DEVATHAVI

(Part Four, the final chapter)

PART FOUR

The port of Devanagara.

Not the most exceptional part of the Principality of Rohana, with its small seaward-facing towns and the scent of salt rich in the senses of the bhikkus. Simple people, from fishermen with their lean oarsmen’s muscles to wealthy captains of mighty trading vessels, mingled with the crowd of Buddhist devotees. The rain was coming down hard on Devanagara.

The streets were a quagmire where there was mud, and a slippery hazard where there were paving-stones.

The trail of saffron-hued monks took each step with the slow dignity of gods among men, their devotees and temple workers shielding them with their parasols. The wind chill bit angrily at them and their robes wrapped ever-tighter around their bodies.

The young monk too had his share of trouble.

Mud sloshed under his feet, and the cacophony of toads in the drains stung his ears, some of them hopping around him, their cold eyes smiling ominously at the hordes of flies. He hiked up the trailing edge of his robe to avoid mud splashing against it. The vile little creatures seemed to be judging him; but when the slender form of a rat snake slipped by his heart was in his mouth. A tumbling vortex of feeling gushed out from the dark shores of his mind as he watched the reptile swimming through the deep puddles, searching for a dry haven down a gutter. Its shiny form glistened in his mind as the world around him grew dark…

The memory stormed through him…

He felt his young body becoming supple and slick with oil a mere two years after he’d lain with her. The room was dark but for the set of candles that glowed on the bedside table. A pile of jasmine and water lillies was heaped around them, the flame carrying the wondrous aroma in currents through the boudoir. Her slender hands worked tenderly across his soft body as the coconut oil seeped into his soft young skin. He trembled, fighting back hot tears as his sin bored into him.

Wandering off.

That would be his excuse.

But he was fifteen! Would be be so irresponsible at that age? What would truly be his excuse to have his goddess by him? He wanted to be a man.

Her kisses awakened what little strength his organ bore as he gripped the sides of his bed. His mind too was awakening as he took in her bronzed, majestic beauty. The silky tongue traced over him as she whispered into his ear.

“You’ve probably guessed at my race, haven’t you?” Her blade-sharp canines and inscisors, filed down to almost leopard-like points, nipped at his earlobe. “Our culture struggles against the grip of greater faiths which suffocate our lands, and that is why we are different. We break away from the all-seeing eyes of so many saints and gods who possess us. Let me show you, my little monk. The Naga race is extinct, but we still live on us long as our gods do. We”-she grinned lustfully-“are gods tonight, and here is our heaven.” The monk’s heart pounded against his chest, screaming in terror at the dancer’s vicious, hungry gaze. She straddled him with her strong, lithe legs as she towered over him.

“Lord Kamadeva is among us now!” she cried, ripping away her bodice. “My sweet, sweet darling, I will be the one you will never forget! You there”-she turned, barking at her tearful, trembling companion who stood by the door-“open the damn door. I want my Kali inside. And if you cry again I’ll slap you till you bleed. Same goes for you, boy. Now”-her tone became softer as she silenced his lips with a kiss-“are you ready?”

“Are you mad?” shrieked the other young woman, a pretty, petite girl of around twenty-three. “Both of you! This is a sin that neither of you will live with! Oh my lord, forgive me for this, but do you not have an oath of celibacy to follow? This must not happen tonight, I will not let it happen! This is a sin!” she struggled to keep the floodgates of her eyes closed, to keep the tears within her and cry in private. Her mind was stuffed with the horrors of the Six Hells, of flames rising sky-high, and pretas with immense bellies sticking obscenely out into their rotten world, slavering with hunger. Visions of Mara, King of Hell, danced past her as she watched her associate running her lips over he boy’s struggling body.

“In your damned faith maybe!” roared the Naga dancer, “but not in mine! Bring Kali inside now! And was it ever my sin? I could see this boy’s imagination flashing through his eyes when first we met two years ago. His hopes for me as he saw me, oh they were worthy  of a dog in heat.” She was salivating with excitement.

“So bring in Kali now.”

The other girl told a silent prayer, opened the door and ran outisde, shutting it firmly behind her.

She screamed once in terror, and then a Buddhist prayer rose from her as she crouched on the doorstep.

