RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (23 page)

Bravo. Well said. And from the dark flush that crept across the lower part of Mandodhari’s face, Rama’s eloquence had struck home. Like most of her countrymen, the rakshasi had that excessively pale complexion and translucent white skin that made visible any movement of blood to her upper extremities. It was a stark contrast to the dark-hued skin colouring of most Aryas, and one of the qualities that helped distinguish the rakshasa race in general. Mandodhari’s servers had placed the travelling seat in a suitable position behind her and awaited their mistress. But instead of seating herself, Mandodhari remained standing, glaring up at Rama. Her eyes flicked briefly, contemptuously to Sita, and despite herself, Sita felt a surge of coiled anger:
Have you not had enough yet of war and violence, rakshasi? Go home and lick your wounds in peace. An enemy should know when it is beaten!

Aloud, she said nothing, but her hands gripped the wooden railing tightly enough to turn her knuckles white.

Mandodhari shrugged, a regal tossing of her glossy, burnished mane that reminded Sita of her favourite stallion back in Mithila, the one she had ridden from the time it was a foal and she an unbled girl. Except that Mandodhari’s action conveyed not merely pride but threat as well:
You fools. Do you not know who I am? You shall see soon enough!

“I expected no less from you, Rama of Ayodhya,” the rakshasi queen said loftily, glancing around as if addressing all those on the wall rather than Rama alone. “Or from your blood-thirsty warmongering countrymen. Ayodhya’s reputation for war and invasion are legendary. Even today, the mere mention of your father Dasaratha is enough to put little rakshasas to sleep, over three and a half decades after the Last Mortal Invasions.”

Said the rakshasi with an army behind her come to lay siege to us, whose husband is known to itihasa by the title ‘He Who Makes The Universe Scream’ – the literal meaning of ‘Ra-van-a’.
Sita resisted the urge to speak out, not out of concern for breaking protocol but because she knew the importance of Rama appearing totally in charge.

“Mandodhari-devi,” Rama said in a voice that was loud enough to carry to all in earshot yet still managed to sound ‘quiet’ in its tone somehow. “Your wildly inaccurate recall of history would be more credible without an army at your back and threats and assaults preceding your entry upon this…” he gestured, “this theatrical setup you seem to have designed for our entertainment this morning. As it is, this kind of behaviour is in extremely poor taste and a gross violation of the rules of war. If you or your minions have a grievance with me, you should have forwarded your request for a formal visit through normal diplomatic channels. By arriving unannounced with an armed and self-evidently hostile force, you undermine your own shaky credibility and absurd claims.”

He paused a moment to let the words sink in. Sita resisted the urge to grin: Rama rarely spoke this much or made the effort to be this eloquent to hostile opponents, but once he decided to do so he was as effective as when taking lives in battle. The years of leading ragtag bandits and outlaws through enemy-riddled wildernesses had only honed his oratorical skills further. He was a natural crowd-appeaser.

“I have cautioned your associate already. Now I address my cautionary warning to you as well. If you have diplomatic business here in Ayodhya, go away and send an emissary who shall be received with due respect by my court. If not…”

He paused, to let the import of those last two words sink home.

“If not, then be prepared to face the consequences of making hostile advances against the city-state of Ayodhya. We do not take such actions and words lightly. Those who act or speak against us should be willing to deal with the repercussions of doing so. I strongly advise you now to either hold your peace – or go speak your piece to those whose ears are not already deafened to your words by the thunderous roar of a million bestial rakshasas whose barbaric cruelties to the mortal race are as well

known as your own late husband’s rapaciousness. Any further threats or unsubstantiated allegations shall be regarded as direct declaration of war.”

SIX

That’s telling her, Sita thought with secret satisfaction, wishing she could applaud and cheer Rama’s response. Somewhere along the wall, someone did thump the haft of a spear or hilt of a sword against the dense wood of the seventh wall, and she suspected it was a sly gesture in that very direction. Ayodhyan soldiers were far too disciplined to openly display such emotion, but that did not mean they did not feel the elation and pride she knew they must be feeling at the way Rama was handling the situation thus far.

