Tantrics Of Old (58 page)

Where is it that I can look for you?

I talk to you, I tell you things

I stand tall above your crumbled buildings

I stand deep beneath your darkest recesses

I am here where you are

In your stagnancy I smell life

In your arms I will feel death

In your embrace I will breathe my last

I will return to you, from whence I came
.

‘He’s
dead
?’ Gray said, his voice choked. ‘Adri can’t be dead.’

They stood in front of his clothes. Nothing else remained. Maya bent down and rummaged among the clothes, finally withdrawing the Araakh. She unhitched the soul gem from the base and looked at it. It was a translucent gem within which a small light moved about, peacefully, at ease.

‘He’s not dead,’ Maya said, smiling. ‘This was Adri’s deception, the biggest trick he ever pulled in his life. That seal is not going to open with Mazumder’s soul.’

Gray gazed at the soul gem in disbelief.

‘The clever bastard,’ he whispered.

‘He didn’t plan on it,’ Maya said. ‘But he figured it out in the end.’

‘But what do we do now?’ Gray asked. ‘You have Adri’s soul. So what?’

Maya turned to Fayne. Her attitude had changed once more. A new fire burned in her. One very similar to what Fayne remembered seeing in Adri. Maya’s mind was set. She knew what was to be done. ‘Are you free to accept a new charge?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Fayne replied.

‘I charge you with helping us as we go about the task of attempting to restore Adri back, if that is possible, and to prevent the coming of the Apocalypse,’ Maya said, grim. ‘Your fees will be paid to you after successful completion.’

Fayne was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. ‘I accept gladly,’ he said.

‘We all owe Adri something, huh?’ Maya said, the slightest hint of a smile on her lips.

Fayne was silent, but Maya knew that beneath the mask, his face had probably given way to a reluctant smile.

‘Maya,’ Gray muttered. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘We don’t have much time, that’s for sure,’ Maya said. ‘I don’t know where Death is headed to break its last seal. It won’t be long before it discovers it has the wrong soul. It will hunt us. We must move fast.’

Gray picked the
Ai’n Duisht
off the floor. ‘We’ll need this,’ he said.

‘Where are we headed?’ Fayne asked.

‘I have heard rumours of the Keeper for a long time, and the Soul Library where he sits. If there is someone who will know how to restore a soul to a body, it will be him.’

‘The Keeper is legend,’ Gray protested, as they started walking towards the twin doors of the church.

‘So are the Horsemen. So is the Apocalypse. Don’t you see? Everything is real. Everything was always real, just hidden away,’ Maya said.

‘How are we going to track down the Keeper?’ Fayne asked.

‘I know someone who should know. We have to track
him
down first,’ Maya said.

‘Who?’ Gray asked.

Fayne opened the twin doors. The streets before them were in chaos. The storm. Lightning lit everything for mere seconds before the gale blew everything away. The trees around the church were close to collapsing. Thunder roared across the night.

‘Demon Commander Ba’al,’ Maya said. ‘The first Demon Adri ever summoned.’

They entered the night, and the storm swallowed them.

A book is a journey, perhaps both for the reader and the individual who wrote it; one that is not over with the last word on the last page. Once the destination is at hand though, this writer, this individual, might want to sit down, rest, catch his breath, but more often than not, he will look behind at the leagues he has travelled, and more often than not, he will reminisce about what it felt like to make the journey in the first place. There is a simple way for him to relive this expedition he so misses by now, and he flips the first page open to start again.

Writing Acknowledgments is a Herculean task; this is not a journey I made alone, and it is perhaps impossible to pen down the gratitude, the love I feel for those who supported me when I was tired. One might call it overrated, this thanking business, but then again, for every person out there who has ever written, their book is their
world
. It is everything, and yet again words must try to describe the indescribable.

I would like to thank my parents, Mayuri and Kishalay Bhattacharjee, and my grandmother, my Dunna, Mira Purkayastha, my uncle, Rahul Purkayastha for being ever so patient and supportive. I know it’s not easy to see a couple of years fly by with nothing really happening except for a little boy typing away, but it is your faith in me which made
Tantrics of Old
possible. PP Da, thank you for igniting the flame; I assure you, it will continue to burn, and burn well. Achintya Jethu, for believing in me, for believing I can try to go back to my roots through the English language. Promona Sengupta, for seeing past the syntax and trusting the book enough to sit down with me and hold the book’s hand, and for the first, unofficial edit and the lovely poem, a gift, one I have chosen to start the book with, something that sums up
Tantrics of Old
and Krishnarjun Bhattacharya.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without Fingerprint! and the lovely people there. Thank you, Shikha Sabharwal, for your enthusiasm and for giving me so much of a free reign; I’m very grateful. Thank you, Gaurav Sabharwal and Bharti Taneja, for supporting me, and humouring the many questions I was constantly bringing to the table. And of course, thank you, Gayatri Goswami, for editing the book as if it were your own, for investing in the universe and the characters, and for putting up with me. I know I have been extremely difficult and moody throughout.

Dipankar Sengupta I cannot thank enough; for your patience, your blind trust, and the hours of conversation over conspiracy theories, and of course, for the book cover and the animated book trailer, both masterfully executed, for the months of pure effort involved. Thank you, Adri Thakur, for the excellent cinematography in the live action book trailer, and for heartening my sojourn into writing. Thank you, Jyotish Sonowal, Kavya Agarwal, and Shantanu Salgaonkar, for your design inputs and expert font critique. Thank you, Dinesh Bharule, for the compositing and the effects. Thank you, Abhinav Swynenberg, for the excellent music in the animated trailer. And thank you, Anupam Alok, for being an excellent legal advisor—it feels amazing to have a lawyer!

Thank you, Samira Thakur, Ma’am, for carrying the lamp in the dark, for that glimmer of hope when I needed it the most.

Thank you, Samit Basu, for finding the time to calm down these nerves frayed by publicity and marketing.

All my loving relatives, thank you. My friends, companions, you who have stood by me—Moinak, Sid, Ratul, Reshudi, Pallavi, Ateesh, Goru, Doya, Aloka, Arka, Avirup, Tumpi, Enakshi, Ria, Samar, Devendra, Pranav, Manas, Ado, Bittu and my brother Rangon.

KRISHNARJUN BHATTACHARYA
is a graduate in Film and Video Communication from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and a post graduate in TV Editing from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. A wanderer of cities and a passionate game reviewer, he’s an absolute lover of all things dark and grotesque, and has deep respect for Ursula Le Guin, Darrell Schweitzer, JRR Tolkien, George RR Martin, and HP Lovecraft, among many others. He dreams of writing compelling fantasy fiction for a living, madman that he is, and telling stories lost to those who would remember. He resides in a post apocalyptic world, terrified of aliens, the walking dead, and secret government WMDs, not to mention what lives under his bed.
Tantrics of Old
is his first novel.

His email id is
[email protected]
and his Twitter handle is
@Akta_Golpo_Shon
.