The monk’s lover shot him a predatory glance that chilled his blood, then turned her attention to the floor.

“My Kali wants to meet you now,” she smiled sweetly as she dismounted him and dropepd onto he floor. He closed his eyes as he shivered through the cold mist of horror that swirled around him. Her moans of pleasure grew in tempo, but most terrifying was the low hiss that accompanied her voice. A long rope was being passed over his body, rubbing excitedly past his thighs and circling around him. The rush of heat that flooded his body seemed to warm the chilled rope that wrapped around him.

He felt his legs growing sticky as fought stubbornly against the arousal.

The hiss-a rasping voice that felt like a blade being dragged over gravel- grew almost into a roar as he saw, with the corner of his eye, the candlelight reflected in an glassy black spot on the rope.

A rope which was rougher than a regular fiber-woven product…

So thick it was, that he could count its hard scales as it reared up above him…

The boy screamed and the vast cobra almost growled in a combination of anger and excitement as it showed off its hood. It was vast, more dragon than serpent as its great weight crushed against his chest. Its toothy jaws were open in defence.

The dreamy dancer willed the reptile to move up her body. “My Kali…” Her words felt trance-like. “Her mother is from the far-off country of Ramanna. My family raised my beautiful Kali from birth. In Ramanna, serpents grow larger and stronger than they do here in Lanka. They are powerful beasts, but even she is not the greatest of her race! But still”-she lowered the king cobra onto the bed as she doused herself in oil-“we Nagas worship them. Kali is a goddess among snakes.”  The light of the candle lit the left side of the dancer perfectly. The dark points of her nipples, the taut muscles of her stomach and the cleft of her sex were illuminated like mountains at sunset; thus she seemed to him like a spectre as she lowered herself onto the boy once more.

He kicked and struggled, whacking her in the hips and the belly as she allowed him inside her. She held so tightly onto his body that he wailed in a mix of pain and pleasure.

Everything around him was a red blur. His world was dominated by her lethal beauty, the wonder of her perfume and the suppleness of her oiled skin. The senses that he had hoped to sharpen as a bhikku-the forces in his mind which told him what was good and what was not-were dulled as his eyes grew blind with tears. He allowed his young body to be rocked by waves of perfect pleasure, while sixteen feet of serpent slithered around them, seeking the warmth that the fire of their lovemaking produced…

He almost fell face-forward into the mud.

“We’re nearly there,” hissed a middle-aged companion, catching him by the crook of the arm, “so don’t make a disgrace of yourself, please! This devotee is very important. He’s a merchant, a Tamil, who has just embraced the Dhamma. We need to show him what we truly are made of, and that won’t be possible if one of us looks even slightly dirty or undignified! So”-he grabbed the young monk bodily-“stop making a scene and waving your arms about, you’ll attract the wrong kind of attention!” Excusing himself, the older priest pulled the young man out of the once-orderly line. A senior bhikku or two glowered at him, but he indicated that the boy was ill and wanted some treatment.

“What are you doing?”

“She…she’s here!”

“Who is?”

The beautiful ghost danced past him, swaying her nude hips to excite his senses. He groped at her as she passed by.

“There!” he shouted. “My goddess has come! Let go of me, you old fool!” He struggled so much his robed nearly slipped out of his companion’s grasp. “She…my beautiful…she wants me…”

A much younger, slimmer monk drew up near them. “What’s going on here, sir? That’s my good friend!”

“Get away! He’s sick! Seems that he can see some goddess or woman or something in the line. Yes, there are women here, but you’ve been to enough ceremonies and alms-givings as it is. Control your thoughts and carry on. Mara is playing with you, don’t let him in,” the middle-aged monk told him sternly. “If he’s your friend, boy, here! I’ll leave him with you. It’s dangerous to do this sort of thing in front of people. Lord Buddha himself knows what kind of gossip these poisonous tongues will spread.” He handed the tempted man over to his younger friend.

The teenager whispered, “We can’t do this over here! I thought we went over this once.”

His hand busily worked at his friend’s shoulder as he looked around.

Already, some older men and women were crowding around the two young monks.

