Page 85 of The Burning Mountain
“It worries me that we are outnumbered here, Princess. This is the domain of Vivismati. King Pourava has the upper hand,”signaled Billadev.
Chandra remembered what Veer had told her about his uncle. About his mistrust toward the older kingdoms. But he had also assured her that Vivismati would never act against Rajgarh, and now that she was his wife, this would extend to her too. She hadn’t met Pourava officially, so she couldn’t decide for herself, but his actions so far didn’t inspire great confidence. For Veer’s sake, she hoped things would go smoothly. With time running out, they couldn’t afford any delays.
“There’s nothing we can do about it. We keep our heads bowed and eyes peeled open,”she answered for both Billadev, and her own misgivings.
39
THE HIGH SEAS
Veer stood at the bow of the ship, elbows resting on the wooden railing, and watched as theGajagaminicut through the waters. The sea was calm today, the sky a clear, bright blue. Two other ships followed.One was amerchant vessel tagging along in their wake from Angaradweep, a large island off the coast of Saptavarsha. The other ship was thePrahari, supplied by Chouda as a reserve vessel to aid them in their quest to hunt down the Makara.
They heard rumors that the sea monster was last seen somewhere near the archipelago at the northeastern tip of Angaradweep. This was their fifth junket, when they went haring off after the rumored beast of the high seas. Every one of them had been fruitless.
TheGajagaminiwas fast, but searching for a mythical monster, no matter how large it was, in the vast ocean, was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. They had wasted weeks already and had seen neither hide nor hair of the beast.
The burry call of the sooty terns interrupted Veer’s reverie, and he turned, leaning his back along the railing, gazing up at the sky. Wind danced through the locks of his hair. He felthis eyes shift, his vision dividing, and as he lifted a hand, a quartet of birds broke from the flock and dived, heading for his outstretched hand.
He grinned when he felt the nips of their beaks on his palm, his mood lighter. He suddenly wished Chandra were here. He knew she worried about discovering the key piece, but he had no concerns. She was the heir of Amarendra, no matter how little she believed in it—preferring to pass the baton to her brother—and if she couldn’t find the piece, no one else could.
He ought not to begrudge her absence. Because if there was one good thing about their situation, it was that Chandra was safe in Vivismati. Well, safer than the high seas, at least. Although he missed her like he would a limb, it relieved his mind. Veer had made his uncle promise her protection.
A flicker of unease went through him when he thought about how his uncle felt about Amaravathi. Shota’s words, uttered long ago, floated in his mind, about how he needed to tone down his preference for Chandrasena, or make it less obvious, but he dismissed them.
He would have liked to see her, though, if only for a moment, to reassure himself that she was doing fine. He fished out an object from an inside pocket and turned it in his hands.
An old bronzedarpan, a mirror, its reflective surface tarnished in spots. This was one of the first mirrors his father had created that he gifted to Veer. He had used it several times in this journey.
There were two primary modes of communication unique to Rajgarh. One was thesangrahafarseeing stones and the other, the enchanted mirrors.
His father’s magic was the gift of relaying information, and he had channeled that into making these mirrors to be used by others to report across large distances.
Veer still cherished one of his earliest childhood memories of his father, standing at a furnace, face sweaty from hours of exertion, but shining with satisfaction, as he crafted reflective bronze plates like this. Perhaps it was where Veer’s own interest in smithy work could be traced to.
The farseeing stones came later, after Virat had discovered the way to bind part of the king’s magic to thesangrahastones. Compared to the mirrors, they were inferior but still useful.
Veer’s fingers traced the magical etchings at the edge. He didn’t know why his father preferred thesangrahastones over the mirrors. The one time he had asked, he got the vague answer that the furnaces where he “could craft these things” were no longer accessible to him. Veer was left with the impression that it was more than that.
But there was a drawback to the magicaldarpan. They deteriorated faster than their normal counterparts. Veer buffed a particularly dark spot with the sleeve of his shirt. His uncle’s powers of strengthening objects slowed the process to an extent, but no one could halt time.
Each of his close family members carried a mirror. As well as a few were placed at strategic locations, to safeguard their territories and trade routes, across both Vivismati and Rajgarh.
Perhaps he should consider getting one for Chandra, too, even if it meant filching them from one of his family, since his father no longer made new ones.
“I thought we weren’t using those anymore?” came a voice, followed by thethumpof a wooden staff as it struck the deck. Virat made his way toward him and stood beside him on the prow, albeit at a distance. The skulls on his magical staff seemed to leer at Veer out of the empty sockets.
A faint smell of rotting flesh coupled with the fishy sea air wafted toward him. Veer raised his hand to his nose, as surreptitiously as possible, and pretended to cough until thesmell didn’t make him gag anymore. If Virat noticed, he gave no indication, his attention on the sky.
When Virat had presented himself at Sumedh’s docks two weeks ago, before they set sail on theGajagamini, no one had recognized him. Not even Shota, despite his impressive powers of observation. But Veer did, notwithstanding Virat’s appearance in the “freshly” dead body of a young man. Something seemed to connect him to Virat, like a pull toward the arcane.
Since then, everyone witnessed how Virat’s borrowed body was decomposing.
“Thedarpandoesn’t seem to work,” said Veer, the lie falling smoothly from his lips. “It started to glow the other day. I tried using it, but the surface remains cloudy.” He extended it toward Virat, inviting him to look.
Virat rested his staff on the wooden railing and took the mirror, moving his hands over the splotchy surface and inspecting the back.
“We still use the stones we made when we were younger, for communication,” said Veer, watching Virat move his fingers on the same tarnished bits he had rubbed at. “Remember those?”
“My memories are sketchy,” said Virat tonelessly. “There are huge parts that I don’t remember.” His eyes were like hematite. Those round, tumbled stones they sometimes got from riverbeds and used as eyes in dolls for children. Devoid of personality, reflecting everything back.
