Pavan stood by the mouth of the cave. It was a long desperate wait, and the men were getting impatient.

  “Let’s return. Those scoundrels will surely go hunting again. We will find another day to set the ambush,” a farmhand suggested. “It is not like they are going away any time soon.”

  Just then, a boar broke through the wood line. Loud, purposeful grunts left Pavan no chance of escaping the impending confrontation. Pavan wasn’t prepared for it, but he had no choice. Their bait had worked. And there was no turning back now.

  The creature trotted to the edge of the pond and across the cascading stream, straight into the cave. Its skin, pale gold, shimmered gently like a field of sun-lit dew as water steamed down its body; its tusks were shinier than any ivory he had seen before. Like two crescent moons, they arced around on either side of its jaw. It was not a wild thing born out of nature’s womb but the shapeshifting sorceress, Mruda.

  “She is here!”

  Pavan and his men, sixteen in total, watched both with awe and fear as the boar took a human shape. In as few as six months, Mruda had become one of his most trusted confidants. It had almost made him forget what she truly was. A woman in name only. A rakshasi without horns.

  Her reasons for siding with him had been simple. They shared a common enemy. Devtulya, the chief of the raiding warband, had pillaged her home last spring, killed her son-in-law and carried off her daughter. Revenge had spurred her every thought and action since. And here, in this cave, she was going to have it at last. However, the same maya, which had given her the means to carry out her retribution, had also denied her the opportunity to witness the fruit of her labour. She collapsed on the hard rocky floor of the cave, weighted down by her exhaustion.

  He put his arm under her, trying to lift her up. Only then did he realise there was blood on her clothes. An arrowhead was lodged into her lower back. “Someone help me take her to safety.”

  “Pavan, no! Just make him pay. Make him pay for what he did. He can’t go unpunished.” Pavan could only hold her hand and watch as life drained from her face. Her emerald ring slipped from her finger and fell into his palm. “This is my parting gift to you, but you must not wear it until you have killed that monster.” Even in her dying breath, her hatred was unyielding. Against the man who had destroyed her family, how could she not rage? None of the men who had accompanied Pavan on this ambush saw her dying; no one heard her last words or Pavan’s reply.

  They heard a different voice.

  “Get to your positions, hurry! The sorceress has lured them here as promised. Now, we have to do the rest.” It was Vishwasen, a local woodworker who had raised a militia against the raiders. He had taken the lead until it became known that Pavan had the favour of the Gods upon him.

  They could hear the footsteps getting closer and closer.

  The archers positioned at a vantage point had a clear view of the cave entrance as well as the path leading to it. And they had the instructions to let loose a barrage of arrows when more than half of the hunting party was inside the cave. Pavan, on Vishwasen’s suggestion, had arranged a pincer move: swords from the front and arrows from behind.

  “It’s an ambush!” one of Devtulya’s companions cursed. The arrows fell on them with vicious hatred. Two of the six men were already dead while the rest were forced into the interior of the cave. Even in that dull, dark space, one of them recognized Pavan. “He is the one! I know him. I was there when he killed one of our commanders. He had slain Usangu with his own javelin.”

  Pavan was expected to speak. “Devtulya, if you promise peace and surrender, only then you shall leave this cave alive. Sixteen against four. These odds are set against you.” He continued, “Even if you fight us off, you will be welcomed by a rain of arrows the moment you step outside. A retreat is impossible. So, it is best you submit.” No matter what words he picked, or how he delivered them, he was never going to intimidate the raiders. He knew it and so did his men.

  Taunts and jeers drowned Pavan’s words of warning.

  “We? Surrender? And to whom? You, peasant boys? Nah, I rather die a man’s death!” said one of Devtulya’s companions. “Never!” another joined in.

  Devtulya swung his sword at Vishwasen, who was at the forefront of the attack. “More than once, death has rattled its ugly blade at me. And every time I have challenged it back smiling. What can you youngsters, who are yet to sprout hair on their chest, do to me?”

  “Yes, we fight them till our last breath.” the third agreed.

  “Listen to me,” Pavan clamoured for attention. “Tell me, what would it take for you to surrender!” Mruda had died and Vishwasen was bleeding.

  “If you,” Devtulya pointed at him and said, “defeat me in a duel, you let any one of my three brothers go. He will ensure your people are left alone for a season or two. If I win, however, we walk out of here alive. Fair enough?” Pavan was wise enough to know that his words meant very little. It was an impossible promise to keep even if it was a sincere one. Sure, as the chief of the warband, Devtulya could direct the raiders wherever he wanted. He had the authority to do so, but it was true only so far as they believed it would maximize their loot. They were not loyal to him but to the riches he offered. If he decided to withdraw, many would disband his company and form smaller groups to raid and pillage on their own, or better, find a new chief to help them with it. People obeyed him only because he had always known the best way to give them what they wanted. And no one wanted to return without the spoils.

  “Does he think we are stupid?” Vishwasen shouted. “Don’t fall for this, Pavan.”

