhabitations, those residential quarters nearest to its forbidding walls, turning even thatched shanties and tiled roofs to the same blackish-greyishred stone-like substance of which the fortress was made. Now, the entire island-kingdom seemed to be made of the same wretched material, one giant nest in which the offal of demonkind bred and brawled, fornicated and reproduced, and otherwise maintained the ceaseless engine of war that was Lanka under the iron rule of Ravana. 

But the engine will stop now. It must, with its main force gone and its lord disabled.
Vibhisena glanced at Ravana again: there was no change in his brother’s condition. The same deathlike pallor. The same palsied lifelessness. This Ravana did not look as if he could quell this rebellion among his own forces, let alone launch an invasion of the realm of the devas, as he once had. Vibhisena attempted for the third time since emerging from the volcano to communicate mentally with his brother, with the same negative result. Since his release, even Ravana’s mental sandeshes to his brother had ceased abruptly. Again the same twinge of unease passed through Vibhisena’s mind. Would it have been better to have left Ravana suspended eternally in that Brahman stone cage? But then it had been Ravana himself who had compelled Vibhisena to release him, whatever the cost. 

They were approaching the southern ramparts of the black fortress now. The promontory normally used for landing the Pushpak swarmed with kumbha-rakshasas and their smaller rakshasa brethren. At first Vibhisena mistook their agitation for enthusiasm. Then, as the Pushpak brought him closer, his eyes widened as the horrible truth struck home. 

The kumbhas were slaughtering the rakshasas. Even at this distance, almost half a mile away, he could see the unmistakable frenzy of conflict. Red splatters stained the dark crenellations of the city-fortress, victims fell from the ramparts screaming, disappearing into the foggy confusion of the riots below. 

If even the loyalist asuras of the black fortress were rioting, it could mean only one thing. One of the other asura leaders had gained the upper hand for the moment. Vibhisena scanned his limited - by choice - knowledge of Lankan politics to think who it could be. Surely not Kumbhakarna. Ravana’s brother, while ostensibly the leader of the kumbha-rakshasas, was still asleep in his subterranean chamber; were he awake, he would be visible for yojanas around. Kumbhakarna was a giant among giants. Nor would any of Ravana’s sons take any part in this foul treachery. In any case, they were all in distant realms at this time, sent there by Ravana himself for different missions, the main purpose being the development of their education as warriors. Only Mandodhari and Ravana’s enormous harem of concubines remained, and they were not players in the morass of Lankan politics. So it was certainly one of the other asura chiefs. 

They were close to the southern ramparts now, and a shower of spears, some ablaze, began arcing towards the Pushpak. They clattered harmlessly off the invisible field of protection that the chariot maintained, but the sight of javelins and barbed steel weapons flying directly at him still gave Vibhisena a queasy feeling. 

Suddenly he realised that it was no longer feasible for him to land on the fortress and simply take Ravana to his chambers as he had planned. These rebels, which seemed to include all the asuras in Lanka, would probably cheer and applaud at the sight of Ravana thus incapacitated. Vibhisena shuddered at the thought of what they might do to the former tyrant in his present hapless state. 

Only a few dozen yards from the ramparts now, he could see the kumbhas turning to roar their bestial challenges, their quadruple-hinged jaws snapping forward as if they would grasp the Pushpak and tear it to bits in mid-air. Not that such a thing could be achieved, but once Vibhisena and Ravana left the celestial vehicle they would be on their own again, and there was no longer any doubt as to what their fate would then be. 

He willed the Pushpak to change direction at the last minute, causing the sky-chariot to bank and turn sharply away from the black fortress. A roar of dismay and protest rose from the ramparts, and a fresh volley of missiles came speeding at them. All were deflected easily by the sky-chariot’s invulnerable defences. 

Vibhisena willed the Pushpak to fly in the opposite direction: northwards. As they turned away from the fortress and traversed the city once more, awful cries of violence and torture rose from the yaksa quadrant below. The pisaca-rakshasas were settling some old score with the yaksas, judging from the numbers of shape-shifters spreadeagled on torture racks in the yaksa quarters, their writhing bodies worked over by the enthusiastic carapaced pisacas. At the sight of the Pushpak passing overhead, the pisacas clicked and chirred in their insectile dialects. They began to spit up at the passing vehicle, royal carriage of their lord and master: blood, body parts and bodily fluids were spewed up into the air, spattering disgustingly against the undercarriage and sides of the Pushpak, only to slide greasily off the invisible protective shell of the celestial machine. As they passed over hordes of warring vetaals and gandharvas in the twisting, sloping streets below, both groups paused in their mutual decimation to send up a chorus of curses and abuses. Spears and discs sliced the air beneath the vehicle, accompanied by derisive roars and mocking jeers. Vibhisena willed the Pushpak to fly even faster and higher, speeding them out of reach of the immense volley of hate and rage directed at the lord of the land, Ravana. The sky-chariot sped across the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile length of Lanka in mere moments, and only then did Vibhisena permit it to slow down. He was still shaking from the outrage and shock of the experience.