NOVEL NEXT Chapter 32: The Shackles of Identity
The morning sun cast a warm glow on the border city that now lay in ruins, in one night, its entire population was wiped out, first turning into the undead and then turning to dust. The structures that made the city from the high city gates, the towering mansions and the houses on the streets, all were broken down to rubble by the Yaksha powers unleashed through the Kapala Chief.
In the middle of the ruined city, two men meditated, seated in cross-legged positions facing each other, the blindfolded cultivator used his spiritual powers to establish a connection with the yaksha facing him, the purple beam of spiritual power from his mind’s eye connected with the latent mind’s eye of the Kapala Chief. The translucent spiritual barrier around them erected by Svetavastra to protect them from external elements glistened with the rays of the sun.
The Kapala Chief focused his attention on his breath, it had calmed his mind and he felt at peace. He felt the spiritual connection from Svetavastra come as a gentle touch, respectful instead of invading. He let his mind open and offered no resistance to Svetavastra.
At once, the Kapala Chief felt he was being sucked into the ends of time and space, with flashes from his past all around him floating like translucent bubbles. He saw the carnage he had leashed the past night as the dark energy had consumed him. Svetavastra prolonged the memory for a while and observed the Kapala Chief’s actions, as the latter’s whip-sword lashed against the flesh of one mortal after another, with killing force. Svetavastra could feel the internal struggle of the Kapala Chief trying to gain control.
The scene changed to the one where Kapala Chief felt intense panic and despair thinking he had lost Lakhan to the undead and how it had unleashed the latent powers of the Yaksha mani merged into his heart even though it was corrupted by the dark energy. Svetavastra examined all of it like a dispassionate observer.
The Kapala Chief felt the pull again through the tunnel of time and space that housed his memories. This time, it was when he was in the forest with Lakhan. The campfire had provided warmth and heat that night and Lakhan slept beside him blissfully unaware of the Kapala Chief’s inner turmoil. The Kapala Chief felt immobilised and the dark energy repeatedly voiced in his head to kill his comrade. He clutched his hand to his heart, his breathing ragged from all the infighting in his heart and his nails dung into his chest. The pain had temporarily numbed the voice.
Back in the tunnel of space and time, Svetavastra found the memory of the battle of the Northern Mines. Lakhan had found the half-unconscious Kapala Chief at the entrance of one of the hollow caves. The chief had collapsed from expending his limited yaksha powers and invoking fireballs to fight the Dayita Army. The Yaksha mani was freshly merged with his heart and it left a searing pain in the chest. Svetavastra could sense the dark energy surrounding the Yaksha mani.
The Kapala Chief seemed to have whispered something inaudible that made Lakhan lean closer placing his ear near the Kapala Chief’s head.
“Get out before it’s too late,” said the Kapala Chief weakly.
“No!” Lakhan had protested. “Let me take you to safety.”
He pulled the Kapala Chief into his arms and walked to the end of one of the large crevices that opened outwards. He placed the Kapala Chief to rest on the wall of the crevice and whistled outward. Within a few moments, his horse had galloped out of nowhere and stood below the crevice near the foothill of the Northern Mines. This was towards the back of the mines and the Dayita Army had not known of this place.
“Chief,” said Lakhan trying to take the Kapala Chief into his arms again. At this moment, the prince of Dayita had entered the hollow cave where they were.
“Go and wait for me,” murmured the Kapala Chief in Lakhan’s ears.
The latter looked into the Kapala Chief’s eyes as if to protest.
“This is an order,” said the Kapala Chief.
Lakhan nodded and before he could do anything, the Kapala Chief had gently pushed him down.
The Kapala Chief brought out his whip-sword and raised his hand to summon a fireball. Svetavastra observed the scene and realised had the Kapala Chief not been injured, Prince Aryaman would not have survived that day.
Svetavastra and the Kapala Chief again went through the tunnel of time and space and this time Svetavastra stopped at the memory of a village being razed down to the ground through fire. The helpless shrieks of the villagers caught on fire filled the night air like a haunting, the Kapala Chief looked at the horror he had deliberately wrought without any emotion.
A flash of a past memory seized the Kapala Chief who had been standing at the edge of the village. In the memory, he saw the villagers refusing to offer any food or water to a group of sickly destitute people. The villagers had even driven them away in fear.
“Vermins! You don’t belong here!” they had shouted as some of the villagers threw stones at the destitute group.
And the flash of memory was gone. The Kapala Chief found it strange but did not pursue it.
Could this be an ancestral memory? Svetavastra wondered.
Svetavastra and the Kapala Chief came back to the tunnel of space and time and Svetavastra sifted through his memories this way - meticulously going through them one by one until he found some traces of ancestral memories dispersed sparsely through the past memories of the Kapala Chief.
Svetavastra stopped at one translucent bubble of memory. In the heart of the forest behind a hidden clearing under the night sky, a woman held the outstretched arm of a boy who looked not more than seven. A campfire illuminated their faces, a solemn look washed the face of the woman, while the boy looked at her with nervousness and anticipation. The palm of her free hand hovered over her heart and she seemed to pull out something using her spirit powers. A bone, possibly a rib came out from her chest and she used her powers to forge it into a needle. The woman felt her body convulse with pain as she directed her powers toward the bone needle. Sweat started to trickle down her forehead.
“Mother!” shouted the boy trying to break free from her grip to help her.
“It’s alright, Toyesha,” the mother said. “This must be done.”
She held the bone needle and pricked it on her arm to draw out her blood. The tip now soaked in her blood, pierced through the boy’s skin. He felt a sharp sting but did not flinch nor close his eyes. Instead, he fully embraced the pain as his mother made intricate lines with the needle on his arm, he looked at his mother, as her life force depleted rapidly with each stroke she made with the bone needle on her son’s arm. Once it was done, she held her son’s face in her hands and rubbed his cheeks gently and placed a kiss on his forehead.
“Toyesha,” said the dying woman breathing her last breath. “Always remember who you are.”
Saying so she turned to dust, leaving red embers of her remains which slowly curved upwards with the night’s breeze and disappeared.
You are bound by the shackles of your identity, Svetavastra thought to himself as he looked at the tattoo glow in the arm of the young Kapala Chief before the glow faded and what remained on the arm was inscrutable lines in green ink.
Svetavastra experienced flashes from his past at this moment. He caught his head with his hand and tried to balance a disorienting feeling. A monk whom Svetavastra felt deeply familiar with appeared in the memory and told a young girl who seemed to be Svetavastra himself this, “You will always be a god with or without your weapons. With or without your powers. With or without your vehicle. That’s your destiny. Even you cannot change it.”