Sona and the golden beas.., p.26
Sona and the Golden Beasts, page 26
Sona took a breath. “I only recently learned my true parentage. I’m half-Devan. My mother, Lia, was Malechian. She died of Goldstorm Fever the day I was born. But I survived, and was raised by my uncle, Bar Kalpani, as his own daughter.”
“Truly?” Gulappan asked, his eyes widening with wonder. “You—you were raised by Bar Kalpani?” He paced back and forth and ran his hands over his face.
“Yes,” Sona said. “So . . . it’s true, then? You are my father, Gupil?”
Gulappan stopped pacing. He stood in front of Sona, reached for her hands, and held them gently as he looked at her with new eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “That is the necklace I gave my wife, Lia, long ago. I had it made and painted the enamel myself. It contains the symbols of both of our nations, in harmony with each other. Back in a time when we believed that Devan or Malech, we could have a life together.” Sadness and wonder fought on his scarred face. “If only I had known that you lived!”
Gulappan let go of one hand and touched Sona’s cheek gingerly, like she was a mirage that might disappear. “I loved your mother more than anything, and we were so happy to be married. But then new laws were passed by the Malechs, and we had to hide with your uncle and aunt. I couldn’t work outside the farm, could barely show my face in public. But we were going to have a baby, and I held on to that hope. Once you were born, I wanted to take us far away from Devia to a place where we could live as free people.” His face fell. “But when that terrible Goldstorm struck, and Lia became so ill . . . I knew the only hope of saving her was to seek help from my mother, reluctant though I was to ask her.
“So against Bar’s advice, ignoring his pleas, I went out into the storm. I tried to follow the road to the village, but I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. Then a gust came through, like a wave on the ocean . . . and that’s the last thing I remember, until I awoke in the middle of nowhere. I could barely move, could barely talk. I had Golddust burns everywhere. Each breath was like inhaling fire. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I knew for sure that I’d failed, that my wife and unborn child had perished. I dragged myself along, practically crawling, until I found myself at the Genla.
“I fell in, and I could barely keep afloat because I was so weak. All I could think of was that it would be a blessing to join Lia and our babe in the afterlife.” He swallowed. “But I was found by some of the Genpur villagers, half-drowned and raving.”
“Yaami?” Sona asked.
Gulappan nodded. “She wasn’t Pitarau yet. But she had also suffered a great loss. Malechian soldiers had recently killed her husband. We had . . . shared grief. And so Yaami and I formed a friendship. The villagers nursed me back to health and gave me something to live for. I became Gulappan, striking fear into the hearts of Malechs wherever I could and stealing back the gems that were the reason why they continued to pillage our country and rule over our people. And Yaami provided transportation to Bhoominath and beyond. Together, we started the Free Devia movement, and convinced others to join us. We used the symbol from the pendant as the symbol of our cause.”
“But why didn’t you seek out your mother?” Sona asked. “She would have told you I was alive. She saved me from illness when I was a newborn, and she’s been my ayah since then. She helped raise me since my mother was gone. If you’d come back . . .”
Gulappan dropped her hands and shook his head. “I hadn’t spoken to my mother since before I married Lia. Ma was against the marriage, against the idea that Devans and Malechs should lead lives together. And when I went through Kanthpur in disguise a few months after the Goldstorm, I was told that both Lia and Bar’s wife had died. I didn’t know that the baby had survived. Not many other than your grandmother and Lia’s family knew that Lia had been pregnant, so no one spoke of it. And I couldn’t bear to face your grandmother. She had been right: all my hopes had resulted in disaster. I didn’t want to witness my mother’s disappointment, or even worse, her pity. So I thought it would be better if she believed I was dead. In my heart, I was no longer Gupil, but someone else, someone whose mission in life was to undo some of the damage that the Malechs wrought. Now that I know what I’ve missed, it is my greatest regret. Oh, Sona, can you forgive me?” Gulappan put his hand on her shoulder.
