The road to the pyramid, known as the temple of light, lay to his right. Straight across him was the street of delicacies. Shutters down, benches empty, the shops slumbered. He hadn't wanted to stop here, but somehow his feet wanted to linger a moment more. To watch the high walls of his clan opposite the shops. Now, in the process of being painted red. The owl was now part of Mars after all. A knot lay heavy in his throat, and memories of that fateful day came unannounced.
His eyes turned moist. He wrapped his cloak tighter, hiding from the sharp gaze of his own history and resumed his walk. He passed the alley, where he had his first kiss, averting his eyes in fear of remembering again. His chest ached. He hurried.
He reached Dami Square. A large circular area that was the melting pot of many such streets. Huge signposts named each of those roads. He turned left, towards the widest way. While crossing, he passed the tiny guard post in the centre. It was a crystal cylinder, hardly five feet in diameter and with a metal bell tower at the top. A large time-bell swayed there, one of the many such prana-powered yantras strewn around the city. Inside the cramped booth, a guard dozed over a small desk.
Karnan tiptoed under his snores. After passing the sleeping man, he broke into a sprint towards the large board that said, 'The temple of light'.
A hundred feet wide road stretched ahead. Large cedars jutted on both sides. Their needle-like leaves were a dash of amber over green and yellow. Winter was coming. He strafed left, reaching behind the tree line. To his further left lounged a great wall of white, with painted lions prancing over it in colours of red, purple and white. Beyond it was the humongous estate of the lion clan. Karnan paused to gather his breath. His hands shook, and his knees were on the verge of buckling.
He centred his breathing. Straight ahead, the pyramid glittered through the leaves. No guards patrolled this area. Being so close to the seat of power of the city. No thief could ever dare and other than cosmic light and a spectacle of the universe. There was scant of anything valuable that the pyramid provided.
That was what the guards must have presumed. Karnan clasped his cloak's hood to his ears. The blue colours of the uniform had faded and didn't sit well with his youthful features.
He shot. Boots flinging dirt and his fear away as the gates to the temple inched closer. He vaulted over the short brick wall and landed on a bed of grass. Not a single soul in sight. He sighed with relief and moved towards the crystalline temple. Twenty feet to his right was the road he had then walked with his friends. No, that wasn't correct. The Karnan who had been there was dead, and if he succeeded today. He'd be a step closer to bringing him back to life.
The garden was a cacophony of green and hazel. Aged leaves from trees of all kinds blew around him. Crows cawed, indulged in a turf war among themselves. Monkeys screeched, and rabbits hopped like fluffy clouds over the grass bed.
He reached the temple. So far, so good. The entrance was sealed with a locking yantra. He turned, skirting the structure to get to the back door. There, he found his first surprise.
The single, sliding door was left open. That was strange? Did someone forget? The temple doors, like all doors, were fitted with yantras on their edges. On being shut and provided with a little Prana, an adhesive bond formed between the door and the frame. Essentially locking them until the same prana is used to remove the adhesion.
Cautiously, he strode in. The hall was empty. White seats circled in descending stairs, surrounding the large telescope hovering over the square-sized table. He crouched under a nearby chair and waited, counting his breaths.
A hundred breaths and yet nothing out of the ordinary happened. Karnan slid out. His heart was hammering, and sweat dripped from his forehead as he crept closer. It was awfully quiet. Like time itself had been paused. Once near the table, he quickly took out the three pills and placed them below the scope.
As per Shri, the dull white glow from the balls should adopt a silvery hue once completely charged. So, he waited. Moments stretched until he could no longer ignore it. The pills weren't changing colour. What could be wrong? Were they absorbing even?
Panic gripped him. He adjusted their position; perhaps the alignment wasn't right. The scope threw an illuminated disk over the golden surface of the table. With both his palms, he grouped them at the centre of the refraction. Again, nothing changed. The pills were the same dull white as before.
What is wrong? He hissed to himself.
Bells tinkled a note shorter. Half an hour had already passed. Another half and Shri will come searching for him. Karnan didn't want her to. Amitabh's words still haunted him. She should never use her life force to aid him. Never.
Karnan slowly inhaled, paused for three heartbeats to let his body absorb the prana and then exhaled. As he did so, an idea struck him like a thunderclap.
He checked a pill. Its surface was marred with winding lines, like the patterns seen over finger tips. It was an ancient mantra, bestowing the property of adhesion. Exactly like that over the open door.
He then bent under the telescope and squinted to look at the eyepiece lens. To his elation, there too, over the surface of the glass, a mantra was engraved. Its pattern closely matched the one on the pill. Nearly close, because in addition to the parallel lines on the pill, this one had vertical bridges every second line. His view went to the table, the entire surface was a field of undulating and at intervals bridged paths.
Telescopes were a tool of far sight. But, when an adhesive mantra is fixed to it, with another over to a surface like the table, and if someone lies over the said surface and channels prana. A bond is formed, and cosmic light gets attached to the body.
