A Danav By Derailment Of Destiny (1)

And there it was: The man-eating Danav. The Rakshas. A monster birthed to create chaos.

A demon who was now holding a basket of fruits in its one and only hand, a jute satchel looped around its shoulders as it hopped forward on its single leg, slowly to match the pace of the elderly woman walking with a cane bent almost parallel to the ground.

Did I make some mistake? Chetas wondered as he stood in the market, sniffing the sweet scent of apple. He hated apples. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he hated people who loved apples. Hiding their vile behaviour and sadistic intentions behind that sweetness.

But to maintain the guise of a normal man wandering through the market, such displeasing acts were a norm, even necessary, in the life of an Amalung. Better to take in the sickening scent himself rather than letting his target take one of his.

He placed the apple back on the table and picked up a raw mango, feeling its weight in his hand. This suited his taste more. The bitter green skin and sour insides covering the hard seed at its heart.

Chetas took a bite of it, letting the sourness fill his mouth, numb his teeth and send a tingling vibe through his gums as he kept an eye on the hobbling Danav. It certainly looks like one.

One giant well-manicured leg, half hidden under the white dhoti, one arm missing from his bare torso and a face hidden beneath an earthen pot covered by various colourful paints that seemingly had been done by some child.

Still, did he make a mistake? The smile on the elderly woman, the greetings other people showered the Danav with, children running towards him and pleading him to play with them. Those were not the signs and reactions people had towards a Danav.

"You sure it's a Danav?" Chetas asked his client, a balding man with thin limbs and a body shaking even in hot winds of summer, when he came back from the market.

"Yes, Yes, I'm sure," he said in a hushed tone, worried for the calamity that would fall upon him if he talked about the minions of dark gods.

Such beliefs were nothing more than ill-conceived superstitions. As an Amalung, he had been to places where normal folks dared not to venture, seen things that would bring nightmare to anyone for the rest of their life, done things that many believed to be godly, while some thought of them as nothing more than impossible lies.

Chetas himself was never a believer. Curious, sure, about the things that lurked in the shadows and sometimes even in the light wearing the skin of your loved ones. But even after encountering the things he had encountered in the past twenty years, he still never believed in some almighty being called God.

"Y-Y-You saw it, didn't you?" the client asked, getting up and heading over to the kettle brewing the tea inside it. "That monster."

"Yes, I did," Chetas said, earning a nod from the client as he picked up the kettle with his shaky limbs. Chetas wondered if he could even hold the kettle for long. "I also saw the villagers talking with it, laughing with it. I saw children playing with it. Doesn't exactly seem like something a Danav would be interested in doing." They generally preferred to kill and eat them, not carry the baskets for their prey.

"It's all an act!" Chetas' client said as he placed the kettle on his small table, eyes wide, almost on the verge of popping out of his skull. "It has somehow managed to control every villager, even the children. But not me!" he grinned, proud of this achievement. Perhaps the proudest he had ever been in his entire life.

He wasn't wrong though. Some Danav did have the ability to control the mind, manipulate them in doing things they didn't want to do. Mostly to have fun with their prey.

His client poured tea in both their cups, his a little cracked, and continued, "And that inhuman body. That should be proof enough."

Chetas brought his cup near his lips but the scent from tea, if it could even be called that, gave him an urge to vomit out the mango he'd eaten earlier. "Could be just a cripple though. I doubt it would be the first time you've seen someone with missing limbs," Chetas reasoned, placing his cup back on the table.

"Of course, I have. I'm not some drunken idiot spouting nonsense!" Sure does seem that way… "You haven't seen what I have."

"I doubt that, but do go on." Quickly, he thought. The pungent scent of the tea was filling up the room. Not to mention the heat and the crossed legged position numbing the senses in his legs were definitely not helping him keep his patience. Bastard didn't even bother to give me a pillow.

"It's face… I have seen what's beneath that helmet. Sharp fangs jutting out of its mouth, long pointed ear, and that eye. It has only one eye. Big, red. Filled with wrath and darkness. One look at it and I knew it was a Danav," Chetas' client said his tale, sipping the tea.

Chetas waited for a minute, wondering why his client had taken that break. Hearing no further additions to his, quite possibly, drunken tale, Chetas asked, "And? Is that it?"

The client in turn looked at him in confusion, as if wondering what further proof Chetas needed. Sure, the bodily descriptions did seem off. But … "Look, I will be honest here. In my line of work, we see a lot of Danav. We study about a lot of them. And as per my expertise, there are no Danav that match that description."

Chetas stared at his client.

His client stared at Chetas.

Shaking his head, the client stood up and limped towards a corner of the small room. Shifting some clothes here and there in an already messy room, the client opened a wooden chest and pulled out a small cloth bag that made a sound like metal pieces clinking against each other.

Chetas knew what the bag contained.

"I had heard the rumours that you Amalungs love your coins. I hoped it wouldn't come to this but for the betterment of the village, this is a small sacrifice," the client said, sitting back on his pillow and dropping the coin filled bag on the table.

Who doesn't love money? Everyone – from a little kid to an elderly – loved money. Anyone who said otherwise was just lying to everyone and to themselves. Chetas did not lie to himself. Perhaps the tale wasn't through the eyes of a drunken man. Perhaps it contained every form of truth in it.

Perhaps another look at the supposed Danav wouldn't really hurt him …

Picking up the bag, Chetas shook the hands of his client and bowed a little, before stepping out from the house, ready to reach the bottom of the truth.

Who exactly was this Danav?