“Look here, you can take a rest after the ceremony if you feel ill, but try to look sharp during, please!” However, his voice was filled with uncertainty as he politely sent the throng of gossip-mongers away. One man though, was particularly hard to see off.

Creased hands held onto a gnarled stick as he steadied himself. He saw the teen monk’s older friend lying crumpled on the ground.

The monk’s face was a wide-eyes mask of horror, one arm reaching out for something invisible.  

“Come on, don’t phase out on me now!” shouted the teenager as he tried to shake his companion out of his vision. Her body filled his world, growing to him as huge as the cosmic mountain of Meru. The young boy was nearly in tears as the old man neared him. The man’s son held onto him.

“He sees a goddess, does he?” The hoarse, scraping voice breathed warmly into the boy’s ear. “He is merely hallucinating. I think you too have dreamed of beautiful women on many a night, haven’t you? It’s alright”-he smiled kindly when the boy gasped at the truth of his words-“I know you live a hard life. Not everyone can emulate the preachers of old. No, this world is too full of sin for that.  If you can control your human nature, you are a true monk, Reverend Sir. He, however…he is sick. The sickness grows inside his heart and mind, not in his body.”

The teenager looked at his friend, who was enveloped in the throes of madness.

“My angel, we were always meant to be together,” he called out mournfully as he rolled through the mud. Her perfume danced on the wet winds and every raindrop felt like her heavenly kiss. The gentle warbling music of her laughter became like white noise as his robe fell away. With a yell, his friend reached for him, but a spring of disgust and horror welled up inside his young heart.

Women and girls joked and jeered at the nude bhikku. He reached for his thighs as she bore down on him, allowing him into her gently.

She purred, “Love me, love me,” as the voice of reason slipped away from his grasp.

“Fight, damn you!” The teen reached out and made another grab at his friend, but tried to avoid slipping in the mud.

“All those years ago, we met, my goddess. I was so foolish! I resisted your power, but now we’re together! No other woman but you could love me for what I am. I resisted this, but no more now.” His goddess laughed beautifully as he kissed her.

So in her embrace did he drift away from the golden wonder of reality, and into the terrifying darkness of mad oblivion and all-consuming power of Lord Mara. The huge crowd beheld his shameful situation as she grew more real before him…

Shaken, the teenager looked up for a second. A cold-eyed woman, probably between her thirties and forties, was watching him. Her long hair, while predominantly black, was beginning to grow more silvery, although she still was beautiful.

Yet her beauty felt more like that of a proud, elegant and regal woman who had been highly successful during her lifetime.

Her white sari was wrapped tightly around her body, but she wore no bodice and her breasts were visible, pushing out against it. Her perfect, smooth stomach was left open to the elements, but the rain did not bother her much, even if the edge of her sari was lifted by the wind. Quickly, she smiled coolly at him. There was even a small snake of some sort-a young rat snake or water snake maybe-motionless by her right foot. Slightly disturbed though he felt, he smiled back briefly, then turned away from her.  Then he remembered that he’d noticed something unusual.

His mind still held the image of her twisted gold necklace with a many-headed serpent as a pendant…

And the sharp points of her canine teeth…

NOVELLA

(Another of these…about Ishwari herself now…..)

“So tell me why you dare to cower before the one who turned your spine into an iron rod.”

“Parashakti please! You were never meant to stay back here, I thought you didn’t have to come back here anymore.” Ishwari was weeping bitterly, but she couldn’t look at the abominable apparition that darkened the room. “Mother, you shouldn’t be here, it’s not natural! You’re scaring your grandchild!”
“And it was you who burdened her with something so powerful as a curse!”

Parashakti snarled at her daughter, and reached down to Ishwari’s ankles. The living woman drew back again in terror as her mother started taking on a solid form, something that she knew could touch her. Only her touch made her skin crawl. She locked her eyes, not even daring to scream, and ringing metallic clangs filled the bedroom, an orchestra that chilled the blood to the lowest degree.
Ishwari shut her eyes, but she still saw her mother bending down and tighten the manacle she made specifically for them. She saw Parashakti’s body becoming so solid that the day of her death was clearer now.
Ishwari could even smell the ominous sweetness of camphor, coconut oil and kerosene in the room. Her mother’s screams of madness had turned into roars as she cursed at her disease as it took over her body with terrifying speed. The cries pierced Ishwari’s heart like a knife as she ran out of her mother’s bedroom, and onto the street.
Now there was nowhere to turn, nobody to turn to either. But the flames shot up through the bedroom window, the stately, albeit still maddened woman clutching her burning, oil-stained sari against her body and racing out of their house. “What are you doing? What is this?” shouted the sixteen-year-old in protest as the crawling, clawing bundle of burning humanity tried to reach for her. But she only kept feeding her flames with more oil that she had stored in a tiny bottle.

