Yama's Lieutenant and The Stone Witch Read online

  ANUJA CHANDRAMOULI

  YAMA’S LIEUTENANT and the STONE WITCH

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  A Note on the Author

  1. An Anonymous Assassination

  2. Madness and Mercy

  3. From Varu’s Book: Letting Go. Or Not.

  4. The Nobody

  5. Eagle’s Nest

  6. Mountain of Death

  7. From Varu’s Book: Floating

  8. The Last Kimkara

  9. From Bad to Worse

  10. Perfection

  11. For the Love of Chicken Stew

  12. An Unlikely Ally

  13. From Varu’s Book: Breaking Free

  14. The Wanderer

  15. Apocalypse

  16. Dirty Pleasures

  17. From Varu’s Book: The City of Sin

  18. Captor and Captive

  19. The Mahasthavira

  20. From Varu’s Book: Sibling Rivalry

  21. The Terrible Two

  22. Sweet and Sour Slumber

  23. The Undefeated One

  24. From Varu’s Book: The First Nightmare

  25. From Varu’s Book: Inside the Pidana Vastus

  26. Under Siege

  27. A Taste of Hell

  28. Breaking Out

  29. From Varu’s Book: The Battle Within

  30. Flying Free

  31. A Chase in the Dark

  32. A World without Dharami

  33. A Time to Turn Back Time

  34. Fight to the Death

  35. A Snake in the Grass

  36. Journeying Back

  37. The Long Road Home

  Epilogue

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  A Note on the Author

  Anuja Chandramouli is a bestselling Indian author and New Age Indian classicist. Her highly acclaimed debut novel, Arjuna: Saga of a Pandava Warrior-Prince, was named by Amazon India as one of the top five books in the Indian-writing category for 2013. Kamadeva: The God of Desire and Shakti: The Divine Feminine and Yama’s Lieutenant are her other bestsellers.

  Anuja’s articles, short stories and book reviews have appeared in various publications like Femina, Women’s Era, Lonely Planet, The Hindu and the New Indian Express. An accomplished orator, Chandramouli regularly conducts storytelling sessions and workshops on creative writing, empowerment and mythology in schools, colleges and on various other platforms.

  This happily married mother of two little girls lives in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, and is a student of classical dance. She is currently hard at work on her new book along, aided along by her two trustworthy friends: caffeine and yoga.

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter handle: @anujamouli

  Website: www.anujachandramouli.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoranujachandramouli/

  For Ooplipoo, Cookie Butt, Varsoo and Ass.

  (And not only because they insisted!)

  For Ramos and TheRedScriber—my amazing little brothers,

  fellow Rafa fans and all-around good guys.

  All of you mean the world to me.

  1

  An Anonymous Assassination

  It had to be the worst day of her life, littered as it already was with days that ranged from crappy to crappier before culminating in a veritable shitstorm of abject misery. She huddled, aching and miserable, in the corner of her little hut, on her pitifully tattered paai, taking in the sight of her home, dully noting, not for the first time, that in the house where she worked as a maid they had bathrooms that were bigger. And cleaner. Thanks to her labour, of course.

  How was it fair? She, Parameshwari, had to live in this tiny hut, that a former lover who worked in construction had built her, after she had extracted a drunken promise from him. Mercifully, he had kept his word. He had got his no-good friends to help out and they had built her a pint-sized palace on a tiny piece of land she had painstakingly acquired for herself through vigorous negotiations with a clerk in the stinky loo at the sub-registrar’s office. A few sacks of stolen cement, cheap bricks and leftover paint, and she had a roof over her head.

  At the time, she had been happy and hoped her sweet sot would stay forever. But the bugger had hung around only long enough for his seed to breech the defences in her womb and had fled at the prospect of marriage and fatherhood. Stupid bastard! And now it was her lot in life to put up with his brat.

  As usual, her son had not bothered to tidy up after himself after polishing off the meal she had cooked him. Rice and okra gravy flavoured with tamarind and coconut milk, and two eggs, which she had filched from the house when the young mistress had been too busy filing her nails, seated on her toned butt, to pay attention. Besides, what was an egg or two to the likes of those who shat cash and pissed it all away?

  The elder mistress did not take the same view, of course. She always counted the eggs and there would be hell to pay if her theft was discovered. The thought made her heart pound, and she steadied it by rehearsing her cover story. She would say that the young mistress had instructed her to add the eggs to the imported dog feed that was specially ordered for her two precious French mastiffs, who weighed more than her and the starved pigs that roamed their slum combined.

  The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law could not abide each other and kept their conversation to a minimum. She had taken advantage of this dynamic in the past and, if luck permitted, would continue to do so. But then, when was the last time she had been anywhere remotely close to fortunate?

  Her mother had named her Parameshwari, one of the gazillion names of the Supreme Goddess, and a particularly lofty one for someone of her station. As if that were not bad enough, her mother had died shortly afterwards, and her father, having no wish to be saddled with a mewling infant, had ‘dedicated’ her to the resident deity at a local shrine, where she had been condemned to a lifetime of servitude to God and his devotees.

