Tantrics Of Old (39 page)

‘I cannot give you my blood,’ Kaavsh said, looking straight at Adri, grim.

‘I have respected your secret. Gray and Maya will never know,’ Adri replied.

‘Are you
blackmailing—
’ Kaavsh began in anger, but Adri cut him off.

‘No. I’m not. I’m trying to
not
be like my father for once,’ Adri said, looking at the Angel, keeping direct eye contact. ‘For once in my life I’m trying to do what is
right
. They will never know regardless of whether you give me your blood or not, because that would not be right otherwise. But you, Angel, are you doing the right thing here?’

There was a pause. Kaavsh stared at Adri, who stared back.

‘Fallen are filthy,’ Kaavsh said. ‘They are cursed and banished, and their wings have always been ripped off as punishment for their sins. A Fallen cannot gain such easy entrance back into our ranks, Tantric. It will be the greatest dishonour there is to our order.’

‘You talk about dishonour?’ Adri asked incredulously. ‘Your order is strictly political right now; the idealism you’re telling me about is dead and you know it. Who are you ashamed of—your three brothers in hell, or the rest of your brothers who are in Old Kolkata strictly for their own agendas? You used to be saviours, guardians, now look at you. Look at you, look at the government you side with!’

Silence loomed.

‘There are still many left, Tantric,’ Kaavsh said. ‘Many who are not influenced.’

‘You can count them on your fingertips, Angel,’ Adri said.

Kaavsh looked at Adri, troubled as before.

‘There will be no order left to worry about!’ Adri snarled. ‘You feel the change coming, goddammit! You have the gift to connect to the entire fabric and yet you are so blind!’

‘Truth always hurts, Tantric,’ Kaavsh said softly.

‘You are one of the few good ones,’ Adri spoke after a moment. ‘No one cares about their earth siblings anymore.’

‘I do not want Maya to stay in the Devil Mask, do you understand?’ Kaavsh asked calmly. ‘If you cannot pull her out then kill her. Kill her, no matter what Gray says. She must not go through that kind of existence.’

Adri looked down at the ground. ‘You have my word, Angel,’ he said slowly.

‘She was looking for proof,’ Kaavsh continued. ‘She wanted to work for the government, to study magic and become a Tantric or a Sorcerer. The government denied her the chance based on her ancestry; she was a little girl then, but it stung her. She had always wanted to know why she was denied—she suspected that someone in her lineage had magic in their blood, and had been involved in something the government was trying to hide. The records were all abandoned at JU and she knew that too.’

‘And what about her ancestry made MYTH deny her?’

‘I would not know. I never went looking in JU despite her pleading. In the Old City, some things are always better unearthed.’

Adri nodded.

‘Do you have a vial?’ Kaavsh asked.

Adri had kept one aside for this exact purpose. An empty vial had not been removed by the Commandos when they frisked him. He produced it, handing it to the Angel. Kaavsh looked at it long and hard, then threw out his right hand. The Angel’s Blade had been summoned. It shimmered into existence in his right hand, a long, magnificent sword fashioned out of pure crystal. After rolling back a sleeve, Kaavsh used an edge on his left arm. Blood fell, bright red. The Angel was careful about it—he caught every drop delicately in the vial, careful not to spill a single drop. When the vial was full, he ran a healing hand on the wound, which closed up. Corking the vial, he gave it to Adri.

Adri held it up in the light, hardly able to believe what he was holding: one of the hardest things to procure, one of the rarest sights seen by mortals—and one of the most powerful magical sources ever created. The blood of Angels. And he finally had it.

‘Don’t wave it around,’ Kaavsh growled. ‘This is between us, Tantric.’

‘Right,’ Adri said, pocketing the vial carefully. ‘Kaavsh, I was hoping you could inform me of the most recent sightings of the Devil Mask.’

‘A task force has already been dispatched,’ Kaavsh said. ‘The thing was last seen near Howrah, that’s the best we know.’