“I…trained you….to be powerful!…Ishwari…Ishwari Ramakrishna…if you cry I will hunt you down and…kill you….” The disjointed voice was swallowing her up, and it was indeed her mother’s. But this burning monster couldn’t be talking through her murderous yells.
She had been backed into the alley near their house, and some of the beggars there tried to extend their hands to her. But the flaming, tottering monster who had fallen down in a heap at her daughter’s feet was practically Kali incarnate. They were unable to even move in without fearing death at any minute.
“Mother…Para…Parashakti….you,” she tried her best to bite back tears as she hid her face in her blanket, “you…you were the richest devadasi of them all! Why did you have to do this and leave me alone? You are the one who wanted to turn me into a sex-crazed demon like yourself! But this? And in front of me? Why?”
“I wanted you to be strong!! BE STRONG! I live within you!” screamed the devilish voice once more, although it was obvious that the scarred and charred carcass was not the one who was saying it. “We had our nights together, I showed you how it was to dominate any man you met! Look how they’re looking at you now,” the monster kept stabbing her daughter with her words. The alley became as dark as hell to Ishwari.

Soldiers who had been on their nightly city patrol were rushing to the aid of some of the servants who were struggling to make it out of the inferno…

One or two offered to carry Ishwari, but she could only feel their hands as sweaty clamps trying to break into her again and make her shriek in pain…the same way Parashakti watched with cold eyes as her daughter bled out in torrents under the power of the drunk nattuvanar. He had roared maliciously like a raging tiger as he pinned her down and gored her with his manhood, the tearing pain shooting from her legs to her chest as he bore his great weight on her young breasts. Then came the climax.
Sharp teeth and nails caught hold of the drunkard’s neck and he screamed as she used all her strength to attack him, ripping his skin as a vortex of anger, sorrow and pain swelled in her.
“Well done,” was all Parashakti had said, pulling the bleeding man off her horrifically broken daughter, “now you can be stronger than any man you chose to be with. Clean up that blood you young fool, clean it up! Never let him inside you, never let him cross the line when it comes to sex. Women are prayed to, as mothers we are goddesses, we undergo hardship to bring about life, and we continue to suffer as the men around us keep gathering wives like cattle, only to mate with us and enslave us. They might have several men and women in their lives, all to treat as playthings. So remember that…”
“ENOUGH!”
Her scream was ten times more powerful now than it was then.

“MOTHER STOP IT PLEASE!” Yashodha was crying as only frightened children could cry, burying her head in the protective folds of the sheet.

Ishwari’s moans of agony tore above the cries of her poor daughter.

She still shut her eyes and her tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I strengthened you! Never fall in love if you are to be on top, to be a strong woman! We must always be powerful and beautiful, carry our heads high and beat down whoever male idiots who cross us, let no man be above you, in life or in bed. You’re just an ordinary woman, small before everything more powerful than yourself. Will you jump on a bloody pyre when the father of your brat dies?” Parashakti snapped coldly. “Abandon that other woman of yours! The women of our family were never meant to find true love, and that heartless northern witch will never love you back. She will be the reason for your undoing, Ishwari. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. Why else would we be tied by an iron chain? Every feeling of love you have towards her strengthens it and every time you resent…”
Her daughter lifted her head slowly. “Resent? Resent? I…That’s an understatement, I…I want you to burn in hell!” Ishwari growled. “You were always a monster to me, my sisters and I all hated you, but they were lucky! I had to suffer, I was a girl and the youngest, a double curse upon me.” She straightened her back. “Let me and my daughter find real love! I don’t care if I have to die, but the woman I want shall be mine, and when I’ve lain with her I’ll spit on your grave.”

