Page 68 of The Legend of Meneka
“It will kill you.”
“If I swallow it, I will destroy it. It will burn to nothing with the tapasvin magic inside me.”
“Then … why won’t you?” I dare.
“Because the Goddess commands me not to,” he says, and I know he speaks of his Shakti.
I am aghast. The three realms could be rid of this terrible thing. Halahala is the one thing that could destroy all of existence. Shiva does not distinguish between poison and elixir, but this could save the order of the universe.
I cannot help my impertinent question. “Why would she ask you to do this?”
“She is ambrosia and poison,” he says, smiling fondly. “She is terrifying Kali and nourishing Gauri. She is everything, and everything more. She tells me that without pain, there is no pleasure.And without either, there is no life. That is why I hold it, child. Because she is right.”
Shakti flashes in my mind, astride Shiva, dominating him. The image changes to how Kaushika and I were, and I blink.
Shiva rises. In his gesture I recognize an end to our conversation. He wishes to return to his eternal meditation. Already, his form is dwindling.
The words burst out of me without thought. I am fearful of how he might answer, but the question has been circling me. I need to know if it’s true.
My voice is a whisper. “Am I even capable of love?”
At this, Shiva’s gaze turns sad, sorrowful.
“Oh, my child,” he says. “Youarelove.”
He fades, his voice a murmur on the wind.
ISTAND UP.
All that remains are bael leaves fluttering. Vaguely, I think how there are no bael trees around.
It is Shiva’s power, but is it magic at all? Magic seems dull around him. As the Destroyer, he decimates the illusion of any magic.
I make my way to the cliff.
I stand at its edge, and below, the river winds in a ribbon of blue. The moon has returned to the sky now that Shiva is back at Mount Kailash. Did Indra notice the moon’s absence in his skies? I imagine the lord of heaven alarmed while he is in conference with his devas. I imagine him, worrying and rash, thinking that it is Kaushika whom Shiva responded to.
I stare at the heavens. Amaravati glints in my eyes, its halls and pathways forming in the constellations, beckoning me. Indra took away my magic. I thought I was nothing without it.
Bathed in moonlight, blessed by the Great Lord himself, I close my eyes.
I dance.
FOR THE FIRST TIME, MY DANCE IS FOR NO ONE ELSE BUT ME.
The mudras spin out of me without preparation. Strength of a Diamond. Spark of Agni. Flame of the Heart.
I feel them burning where my tether to Amaravati was cut away. Even though I breathe deeply, I can no longer sense the flow of my prana as I once did. Indra’s gifts, both of those.
This dance is not augmented by any magic. Instead, the mudras come from a place of creation within my heart. No illusions flow out of me; I do not need them. My dance is expression enough.
My feet spin, arms thrown up to the sky. Dark green echoes in my vision, the circling of the trees, the night sky, the sliver of a returned moon. I close my eyes, aware I may trip and fall. I am too close to the edge of the cliff. This is dangerous.
I dance.
I tell a story. It is of a time before the Churning of the Oceans, a story of how apsaras were created. There are gaps in my knowledge, but it doesn’t matter. My movements fill the gaps, making any spaces of loss meaningless.
Here we are, born as creatures of the water, when the three realms were nothing more than a congealed mess of swirling oceans. When Indra, Surya, Vayu, and all the other devas were nothing more than amorphous, barely sentient creatures themselves.
