The Last Rudra

Two nights before, the djall's death...

Ishit was so happy to find that he could finally wield the spirit. Nidra hadn't lied to him when she said he would remember every spirit path he had learned in his dream. He couldn't wait to share this with his friend Guha …

No...it doesn't sound believable. 

Suta rubbed his temples, his head throbbing. The blood-stained quill dropped from his hand again. His glassy eyes swept the dim-lit chamber filled with scrolls and tomes, the small place where he had spent almost a century. 

He still remembered it as if it was yesterday. The stormy night in Ahom, when he had failed again. The gory scene, played by the army of the conqueror, still haunted him. 

  Of course, he hadn't spun it. No suta would ever do that, for Ahom was their holy land. 

So sacred that the brutal event made him come here in Minaak to conspire against the very lineage which once vanquished Mora, Evil lord. 

The anger had clouded his thoughts; the hatred towards Rigal had consumed his rationality.

  So possessed by vengeance, he spun a story, a gruesome tale to erase the name of the Kuru empire from the face of Mazia. 

But how foolish he was to forget the simple thing his mentor had tried to instill in him so hard, 

"Remember a suta is not a creator. He is just a retailer of events that transpired because people had wished for them. Of course one can't disappoint the crowd by telling a dry story, so some seasoning is must.,"

There he was foolishly trying to create a whole new tale. 

Suta took a deep sigh. Nikumba had won again. The whole of Varta was now under the Kuru empire. And the false king was leading it to its doom. 

Sadness engulfed Suta's old heart as the night did the world around him. 

He kept sitting there, staring at the flickering light of the earthen lamp. He had to concoct a memory pill for the young lord. Not an easy thing. At least not now when his finger had refused to hold the cursed quill, a quill that killed Ayaan and his gorgeous wife for no reason. 

But was it really the case? 

Suta's glassy eyes stirred as though the question had disturbed them. 

"Ah! The moon is already so old. I should take some sleep." He said to himself aloud. But he didn't rise from his chair. 

Instead, he looked at the scrolls lying unrolled on the table. Oman had left them for him to read. They had the memories of Ishit, the young lord, scribbled by the people who had spent time with him before he fell sick. 

An important ingredient to forge the memory pill. 

Suta had read them all by this evening. 

Three dautya fruits, one philosopher rose, nine buds of palash flower, one spirit pearl of black ravine--everything that was needed, Oman had already arranged. 

Now he just had to write the tale, and he could finish the pill before the crack of dawn. 

Oman had pleaded before him. It proved how important his task was. Inna's feast would be the last chance for the young lord to join an academy. And there was no way the boy could compete with his peers who were coming from all over Varta. So, they needed a cheat, a shortcut that could make the amnesic young lord worthy of the grand competition. 

Of course, no shortcut came without a huge risk. The memory pill was not an exception. It could cause personality disorder in the boy. But it was better than him wasting his life here in Minaak. 

Without a shortcut, it would take the boy at least ten years to master all the spirit paths; by then, his peers would be attending svayamvara. 

  . 

Suta picked up the quill. He couldn't cause more agony to Oman. He had to jot down the tale at any cost. 

With a new determination, the old weaver racked his brain muscles that had been eroded by gloom and despair. 

He rewinded every memory he had read in the scrolls. He took a new bhojpatra and began to scribe again. 

Of course, he had to pull his unkempt hair thrice and throw his cursed quill twice, but at last, he had finished the tale, which would tell the young lord who he was and what mischief he had done as a child. 

It would remind him how he once almost killed a noble's son, how he had thrown a tantrum to marry a noble's daughter. 

The story of his brave uncle would boil his blood. The beauty of his aunt would make him long to meet her just for once. And then the tale of their ends would blacken his innocent heart. 

The fabled dream fairy, Nyx, would teach him the ways of spirit-wielders, while the demoness of nightmares, Kritya, would train him in the art of battle. 

Suta felt drained when he stopped his quill, his mind spitting apart. What was happening to him was not normal. The tale was supposed to reinvigorate him, not suck him dry. Had All-Knowing-eye finally given up on him? he wondered oddly feeling relieved. 

****

With her heart in her mouth, Padma watched her son as he took the simmering pill from Suta. There was no trace of suspension on his face. He had completely accepted them. 

But here they were feeding him the pill, knowing fully well it might cause him great agony, hallucinations, worse of all, split personalities, a rare sickness that only nimohis of Occam Shrine could cure. 

She had argued with Oman over it. Her Ishit was perfect. It didn't matter if he didn't laugh at their family jokes or sometimes forgot to answer when someone called his name. 

She had no problems with his alien behaviours, like touching her feet, eating lunch in a padmasana position, most weirdly sitting up in the night with his eyes closed for hours. 

But Oman was adamant. He didn't need a son but a yoddha, a maharathi. She knew why he was like this. He had always been so competitive. 

Cole's visit had added oil to the fire. Oman couldn't stand his son to be inferior to him. 

Despite her objection, he asked Bhadra, the fowler with a dark past, to train the boy. And what good came out of that? The boy could have died in the woods. She didn't buy the fowler's cow-bull story that the boy had an accident while practicing the arts of shields. So he had to wait till Ishit was ready to ride back. 

What'd infuriated her more was that the fowler had coaxed her innocent boy to lie. 

The ominous night when someone ratted out moriyans' spies, Only she knew how she had stopped herself from crying. If Oman hadn't forbidden her from going out, she would have gone to the woods by herself. 

She thought the spirit-defiler had her son. 

The next morning when she saw her son fine, the first thing she did was cry her heart out, hugging him. 

Now she was watching him committing suicide. Yes, this memory pill would kill her Ishit and turn him into a character of Suta's tale. 

But It was needed if she didn't want him to be killed. Mukha, the traitor, had confessed that some warlord of Moriya wanted her son and Guha dead. 

She didn't know what these sons of devils would gain by murdering these two innocent souls. 

So, despite knowing that the pill's side effects, she agreed to this. 

She had to. 

  Padma hardened her heart as she gave a smile to Ishit, who was feeling sleepy after swallowing the pill. A sign the pill was taking effect. Now he would have a long sleep and when he would wake up again.. Her Ishit, whose dimples used to deepen just seeing her, would return to her.