Page 52 of The Legend of Meneka
He squeezes my hand, and his mouth opens, on the verge of saying something—but he shakes his head. With a rueful, apologetic glance at me, he leaves the way Romasha came.
She does not follow, not immediately. Her face is withdrawn. I know pining when I see it, but with what I’m doing kissing him, feeling his hands on my body, the impressions of him still stamped on my skin … Who am I doing this for? I wonder again about her feelingsfor Kaushika and their relationship. Guilt swallows all my excuses. I have no words for her.
Romasha gives me a weak smile as if to say,He chose you. What is there to say?Then with a small nod, she disappears behind Kaushika.
I pull myself to my full height.Enough.It is time for a decision.
IDO NOT BOTHER RETURNING TO THE CLIFFTOP.
This time when I call for an emissary, Rambha materializes a few feet away from me by the obelisk statue. She has been waiting for my summons. Perhaps she was in the mortal realm already. Her beauty still staggers me, and I cannot help but note the sensuous green sari tightened around her waist, the spicy star-anise of her skin, the large doe eyes that watch me even as she moves closer. Still, it is sobering to realize that she does not affect me the way she once did. Only a few weeks earlier, we were on the path to becoming something more. What I have with Kaushika, and what I’ve learned about myself, seems to have obliterated any possibility of that.
A part of me feels sorrow at this, and my forehead creases as she glimmers with the blessings of heaven. Yet it is a sorrow not of a thing lost but of understanding finally how unrealistic my dream with her had always been. Suddenly I can see why I never made a clear suggestion to her despite all the opportunities. Did my mind always know what my heart refused to believe—that Rambha and I were ill-fated? I watch her as she approaches, noticing a beaded parcel slung around her waist like a belt, but I do not embrace her.
She does not attempt to touch me either. Light coats her like armor, and her eyes are unreadable, almost cold, like she senses the change in me. “Well, Meneka?” she asks quietly.
I raise my chin. “I know why Kaushika hates Indra. I know the manner of his challenge.”
As clearly as I can, I tell Rambha everything this time about Kaushika’s history as a prince, his vow to send King Satyavrat to heaven, the incident with the halahala, even the events at the Mahasabha. I try to be as dispassionate as a sage, reporting only the facts, but I wonder how much of my true feelings regarding Kaushika I am hiding from her. I cannot come to tell her about my intimacy with him—not her who, despite her decree that I should do exactly that, would never understandwhyI did it. My voice is hoarse by the time I finish, but Rambha simply stares into the water, not saying a word. I stiffen my resolve and speak without flinching.
“If Indra wants to end this,” I say, “then all he has to do is allow this mortal king’s soul into heaven. I am certain Kaushika will stop if the lord only relents, and we can put this behind us. It will all be over, and we can achieve this without any escalation. Lord Indra would not be in any danger, nor would Amaravati, and nor would Kaushika. The sages of the Mahasabha will be pleased—and for all we know, grow more favorable towards Indra in their own hearts.”
At that, Rambha jerks toward me. The rest of my words wither in my throat. I don’t move a muscle as she begins to circle me, as though seeing me for the first time. I try hard not to move or show my discomfort, even though the aura around her grows spiky, menacing. It is ironic that in this moment of uncertainty I am relying on my training from the hermitage.
She finally stops in front of me, her face inscrutable. “You kissed him. I feel his touch on you.”
I nod once. Tightly.
“And what changed your mind, after all these years of abstaining with a mark? Surely not my instruction, if you make such utterances.”
I still don’t reply, but a muscle in my jaw ticks and it is enough for her. She knows my expressions too well.
Her mouth thins into a smile, and her brow arches cruelly. “Ah,”she says, breathing out a humorless laugh. “So you would not break your foolish rule for the lord, but you would do it for your own desires. Is this also why you think the lord should debase himself to this Kaushika, negotiating with this odious mortal, lettinghimdecide who should enter the lord’s own home? How easily you have forgotten who you owe your devotion to.”