  She had been taught that hers was a noble calling, and she believed it wholeheartedly, even on days like today, when her brain insisted otherwise. It had not been bad initially. She helped out at the small shrine, happy to sweep the grounds, make flower garlands and learn the devotional songs. Devotees would pat her head and give her sweets or coins.

  When she came of age, she was given more onerous duties and was expected to help fill the coffers of the temple. Even one that was frequented only by an endless stream of ne’er-do-wells who stopped by during rare moments of contrition, looking for forgiveness or hope. Sometimes, they sought both in her arms. It was her duty to help them find it in exchange for the few coins they could ill afford to spare.

  On important festivals, Parameshwari danced for the masses that thronged to the shrine. Initially, it made her happy to perform as it harked back to the glorious era of the devadasis, but that was before the cruel comments reached her ears—‘Her dance is fit to be performed only before corpses being rushed for cremation’; ‘Her moves remind me of a monkey, an ugly, drunken one at that!’

  Parameshwari was deeply hurt. Of course, she could not be compared to the likes of Pandanallur Jayalakshmi, Balasaraswati or Rukmini Devi, especially since she had never had anybody to foot the bill for dance lessons. The critics of her art notwithstanding, she continued to dance. But not before making sure that she was filled to the brim with arrack. Hopefully her preferred poison would take her life before her stupid son did.

  In the early days, there were a few who considered her to be a nityasumangali, an eternally auspicious woman wed to a god, and they would request her to be present during auspicious occasions and even childbirth to chant prayers or use her healing hands to keep both
mother and child safe. They would give her a little money, silk saris and food.

  But there were many others who preferred the more prurient thevadiyal, which had originally meant ‘servant of God’ but was currently synonymous with prostitution. It was even worse after her son was born, two miscarriages took a heavy toll on her body without doing her the favour of taking her life. Not many men came to her after that, and it wasn’t only because of her fading looks but her overall hopelessness.

  Now she worked as a maid and made barely enough to keep body and soul together. Parameshwari had foolishly hoped that her son would complete his studies, get a respectable job in the city and take care of her. Her young mistress had even taken some time away from her ceaseless primping to fill out his school forms and had dug out some old books and stationery for him to use. But all that effort had been for nought.

  Her son had dropped out of school, refusing to go back, claiming that the other kids had found out he was a ‘thevadiyal’s boy’ and their cruel taunts were more than he could bear. So now he was content to loaf around, steal, drink cheap liquor, throw it up and pass out before starting all over again. He would forcibly take away her wages and beat her senseless if she tried to secret it away, punctuating his blows with hoarse cries of ‘Whore!’ and other insults no man had the right to call a woman, least of all his own mother.

  The two of them had had one of their usual scenes that day. And the upshot was that she lay crumpled on the floor, more broken and defeated than ever before, after her loving son had punched her in the gut, pummelled her shoulders, grabbed her by the hair and attempted to smash her head through the wall before kicking her, while she lay curled up in the foetal position, till he was too tired to go on.

  How had it come to this? She touched the painted red stone that hung around her neck, suspended on a piece of black cable-wire. It had belonged to her mother. According to her grandmother, who was no doubt senile, the blood of Manickam Natchiar, a legendary devadasi of yore, ran in their veins. Stupid old hag!

  ‘Did you know that Lord Shiva himself descended from Kailash to revive her after she had consigned her body to the flames that were greedily consuming the remains of the husband she had known for only one night? The three-eyed god set aside his famous indifference to the shenanigans of mortals to chasten the petty moralists who impugned her virtue!’ the old lady would say in a rush, worried that someone in her audience would cut in to say that they had heard the story a thousand times already. ‘Manickam Natchiar proved that those of her calling were every bit as chaste as the revered, auspicious women who had the misfortune of knowing sexually no man save their husbands. To this day, she is worshipped by those who remember her. At one time, the fabulous Chintamani stone was also in her possession.

  ‘They say that Shiva made a present of this gem to Manickam, who was dearly beloved to him. It is said that the owner of the Chintamani will forever be free of the worries and illnesses that plague mortals and be eternally blessed with prosperity. This invaluable jewel was passed on to her descendants before it was lost by us, snatched by the greed and ill will of those who envied us.’

  Dully, Parameshwari tugged at the damn stone, bitterly envious of Manickam Natchiar as well as the rest of her ancestors who had lived well. If only she had been beautiful and rich, everybody else would have done the envying. She tried to rise, but waves of pain made her giddy and forced her to remain exactly where she was.

  The man watched her from the shadows, curious and amused in turns. She was so far gone in her wretchedness that she remained oblivious to the fact that the thread of her life had unspooled as far as it would go. Stinking pile of refuse though she might be with an existence no self-respecting pig would care for, he was sure that she would not let go of her life easily.

  Pain was writ large on her features and her body language screamed utter defeat. It was obvious that she no longer had the will or the energy to make something of her life. And yet she would not surrender easily to the death that her son had brought to her doorstep.

