The PuppetMaster (29 page)

“That was a simple question I posed, Child. Answer it with respect or feel the force of my own spells.” I saw him glance up from his hunched position with venom. He saw me step closer and the meaning of Sahrs’ warning began to sink in. Menacing intention flickered out.

“Perhaps the nabi witch lives here. How would I know?”

“You know, boy, and unless you find your memory quickly you will feel the pain of this nabi.”

The transvestite, still holding his ear, looked more carefully, saw her birthmark and the cold stare in her eyes, and understood that he had miscalculated. It was ill-considered to cross a nabi, but crossing a powerful one was simply stupid.

“Ji han, Mata. She lives here.” He crooked his thumb towards the door behind him and stepped submissively to the side and back into the shadows.

Sahr tapped on the wooden panel. “That is good, Child, because we are expected.”

Uliana was frightened. The reality of where we were and the uncertainty of what we were entering made her tremble visibly. She shrank away as the door opened. “Bhim, it doesn't feel right. I, I don’t know if I can do this.” The ingress was nearly pitch-black, illuminated only by a flickering of unseen candles further in.

A voice, raspy with age, commanded, “Enter and close the door.”

Trying to lighten her mood. “Guess I'm being a pretty lousy tour guide tonight. How about dinner and a movie when we're done?”

Her tiny smile flickered as we stepped inside.

Forty-Seven

Kaliduna, the Nabi of Shivdaspur, looked exactly like what I expected. I'd painted a good picture of her in my head and needed to retouch only a few details when I saw her in the flesh. She appeared to be as old as Varanasi itself, with strands of sparse hair that hung like gray corn silk to her waist. As my eyes adjusted to the muted light, I saw Uliana looking with horror at the woman's fingernails--seven inches of curled yellow grime. I squeezed Uli's hand tightly and whispered, “It's okay.”

Hearing my voice, the woman hissed, “Nahin.” I pressed my lips together.

The room was stifling, a sweatbox of scraps of paper and rotted fruit peelings. An obscene odor, like burnt hair, hung in the air. Jars of powders and translucent liquids leaned haphazardly in the corners and below the cot against the back wall. The only space that had any semblance of perspicuity was about the wooden table in the center of the room. Four chairs beckoned from each side.

Sahr said something to the nabi in what I was knew was Farsi, a language I understood only fragments of. The old woman answered her in biting, negative monosyllables. Sahr persisted and the old woman responded in the same demanding tone. Unexpectedly, the witch hissed and rattled off a string of invectives in Farsi again. Her use of the language made me wonder if she were Pakistani or Afghani. Sahr began arguing vehemently, to which the old woman flashed her nails like a puma and grunted a reluctant agreement. The rupees I had handed Sahr at the villa were pressed into the woman's hand; the nails curled like spider legs around them.

For some inexplicable reason the nabi then looked directly at me. Her eyes were clouded with thick cataracts-- sightless orbs that didn't blink. But when she looked at Uliana, the way she stared gave me the peculiar feeling that she was seeing precisely what she wished to see. Maybe she possessed a form of alternate vision, or maybe she just sensed Uli's untainted beauty so out of place in her hideous lair. It unnerved me enough that I shifted closer to Uli.

“Baitho!” Sit! Back to commands in Hindi. I quickly pulled out two chairs to do the old woman's bidding. She shuffled off to her jars and began selecting liquids. Holding them one by one close to her milky eyes. She squinted and grunted at the refracted light passing through them. Then she began measuring and ladling with small tin cups.

Once the three of us were seated, Sahr smiled and explained in English, “You may breathe now, talk if you wish. There was a tense moment between us, a small battle of wills, but it is done now. She demanded that I join in the vision rendering, and that would not do at all. Very unwise for me to be in her sway even for a short time. She could drain me like a vampire and suck my powers into hers. It is a typical, nasty trick played upon the inexperienced, but when she realized I was onto her, she backed down. I asked her to do a reading of the past with her cards, but she refused. It is too bad. I would have liked to see how it is done. They say it is backwards and upside down from mine. Anyway, tonight she will use the taralakala, the black liquid.” That did little to reassure Uli or me.

