Page 13 of The Legend of Meneka (The Divine Dancers Duology #1)

CHAPTER 13

W e take all the horses. There are six old mares and seven of us. None of the rides look like they can cover long distances, but Kaushika chants a quiet mantra, and all the animals whicker and snort, their ears snapping back. I realize belatedly this is what he must have done on our own return from Shiva’s temple to energize the horse. Little wonder then that we reached the hermitage so quickly. He helped me as much as hindered me—giving me sincerity with the offering of his magical comb, yet taking away time I could have used to prove my magic. I study him, this man known to me only in fractured and conflicting pieces in the incomplete lights of a prism. A mark , I remind myself. Nothing more.

Eka does not know how to ride, so she settles herself behind Anirudh, her gaze nervous. The rest of us climb atop the closest mount we find, our changes of clothes and bedrolls stored within the saddlebags. Kaushika watches us, outlined by the afternoon sun.

“We ride fast,” he says. “We ride hard. I know you have questions. Those will have to wait.”

Without another word, he begins a canter, and the rest of us follow. Once we are past the hermitage, Kaushika breaks into a fast gallop. My mind whirls with curiosity and dread, but the ride takes all of my attention. It is like being on heaven’s steeds—these mortal animals race as though they are flying over the land. Shapes rush by too swiftly for even my eyes to catch, blurred outlines of trees, lights of a village or two, and then the movement of the stars above as the sun begins to set. I lose track of how long we have been riding, or which direction we are going in. All I can think is to hold on to my horse, which follows Kaushika’s of its own accord.

Hours pass. Stars grow sharp, pinpointed. We begin to slow down. The land grows arid, dust kicked up by our horses. My throat is parched, and I work some spittle to swallow. Cactus, brittlebush, and saringia dot the landscape, their spiky forms outlined against a dying sun. Wherever we are, we are far from the hermitage. I am astounded that the horses are still alive. Kaushika’s magic, of course.

We top a crest, and a small valley lies beneath us, disturbed by a hundred or so shapes. I squint, trying to understand. Statues? No, something else, but I turn my attention to my companions. I do not feel exhaustion, immortal as I am, but around me the others are gasping as we finally stop. Eka’s head is slumped on Anirudh’s back, and Parasara and Kalyani both rub their faces. Even Kaushika looks weary, his aura no less dim than usual but jagged, casting a sharp scent of unfiltered camphor. I remember suddenly that powerful though he is, he is only mortal.

“Where are we?” I ask, huffing the words to feign tiredness.

“The village of Thumri,” Anirudh replies as he passes a waterskin to Eka.

I dismount to study the valley closer. A sour, bitter smell comes to me, carried by a warm, sickly breeze. There is decay in the air, and I focus my sight to see that what I had thought were statues are huts, scattered here and there. It is strange to see not a single light burning in this village, not even at a temple for some local deity.

The others begin descending. Kaushika climbs a small outcropping, which must give him a good view of the entire valley. His back is ramrod straight, his aura shining with serrated edges. He begins to sing, his voice deep and strong, but something about this particular mantra reminds me of the gandharvas, the celestial musicians of Amaravati. A wave of homesickness washes over me, making my knees weak.

The mantra rises, and I think of fresh grass, a stream of golden sunshine, the taste of my own freedom. I think of rain falling, a sweet, honeyed pureness to it. I think of my dance, the only honesty I know. Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes. This chant—it is what my own dance makes me feel. How can his voice be so evocative? How can he plunge me into myself so deeply without even trying?

Kaushika raises his hands gracefully. He touches the tips of his forefingers to his thumbs. It almost looks like a dance mudra, and the air crackles in front of him. We are all of us staring at him, and it is only when the horses whinny that I realize the song has come to an end. I can still feel the reverberations thrumming through me, and Kaushika’s eyes are closed, his lips still moving. He is singing, though now under his breath.

All of us turn to Anirudh and Romasha, and the two nod, understanding our unspoken questions.

Anirudh’s voice is somber. “Thumri …” he begins. “This village needs magic. You’ve been brought here because, of all the yogis in the hermitage, you are the ones currently holding the most prana within you. We need that power now, but please understand, it could take months, even a few years, of dedicated tapasya to replenish what this task takes. Kaushika would not ask this of you—of us— if he did not think it necessary.”

Kalyani’s gaze darts to Kaushika, who is still chanting. “We’ve been nurturing and storing our power for the Initiation Ceremony. If we use it up now …”

“Then you will likely not be able to do the demonstration you intended,” Romasha says. “You might fail the ceremony and be asked to leave the hermitage altogether. That will be Kaushika’s decision, but the two things must be separate. This is not a part of hermitage business but a request outside of it.”