  It never ceased to tickle him silly when people fought so desperately to survive, to hold on to the gift of life, even if it had proved repeatedly to be a poison. How utterly terrified they were of the darkness or light that lay beyond!

  Some pleaded with him, turning begging into a beautiful art as they prayed for mercy and turned on the waterworks for maximum effect. ‘I’ll do anything,’ was by far the most common entreaty, and they literally meant anything—from handing over every one of their paltry worldly possessions to allowing him to dig for treasure between their legs. None ever realized that it was all futile and all they had succeeded in doing was establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that humans were grotesque, snivelling scum that well and truly deserved the terrible things that happened to them.

  A rare few did go with dignity and earned his respect. But die they did. And in death, they looked no different from those who went kicking, screaming and shitting their pants. Ultimately everybody looked ridiculous, bereft of life, and stank to the high heavens without exception.

  While musing thus, he shed his human trappings easily with fluid grace, transforming with eerie beauty into the beast he had always been at heart. Parameshwari, had she been aware of his presence, would have been both fascinated and horror-struck. But she remained oblivious to the marvel and danger both, lost as she was in her desolation. She wondered what it would be like to crawl to the empty well in their slum and throw herself into it. Her son would be sorry then, though her mistresses were likely to be sorrier still, and their bathrooms the sorriest of all. She almost giggled, and it gave her would-be killer pause.

  He crouched splay-footed, on all fours, in the shadows, lengthening them with his presence, sucking up the diffuse light that had spilled reluctantly into the hovel through tiny windows that had been boarded up to keep out the pestilential mosquitoes. While still human, he had towered over the others, and in his wolf form, he was twice as large as the ordinary ones and a hundred times more savage. The one he served had made sure of it.

  He had always been dangerous, but now ‘dangerous’ did not even begin to describe him. Nature and nurture alike had ensured that his predatory instincts had merged forcefully together with his baser passions, till the killer in him had sprouted wings. He had never been the gentlest of souls to begin with. The dark one he served had used magic to hasten the snail’s pace of evolution, focusing on the traits that had set him apart—an unmatched savagery, a born hunter’s sure instinct, an innate toughness as well as an insatiable lust for blood—enhancing them endlessly till they came to define him.

  Even his body had been reshaped to suit the feral needs that drove him. A thick neck rested solidly on impossibly broad shoulders, tapering into a body streamlined and heavily muscled for speed and brute strength. He had begun to pant, eager for the kill, and his muzzle parted to reveal the wickedly sharp and elongated teeth, all the better for savaging his victims. Powerful paws finishing into evil-looking claws, and the armoured hide, bristling with black fur, could render the sharpest of blades and the deadliest of bullets utterly useless.

  The woman noticed him only after he had torn out her entrails, leaving them glistening on the floor, a nest of vipers. She tried to scream but no sounds would emerge from her throat save a sickening gurgle. Adrenaline pumped through her, urging flight, and she did her best to get to her feet. But she stumbled on the slippery mess that had poured from her belly and landed with a squelchy thud, noticing three things in her horror even as her endocrine system started to shut down.

  Her arm had been torn off and lay on the floor, there was blood enough to swim in and the beast that had proved to be her death had enormous grey eyes that were bubbling with mirth at her agonizing predicament. Worse, he seemed to derive even more pleasure from her awareness of the fact. A final burst of helpless rage lit her eyes before they froze in sightlessness.

  The man left the slum behind him with a shambling gait, inconspicuous as only
an average joe can be. A faint smile hovered on his lips even though he knew fully well that he had blundered into a blind alley. The red stone he had plucked from her throat moments before he had torn it open was worth even less than the entire sum of her sordid existence, not to be confused with the priceless gem he had been sent to unearth.

  Carelessly he tossed it aside into an already overflowing trash receptacle that smelled worse than the pigs that were stewing in it. But it made no difference. He was relentless, if nothing else, and it was only a matter of time before he found what he sought and delivered it. In the meantime, the pleasures of the hunt awaited him.

  2

  Madness and Mercy

  Agni Prakash was going nuts. But he would be damned if he accepted the fact. In his opinion, an absolute refusal to accept the breakdown of sanity was the surest way to stave off the encroaching madness before it fed on his brain, till there was nothing left but jellied remains fit only to feed the carrion crows. It had to be admitted, though, there were times when he seriously depressed himself.

  He was Yama’s lieutenant, tasked with capturing the arakshas who had escaped from the many hells it was their lot in life to traverse on account of having been wicked sons of wickeder fathers. The weapons of Dharma were his to wield as he saw fit. But that had all been before Nitara, the child he had been ordered to track down and guard with his life because she was the one who was going to save the world.

  She had done that, of course. Or at least she had delayed the inevitable doom. Agni was nothing if not a hardened pessimist. He and Minothi, with Nitara in tow, had braved the necromancer Naganara and his army of hatakas, the possessed ones. This had had allowed Nitara time to round up the itvaras and restore the Rodhana, the fabled barriers of the thousand hells of Yama, locking away the arakshas forever. It should have been a happy ending, except that it wasn’t. Not by a long shot, for him at least. Though for the rest of his clueless species it probably was.