Mandodhari sighed and cocked her head. She glanced around, seemed to notice the travelling seat placed for her comfort, gestured curtly – the waiting rakshasis bent their powerful backs and removed the seat with practised efficiency – and then, glanced up at the high spot, staring not at Rama, but at Sita. Her eyes found Sita’s and locked onto them.

“I am not surprised to hear your hostile response,” said the Queen of Lanka haughtily. “Nor your unwillingness to see reason. And as you can see, I have come fully prepared to undertake whatever measures are needed in order to restore justice to my people and vindication to my late husband’s memory.” She gestured at the long winding row of armed soldiers stretching down the raj-marg behind her. “But before we turn this war of words into a war of acts, let me point out two salient facts: One, you are not Rama Chandra, and therefore you have no authority to even address me directly let alone lord over Ayodhya as you now do, you imposter! Two, the woman that you call
your
wife, and whom you repeatedly claim was ‘abducted’ against her will by my late husband… this woman is the only genuine heir of Ayodhya’s throne and the future leader of its destiny. As such, it behoves the people of Ayodhya to know her true identity and the reason why she has been the crucial element in all the events of the preceding years. The bone of contention, you might say. And that reason is simple enough.”

Mandodhari raised her right hand and pointed at Sita. “Sita Janaki of Mithila is the daughter of my late husband Ravana Pulastya and the bearer of our unborn grandchildren. And I am here to claim the throne of Ayodhya as ours by right.”

Time stood still for Sita. The world stopped turning. Breath and life and existence were suspended and held hostage in a place within her heart so small that a butterfly would have suffocated within that space. Motion itself ceased. Birds flying somewhere to the far left of her field of vision seemed to slow in flight, as if suddenly battling a powerful windcurrent.

She stared down at the Queen of Lanka, unable to fully comprehend her words.

She stared so intently that she could see every line, every detail of the rakshasi queen’s features. That proud, pale, angular face; those broad cheekbones and finely-shaped jawline; that flowing forehead with the vertical slash of the hairline truncating it inches lower than most foreheads of women her age; that proud stance; that impressively taut figure, no longer slender but not weighed down by indulgence either; that regal bearing and manner.

And despite herself, some part of her mind was already trying to assess if there was any similarity at all in the woman standing below and the face and body of Sita’s own reflection.

Ravana’s Daughter? No. How can that be?

And yet.

And yet…

Sita was still staring down dumbfounded when a dark streak arrowed from left of field into her sphere of vision and intersected with the rakshasi queen. It was a javelin thrown from somewhere below the high spot. Thrown with vicious force and perfect accuracy. It struck Mandodhari with sufficient force to drive the queen of Lanka backwards and off her feet to crash against the side of her own palanquin with force enough to shatter the woodwork and send splinters flying. Blood spurted from the rakshasi’s chest. So intense was Sita’s concentration in that moment – she was still in shock from Mandodhari’s words – that the globules of blood seemed to hang heavily in the air, suspended for a moment before gravity resumed and they sprayed the ground like a spatter of red raindrops. An ominous wetness blossomed on the Lankan queen’s pearl-white gown, accompanied by a wheezing sound that Sita, battle-veteran that she was, recognized instantly as the sound of the air being propelled out of the rakshasi’s punctured lungs.

The world froze motionless for an instant, during which Sita could hear a distant drumming that she recognized only much later as the pounding of her own racing heart. Then motion and colour and sound and fury returned with a shocking assault and the world was never the same again for her.