NOVELLA

( Because I can think of nothing else to post!)

Minakshi stopped stirring the food in the pot for a second. She saw the steadily lifting mist, although the city still seemed dark to her, the Temple’s titanic tower like a black behemoth ambling slowly towards her house, only to be concealed from her view once more.
Shutting her eyes she told her maid, “Subadhra, send a message to my brother Vasudev. I want to meet him. And tell him to bring my son with him.”  And she lapsed into silence, with the middle-aged Subadhra flinging her broom aside and rushing off out of the kitchen.

Ishwari was restless. She had been lapsing between sleeping and waking for so long that she was now bathed in sweat, choli and sari sticking to her skin. Fanning a sheaf of dried banana leaves in front of her and her little daughter, she once more lay on the bed with a gasp. The girl was still half-asleep but she stirred anyway, the small size of the room and the throbbing amalgam of feelings welled up in her mother’s heart, crushing the child inside.
“Mother?” /the three-year old questioned innocently as Ishwari fanned the two of them faster. “Are you alright? Please tell me…” Her mother just kept fanning her, but then sat bolt upright, almost pushing the girl off the bed. “How in the world could I be alright…? I….” Looking at the child with a crazed gaze, she crushed the fan in her hand, reducing the dried leaf to nothing. But her expression then softened a degree when she saw her daughter’s wide-eyed look of fear.
“I’m sorry,” she continued, “but I haven’t been myself lately! I don’t know what’s coming over me! It’s like…I met that Minakshi today and she told me her husband walked off. I should be happy to hear that, and yet I feel like it’s crushing me to death, child! Why?” She grabbed the girl firmly, almost shaking her and making her scream.
“Why not? I could have any woman or man I desired, but the one I want the most, is still so far away from me! What’s wrong with you Minakshi, that you must stay forever far away? What makes you tick? What makes you shy away?”
She dashed to her dresser, with her kohl, oils, jewelry and makeup and turned her mirror towards her. Flinging the cosmetics onto her she then looked at herself in the polished surface of the mirror. “Why? Am I not beautiful enough my darling child? Am I not beautiful enough…for her…? Minakshi, Minakshi, what should I be to make you mine at last? It’s like I’m not good enough for you and yet somehow I must be, I’m, I’m supposed to be!” Thrusting the coconut oil away, she just let her hair droop as she lowered her head onto the dresser.
Ishwari was right. She had almost always been an extraordinary beauty, more than her peers. Her Brahman superiors has told her and so had her teachers. Shiny cinnamon skin, firm but soft, and a winsome dancer’s body with a slim waist and inviting hips, almost any sari or any other piece of the South Indian sari costume looked perfect on her. Men had desired her as a young girl and not just as an adult woman. It was only to be expected of course.

And she’d entertained them all.

“Yashodha,” she finally told her daughter, “my child, tell me why she and only she was my enemy!”

“Mother you’re scaring me!”

“That’s what I told her, damn it! She always pushed me down, beat me till I bled, half murdered me when I disagreed with her, she, my mother, she just never let me catch a break at all! Now she’s dead, I…I don’t expect you to know this Yashodha; whatever I, your mother, am going through, just become stronger and never hate me.” Her voice became dreamy as Yashodha nodded meekly, her own large eyes falling on a familiar scene. “It’s almost a reflection, isn’t it?” questioned Ishwari through gritted teeth, leaning against the wall, head in her hands as she sank onto the floor. “ISN’T IT MOTHER? I was the one on the bed, and you…you…”
How long she stared at the ceiling she did not know, but when she saw a hand stretching towards her she saw what it was. “I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming.” She shut her eyes so hard that they teared up, squeezing the salty liquid down her cheeks.
“If you are dreaming, then why am I still in this house?” The voice stung her directly, and she, through her blurry sight saw a huge manacle around her ankle, and holding the manacle was a handsome, stately woman with a sharp nose and hair flowing down her back. She was of dark complexion, slightly darker than Ishwari, but just as beautiful. However her beauty had a fierceness to it, like she was a cruel goddess who thirsted for blood, not just a woman. The sparkle in her eyes was twice as terrifying as an out of control flame up close. She consumed Ishwari just through looking at the other woman.

