Chapter 1: Rahasyamaya Pustakalaya ( Secrets of the Ancient Library)

"Is anyone there?" Asked Niramya, standing at the desk of the Old Pustakalaya, the young child of the city's infamous family of historians that descended into madness every other century.

His eyes were of childish wonder, curled up with short but thick lashes that complemented his short curly hair.

He wasn't too tall either and was usually found pestering librarians in his dark brown kurta, which he cut short for convenience and was ridiculed for, and the bag that contained the maps of his forefathers which were never accepted as more than fictional entertainment by the people of Mayavari.

Dust wriggled through the sunlight which had hardly touched more than a few square meters of the hall that remained in shadows for centuries. Occasionally, with purpose, a mashal was led through the mammoth pillars of the building to look for a book or two. But that only happened a few times in centuries.

Niramya banged the desk, "I'm here for restoration! Is Murqaya there?" dust shook off the desk and spread all around, catching up in his short curly hair, sticking to his supple earthy skin. He resisted sneezing.

The Pustakalaya was never visited even in daylight. There were rumors about the spirits it had caught in scriptures and tales stored in the walls of the edifice, that jumped at the living souls who dared to seek their past. A bent figure crawled silently behind Niramya, who was getting uneasy by the second.

"Come with me" a whisper that made Niramya's spine shiver with idiotic fear. He turned around to see a small man bundled with old age, holding an unlit mashal, his hair longer than his body, mingling with the shadows on the floor behind him.

His eyes, like the brown earth lit with the heat of the midday Sun, pierced through him. He followed Murqaya into the long corridors where the walls were inscribed with the names of a million scriptures.

The mashal lit up spontaneously and the fire danced on the walls they passed by. Like a shooting star passing through the vast unknown darkness, Niramya felt the urge to stop and look through all the paths they passed without touching and reading.

"What lies beyond the light one is endowed with? Why does the unknown flirt with us like inescapable death?" he thought to himself, trying to capture and remember the names of the books on the walls.

Murqaya turned and vanished into another narrow path. Niramya rushed after him. He saw Murqaya touch the name of the scripture written on the wall and the bricks shifted like a mechanical clock, after much sound, from distant ends till Niramya's immediate surroundings, the brick moved into Murqaya's hands, who blew over the dust of the brick that turned into the scripture they were looking for.

\Niramya stood in wide eyed wonder. He had always heard about the magic bearers in the land, even with their receding numbers, but he had never seen one in his tender age.

"Niramya. You may sleep here and eat here to finish your work but you may not leave with this manuscript."

"Murqaya, Oh wise one!" Exclaimed Niramya as he held the scripture in his hands. "Is it true! They're not just stories then!" And Niramya found himself standing alone talking to the wind at the front desk of the Pustakalaya. His heart raced, he looked around, "Murqaya?" His voice echoed through the empty building.

He sat in one of the reading rooms with the book. " that old hag. He didn't show me how to read this" he opened the scriptures, ineligible mumbo jumbo calligraphed across thick pages. He spent hours just sitting there trying to make sense of the pages.

Three days had passed, he had neither seen the sunlight nor the old man who had abandoned him to his haunting curiosity. Beyond the light he would often see creatures slithering and at times when the centuries old book gave off the scent of fresh eucalyptus Niramya did believe he was inheriting the madness of his ancestors.

His table was surrounded by moths that had eaten through his blank pages that he meant to write his interpretations in. Hungry, thirsty and delirious with annoyance, he slammed the book on the table once again sending ungrateful echoes through the building. "Impossible!" he thought to himself.

He lay his head on the book and turned his eyes to the moth fluttering on the table drawing its last breaths. He sighed. His eyelids grew in heaviness and fatigue. He fell into a spell of undisturbed sleep, armoured safe from the havoc wreaking moths that screamed with their wings.

Niramya saw the darkness twisting into iridescence and emating images. One here, blurred, another struck with clarity. Voices began to fill the visions and soon he found himself in the middle of the prophecy he seeked. 

Lightning struck against the endless horizon in the thick amethyst cover of the rumbling clouds. The barren circle of warland in the blanket of tall wild trees that only revealed themselves in those instances of lightning, for otherwise it was only the company of darkness that made the land seem like an empty starless plane of the universe.

The air was swift and thick with the scent of wild poppies, red afeem, blue kanjunas and arendees mixed with the overpowering smell of the moist wood of giant ancient trees that rose up to fifty metres in the chilling wind of the Tantrahimaya. A flood of rain drained from the highland downwards, dragging away arms, swords, horses, all alike in piles of flesh mixing in the icy glacial waters, unrecognizable and indistinguishable.

Thousands of beings, hundreds of gods and even more demons were now in the womb of the mighty Atmatran and their souls had been woven into the fates of the sea. The rain rang its deafening echoes around the only few that remained standing. Hardly, for they were exhausted. Six months ago this barren land was covered with its same high wild trees and it had never seen a flood for five hundred years.

When the curse had befallen, all the animals had migrated to the lower plains. The foothills of the uninhabited ancient ranges witnessed the crawling of the beings of the mainlands. War and destruction announced its fragrance in the air long before the first blow. 

"You are losing. Every strike of lightning flashes the blood of your people to us all, we are witnesses. Lay down your arms. Surrender or" 

"Krin, I don't like it when you talk." interrupted the last Demon King standing on his two feet, leaning on his mighty crescent sword that bore a thousand threads of the Mystic Hill in its hand.

His armor, that covered his broad lean body, was made from the magical glacial shards of Atmatran's heart, it was darker than the night and unbreakable. His long white hair flew with the raging wind, wild with freedom, blood parting from the strands of his hair in the rain.

