Page 20 of The Legend of Meneka
Each yogi is similar in some way, performing astounding feats of magic. While lessons are still conducted, several people no longer attend, focused instead on their personal learning. I am one of the fewwho isaskedto attend every class, my inability to form runes now common knowledge. My capacity to hold great magic has become irrelevant. Even though I tell myself I am not here to learn mortal tricks, the prick of humiliation stings me when the other students give me looks. No one is awed by me anymore. They agree with Anirudh; I came too late. They agree with Kaushika; I will be gone by the end of the month.
That end stares at me unblinkingly as the days trickle by. Panic bubbles within my chest with the rush of a waterfall, and I do my best to ignore it. I recall Kaushika saying to the guru how he will ensure unworthy students will leave. I am simultaneously impatient to see him, to carry on with my mission, and terrified he will ask me to go when he learns of my failures. When nearly a month has passed with nothing to show for it, I grow desperate enough to become blunt.
“Doesn’t Kaushika do this himself?” I ask.
I am with Anirudh and Kalyani, the three of us on a rare break from our many practices and chores. We are within the pillared pavilion, kneeling in the center by the simple cylindrical shaft of Shiva’s altar, the lingam. Outside, rain has finally begun pattering after weeks of mockery, and I stare at it longingly, wishing to run into it, dance within it with abandon. Instead, I tear my gaze away and glance at my mortal companions.
Anirudh nods. “Ordinarily, yes. But he has not been in the camp for days now. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
Air ripples around him as he chants, a slow, melodious hum that cascades in waves, lifting with the breeze. The lingam, made of black marble, glows with the mantra. Sparkles radiate off it, and I feel its bare power washing over me, settling in my stomach with heat.
I take a few wildflowers from the basket in my hand and arrange them artistically around the lingam. The flowers were my idea; I had to ask Anirudh’s permission to be allowed to leave the hermitage to gatherthem from the forest. I have no great devotion to Shiva beyond what is expected from me as a celestial, but if Anirudh is to report to Kaushika on everyone’s devotion to the Destroyer, this act will only help me.
As it is, the flowers are the only ornamentation by the cylindrical lingam. Ascetic as these people are, they deny beauty itself. An unadorned flame burns in front of the altar, held within an earthen lamp and powered by tapasya. Representing the devotion of the hermitage toward Shiva, the flame must never go out. Anirudh closes his eyes, and the mantra becomes a murmur. His magic whistles through the pavilion as the flame rises into a tall, slim pillar of fire. Next to us Kalyani joins her hands and releases her breath in a deep exhale at the same time. Flowers meander up from my basket, swirling around the pillar of flame, then settling on the floor when the flame subsides. She raises an eyebrow at me, as if to say,This is how you do it.She has tried to make me use runes for every chore, hoping I will learn, but I have never been less interested in a magic that is not mine.
“It seems so hard to keep the flame burning with your power constantly,” I say, still focused on Kaushika. “Does it not tire you?”
Anirudh leans back, satisfied and relieved by the consecration. “Romasha and I take turns in Kaushika’s absence, though I admit it will be a relief when he is back.”
I make a sympathetic sound in my throat. As casually as I can, I say, “Where did he go?”
Anirudh’s tone is as casual as mine. “Why do you want to know?”
I shrug.Reveal your lust, I whisper in my mind, and a shape forms behind my eyes, the same one each time I have looked into Anirudh’s desires. An image of him, kneeling at Kaushika’s feet, asking to be blessed.
The first time I saw it, I was startled. Were Anirudh and Kaushika lovers? Is that why Anirudh followed him from their kingdom? Can it be that Kaushika is not interested in women at all? It would hardlymatter to my seduction; instead of showing him my own form, my illusion would simply have taken the presentation of me as a man. It is something I’ve done many times before with marks.
But I now know it is not lust for Kaushika that guides Anirudh. It is a desire to make Kaushika proud. On my arrival to the hermitage, I mistakenly thought that the revelation of my power would turn the other disciples against me and make me a target. I have learned since then that such competition is hardly something the yogis care about, an antithesis to how matters occur within Amaravati among the apsaras. The yogis herewantme to succeed in my magic. They want to raise Kaushika’s prestige and that of the hermitage. As strange as this way of thinking is, it is something I can use.