‘Good enough. We’ll need our stuff back from the Commandos.’

‘It will be done. Tantric—I don’t know how what just happened did. But don’t prove me wrong. You have kept Gray safe so far. Don’t fail my trust.’

‘You will have both your siblings back,’ Adri said. ‘You have my word.’

The metal dragonfly buzzed as it landed on Adri’s shoulder. Adri removed it gently and unscrewed the tip of the tail, removing the parchment within. He read the message and knew where to go. Aurcoe was waiting for him.

That was well played
, the Wraith said.

‘Funny,’ Adri said. ‘I was honest.’

Nevertheless. The plot is quite exquisite though. Dirty secrets you keep
.

‘You stay out of this, Mazumder.’

Goodbyes with Kaavsh hadn’t been very long drawn. He told Gray he couldn’t accompany them as he was needed at the Lake for Fire, that it was up to him to see to the safety of their sister. Gray accepted the responsibility ceremoniously, it was clear that Kaavsh was a role model and his word was law. ‘Your informant—how will he help?’ Gray asked Adri as they walked.

Adri lit a cigarette. ‘There are things afoot, Gray,’ he said. ‘Things that have to do with my father’s kidnapping, with Maya, with something big which is about to happen. I need to know what I’m getting into before I do.’

‘We are saving Maya no matter what, right?’

‘Yes, we are.’

‘Then let’s go and meet this informant of yours. Who is he?’

‘You saw him after the train ride. A Fallen, now about to become an Angel.’

‘How far is he?’ Fayne asked, speaking after a long time.

‘West. A little west of here.’

Their walk wasn’t long. They saw the tree Aurcoe had described soon—it was a giant, one of the largest trees they had ever seen. It stood in the centre of a large semi-devastated park. Two figures were sitting beneath its shade. Aurcoe stood up as they approached. Adri could sense his restlessness, his excitement, like a child eager for his newest toy. He hadn’t changed at all, and if he had had to go through a lot to find the information Adri needed, he wasn’t exactly worse for wear.

‘Calm down, Fallen,’ Adri said, ignoring Aurcoe’s outstretched hand. ‘I get my information and
then
you get your blood. You know I have it.’

Disappointment streaked across the Fallen’s boyish face, only to be replaced a second later by a grin. ‘Yes, I can feel its power. The raw power,’ he said, his voice trembling slightly.

Adri looked at the other man. An old man, with pearl-white hair and a beard. He sat simply, wearing a simple cotton dhoti and kurta. A rough wooden stick lay at his side. He appeared harmless, looking at them with a friendly smile. Adri glanced at Aurcoe for an explanation.

‘He’s one of the wandering storytellers of Old Kolkata,’ Aurcoe said, adjusting his glasses. ‘I consulted a number of sources, went to dangerous places and read forbidden tomes, but nothing is more reliable than a storyteller’s tale. These guys know a lot. Lore is what they are. And this storyteller in particular helped me put it all together and make sense out of what I had been reading and finding out.’

Adri nodded. There was no doubting the exaction of legend the storytellers churned out. He marvelled at the fact that he was standing in front of one of their kind right now, most were dead, and the remaining ones were extremely hard to find; someone none but a Fallen could have found.

‘I am Adri, a Tantric,’ Adri said, stretching out his hand. The old man took it, still smiling.

‘I am nameless, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Children call me Dadu.’

Adri nodded slowly and sat down in front of him. ‘Even I shall call you Dadu then.’

‘I sense great power within you,’ the old man said, looking at Adri. ‘I wish I had found you earlier, when the Devil Mask crossed the River.’

‘You know about—’

Adri raised his eyebrows as he heard Gray react as well.

‘I was there when the creature manifested,’ the old man said sadly. ‘I tried to get help, I went looking for Tantrics. Unfortunately, when I got back with some MYTH Tantrics it was too late—the Settlement of Barasat had been devoured. The creature went into the Shongar Ruins, and through to the Ondhokaar. It could have moved anywhere from there by now.’