The rest of us exchange uneasy glances. Kaushika’s shoulders tense. He does not stop his mantra to negate her words or give us any assurance. My fingers curl against my will into the mudra of Calm Waters, but I stop from creating the illusion even for myself.

“What do you need from us?” Eka asks.

“Healing,” Romasha answers. Her aura shines bright, dipping her in honeyed yellow from head to toe. “Healing for the villagers here, because they have been abandoned by the devas. By heaven itself.”

A finger of ice creeps down my back.

“What do you mean?” Parasara asks, frowning. “What have the devas done?”

“Once this land was green and lush,” Romasha explains, and even on her usually dispassionate face, there is a sliver of sorrow. “The fields were so ripe that they would drip with harvest. Thumri used to be devout to swarga, Indra its patron deity for thousands of years. It is unclear why, but the village believes it has displeased Indra. Maybe a prayer was performed to another god before invoking Indra, or some ritual where the lord of heaven was not invited to bless the gathering. Perhaps it was deliberate, or perhaps an accident. Whatever the reason, Indra has denied water and rain to this village for several years now. If he brings any, it is meager and sent as mockery, a reminder of what he refuses to give. Drought has come to this land and it only continues to worsen. The effects of such a thing … Well, I am sure you can imagine.”

Light sparks from the ends of her fingertips, and she shoots a small bloom toward the valley, where it hovers, slicing the darkness. My own gasp of horror is echoed by the others.

A hundred people lie on threadbare rugs, their faces turned to the sky. Two tired-looking women walk among the infirm, carrying a bucket. They stop at each person, offering a small cup of water before moving on to another. Glimpses come to me through Romasha’s light. A young man barely older than me, skin taut against his bones, eyes rolled back into his head. An elderly woman sitting listlessly on her rug, holding a young girl in her arms. Cracked earth and parched faces and hopeless desperation.

I don’t know what to say. I have heard of this kind of thing happening, of course. Devas will favor or smite mortal villages as they see fit. But in swarga it is easy to neglect the evanescence that is mortal life. Earthly settlements come and go in the great passage of time, turning to dust and smoke. Celestials cannot keep up with such change. Guilt for such negligence sharpens in me for the first time.

“Several times, the villagers tried to appease Indra by praying to him,” Anirudh says into our horrified silence. “He sent his lightning instead of rain and killed so many people that the villagers are too afraid now to even think his name. With no water to sustain them, they have taken to drinking mud. To butchering trees and ingesting sap. To killing lizards and vermin and drinking their blood. Death, decay, and disease have overrun this place.”

I feel ill. My eyes move over the scorched buildings as I imagine lightning striking them. In the distance, I see charred fields where blight has been burned away. It is Indra’s right , I tell myself. He is the lord of rain and storm, the king of heaven. He decides where to share his bounty. He has no obligation. That is the way of the devas. Of kings.

“I heard about this village on my travels,” Kaushika adds grimly. “The epidemic has become worse.”

I did not notice but he has joined us again, and his sharp face looks more angular than before, cut by exhaustion.

He glances at me, then looks to the others. “I arrived in Thumri a few hours ago and enlisted the strongest villagers to help everyone out of their houses and collect them on what was once the village green. Hardly anyone has stayed here, only the very old and the infirm. Most have left to find relief elsewhere. I gave the villagers water from my own waterskins. I tried mantras and runes, using all the power of my tapasya to still the decay. But the sickness is too rife, and I cannot heal them, not with my power so reduced, not without conducting more tapasya, a task that will take me months of meditation.” Kaushika’s face grows withdrawn, but he meets each of our eyes. “I would not ask you to lend your magic if I could think of any other way. But medicine can only go so far now, and it is your choice. You are yogis on your own paths to self-knowledge and enlightenment. You have no debt to pay here.”

“You wanted us to see this,” Kalyani says, staring at him. “You wanted us to make our choice after bringing us here.”

“I wanted you away from the hermitage,” Kaushika replies. “The ascetic path demands withdrawal from the world. I did not wish to confuse you, asking you for something within the hermitage that I myself would counsel against while on the ascetic path. But I’ve recently come to learn that this needn’t be the only way to enlightenment—a knowledge you are learning too, is it not? Even so, your own heart must decide what you do. I will not force you.”

My heart skips a beat. One by one, all of us nod. Any of these yogis could have— should have—refused to get involved. What were they getting from it, if not the loss of their own power, the deviation from their own philosophies? This is because of me.

Yet what am I doing—agreeing to help these mortals when Indra himself has denied them? This is heresy against my own lord. Indra has his reasons for all he does. This could merely be another cunning move from Kaushika, something to foment more hate and irreverence against swarga. Something to sow confusion in my own mind.