His skin, otherwise pale and snowy, flushed with hot anger throbbing through his entire body. Taking a breath, now standing erect with his wounded left leg that bled profusely, "don't pretend to be merciful. There are no humans here. There is no one to clap for your drama here…" Yavaran lifted his sword and threw it over his shoulder, he took a few steps forward against the raging flood pouring by him, with sudden tears in his thundercloud eyes, he paced to running and rose high, slaughtering and fighting.

Brawling to breathe. His vigor shook the few gods left, who had hardly come down to battle. The only remaining of their proud venture. They were warned but they were too blind with shastras and the new line of scriptures being passed down, emating and promoting bigotry, casteism and thirst for power.

Worship, everyone was thirsty for worship. Yavaran cut through people he knew, people he had blessed in his lifetime, people he had saved in his lifetime. He cried. He howled. He butchered them. "This is your mercy." he said, splashed with the blood of the people who had labelled him as their enemy. "This is your mercy. I have the blood of my friends on my hands." he pulled his sword out of yet another body.

"I raised these warriors. These boys have played with my son." he stomped his foot into the water splashing blood over the god a few steps away from him. "Entire villages slaughtered. For what? For your new knowledge?" his voice thundered.

"Your forefathers, your Great Mother, what about the peace they built?" He spit into the water.

"What kind of new world do you propose to bring where your scriptures only lie in the hands of parrots, spreading rubbish. Hoarding power." he was face to face with Krin, who was of a slightly smaller build with black neatly braided hair tied in the fashion of a bun which he rarely ever opened. He was red with shame and ill intention

" This is not dharma. This is not order. This is not mercy." Yavaran looked right through Krin. Krin pushed Yavaran into the water, they rolled in the blood of their armies clinging to each other's throats.

"I will not be insulted by you of all people!" Krin stabbed Yavaran and tore his black armour off of his chest. "We do not belong together. We cannot rule the same kingdoms. You have to fall, fate has spoken so" Yavaran threw off Krin before he could finish his sentence. He lifted his arm high in the air, his fingers stretched out, and the water rose from the land all around them, lightning bolted down, captured in his fist and thrown into Krin's eyes.

The land shook with thunder, the two remaining gods gasped and flew to the ground and rushed through the water, "Stop Yavaran! we will all die" Aksina held firm his arm before he could warp the fury of the dark sky in his clenched fist. Aksana stood by his sister as she began to spontaneously combust from touching Yavaran's charged body..

The horizon lit up with the intensity of a blinding white light, "Yavaran she is dying, Yavaran!" Yavaran broke off and sensing the pain of his former friend he withdrew into himself, Aksina stood in tears with flames dying in her aura, watching Yavaran glow beyond comprehension. It had already begun. There was no stopping it now.

Yavaran's body was turning into violent waves of white light that seemed beyond heaven, his screams echoed through the high mountains of Tantrahimaya. His forehead blinked, threatening destruction to the entire world "Krin! I curse you! I curse your battlefield! Your scriptures will blind all those you seek to be worshipped by. You will never read what is being preached of you! You will become a pawn to your own Brahmins!" He bellowed, He howled, every particle of his body vibrating into light, his voice emated the sound of a thousand souls.

He looked at the sky, with his arms wide falling to his knees with the weight of lightning in him "Only with every last drop of your blood will this barren land be restored. It is inevitable. She will come for you!" The light burst and touched everything in the vision of the witnesses, blinding them, spreading across as a wide circle. The temperature of the air reached a ridiculous height sparking an unforgettable fire in the high trees of the old forests.

Thousands of birds escaped into the risky thunder sky hardly dodging the electric waves, melting and evaporating in the explosion. Muting all sounds of the rain, the thunder, the gushing waters. When vision was restored, Yavaran was no more and Krin and his two companions were wounded for life. "Krin!" Aksina held Krin up. Aksana fell to his knees. "What have we done?" 

"Are you done?" Niramya, startled senseless by Murqaya who leaned in close to his face with his mashal. Nirmaya dreamt away and was unaware of the day or the time, he was covered in sweat and his body was hot to add to his confusion. He felt like he was asleep for six months. He ached with immobility, he raised his head to meet Murqaya's eyes.

"No I haven't finished reading.." he glanced at the table and the scripture was gone. There were no moths on the table and his blank pages were untouched.

"What you seek ,you have." Murqaya spoke these words to Niramya who stared into his earthy brown eyes of sunlight, he heard the mashal hit the floor echoing a thud through his ears and he found himself under the midday sun outside the building.

"What…" he searched for words. "Let me back in! What do you mean I have it!" he banged the huge doors of the Pustakalaya as the merchants in the streets stared at him. A group of women passing by giggled at the sight of him. Niramya checked himself.

He nervously looked around and began walking away with his pages pressed to his chest. He heard a ruckus in the street as he was rushing, "Let go of me! Argh! You scoundrel" a girl shrieked with her arms around a pillar, clinging to it with all her might against being dragged by the two armed men.

Niramya's heart filled with uneasiness. People gathered all around with indignant indulgence in drama. Niramya, as he elbowed his way through the crowd, shouted out, "The fall of the Cruel Kingdom" the crowd chanted along with him. All the people tired of the heavy taxes and the burdens of life sang with this young scholar.

"The Fall of the Cruel Kingdom! Doomed! Doomed!" The guards were pelted by stones by some of the protesters. The girl took the opportunity to slam one of the Guards with his own shield. The crowd howled in laughter. A few other guards in the vicinity had come to intervene, but before they could figure out the cause of the mishap the girl had escaped.