Sona thought carefully. “I grew up not knowing the truth. But I also grew up happy, and safe.” She rested her forehead against her father’s. “I wish I’d known you for longer. And I’m sorry for all you’ve been through, how lonely you must have been. But now we’ve found each other after all.”
He drew back and put his hand on her head in a blessing, like Ayah used to do. “I’m so grateful to have found you. Whatever happens after this, I will always work to make the world better for you.”
Sona embraced him again. She had found the father who had given everything years ago to try to save her, who worked his entire life to act on his beliefs. She loved the father who raised her, but she loved the father she’d discovered, as well.
She couldn’t imagine what her family would look like after this. First, they had to complete their quest. And then, she could bring her father home.
Raag appeared in the doorway with Willa.
“And Raag, in case you haven’t guessed, is Ayah’s grandson, your sister Ashvi’s son.”
A strange look came over Gulappan’s face. A beat later, it was gone. “Nephew!” he cried. “Come here!”
Raag ran to Gulappan, but instead of hugging, they clapped each other on the shoulders. “I found some berries,” Raag said. “Are you hungry?”
“Do you even have to ask?” Gulappan said.
If the Gray Ghost was hungry, Sona thought, then perhaps soon, they could keep going with their mission.
The children made Gulappan rest in the cave for the remainder of the day while they prepared their packs and saddlebags for the next morning. “You are riding Willa,” Sona said to Gulappan, who merely inclined his head. He was not going to argue with her instructions now.
The next day, they packed up everything and Gulappan climbed onto Willa. They bundled up against the drifting Golddust and started their trek farther into the mountains.
But even after they had walked and climbed for hours, the snow-capped Meru stayed far away. Sometimes it seemed like they had found paths that had been marked by people, but these often dead-ended at a cliffside or circled back upon themselves.
“I swear we passed that same boulder three times already!” Raag exclaimed. “It’s like these paths were created to confound travelers.”
“Maybe they were,” Gulappan said, scratching his newly grown beard. “What do you think we should do?”
“Do you think the Hawk is out there, somewhere?” Sona asked.
Raag looked at Sona. “You’re going to make me sing again, aren’t you?”
They sat and had a midday meal tucked into a flat area on the mountainside. After they’d finished, Raag sang the Song of the Hawk. Sona’s heart leaped at the last two verses:
The mountain’s looming silently
The river rushes through,
The day is dawning violently,
Oh where, oh Hawk, are you?
For Devia has need, my friend,
Of hearts both strong and true.
Before the world comes to an end
I call, oh Hawk, to you!
Sona waited for the returning tune to fill the air, to show them the way to the Hawk, the Air gem, the top of Mount Meru. But all she heard was Raag’s voice, echoing back.
The travelers sat together for some time, listening.
“It didn’t work,” Sona said. “I think the Hawk might truly be gone forever.”
Gulappan sighed and clenched his jaw. “We will finish our quest. We’re still going to find Bhoomi’s Crown.”
The travelers kept trekking for the rest of the day, but they got no closer to Mount Meru. Willa was being particularly ornery, and kept refusing to move forward, even with hooli fruit bribes. Each step they took seemed to be against her will. Finally, they gave up, made a fire, and spread out their mats for the night.
“We’ve got to try something different tomorrow, or we’ll never make it,” Gulappan said.
“I don’t know what else to try,” Sona said. “But I agree that today was a waste of time.”
“At least we learned what’s not working,” Raag put in.
“Yes, everything we know how to do isn’t working,” Gulappan replied with a scowl.
“So maybe tomorrow we try what we don’t know how to do,” Raag said.
“What does that mean?” Sona asked.
“Let’s go to sleep,” Raag said. “Things usually look better in the morning.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Gulappan said.
But Gulappan stayed up all night to watch alone, and Sona opened her eyes after a good night’s sleep to find Raag arguing with him.
“You should have woken me, Uncle. You’re still recovering from your injury and need the rest.”
