Dhanu bowed his head as he thought back to the first time he saw the serene beauty of Stupala, the warmth of the people here who accepted him, almost as if he were family. Of Ara and her trust. And her love. He had thrown all of that away as if it didn't matter. And for what?
Instead of making the situation better, he had destroyed any hope of peace.
“To live when she is gone…” Dhanu stopped and shook his head, too overcome with loss to speak. He took a deep breath, controlling himself. “I’m sure,” he said, resolute.
The goddess glanced at their linked hands and her eyes softened. A trace of sympathy joined the sadness and the anger lingering in her eyes. She seemed to think over Dhanu’s request.
“People have been praying to me for centuries, but in all my existence, requests like yours are rare to come by, even rarer to see someone mean it,” she said finally.
“As you wish, then,” she said, her voice stronger. “This is my curse to you. You shall both be reborn time and again. In each incarnation, you will find each other, and you will be given the chance to mend the harm wrought in this life. But you will accomplish this only when you have overcome odds and reconcile the misunderstandings between yourselves. And until then, there won’t be peace for either of you.”
She extended a hand toward Dhanu, palm down, as if bestowing a blessing. A mere brush of her hand over his hair and he felt as if he were being electrocuted. The pain, at once all-encompassing, invaded every part of his being. His hair glinted silver, then turned ivory as life siphoned off him into the goddess’s palm where it gathered into a soft ball of light, only to disappear a moment later.
Dhanu fell dead at her feet, his withered hand still entwined with the charred one of his dead lover.
* * *
The story of Ara and Dhanu was but one chapter in the long history of these supernatural beings. Thousands of years passed. Saptavarsha flourished under the rule of man. Both the deva and the danava clans disappeared for reasons unknown, and with their passing went most of their unique magic and knowledge. But some of their more singular constructs remained, rumored to be functioning still…
Part 2
RAJGARH
Chapter 2: The Doom Close By
A thin plume of orange lava shot into the air, past the dense gray cloud of smoke that hovered atop Mount Meru.
Prince Veer of Rajgarh stood at the mouth of the cave, that opened onto the crater’s edge. Disbelief was evident across his soot smeared face as he took in the scenery.
The snowy peak of Meru had always been covered in ice, but now it had melted, revealing a craterous depression at the top. On his way to the peak Veer had observed the snow drifts that draped over the upper slopes of the mountain, interspersed with the usual patches of wildflowers, but at present, they also sported red veins of molten lava, visible through the natural fissures in rock.
A mountainous village near the borders of Rajgarh was decimated by an ash rain last month, that had left them scratching their heads as to the cause.
Then, a few days ago, a sage had appeared at the gates of the palace, cautioning his father, the king of Rajgarh, of imminent explosion of Meru in a year’s time. Veer had been skeptical, listening to the sage’s tale about a magical mechanism atop the Meru that could prevent it from happening, prompting him to make the trip to verify for himself.
But as Veer's eyes went past the vapor from random steam vents to the shadowy outline of a strangely shaped structure,protruding from the center of the crater, he came to the grim conclusion that it was all true. Meru wasn’t an ordinary mountain like they’d all thought. It was a volcano, a formerly quiescent one,that was now showing signs of activity.
Overhead, the screech of a kite resounded across the mountainous peaks. Veer’s coal-black eyes changed, turning the rich yellow of the kite’s eyes as he summoned the bird to his side with nothing more than a thought. Vihari, his winged companion—a Brahminy kite to be exact—alighted on his shoulder, docile as a mouse.
He stepped out of the paradoxically icy cave onto a metal bridge that led to the strange structure. Veer tested his hand on the railing, expecting to feel scorching heat, but instead found it cool to the touch. His boots clanged against the metal as he made his cautious way on it, finding the bridge to a better vantage of the landscape, as it traversed from the lip of the crater to the mechanism, raised above the surface by several feet.
The crater was a rough oval bowl, its uneven lip formed a sharp, steep bank with a gentle slope dented with boulders from the explosions. The floor of the caldera, towards the center, was cracked, revealing angry red bowels of the earth underneath. Scattered cones rose across the interior, sprouting magma, bubbling gases and compressed steam. He kept a wary eye out for those random eruptions, but they seemed few and far between, and he was safe enough on the bridge, that was miraculously repairing itself from the abuse the lava and heat caused.
A sudden squall dispersed the smoke that hung thickly in the bowl of crater and provided a brief but good glimpse. The bridge he had been on wasn’t the only one that led to the mechanism. Veer could see several others, radiating from the strange structure.
As he went closer, a strong vibration climbed his legs, increasing in intensity and he realized it was coming from a central cylinder. Massive in girth, made of onyx hued metal and perfectly smooth all around, it formed the main part of the mechanism.
The metal itself might be cool, but there was no way to escape the heat of the volcano this close, a fact that became apparent when he peered down to where the cylinder’s shaft bored into the heart of the mountain. A strong gust of hot air blew up, almost singeing his nostrils. He stumbled back, bracing a hand on the smooth surface of the cylinder, and realized that parts of it were rotating.
The longer he stood, the more apparent it became. A barely detectable, disconnected clunk interrupting the smooth symphony of interlocking gears and nuts, hinting that something was amiss.
Veer remembered Sage Aswi’s words, caught in the tail end of the wind as he had flown his bird towards the Vindhyas. For a thousand years or more, unbeknownst to man, this machine, built by a race of magical beings, had worked to keep the volcano in check, preventing any eruptions. But now it was nearing a time where it needed to be keyed again to keep functioning.
A star-shaped opening in one of the lower panels of the cylindrical column, came into focus. It had a long shaft protruding from it, like a key left in a keyhole.
Delicate, teardrop-shaped petals encircled the shaft at its base, where it was inserted into the column, as if a lotus flower in full bloom had been lodged into it, but more than a few petal slots were empty.
He grabbed hold of the shaft and gave it a few experimental turns. It didn’t budge. He pulled on it instead, and it came off smoothly, like a well-oiled key, dragging the petals at the base along with it.
