The Last Rudra

"I will take a class of you two. You dare to hit Minerva. Meet me in the morning. " Avantika said as she shut the door after her. Minerva gave them a furious look and she left too. 

"Why?" Guha looked into his friend's eyes. He had robbed him of his only chance. 

"Why? Have a miniri (a small spirit bird that feeds on brains) got your brain?  " Ishit snapped at him.

"How can you tell her something like this? Don't you know she has you only now?"

"But it is true, Ishit.  Believe it or not. He is hiding inside me, waiting for something. I don't know for what, maybe, for my will to collapse. And Once he overpowers, he will kill everyone around me...even Maa too."

Guha didn't know when his eyes welled up, and two tears rolled down on his cheeks. He was losing control of his body, of his senses. 

Ishit cast a silencing shield around them, and sat beside Guha, with a complicated look. 

"Tell me about it, and don't you dare to hide anything. Who is this demon of yours?  " He asked, in an authoritative tone.

Guha bowed his head.

"It was all started with the assassin attack. That evening when I was returning home from the aviary tower after my trial. "  After a pause he started to speak, telling Ishit how he had used the forbidden art he had seen in his father's diary. He described in detail how his awareness had got trapped into a strange cage with no wall and then woken up in a parrot. He told him the devastation he had brought by waging war against the city. 

"I woke up that day thinking it was just a horrible dream, one of many nightmares that hunted me after dad left. Alas! how wrong I was. Ishit, I had butchered millions of blameless birds. I  was the sinner as the wind had whispered. " Guha sobbed. Ishit, who was mind was blank listening to the unbelievable tale, patted him gently on his shoulder. He didn't know what to tell his friend. He had never heard someone having such an uncanny experience.

"But it was not you're fault, though. You were as helpless as the birds were, acting under someone else control. I think you shouldn't blame yourself .."

"No, you didn't get it." Ishit was cut off by Guha, " it was me, Ishit. it was me all along. He is a part of me or maybe I'm a part of him. Ishit, he hunts my vision, my dreams. Tells me that I don't belong here, among humans. He tells me to go deep in the Nimarawood, and find a place called Dilli where lives Elass, the first bird." 

Ishit had never heard such a bird or place.  But he knew if his friend went there, not even his soul would return. 

"Has he told his name?" Ishit asked, thinking of something. 

"He doesn't have to. I know his name is also Guha, or as the birds call him, Guha, the sinner."

Ishit was dumbfounded. What the hell? Even birds had sinners.  However, he showed nothing on his face. 

  Guha seriously needed help. But who could possibly help him? Ishit wondered. 

Maybe Udolff, the death worshiper. But could he trust him? 

Ishit still hadn't been able to figure out why the wizard had sent him back into the past. 

He didn't want to drag his friend into his troubles. 

"Ishit, could you promise me to take care of my mother?" Guha suddenly asked, his teary eyes looking straight in his. 

"What sorts of question is this?" Ishit replied," She is my second mother, Guha. I love her as much as I love my mother. And as to take care of her, I wouldn't have to.  Nothing will happen to you. Trust me when I say I will find a cure to this strange ailment of yours. I know a man he might know what is happening to you,"

Ishit consoled his friend as he made up hind mind to pay a visit to the dark tower. He couldn't care about the motive of the wizard right now. 

If Guha was right, it was really serious trouble. Garuna couldn't afford another enemy, one who could control all the mortal and spirit birds.

He might have not witnessed the onslaught of birds, but if his father had to activate the shield, then it must have been terrifying. 

"Who? " Guha asked, giving him a puzzled look. 

"you don't need to know, now," Ishit said. "Just relax. We'll deal with this together. " 

Guha nodded. But he doubted anyone could help me. Just by sitting here, he could feel the consciousness of the alicanto sleeping in the backyard, and beyond the castle wall, of mortar-birds sleeping in the tree. A mere thought from him and they would leave their comfy nests. What was more, their fears, their miseries, and their joys were his. 

It was like living millions of lives together. The sheer emotional burden was driving him insane.

Ishit asked Guha to describe his experience in detail so that he could ask Udolf if he knew about such absurd happening. 

None of them slept that night. Who could after knowing such a spooky experience? 

They chatted about their past adventures and giggled.

With the first blush in the east, Ishit left the white castle, telling his friend to wait for his reply.  Of course, Lady Avantika did take their class. It wasn't a pleasant one if you're curious to know. 