Gulappan shook his head. “I sit on the pony all day, while you two are walking on your own feet. You needed the rest.” But he looked particularly exhausted.
The next day was the same story with Willa, who seemed even more stubborn than the day before, huffing and stomping her feet so much that Gulappan got down off her back. “Maybe I’m too much for her to carry in these mountains,” he said. “I can walk.”
Swara ran in circles, clearly enjoying the brisk mountain air.
But Willa still refused to move from her spot. She snorted and tossed her head.
Raag rolled his eyes, but Sona spoke to Willa tenderly. “What is it, girl? What’s wrong?” She examined her hooves, took off her saddle to look at her back, scrutinized every inch of the pony, but other than the hard bump of a white scar on her forehead, there was nothing wrong with her—at least not physically. Willa kept huffing and turning to a path that led downhill.
“Maybe we should let her lead us,” Raag said finally.
“What?” Sona asked.
Raag shrugged. “She led me to water, and to an area with trees for firewood. Oh, and to those berries I brought the other day. Maybe she knows where she’s going?”
Sona looked at Gulappan. “It’s as good an idea as any other we’ve had recently,” he said.
So Sona let go of Willa’s lead and told her, “Help us, Willa girl. Help us find the place we’re looking for. Help us get to Mount Meru.”
And Willa turned around and trotted downhill, back the way they had come.
They followed the pony down, down, down. It was painful to retrace all the progress they’d made the day before, and Sona feared that Willa was trying to lead them out of the mountains, trying to get them home to Tirna somehow. The pony whinnied and started to pick up speed. “Willa,” Sona called.
Then Willa turned suddenly and went over the side of the path.
Shyena, the Hawk
The Hawk is far-seeing, fast, and free.
Her song soars through the sky, promising freedom to all: leaf and water, sun and wind, beasts and people and land.
Her wings lift hopes, promising joy, pushing away sorrow and bitterness.
She loves the man who stalks her. He is human, she is animal. They are friends, both part of Devia, both part of Bhoomi’s grace.
She does not fear him. But he covets her strength, her beauty, her freedom.
He takes a long talon and hurls it through the air. It spears her through the heart and grounds her. Never again shall she soar above the mountains.
As her Devan blood drains from her, she thinks of the egg in her nest, one that has not yet hatched. And she cries out to Bhoomi to punish the one who has committed such evil.
Her wings are stilled forever.
But in her heart, there lies a seed, a seed that may be used someday to set free what has been bound.
37
The Ruin
“Willa!” Sona called. “WILLA!” She ran to where the pony had disappeared and braced herself to see her friend broken below.
But instead, she found Willa trotting down a steep path into a green valley in the middle of the gray mountains. Here, whatever Golddust was left from the storm seemed to have blown away.
“Raag! Gulappan! Willa found something! Swara, come,” Sona cried.
The children helped Gulappan make his way down carefully as Swara ran ahead to catch up with Willa. Once they entered the valley proper, Willa stopped and began munching on fresh grass, and Swara rolled on her back with abandon.
Raag let out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know if she got us any closer to Mount Meru, but Willa certainly got to her favorite meal.”
They passed a rushing river with clear, cold water, and stopped to take a drink and refill their water jugs. The air was warm and sweet in the valley, so different from the harsh mountain wind. In the distance, Sona spotted something she’d never expected to see in the mountains: a whillet field. The stalks were straggly and bent and had gone to seed, but there was no mistaking what they were.
Sona took Willa’s lead and called Swara to her as they passed mounds of rubble that dotted the area periodically.
“I wonder what these were for,” Raag said.
Gulappan stopped to examine one of the stones. “They were houses, I think,” he said. “Of the people who once lived here. The people of Paravat.”
Goose bumps erupted on Sona’s skin as they walked along a central path in the middle of the ruined houses, and she got an eerie flash of Kanthpur, its orderly lanes and sturdy homes. She wondered what had caused these people to disappear. Her heart squeezed as she thought of Ayah, sleeping in her bed, waiting for them to return.