“Really Ishwari, we both made ourselves powerful through completely dominating all our men during sex, so much that they wanted punishment to be their pleasure. And is this the kind of image you present to your mother? THAT? My dearest….my dearest daughter, please tell me, how is it that this chain seems to become more powerful whenever you…”

Ishwari struggled to hold back her tears.

“SILENCE PARASHAKTI! I don’t want to have anything to do with you and your damned demonic punishments. The years under your roof were torture enough. Why did you build this accursed thing in the first place?”
“Tsk, tsk. I only came to see my daughter and my granddaughter, that’s all. Anyway let’s begin now…” Her voice became dangerously reptilian, taking on the sound of steel scraping against gravel.

And Ishwari felt that she was the gravel.

RAKSHASA Part 4

(I’m back again with my reinterpreted Sri Lankan ‘demon’, a suffering man, who despite his terrible plight, is still powerful enough to resist almost all physical attacks)

He kept watching from the tangled undergrowth, stalking the herdsman persistently. The old man was frail and bony, with a slightly protruding belly, all of which showed him that his victim was facing some kind of disease. And this disease had made the poor herder partially malnourished. Even his stick looked like it was facing famine of some sort, being worn and stubby at the end.
However, he pushed on, loudly raising his voice as he sang.

The predator drew in closer, the tangle of branches and overhanging foliage still masking him from the buffaloes and their master.
Thoughtfully, he groped around for something large and powerful, a rock perhaps. His meat had run out, and now was the chance to get some. His stomach began to growl in anger as he cursed under his breath. Hunger was the greatest driving force of all in the hellish wilds of Malayadesha and the neighboring hillside jungles.
And he’d been taught that it alone would keep him alert and fit throughout his life, long or short.
Slowly watching his prey move by, he listened hard. The chorus of crickets and frogs was overwhelming to his ears, just like it had been all those years ago…

“The hunt is like meditation,” she tells the boy at her side as she slips easily through the jungle, “not that I was some pretentious saint who would sit starving for months, but it’s the easiest way to tell you what it is.” The boy with her is obviously her son. 
He is scarred by some strange, unknown disease. He is horrifying, his face a dark, puckered and scarred mass, but his physique is powerful, less on the defined side but still muscular like a wrestler. Obviously he never cared about the athletic beauty of the fisher boy, toned through pulling in huge nets and rowing against treacherous rapids. Nor the rice farmer’s slim son, on the gaunt side but still a head-turner, sun-burnt skin gleaming on his near-naked body. 
Fourteen though he is, this is someone who would prefer to use his elephantine bulk and tremendous mass to take on his prey with his bare hands than to have young women fawn over a sleek and trim form that is useful for running but not always for fighting.

This boy has no time for girls, neither does he see any up close. So he imagines some of the women whom he gets a glimpse of on some of his hunts, lying with him on some nights, allowing him inside them. But wait. Now is not the time for pleasure. That will have to wait. Right now he fixes his gaze on his mother, who hisses, “Now tell me, what is it we are after?”
“Cattle. Five cattle with at least two men, walking off to a waterhole. The tracks and their voices tell us they are able-bodied, strong men who can defend their herd. There is one lame cow. She has a bad right hind leg, so we should be able to fell her if we strike her there.” He seems to smile in satisfaction, and his mother kisses his deformed face gently, her eyes softening for an instant. 
She sighs, “I have taught you all too well. One day you might hunt me and kill me too if you can”-her sly, apparently false smile changes- “and I believe you can. But right now, let’s focus on lunch.” Eagerly, she undoes her scant cloth, and pulls out a massive knife from a small leather pouch tied to her hip. 

Now the boy wants to imagine this superpredator in action. 

She is lithe and powerful despite her thinness, and she is more an animal than a woman. A leopardess without spots, she is liquid death in the depths of the forest. And he knows that she is brutal, relentless. The thrill of the chase, the splash of blood against her breasts, the snapping of her vicious teeth and the feeling of soft flesh raked away beneath uncut nails. 
The woman looks at the trail once more. 
She curses silently in Sanskrit as she looks at the vegetation. Someone has trampled it carelessly. A cow has also taken a toilet stop. Eager to carry on, she beckons him. “Dung,” she tells him as she scoops some of the warm, fresh mass into her hands, “is a good way to track. But you know that, don’t you my dear?” Her smile sets him on the alert. He was uneasy, like she would whip her knife against his neck and slice his jugular.