  A single glance and anyone could tell from Pavan’s shaky hands that he lacked the strength to swing the sword he was armed with. He could barely lift his shield to protect his face. Years of deprivation had left him withered and frail-looking. Five weeks prior, a village-head had gifted him his ancestral heirloom, an old ill-fitting piece of armour, a bronze chest plate. “That’s all I can offer you. Fight for us, son.” The seventeen-year-old Pavan had buckled under its weight and given it back with respect.

  “Your blessings are more than enough.”

  In stark contrast, Devtulya was born into a warrior clan and had decades of experience in martial combat, hunting, leading raids, and most of all killing. He wore his scars like badges of victory: the one on his upper torso was an old scar left by an arrow; the second was on his forearm, a spear wound, and the third decorated his cheek, a slice from a curved serrated blade. His back was bare, scarless. Rumours were that he had subdued the bordering clans using the weapons bestowed upon him by the Nagadev, the Lord of Serpents. None could compete with his mystical powers. No one but…

  Devtulya chanted an incantation that granted him a naga-astra: an enchanted javelin in the shape of a snake. Its forked-tip hissed at Pavan, threatening him with posion lethal enough to down thirteen elepants.

  “I offer peace and friendship,” Pavan emphasised, lowering his sword. His shield struggled to stay where it was. “Accept it, and return to your lands. Stop ransacking our villages. The harvest season is supposed to be a time of celebration, not dread. You have plenty to trade with us. Turtle shells, pearls, fish, timber, valuable ores—”

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  “Why do I have to share, when I can take it all? It is the law of nature: for the strong to prey upon the weak, for the tiger to prey upon the deer, for me to prey upon you. That is how the world works, how it was made to be. If you were powerful, you would be doing the same thing as I am now.”

  “That’s not true—”

  Devtulya had no interest in continuing the conversation. Civil discourse and debate wasn’t exactly his forte. He flung his weapon. The twin tips struck Pavan’s shield. A gooey liquid oozed from its head, forcing Pavan to throw away his shield. Underneath, he had worn a gauntlet, a gift from his guardian, Lord Vayu, the Breath-Giver.

  Pavan continued to speak, “You only see what you want to see; what you have been seeing all your life. Men fighting and killing each other. Do bees not spread pollen once they have taken the nectar off from the hibiscus?”

  “And yet, it is the bear who gets the honey.” Still mocking, Devtulya manifested his second weapon. “This is the mightiest astra in my arsenal.” Upon being thrown, the javelin sprung to life and transformed into a flying serpentine monster. Swift, unnatural and impossible to predict, its movement had an illusion of weightlessness to it. Like the flow of destiny, it twisted and turned in the air before descending upon Pavan.

  Fear was not on Pavan’s mind. In his eyes, he had already failed. Neither of us have a choice, Pavan reminded himself. Sensing danger, Lord Vayu’s gauntlet released a gust of wind to protect its wearer. The netherworld-ly snake was forced to fly back towards Devtulya. Out of his control, it coiled around him and began devouring him mercilessly. Frenzied with anguish and horror, Devtulya’s sworn brothers tried to hack at the monster with their swords.

  Vishwasen and the men in the cave overpowered the three and put an end to them as swiftly as the monster devoured its master.

  ###

  Pavan returned to the hill-fort victorious. His warriors sang songs of his bravery and valour as they paraded through the narrow pathways—dancing, whistling and cheering. For the first time in years, the farm-landers were fighting back. Their struggle now had a purpose. Their life had meaning. Their dreams had hope. They were making history.

  The people had faith that one day all the squabbling lords and the warring chiefs would follow Pavan’s vision. He was their chosen one. For them, he would end a bloody era of violence, lawlessness and chaos. “Pavan, the Great Ascetic! Pavan, the Saviour King!” they united behind his name. However, He wore neither a saffron loincloth nor a golden crown; he carried no sceptre with him to prove either his asceticism or his kingship. To himself, he was just another village boy who wanted to escape the violence he was forced to witness.

  Everyday men, women, and children just as weary of war and destitute as him, flocked to his hill and waited outside at dawn for the gates to open. And they would open, irrespective of their clan affiliations, occupation, gender and age.

  “If you are willing to do honest work, live peacefully, treat others with love, even the Gods can’t stop you from entering the devlok…what then is my humble abode,” Pavan would address them thus before letting them in. He had even carved this message on the rock at the foot of the hill to remind himself and others about his vision. When his hill couldn’t occupy more people, he allied with a sea-lord who controlled the nearby bay and founded a settlement there for those who came to him.

  ###

  Pavan’s childhood was a mystery, as much as to himself as to those around him. Orphaned at the age of nine, he had escaped death by a hair’s breadth when sword-wielding raiders had slaughtered his entire village. “Go hide in the caves until someone comes to fetch you back!” his mother had yelled at him, that much he remembered.

  In a narrow crevice, he had stayed hidden, meditating. Without any food or water, that was all he did; it was all he could do. For the next seven years.

