Chapter 3: Iravan, the demonic god

It was harvest season. The winds blew leaving many sneezing and others yet infected with nights of celebration and festivity. The Karr Kingdom was hardly an impressive imperial reign. It was a huge pastoral industry at its best. 

The absence of war and threat had given rise to delicate citizens and indelicate thought. More people indulged in grabbing intellectual tyranny over others rather than promote fair living and free knowledge. Karr bound about fifty villages under its court. These villages were home to demons and human beings all alike.

One such village was Yara, the brightlight.The caravan had set in like every summer and tricks and mystics filled the street. Unlike the other ignorant villages tyrannized by brahmin scripture, Yara always welcomed its odd visitors and travellers. "Roll the dice." said a man dressed in a khet partug covered with a dark shawl, adjusting the kufi with one of his fingers resting on his left temple.

His opponent checked himself as he clenched his right fist with the ivory dice clasped in it. A boy of about 11, short stature and eyes like burning coal, stood kneeling by his master as he waited for this opponent to roll the dice.

Dasis, fortune tellers, faith healers, peeped in with curious anticipation, betting and grudging among themselves, as the game came to an unpredictable fate. The master of the tent, a proud old man with his kufi bearing golden threads, has been promised 70 years of bonded labour if he wins.

The rather young opponent, dressed in a long black overcoat, stitched by the banjaras of sindh, that covered his rubrum kasaya. Everything about him followed rumors from his kasaya being washed in the blood of his enemies to the infamous chances he has had with fate. Neither man nor god, he was about to lose the one thing left to him of honour, his freedom.

"My boy, fate cannot be unwoven. Once tangled it is…" the old man's words were interrupted with the fall of a dice that threw the whole audience into indignant raging laughter. The dasis howled with excitement and the fortune tellers lost their money to faith healers, the tent shook with mirth and iniquitous folly.

"You… you scoundrel! You have played unfair! There is no way! Magic! Treachery! Damn you!" the old man contracted into a sorry bundle of regrets. "Now. my wish." said the young man, punching his thigh and resting his arm, "I hope you are honorable of your word old man?" the man nodded with grief shining in his eyes that were locked onto the ground.

The young victor, now standing up, in a dramatic gesture with his arms open, "bear witness, oh mystics of the infamous caravan." the people gathered were frozen with anticipation. " here I will make my wish and it should be granted by your lord. Bear witness. For it is the Law of Word." "oh just make your wish and leave.

A ruckus for nothing I say!" muttered the old man, taking out his keys and the chest of treasures he had earned and conned off of the many individuals who came through his tent in the travelling caravan. "Give me the boy."

There were sounds of foolish howling, eyes stretching with surprise, the people had been dragged beyond their abilities to cope with the turn of these events. " you fool!" cried a woman from the uninvited spectators.

Coming to his senses, his eyes gleaming with hope and general disrespect at imbecility, the old man smirked at first.

Losing his will to hold back his laughter, he burst out "the boy? You want this slug? Oh what fortune it is! Oh what fortune it is for mother earth to bear such fools! Why! Take him. I have no use of him! He may as well be good for tending donkeys while they sleep! You hear? While they sleep." the boy blushed all over with shame.

" I will take him. With your leave tent lord, may this be half of your promise to me. I will come back again to take your favour of the other half, honour your word, so long!" 

Before the old man could manifest his regrets on his countenance, the young man swooned the crowd with his swiftly flowing black overcoat, turning once to ask the boy to follow him out, he left in the same storm he had entered the tent. "What a fool? Is he a fool at all?" cried an unnoticed spectator.

"Is it true?" asked the boy. "Have you defeated entire clans of demons with just one spell?"

"Yes"

"Do you collect the skulls of your enemies and drink in them? Oh! OH! And is it true you have pawned your soul to attain clairvoyance? Is that why you have that mark on your hand?"

" Yes. and you know what else is true?" said Iravan, only stopping once in his busy absent minded gaite through the stuffed market, leaning in close to the boy's face and curious eyes, "It's all true! I also eat children on every full moon, hmm, isn't there one today?" he winked at Vastav and turned like the wind and resumed walking again.

Vastav followed with a lump in his throat and eyes that gave away his efforts to not tear up.

Iravan's eyes had begun to wander in confusion. There was a ghostly whisper in the sultry crowd. A chill in the summer heat. "Ira…. Ira" He saw a woman. Dark, long faced with unbridled waves of luminous grey hair flowing over her shoulders, her clothes that seemed odd for even a man who's lived for centuries now.

"Vastav! Take this." said Iravan as he stared into the empty lane. "Take it and go home. Here are the keys. Ask the old man to cook this."

Iravan rushed like the swift wind, his brows concentrated on a quest, he rushed through a sea of people, a voice ringing, resonating, and he stopped nowhere.