“I…know,” he mumbles…and they carry on the hunt. His hopes are fixed on the kill, of tasting fresh meat once more…


“You taught me well enough,” he hissed as he passed above the cattle on a rise of rock, “but I just prefer a cleaner kill to you bloody slash-and-disembowel. His wooden club, practically the trunk of a small tree, was ready. He looked around once or twice, tensing his muscles as he determined his angle of attack. The buffaloes and the herdsman had no clue that he was there.
But the youngest bull was setting him off a bit. That damned beast seemed so self-assured that the monstrous man could practically feel the confidence in its heart as its muddied horns strained to gleam in the fast-fading moonlight.
Smell.
Damned animals had it good.

“No mistakes.”

The herd was just below him.

He pounced. Quickly, the herder reacted in the only way that he knew. The attack was so swift that the poor old man tried to strike with his stick, but ended up whacking one of his animals in the face.
Startled, he looked in fear as the buffalo grunted, then growled under its breath, threatening to charge. But he had hardly any idea what was happening to one of his most valued herd members. The young bull was being pounded mercilessly, blows raining on its head, into its eyes and nose. Once or twice it attempted to rise up against its attacker.
The buffalo’s screams of pain were like some primal cry from the depths of hell, carrying off into the night as it struggled to overcome its brutal opponent. This club was tougher than the killer had thought.

This was his life.
He laughed with glee as the animal’s mouth bled and he grabbed its horns, twisting its head and neck around. Those arms bore unnatural power, as he remembered. And this was what they were for.

RAKSHASA-Part 3

(The story of the misunderstood man continues.. ..)

“I’m here, always here,” she slurred with a rasping hiss, shifting and ghosting out of her son’s firm and powerful grasp.
He grunted as he sat down heavily, looking at her with an accusatory glance. “Reassuring,” he grumbled, “but right now I want you out. I’m going for a walk.” Standing up, the man sighed heavily as he padded out of the cave. The rock he was on, was no more than a little inselberg, an isolated mountain cut off from one of the major chains. It was one of many in the center of Lanka, the vast expanse of the untamed Malayadesha wilderness.
No mighty hero kings ruled here. It was the hellish heart of a paradise isle, with thick forests as far as the southeast, as far as the distant Galha Nadee and the mighty peak of the sacred Samanala Kanda.

In short, no man’s land.

This green carpet cloaked the highest mountains as far as he could see, and right now he was walking right through it. He and his mother had fought predators from leeches to leopards, and he knew this terrain like the veins on the back of his hand. Coarse, impenetrable, waiting to burst out under hard stress. Pushing angrily through the close-growing vegetation, he never let it brush his terrifying face. But every now and then, he felt his mother’s whispers surrounding him, tearing away at whatever humanity remained in his mind.
He halted for an instant beneath a huge, ancient jak tree.
What if he could finally admit to himself that he should lose whatever made him a MAN? What a feeling it would be to strip away his dirty sackcloth tunic, his rusted, twisted bracelet, and the bead necklace which he used to count the number of days and months he had before dying, and just allow the wild to really grow on him.
To lose his collection of stolen Sanskrit scriptures-rotting as they were-his inkwells and styluses, and turn manly speech into bestial obscurity would be a perfect salvation. The slippery rocks were in his path. Under his mother he had slipped away into the stream of violent beastliness, but now…

A memory once more.
He hated these.
They carpet of  his conscience rose suddenly, and no matter how many times he attempted to sweep the dirt of his sinful past beneath it, it kept clawing its way upwards. It was a memory that could be awakened by the grunts of a wandering herd.

Cattle in the forest.
With a farmer, singing hoarse songs to the spirits as he trudged down the leaf-littered paths.

The soft touch of his mother chilled him again. “What are you waiting for my darling?” she whispered, clinging to his body, stroking his hard back and chest softly. “Go on, show me what I have taught you.”

His muscles tensed at the sound of this, as his footfalls became as soft as a cat’s…