She grasped our hands and smiled, “I’ve given her your questions, Bhimaji, without telling the reasons. I wish I could tell you how this tarakala works, but the old hag reveals nothing.” A tender squeeze. “So, my children, are ready?”

I shook my head. “Honestly, Sahr, probably not. In English there a good word for this. Creepy. The whole thing makes gives me the creeps, but if she can shed details about Soma, or the cave, or even what pawn shop my computer might be in, then I guess I can handle it.”

I glanced at Uli, who looked even more nervous in the candlelight. She asked, “Why does she want me here? Is she going to ask me about the past?” The fear in her voice upset me enough to consider packing the whole thing in and leaving. The money I had handed over was a pittance and meant nothing. I said as much.

“No. Bhim,” Uli whispered. “We can't do that. You need to know,”

The nabi, after much selecting, measuring and stirring, parsed by occasional grunts of satisfaction, placed a large shallow bowl in the center of the table. The mixture was viscous with just enough fluidity to call it liquid. It looked like coagulating gelatin, and she must have culled every disgusting object in her collection into the recipe. Twigs and leaves clung to bits of fur and bone, and in the dim light I swore I saw a shred of white flesh. “Fingers,” she hissed in Farsi, pointing. “Fingers in the middle, and do not touch the sides with the palms.” Sahr translated the nabi's instructions into English. Uliana and I reluctantly obeyed. “Close your eyes. Now!”

Like a liquid Ouija board, I smiled reassuringly at Uli, who looked petrified as her nails disappeared under the surface next to the nabi's claws. I slid closer so our forearms might touch and closed my eyes.

The old woman began slowly, chanting a litany, ostensibly to summon the paranormal forces. Her mantra sounded like nonsense, but as when Sahr rendered her own visions, I kept an open mind--a skeptic waiting to be converted.

The skepticism vanished when the liquid began to warm.

The old woman moaned. From pain or pleasure? I felt Uli stirring uneasily next to me. “From the blackness of the liquor let her rise. Let her rise and enter. Give way guardians and let her speak.” Sahr's whispered translations trailed the nabi's like echos. The witch repeated the request a second and third time. “Let her rise. . .” The gelatin was now heated almost to a level of discomfort, and then to my astonishment the bowl began to quiver, the table trembled. “Give way guardians and let her speak.”

There was a vibration and a rumble like thunder coiled around us. It felt as if the entire room was struggling under compressed air. “Ssssst. . . I come” A voice, not Sahr’s nor the Kaliduna’s, nor even human, spoke. And in the center of my inner sight, with my eyes closed firmly, an enormous serpent--a flared cobra--rose like a massive cable. Its hood pushed to the horizons; its presence in my mind, in my vision, was as real as the heat in the room. Uli moaned and I knew it had appeared to her too.

The nabi spoke in Farsi with a tone of timid reverence. Sahr translated, “Let the Bhujanga speak. Let her tell of the days beyond, hours that have come and gone. Let her speak of the man they call Bhim, the vidyarthi of Jatanaka Devamukti.”

Then, like thundering waterfall inside my head, a woman's voice hissed in English, “Ssssst. . ..ssssadness. Death. Sssadness and death.” I tensed, fearing what I felt was impending, a forced viewing of Lilia or Soma dying. “Ghosts, the ghosts of two women, their years only forty, they whisper of blood and death.”

“The younger one, how did she die, Bhujanga? Speak to us.”

The hood flared and the eyes of the beast penetrated my vision. “By the blade and fists of stone. By the talons of evil.”

“Speak of the knife, Bhujanga. Tell us of it.”

“Sharp as the sickle, cold as the moon. Breath and life it sliced like wheat. Death's face washed by rain.”

“What hand held the knife, Bhujanga? Who’s face?”

“Bird of prey, the hunter at night. He with the talons of death. The lover of confusion and the thick-witted wielder of chaos.”

“ Bhujanga. Speak. Tell us the name of the bird of prey.”

“Sssst. . .” The hood spread, filling to the horizons of my inner world. In that moment only the serpent and I existed. “The master of puppets. The master of diversion. The PuppetMaster”

My breath was sucked away. The PuppetMaster, not Ralki? It wasn’t possible. My mind spun.