The mantra on the pill was old, and due to the mismatch, it couldn't absorb the light from the lens. If the door hadn't been unlocked, he could have never seen the markings of its mantra and would have never figured out the real problem.
Thanking whoever had left that thing open. Karnan took out a thin needle from his pocket and altered the drawings. Once done, he put the pills back on the table. Hardly a breath would have passed, and all six of the pills now pulsed a deep silver. A hum echoed, silencing the hall's solitude. Stifling a jubilant yell, he pocketed the humming pills.
He was about to leave when another thought occurred to him. If the pills got charged, then so can he. Karnan climbed the table and lay under the head-sized lens. As the light poured out of the glass and into him. He watched his chakra. Silver mist was gradually filling it. He was now a three-drop Pathik. So, his chakra appeared bigger than before. Though that wasn't true. Chakras never physically increased or shrank in size as they were astral organs. With every increase in star drop, their depth grew, making them able to encompass more and more light.
He kept his focus on his chakra. Such quick assimilation was dangerous. A slight break in concentration could lead to catastrophic consequences. Shri had warned him about this. He kept his breathing steady, inhaling prana in a fixed rhythm. With every trickle of the light, he wrapped his chakra with prana. With such rapid accumulation, the chakra walls kept cracking only to be healed with prana the next moment.
His head had begun to throb, and sweat pooled under him. His chakra filled up fast. The light reached the halfway mark. He had to stop when it was three-fourths, to reserve space for prana.
He felt it then. A sudden drop in the atmospheric pressure. Like seconds before a lightning strike. Karnan rushed prana to his chakra. He had to disconnect, quickly and that too without harming his core. Heavy steps came from outside the door to his right. He poured in more prana; his lungs stung with the effort. With slow movements, he slid away from the scope, all the while shrouding his chakra with prana. All it took was a little tear, and he'd be crippled for life.
Someone entered. Karnan rolled off the table. Like a cat, he landed noiselessly and again rolled underneath it. His chakra was undamaged. But, it wouldn't be for long if whoever had come caught him.
The table was at least three feet high and ten feet broad. On his back, he scooped away from the edge and towards the centre. The person wore black leather; Karnan couldn't see his face, but his frame belonged to a man. Wide and huge.
Each step of his made a strange crackling sound, as if the floor's mosaic was being sundered. A long cloak of the same black leather flapped behind him. More of his body became visible.
Karnan's breath froze as the golden lion head over the man's right shoulder came into view. The patriarch of the lion clan, Vikramaditya Ma Singha, stopped near the base of the first row. Karnan's body moved back on its own. High cheeked with finely trimmed facial hair, he looked regal. A short yet thick hairline was combed over, adding to his handsome features. But, despite these, he wasn't anything less than terrifying to look at. The man projected power like the sun. His eyes had the same ferocity as the lion over his shoulder. Karnan swallowed. Vikramaditya began to circle the table. His eyes were looking up at the telescope.
"You are late."
His blood curdled. The raspy, almost croaking-like voice of an old man had come from right above him. As if someone was perched on the table. But how was it possible?
Vikramaditya smirked, and when he answered, it felt like thunder roaring inside his ears. "So what if I am?"
Footsteps circled over him. "I am not here to fight, Patriarch. Lay down your blood lust. Moreover, this meeting has been compromised."
Vikramaditya's eyes shot to him all of a sudden. "I don't care," he stretched out his hand.
The lion's head on his shoulder sprang with a hiss. With a snake's body, it slithered towards him. Karnan yelled. Like a cobra, the head raised, forked tongue slipping in and out of its snout.
Karnan tried to crawl away. A stabbing pain came from his ankle, and he was dragged. He clawed on the marble floor, nails screeching in defiance.
The pain was too intense, enough to make him scream. He was pulled out and lifted.
His right ankle bled in the thing's mouth. Like a fish, he hung upside down before the man.
Vikramaditya pouted his nose in disgust. "I hate rats," he said.
"I presume you know this boy," the strange voice spoke behind him.
"Doesn't matter," he said. The lion-serpent shook itself, and Karnan swayed like a swing. He yelled.
Vikramaditya scoffed, "Shut up." Karnan was flung and crashed into a line of seats. The wood broke, and he toppled over, along with the shattered planks. He rolled over to his back. His ankle bled like a tap, but he could still move his foot. Nothing was broken, fortunately. He sat.
"Now, lay out your offer," Vikramaditya grunted.
"The boy still lives," said the voice. Karnan turned his head towards the table. There, over the telescope's side, squatted a creature. A masked man with wings in place of hands and hooves of a goat where his feet should be. White runes glowed on his bald pate, and he glared at him with red pupils.
Vikramaditya swatted his hand, "he won't be for long. I am short of time, let's begin."
The creature lifted a wing at him, "he needs to die first."
Vikramaditya clicked his tongue, "tsk. Fine."
The lion-serpent lunged for him, aiming for his head this time.