“I want to please Kaushika,” I say. “If he is back soon, I can show him how I wish to serve the hermitage. Just like the rest of you.”
“Pleasing him should not be your concern,” Anirudh says, surprising me. “I understand the desire—he is a forceful man, his own power calling to all of us like moths to his flame. But that is not why you are here, is it?”
“I am here to train. I haven’t been able to create a single rune, but if he teaches me—”
“If he has not helped you so far, he won’t now either, no matter how much you ask him.”
“But why?” I drop my pretense as my anguish becomes apparent. “What have I done?”
“Nothing. He is entitled to his decision, however. Do not concern yourself with what he’s doing or where he is going, Meneka. He travels often on personal business. He’ll return when he wants to. We do not keep track of him, and his rules are his own.”
“He is being unreasonable,” Kalyani snaps. She turns away from adorning the flowers around the altar, and puts an arm around me. “Why allow her in and then leave her untrained?”
“She isn’t untrained,” Anirudh replies. “She goes to lessons. She meditates. Kaushika created this hermitage, he brought us together, but he cannot train us personally, not by tradition. He is not allowed to do so according to the dictates of the Mahasabha and the agreement with the other sages. He is only allowed to share secrets he knows to those who are worthy, and the Initiation Ceremony will determine whoisworthy. Until then he must follow the path of withdrawal, of only observing and not interfering, of guiding and suggesting, but not training. Why do you think he only challenges us instead of providing answers even when we argue philosophy? We are meant to come to an understanding of our own power and path without interference. That is why he does not train any of us yet, not even me or Romasha.”
“But Meneka is clearly struggling,” Kalyani protests vehemently. “His withdrawal right now amounts to watching an innocent creature drown simply for the sake of noninterference. It is cruel and heartless.”
“It is the ascetic method,” Anirudh says gently. “What he is doing with her is no different from your own training, Kalyani.”
Kalyani scowls deeply. Though the both of them have been helping me, she has gone above and beyond, trying to teach me specific breathing practices. She has shown up at my door late at night, using the power of her own tapasya to facilitate my focus. In the beginning, she was reluctant to disrespect Anirudh by disagreeing with him, but the closer she and I have become, the more she has voiced her displeasure at how I am being treated.
I press her hand in gratitude, knowing that her frustration has to do with me as well as Kaushika. Several times, I have almost let slip in my own aggravation how shecannotteach me no matter how much she tries. Only picturing Rambha has helped me hold my tongue. I told Rambha I would return. She said we would make promises to each other. Anirudh’s allegiances are clear, but even if Kalyani knowsnothing about Kaushika and his secrets, she is a sage in training. No matter her kindness, she is loyal to Kaushika. It is why any of these people are helping me.I cannot forget that.
Sudden tears flood my eyes. Four weeks. Four weeks have passed since I arrived, and I have nothing to show for it. I’ve barely exchanged two conversations with my mark, his own intention hidden. With any other mark, I would have already been halfway to seducing them, yet Kaushika has already proven too challenging. There is a darkness within him, shadowing his true intents, lurking a nail-scratch away. I can sense it, but I haven’t even faced his magic, and he has already thwarted me.
If Kaushika asks me to leave due to my failure at the Initiation Ceremony, I might never get another chance to return to the hermitage to seduce him. I would be in exile until I finished my mission. I can see the events unfolding already. How I would throw caution to the wind, driven by urgency. How I would accost this sage somehow, a vision of blunt surprise, giving myself away instantly instead of completing my mission in a delicate manner.
Were my sisters trapped by desperation as well? Did Nanda begin dancing in the vain hope that Kaushika would simply be seduced by her beauty? Did Sundari create an illusion that worked before, never getting past Kaushika’s shields but hoping anxiously that her best entrapments would? Was Magadhi dazzling, her beautiful smile brittle, when she twisted her wrists into mudras?