  For the first few days, he pleaded and cried for help, for someone to come save him from the cruel world that he was subjected to. With each passing season, his hair grew thicker and thicker, becoming a nest for ticks and fleas. His skin hugged his protruding bones and his mind lost all sense of time and space. Yet, no help came to him. He had become a samana, not out of choice but chance and circumstance.

  It was the wind that first heard his plea, and it was Lord Vayu who came to his aid.

  “Boy, what is your name?” the Bringer of Fair Winds asked him.

  “Me?” he stammered, opening his eyes, “I don’t…know my name. I have forgotten.”

  “Then I will give one that befits you,” Lord Vayu said. After some thought, he decided: “Pavan.”

  He accepted it; his hands joined in prayer and his head bowed low.

  “You will be the wind of change. You will herald an era of peace, a kingdom of reverence, a dynasty that will last not centuries but millennia.”

  ###

  Pavan was nowhere to be seen in his victory march. He had no interest in parading with the heads of his enemies. He went straight to the shrine he had built for Lord Vayu. Placing his gauntlet on the pedestal in front of the deity, he brought his palms together and bowed to his God. The gauntlet was made of vajra, a metal born out of the celestial forge accessible only to the Gods. Divine hands had carved powerful runes over it, the blessings of wind and protection. It was capable of repelling all mortal weapons as well as most divine weapons back to its aggressors. That was his boon.

  “With this gift of mine, make this world a place you want to live in yourself,” Lord Vayu had suggested before disappearing from the cave.

  Without as much as sipping a drop of water, he sat cross-legged before his God and requested an audience from him. For forty-seven days and nights, he prayed in vain.

  “Have you abandoned me, O Lord?” he cried out. “Have you reduced to a lifeless heap of stones?” Receiving no answer, he grabbed the gauntlet and trashed it upon the altar with all his strength, again and again until a thunderous roar echoed.

  Lightning cracked the sky. The hill quivered in fright and the clouds parted for an approaching storm. The noise of vajra against stone reverberated through the entire fort. It was the sound of doom, one that follows upon enraging a God.

  His hands were swollen purple, but the gauntlet was still intact, blemishless. Lord Vayu appeared before him and demanded an answer, “Are you not satisfied with the power this gauntlet grants you? Have you been corrupted by the victories it has given? How dare you disrespect me and my gift? You had shown me a great promise. Don’t make me regret my blessings, young king.”

  “I am not a king,” Pavan said. “Nor do I want to be one.” He was not angry, but his words were sharp. “I don’t want to rule. I don’t want to conquer. I don’t want to… kill. I chose none of this.”

  Lord Vayu explained, “It is the nature of the world to seek power and to be drawn towards those with power. You can’t escape it. If you want to change the world, you have to learn its ways—you have to be a king. Even the Gods and Goddesses need a ruler. That’s why I sit on the Heavenly throne and watch over the worlds. To bring peace and order, you have to establish your rule over others, exert your will upon them. It is only through your authority, you can put an end to evil. Why do you think the asuras dread to step into this world again? Unless you step forth and fulfil your role as the king, the world will not change.”

  “Why can’t you strike down those who are evil? Why do I have to do this? I just want to live. I didn’t ask to become a king.”

  Lord Vayu was amused by this response. His anger had dissipated. “It is not my dharma to establish order in the bhulok. That is the dharma of kings. You have to act, my son. Good intentions alone won’t move even a speck of dust.”

  Pavan tried to explain, “These desperate hapless men and women have started calling me a God-child. They say I am here to bring death to the deserving.”

  “How do you know you are not?” Lord Vayu poked his forehead playfully.

  “I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to kill them. Not even those who deserve death rightfully. Why do I have to make this choice? This gauntlet! It gives me no choice. It kills them on my behalf. It has deprived me of choosing my fate, and by relation I have deprived them of it too.”

  Lord Vayu argued, “He had made his choice long before the moment he conjured the astra to harm you in the cave. Years ago, when he first took a spear in his hands and ran it through a helpless woman—he chose. That day, he sealed his fate by his own hands. He made his end. The one he got by your hands. It was his own doing, not yours.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “This gauntlet serves divine justice. Even the Gods can’t escape the fruits of their karma. Those who inflict violence on others met violent ends. That’s their destiny. You can’t change that. The gauntlet is just an instrument. And so are you.”

  “Take it away, then. I don’t want it anymore! I want to create a world where everyone is free! …where every man can challenge; no, choose one’s own destiny.”

  “Choose one’s own destiny?” Lord Vayu said, contemplating. “What does that even mean, do you even know?”

  “I don’t. For me, it’s having the choice to spare a life. Not being forced to kill my enemies. Giving them a true choice, not one which leans against the blade of death.

  “Is that so?” He touched the gauntlet and drew a rune over it with his index finger. His power surged through it, a thunderstorm on a point of a needle. “Choose one’s own destiny, you said,” he repeated, still lingering over the idea. From his eyes, a single drop of tear fell on the gauntlet. It turned into a gem-like moonstone which captured perfectly both the blue of the day-sky and the dark violet of the night. “That, my son, even the Heaven aspires.”