Hanuman felt something strike him with the force of a Himalayan mountain. He felt the invisible force crumble to tiny sand-sized particles as it struck his virtually indestructible body and shattered. It was intense enough to have reduced most beings to fragments as well; but then, he was not most beings; he was Maruti Anjaneya Hanuman. He was flung back up, up, to the sky, flung like an arrow from a siege catapult, arms flailing as he struggled to regain control of himself. Wind screamed and howled in his ears and his vision was reduced to a foggy blur as the air itself appeared to fragment. He fought furiously to slow his backwards and upwards flight and after several moments of struggle, finally succeeded in slowing his ascent. He brought himself to a halt with a teeth-gritting effort and hovered momentarily, trying to assimilate what had just happened. Then he shot forward and downwards, shocked to see how far he had been flung in mere moments – which indicated how powerful the force that had struck him must have been. He was instantly enveloped in a bank of dense, foggy clouds so thick that all he could see were swirling smoke-like billows. The wind sang in his ears as he increased speed, jaw tightening as he recalled the last thing he had seen and heard before the invisible blast struck.

The rakshasi speaking those terrible words.

The javelin streaking from the direction of the seventh gate.

The javelin striking the rakshasi in the chest.

Blood spurting – bright red blood, heart-fresh blood.

The rakshasi flung back, with enough force to break her spine if the javelin had not already done her in.

And then a blast of shakti as powerful as any he had witnessed being unleashed, accompanied by a sound so awful he had never heard the likes of it before.

For long moments, he seemed to shoot endlessly through the bank of clouds, blinded by fog, despite the fantastic speed with which he was flying. A roaring filled his ears yet it could not entirely drown out the sound from far below, the sound that had accompanied the explosive force that had flung him skywards like a pebble from a child’s catapult.

He broke free of the cloudbank and was relieved to find that instinct and his preternaturally attuned senses had brought him back to more or less the same position in which he had been hovering before the mysterious shakti had blasted him away – he could see the seventh ring gate of Ayodhya below, albeit much farther below. He increased speed, racing downward at a dead flat descent, like a stone dropped from some enraged deva’s hand. In his peripheral vision, he glimpsed the curved bowl of Prithvi-loka bathed in a midnight darkness that was nevertheless illuminated by a glow that was neither night nor day, a silvery illumination that was clearly a product of maya shakti. The source of the illumination as well as the epicentre of the force that had struck him lay directly below at the gate of the city. It was, he realized, also the source of the terrible sound that filled his ears, his senses…filled the world.

He slowed his descent as he approached, to avoid crashing to the ground. The roaring of the wind died down, the air itself smelled strange, and the peculiar illumination grew brighter, eerier and seemed clearly unnatural in origin, as he came within a yojana of the earth. He slowed further as he came close enough to make out individual figures below. The tableau outside the seventh gate of Ayodhya remained much the same, except for the crowd of rakshasis now huddled over the fallen queen of Lanka, tending to her, though he knew from long battle experience that she was likely past tending – and a figure on a horse that had strutted several yards ahead of the frontline outside the gate.
This
figure held up the object that was the source of the supernatural illumination: A sword!

As Hanuman descended to a few hundred yards, then a hundred, then hovered close enough above ground to see individual features and even the colours of eyes, he saw that the raised sword in the white-skinned rakshasa’s hand did not merely glow. It
blazed!
The light it gave off was a burning, crackling silver fire that rose in smoky tendrils, curling in wisps and shavings, rising up into the air to spread wings of silvery light across the world entire.
The sword was illuminating the whole of Prithvi-loka!
Or at least that part of it within the sightline of the sword. Impossible. Incredible. Yet there it was.

Hanuman glanced up.

The sun had vanished from the sky.

Dark clouds brooded and boiled across the entire ceiling of Prithviloka, obscuring the cosmos completely. He recalled the glimpse he had had of the dense cloudbank stretching in all directions, in the moment when he had managed to stay his ascent, just before he forced himself to descend to earth, and from that glimpse he guessed now that the boiling cloudbank covered all of the world. How such a thing could be possible, or how it could be achieved so miraculously, he did not know or care. What he was certain of was that it was all caused by the drawing of
that sword.