Up ahead, a steep cliff of rock rose before them. They kept walking, and as they drew closer, they saw that etched into the stone was a circle—the sacred circle of Devia, with a symbol for each of the five sacred beasts on the outside and a design in the middle that included all of the symbols. Sona’s pulse raced. “This must be something important,” she said.
Raag pushed against the stone with his hand, and it didn’t budge. But a crack appeared in the stone—a crack that went straight up from the ground, over the top of the sacred circle, then straight down again to the ground.
“A door!” Sona said.
The three travelers pushed on the slab of stone but couldn’t move it.
“What’s the point of a door that no one can open?” Raag said, scratching his head.
“There must be a password of some kind,” Gulappan said. “Devia,” he said to the door.
Nothing happened.
“Bhoomi,” said Raag.
Then Raag and Gulappan tried all kinds of words and phrases in Old Devan, none of which Sona understood. But it didn’t matter. The door stayed shut.
“We’re missing something,” Sona said.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Raag said. “A song, right? I don’t know any songs for opening doors. Do you?” he asked Gulappan, who shook his head.
“Oh!” Sona gasped. “What about the beginning to all our songs?”
Raag took a breath and nodded.
You are because we are. We are because you are. We call to you in love, Sona and Raag sang.
And the cracks around the circle widened until the door swung in as if on hinges.
“This is how to get to Mount Meru!” Sona said. She called Swara to heel and pulled on Willa’s lead as she stepped up to the musty darkness. “Ready?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to leave Willa here, where there’s plenty of grass? It might be dangerous inside the mountain,” Raag said.
Sona rounded on him. “Why are you always trying to leave Willa behind? She’s the one who found this valley in the first place!”
Raag put his hands up. “I’m not trying to leave her behind. I just . . . it’s dark in there. She might misstep.”
“Well then, we’d better bring torches, hadn’t we? Willa’s the one carrying them, in case you didn’t notice. Why don’t you light one?”
After some fumbling, they all lit torches and entered the passage. Sona was glad that Swara didn’t run ahead like usual and instead stayed close to her side. As far as the torchlight reached, they saw gray stone—stone floors, stone walls, stone ceiling arching above them.
The passage climbed up steeply. After ten minutes, Gulappan muttered, “So much stone. I could use a little of the air that Paravat is so famous for.”
After another half an hour of climbing up, the travelers blinked as they entered a large chamber with curved walls and a ceiling open to the sky. It took a few moments for them to acclimate themselves to the sudden flood of daylight.
“That’s more like it,” Gulappan said.
“Are we in the chamber with Bhoomi’s Crown?” Raag asked.
“I don’t think we’re high enough yet,” Gulappan said.
They went to the center of the room, where a line, glinting silver in the sunlight, was etched into the ground in a circle. In its center, above the symbol containing all the sacred animals, was a slim stone column with a small bowl at the top.
“This looks like a temple,” Sona said.
“It must be an Air Temple,” Gulappan agreed.
“But we don’t have an Air gem. No one does,” Raag said.
“I’ll bet this place could tell us a story,” Gulappan said.
Willa nosed Sona’s hand, and she petted her tenderly as they moved toward the pillar holding the stone bowl. Sona noticed something lying at its base.
It was a piece of stone, flat and rectangular like a book. And on it was a carving: a nest with an egg, high on a mountain cliff, then a hawk in flight, then the hawk speared through the heart with an arrow. Then the swirl of a storm. Then gemstones, dwindling in number. Then dozens of figures of people, small and large, lying on the ground. Then several triangles in a row. And finally, the nest with the egg on the mountaintop, repeated once more.
“It depicts the death of Shyena, the Hawk,” Raag said. “It looks like—it’s possible that someone from Paravat killed her. And then the gemstones disappeared. And then—why are the people on the ground?”