He looked for the smell of turmeric in nocturnal cestrum, one exclusive to a man who conned people by pretending to tell fortunes. Sniffing like a wild hound, turning, bending and eyes never blinking, he halted at a wall after attracting much attention with his strange feline demeanor.. He put his hand on the surface and felt through the cracks and with one touch he was on the inside.

"He will marry you." a woman shrieked with uncontrollable joy, in her lofty voice that shook her loftier body. Within the same instant she jerked up, mumbling in horror, she rushed to the door throwing the money on the floor, screaming words native to her cult.

"Iravan. Terrorizing my customers with your charm again. How very like you…" Said the old fortune teller who had just lost a line of customers. "Listen up you old hag" said Iravan, unceremoniously sitting down in front of him, his black overcoat circled the ground around him like an abysmal well.

"Break this spell."

The old man looked into Iravan's eyes, holding his hands in his, he left to bring tea from the boiling pot in the corner of his gypsy room. "Drink"

"Marqaya, you were the celebrated magician of the East Sun, now look at you, reading fortunes and breaking spells for demons" said Iravan as he sipped tea and laughed indignantly.

"I've not broken any spell." Iravan looked at Marqaya with aggressive intent,

"It isn't a spell. You fool. You are bound. It is fate. It is destiny."

Iravan threw himself, in thundering laughter.

"Destiny? Didn't destiny die in the old war between the gods and the demons? Does a demon have something called a destiny? Oh! Marqaya, you're treating me like a peasant. Iravan threw the cup on the ground but it never hit, it appeared right back in the tray it was served on. " I didn't come for your cheap tricks" 

"Is it, IIravan, that you are so thoughtless. For it would be evident even to a child that you have no sleep, that you are haunted and wandering restlessly. Tell me, it must be true, you just saved a slave boy? Why? What is this penance for?"

Iravan rose up. with his back to Marqaya, "you're getting old Marqaya. 

"Iravan." Marqaya waited for him to meet his eyes. "It cannot be avoided." 

Meanwhile Vastav had found Iravan's quarters. It was an old house which was on rent. He handed the old man sitting in the open verandah of the drawing room, "Iravan has sent this to be prepared"

"And who are you my boy?"

"I am Vastav. From the caravan."

Vastav sniffed around, investigating the house with his burnt left foot, leaning on a walking stick. He didn't dare look at what was being cooked, for fear that if he entered the kitchen he would see children tied up, being slaughtered and boiled for a full moon's feast. He shuddered.

"Is this how it ends then" He seated himself in the old man's room, in a corner in the afternoon sunlight. He shuffled through the memories of his dear mother, he wept without knowing, he became angry without knowing. 

Iravan entered late into the night as was his custom. He was welcomed by the old man who then left to prepare dinner. Iravan found Vastav fast asleep on the ground in the corner. "Pathetic" he whispered with discontent. "Did he eat anything?" 

"My lord, he wouldn't step in the kitchen. I didn't bother he seemed quite frightened"

Iravan laughed.

After supper he lay on the slanting roof of the house, thinking about the voice in the crowd. Those eyes that he always felt on him, that seemed to vanish the second he ever caught them.

"Ira… Ira'' there were faint whispers in his head. He followed them into the plain farmland, empty after harvest, under the blue fire of the moon.

As he went forward, the hue was crept up by amber splashes of the light of woodfire, dancing and casting its rhythm onto the heart of the farmland. The scent of sugarcane leaves was still in the hot air. There were chants in Sanskrit, a circle of humanoid shadows moving round the iron pillar in the centre.

Jackals had gathered, crying, never stepping into the light. Every step further, Ira's heart rumbled with violent thuds, his head was light with mortal fear, a fear never seen on his face even against his worst enemies. The circle parted ceremoniously to let Ira in, bowing to him and howling in joy. They leapt up in dance and shook with feverish fantasy… chanting louder now, spreading wide their circle as if they multiplied within themselves. Women, men, the young and the old.

Sparks of fire filled the air like fireflies, the collective echoes of the people drowned out any trace of external reality. Iravan took another step forward as if he was wrapped in the vortex of the woman. It was her. Tied to the pillar without a trace of cloth or ornament on her body that he was used to seeing, her hair unbridled and wild, her eyes white from all ends to the centre.

The scent of her body in the air drowned out the hideousness of the procession. Ira closed his eyes as he stepped closer, placing the dagger in his hand on her scarred neck, she looked at him with nothing to look with, as he slit her throat and himself bled. A faint tear escaped his tired eyes. He didn't look away.

He didn't notice the fires rise and the people howl on their knees like animals. The scent in the air mixed with the blood of the woman who had haunted him for centuries. Her blood trickled into his hands and dripped down his elbows. Unable to utter anything, his own throat bled as if he cut a mirror. "Ira"

Iravan woke up on the roof where he had fallen asleep, he sat up with fear immediately scanning his surroundings. He sat feeling the tear that hadn't even dried on his cheek. The dream had been broken but the scent remained in the air. 

"Are you, real?"