I straighten myself, sudden anger cascading in me. “I have forgotten nothing. My devotion has kept me believing in Indra’s innocence regarding the halahala. It is my devotion that demands I find a solution, that I speak the truth.”
“The truth?” Rambha’s laughter rings out, sharp and pitiless. “You know nothing of the truth, foolish girl. You were sent here to do your duty, not to question the very deva that gives you your magic. Look at what can occur—what is already occurring—in Amaravati because of your precious Kaushika.”
Her wrists curl into unknown mudras, and suddenly I am back in the City of Immortals. Planets churn and stars glow over and under me. A wave of homecoming washes through me, and I blink, my love for the city taking over any other thought, but before I can truly inhale, the air turns to ash. The great mansions of the city wither, and the golden sparking dust turns gray, fizzling into smoke before righting itself again. In the change of the dust’s nature, I see its effort. Amaravati is dying, and with it so is Indra. I stare in horror around me, spinning in small circles. I am in his throne room again, and instead of a lord hale and handsome, there is only a terrified deity, contemplating his own demise. Queen Shachi raves, growing incandescent and bitter, and Indra becomes more desperate, the wine flowing freely as he and the other devas attend one conference after another to discuss the growing irreverence in the mortal realm.
Above, the stars whirl in a passage of days, of months threatening to become merciless years, their alignment falling into that ofthe Vajrayudh, when Indra will become weaker. For millennia, Indra has survived, an essence of water evolving into a god. Will this next Vajrayudh destroy him completely? I hear this thought, and it is my own, but it is Rambha’s, too, and I blink, Amaravati whirling around me, chaos in my heart.
I know that this is an illusion. That Rambha is carving all this just so I can feel what I’m feeling. Yet I know, too, that there is no artifice to this. The images are pulled from Rambha’s memories and her fears of what will come to pass. Not all of them are true—not yet—but angry though she is, she is not lying; she is merely afraid of what will occur should Kaushika not be annihilated.
I sway on my feet, unable to breathe, willing my knees not to buckle. The images of Amaravati rush one into another, damning me, punishing me, weakening me. The orchards, the dance halls, the festival grounds, all of them decay and burn. I cannot think straight; Amaravati merges with the hermitage in my mind, and my will crumbles in the face of Rambha’s magic. Nausea rises in me at witnessing the destruction of my city so clearly when I have been so bereft of it, when my desire to save it and return to it one day has not diminished, no matter what I share with Kaushika.
I can look no more, and my hands come up to cover my eyes. “This cannot be,” I whisper. “I—I—Kaushika cannot do this. I will make him see reason.”
I feel Rambha dispelling the illusion with a subsiding of her power. “Reason?” she scoffs. “You have other tools at your disposal, and you would waste time with reason when I have just shown you what will occur?”
I shake my head, denying her words. “Ithasto be reason,” I stammer. “With Kaushika—he is a sage—reason is the jnani’s path, anintellect’s path, and that is what he responds to—” My voice chokes. I look up at her through tear-filled eyes. “What about thehalahala?” I ask desperately. “Surely you must want to know who has done it?”
“It is enough for me thatIndrahas not,” she replies. “Thatis the mission.Thatis devotion. To quote a sage’s path at me—” Rambha’s mouth twists with disgust. “You truly have forgotten who you are. Your sisters aredeadbecause of this man. Have you forgotten that too?”
“We—we do not know this for sure,” I stammer. “The Kaushika I have come to know … I cannot believe he did that to Nanda and Magadhi and Sundari. Just like I cannot believe that Indra was behind the halahala. Rambha, they must follow the same reasoning.”
“Then you truly have strayed far beyond redemption,” she spits out. “If you think the two are the same, then you are lost to all sense, dancing around the truth.”
My mouth trembles in hurt and anger. “And whatisthe truth?”