“There is a cave in the rock beyond Sarnath. How did it fall, Bhujanga?”

I barely heard the answer, my mind still reeking from the previous answer. The PuppetMaster! How could Soma’s murderer be a faceless name in the periodicals, a supposition of the media and intelligence agencies? It made no sense? She was light-years from the disputes of nations or ideologies.

“All is not as it seems. The earth trembled from within, from a chasm deep.” That answer drew me back into the vision.

“Was the rock made to fall? Done by the hands of men?”

“Yes, but they did not wish it so. Like a string plucked to hard, the vibration swelled and could not be controlled. The ringed finger of the PuppetMaster guided it.”

Questions and answers were assailing me too quickly. Riddles drifted like dandelion seed.

Then the voice halted abruptly, and I heard Sahr hiss emphatically, “You cannot ask it.”

The nabi taunted, “It it is our agreement, Dasa. I will ask what I will.”

“I am not your slave old woman,” Sahr snapped. “And you will not ask.”

In Hindi I heard, “Bhujanga, what of the woman they call Uliana?” Sahr fell silent at the question and then began translating, hesitating on each word,

“Serpent, tell us of the woman called Uliana.”

Uli moaned, “No!”

“Ssssst. . .sticks. Sticks thrust into the nests of a million hornets. The twelve faces of Mohammad. It was she that stirred them, she that beckoned the flood and the tide of death. She, the yeast that made the poison rise.” At the uttered name of Mohammad I felt Uliana go limp.

Good God, I thought. What the hell is this?

Uli's arm slumped, her hand slipped from mine. There was a crash of wood and stone. I screamed, “Enough!” Instantly the enormous hood folded like a curtain upon itself and the serpent disappeared. My eyes jerked open to see Uli lying on the floor.

My heart froze, brain pounded in confusion--too much like Lilia curled on a carpet below another table a lifetime ago.

For a breath I sat paralyzed, unable to wrench myself completely from the spell of the snake. Then I dropped to the floor and cradled her into my arms and held her against my chest. “Uli, please, please.” I kissed her hair, her eyelids, her mouth. Then a soft moan issued from her lips. I kissed them again and spoke softly in her ear. “I'm here, Uli. Bhim is here. Come back to me.”

One eye opened, her chin drooped for a heartbeat, then both pupils focused on me. With a weak smile, she asked, “Can we go home now?”

Forty-Eight

I was angry enough to strangle the Kaliduna, or at least snap a few of her ancient joints. Sahr placed a hand on my chest to provide a measure of common sense. I cooled, though still angry enough to snarl, “You crossed the line old witch. You didn't need to look there and ask that.”

The nabi sat hunched in one of her wooden chairs looking less witch-like and merely wrinkled and old. Her chalky eyes rested on mine. “You sought your answers, Vidyarthi. The bhuta doesn't care whether you like the answers or not. Leave my place and go back to your own nest, little bird.”

I glared a final time ate her and pulled Uli and Sahr through the door and out into a pounding rain.

Our walk back out of Shivdaspur was done in near complete silence. Everything reeled from the eeriness of the séance, the puzzles, and the ugly climax. None of us had the strength to verbally compete with the downpour. We walked slowly, with heaviness. Even Sahr's indomitable spirit was down. I think she felt terrible about setting it up and taking us to the den of the nabi. Twice she inquired as to our well-being, and I answered that we were still alive and would talk later about what had happened. After that she fell silent. I pulled a listless Uli close to me under the umbrella and guided her through the lanes. Her warmth, the wetness in her hair, revived my spirits some, but the passage was still somber.

Because of the downpour, the lanes were mostly deserted, but at each curve I felt strangers' eyes peering at us through shuttered windows and cracked doors. Once I spun and thought I saw, far back, deep in the dark-gray, a smoking a beedee, and a pair of painted lips grinning wickedly.

Exiting Shivdaspur felt like the lifting of clouds, and in truth, by the time we arrived at the Chaitganj crossing, the stars were sparkling, and the rain had ceased.