‘I am hunting the Devil Mask,’ Adri said. ‘It has been sighted near Howrah and MYTH has dispatched forces already.’

‘Dear boy,’ the old man said, ‘you are being hunted yourself. Death is hunting you for a reason, and to know the reason you must know more about the Horsemen first.’

‘Yes,’ Adri nodded, settling into a more comfortable position. A story was on its way, perhaps one he would not like.

‘The Keeper sits in his Library, doing his task well,’ the old man began. ‘He keeps souls of the departed and of the unborn; he keeps them well and guards them with all of his terrifying skill. It is a job he has been doing since the beginning of time, since life itself manifested on this Plane. But among all of these souls, the Keeper found a certain soul he could not risk keeping with him. He found it eons ago, when men had not learnt to speak and were afraid of thunder; and even back then he knew of its power, for it whispered to him and told him of things he had not seen, of secrets he had not heard. The Keeper is an ancient creature with no mortal desire or want; he is endless, and he is chronos itself; but even then he was afraid of the dark presence he knew the soul would attract.

‘For the soul was a unique one—it was the soul of a
God
. The only God who ever had a mortal soul had siphoned it off on a mere whim and sent it to the Keeper, and had then forgotten about it. But a soul is not a piece of clothing to be simply removed and thrown away. For a mortal it is everything—the very existence, but bodiless—for the God concerned, however, he had no problem surviving without it as they were mighty beings of a time long past; they created the rules and were not bound by anything. The
soul
in question, however, carried a lot more with it than the God could have ever suspected. It held the very secret of
creation
within itself, and when it whispered this fact to the Keeper, he arranged for the soul to be taken away from his Library.’

No one breathed in the pleasant afternoon under the tree’s shade. Everyone hung on to the storyteller’s words, even Aurcoe who knew the story well.

‘Inside a large unknown mountain, deeper than where the liquid fires of the earth run, a fortress was carved. The best metal, the best wood, the best magic, and the best architects were used for this purpose, none of them of mortal origin. This fortress was called
Ashil Heob
, the fabled impenetrable place—and once every single kind of magic was used to cement its foundations, its protectors were chosen. The protectors had to be perfect—they would not need to sleep or eat, they would be alert every moment of the day and the night, of the month and the year. They would be unconquerable, and they would carry weapons and wear armours forged in the armoury of
Nedrashish
itself, the forge of Dominion.

‘Four brothers were chosen for this role. They were not of mortal origin and their father had offered them for service willingly. They had been trained and trained well. The brothers were first outfitted with armours and steel as they saw fit; then, out of the best stables in the Plane they selected four steeds of varying degrees of power and skill. And then, they retreated into the heart of
Ashil Heob
, to start their blood-bound duty of guarding the soul which had been locked in the deepest vault that the fortress had to offer. The vault was controlled by the four brothers, and could only be unlocked by all four together, as each brother knew a separate phrase that needed to be whispered into each of the four locks for them to open. Each brother hid his own phrase from the other brothers; and since this was considered duty, it did not lead to any disagreements or conflict. They loved one another and lived well for hundreds of years, serving as the most capable guardians of all time.

‘But just as the Keeper had feared, the dark presence did sense the soul in time. He was a vicious creature—a fiend, a murderer, a trickster and a thief who had many names. He was
Abaddon
, the Father of lies and the Angel of the Bottomless Pit; he was
Belial
, the accuser and the tempter, the Prince of Darkness and the Serpent of Old. He sensed this power, this power he now realised he must have. He knew of the fortress too, and knew it had no weaknesses. He tried forsaking this treasure, but he could not; it ruled his thoughts, the possibilities of what could be his robbed him of sleep and hunger and lust. And he sat in the shadows and hatched a plan that would get him this object he so coveted.

‘The four brothers did not leave the fortress except when they went horse riding, for they loved their steeds and they loved the open air. They were true to responsibility, however, and only one would go riding while the other three would stand guard, and this was always the rule they followed.