I have no time to dwell on it. Romasha gestures to us, and the rest of us leave Kaushika to resume his mantra, while we descend into the valley, working in little groups, performing miracles into the long hours of night.

I pair first with Romasha, then with Anirudh, then with Parasara. My fingers carve the runes of wellness and comfort, the aum and swastik, the lotus, the conch, and a dozen other shapes whose names escape me. They merge with the mantras and the spells cast by the others, augmenting their greater power. Slowly, we ease the breathing of the villagers. We give them water and clear the grayness in their eyes. We lead them back into their houses, our words soft and low, where Kalyani and Eka take their pulses, clarify their nadi channels, and pour their own strength into them.

It is not enough.

I am not enough.

Powerful though I am, the magic I hold comes from Amaravati. Whatever wild prana exists within me is only a trickle. The other yogis do not know this; they only see power as power, but I cannot use my enchantments like them. My runes are weak to begin with, and soon they fade into nothing. I begin to work separately from the others to hide this, a hindrance more than help.

The tether from Amaravati coils around my heart, lightly squeezing what is left of my own wild prana. It is a reminder I am Indra’s creature. That my very imagery of my own tapasvin magic comes from him, and the only reason I have any magic within me in the first place is because Amaravati feeds it. Once, brazenly, I try to use Amaravati’s tether to create a true rune—but as before, a sharp pain spikes behind my heart. Understanding pricks me in the limitation of my own power. I am allowed to create an illusion of a rune with my celestial power, not a true one. I can fake it, like I did before at the hermitage, but what good will that do here? My illusions cannot help these people. Only true prana can, and I have nothing left to give.

Night climbs, and I drift away from the others. The warm breeze that first ruffled my hair grows cooler. I find myself sitting next to an old mortal. He lies on the ground, his rheumy eyes open to the night sky. His skin is mottled and wrinkled, his white hair sparse. All my tapasvin power is exhausted, so I simply take his hand in mine and pat it over and over again.

Tears trickle from his eyes, down the sides of his face into the parched earth. I am certain he does not know I am here, but perhaps he senses my celestial nature, for his voice comes out cracked, raw with disuse, speaking to a figment of his imagination. “I prayed,” he whispers. “I prayed, Sili, for you and our fields, daughter. Why—why—forsake—?”

His tears grow ragged, his breath labored. The man closes his eyes, and alarm goes through me. I scan the shapes nearby, looking for someone to help. I see only Kaushika on the hill above, staring at the skies, chanting.

Perhaps he senses my gaze. His own shifts toward me. I catch the glint of his eyes, and the anger smoldering within them. He does not stop singing, and his mantra takes hold of me, filling my ears as his chant becomes strident. I wonder what magic he is performing, and why my own heart recognizes it beyond waking memory.

Kaushika’s aura flares, power bursting within his chakras. He glows iridescent, a blazing torrent of light silhouetted by shadows, and tears flood my eyes to behold him in his glory. Through my blurred vision, I discern the magnetism of his gaze capturing my own, hypnotic, fierce. There is something in the way he watches me, pulling at me, as though he is trying to tell me something. But I cannot think of it now. I wrench myself back to the old mortal, whose breaths have turned into sharp, painful gasps.

Be comforted , I think desperately, holding his hand. Be at ease.

The mortal’s chest flutters rapidly in the throes of death. His eyes shoot open, wide and scared. Desperately, I try a rune one more time, but it does not even form—I am as useless as I have been since my early days at the hermitage.

I do not care if Kaushika is watching. I do not care that this is dangerous.

My hand curls into a fist. The fist opens up into a mudra, Indra’s Bounty, and an illusion forms—only for me and this mortal. In front of us, the mirage shimmers—a land green and lush, droplets trickling down plants, a field that blooms golden and heavy with crops. A spasm goes through the old man, a deeply held breath released.

His hand grows limp in mine.

It slips away.

He stills.

A cry rips through me, quiet and unheard, as in the same moment lightning cracks across the sky. Thunder rumbles as the stars disappear. Rain begins to pour, and my teary gaze returns to Kaushika as I finally understand why his chant was familiar. He is silent again, his eyes closed as rain drenches him, but moments ago he was singing. Singing an ancient, obscure prayer, one that has been forgotten even in heaven.

Kaushika called to Indra.

And Indra listened.

Confusion clutches me painfully, shaking my body with its cold fingers. I am weeping, unable to understand what I am seeing, unable to fathom the meaning of my mission, this enigma that is Kaushika, this cruelty of my lord toward Thumri. Have I been mistaken about Kaushika’s hate for the lord? Is their feud over?

The others trudge up to me in the downpour. I stare at them, rain mingling with my tears.

“We’ve done all we can,” Romasha says tiredly. “It’s time to leave.”