*****

Kasma's heart sank when he felt Tara's body going cold. He glanced at the priest who looked drained.  By the frown on his wrinkled face, he knew the old man was as clueless as he was. 

But he still asked, 

"Old man, why isn't she breathing anymore? Don't tell me you killed her." 

Thought of the priest betraying him set Kasma's blood boiling. It was not like that  Moriyan slave was being paranoid; His journey to the Nimarawood had been nothing but precarious. If he hadn't been trained for such perils, Kasma would've died millions of times before even getting to the Mansarovar lake. 

It was highly possible that the priest had told him to bring the nymph's heart, to have him got killed. 

Come to think of it, the priest had no reason to help him and Tara, to begin with.  They were enemies, just like fire and water, cat and mouse, and lion and deer. 

His stay among idolaters had taught him this much. For Vartians Moriyans were defilers, embodiments of evils, inhuman beings with no hearts and emotions. 

"I warned you in the beginning, Moriyan. It was just my vision. " Soora said, glancing at the fire burning on the alter, "Maybe Vyom doesn't want her to live."

Kasma didn't speak. He squatted down beside Tara. How calm she looked! She had escaped hell. Instead of grief, jealousy arose in the Moriyan's heart. 

"You'll have to take the body away, Moriyan. It'll soon start decaying. " The priest's voice broke the Moriyan's stupor. 

"I will. "All Kasma said, as he rose to his feet.  He needed what to do. Death of Tara wouldn't go unavenged. 

He would flay the butcher alive later. It was his promise to his love. 

The moriyan took out his dagger. The nether iron nipped his finger, and Kasma muttered a hex. 

Before the puzzled eyes of the priest and his disciple, a blood-red shield flickered around them, covering the small chamber. 

Kasma walked over to the baffled priest. 

"What are doing, Moriyan?" Soora priest asked as a horrifying realization hit the old man.  "You promised that you wouldn't harm us even if I couldn't save her. " 

"Oh! I did? " Kasma looked at him as he reached out his hand to grab the graying hair. "I'm sorry, old man. Someone must have to die, or Tara won't forgive me. " He said as he yanked his long hair. 

"You can't go back on word, the spirit is watching over you." shouted the priest, his face ashen-white with fear, struggling to wriggle out of the iron claw of Kasma. His disciple screamed as he fled for the gate. 

"You forgot something. Your spirit is as powerless as a maiden before us, idolater. " Kasma put the dagger on the neck of the man,  "We are spirit-defilers."  He slowly drove his dagger, the blood gushed out, paralyzing the old man. Kasma continued driving his dagger slowly cutting the windpipe. 

The priest gurgled, his eyes bulged out as his body wiggled, and then slowly turned lifeless. Kasma dropped it onto the floor. His calm eyes moved to the boy who was crying and frantically kicking the shield. 

A smile appeared on his handsome face as a deep-buried memory surfaced up in his mind. Years ago, just like the boy he too had tried to kick open the door. Of course, it hadn't budged. Jora and others had laughed at him as if his panicked cries were some lewd jokes of wenches. 

"Stop wasting your energy, lad. It won't shatter," he said, as he watched the boy wetting his pant. The horror in his eyes was so familiar to him. Alas! he couldn't take with him or he would have been a good slave. 

"Please don't kill me. I will do everything that you want. " The boy pleaded. Kasma laughed. Sure enough, he didn't judge wrong. 

"I'm sorry. Maybe Nuh didn't want your service, lad. " Kasma replied with a look of regret, and slit open the boy's throat. 

He kneeled down, facing the south, and muttered the sacrificial prayer,

"O Almighty Nuh, the creator of all, the most benevolent! Accept these two heretic souls. Have mercy on them when you send them to hell, give them a chance to atone their crimes." 

Kamsa kowtowed three times and got up. He threw fireballs at the two corpses and reduced them into ashes. 

He walked over to Tara.  Now was time to say a final goodbye to her. He pulled out his tunic,  trousers, and all till he was stark naked. Then he slowly removed Tara's clothes, revealing his snowy white body. 

He would make her his woman. It was what he had promised to her. 

Note: 

I was on leave yesterday. 

Moriyans' rituals are a bit dark and gory.. They are a bit unsettling too, but it was what had earned their name.