Chapter 119 - Secret Of Amora

Placing his ear on the pillar, Ishit listened to the sound. Someone woman was sobbing, but where and who? No outsider could enter the castle without Amora's permission. Ishit tried to infiltrate the stone, but couldn't, for the whole court had an anti-psychokinesis spell cast on it. Was there some secret passage in the giant pillar concealed by some powerful array in the giant? And if it was so,  how could a maid fumble into it? Or Amora had prisoned someone there. 

"How rude of him! He didn't wait for the ladies. I'm going to tell aunt. " Kauravaki's furious voice was approaching nearer. 

Ishit rolled his eyes. With a temper like this, how she could call herself a lady and expect someone to walk her like an arya (a native term for gentleman), Ishit wondered as he hurriedly left for his room. As for the mysterious voice, he decided to ask Amora about it later. The old man had his eyes everywhere he must have known about it. 

With an unhinged door stuck in the doorway, broken windows, gaping into the yard, and a dusty rag sneering at him on the floor,  everything in his chamber was the same- untouched undisturbed. It saddened Ishit who had expected that someone would mess with his things --like the mysterious dwarf who had taken away his books and thus giving him an excuse to take his case before his father again. 

Ishit regretted his decision to tell the dwarf, whose name was Villi, the bookiling, never to visit him again. He wasn't able to find the leaf. And when he asked the maids, they too had no idea what leaf was talking about.  He was afraid the girls had thrown it away. 

He sighed as he pull out his sweat-dowsed clothes and decide to take a bath before dinner. 

*****

"You're late boy," gruffed the fowler. The hooded man was pouring some thick liguid on the golden snake egg he had taken out of the maid. Shimmering like molten silver, the liquid was filled with dense spirit energy. Ishit didn't recognize the mysterious fluid. It must have been something like Osric's tears which he had fed him. The wizards of Kemet were famous for their divine alchemy.  According to Suta's tales, there was this wizard called Dhanvantari, who had concocted Amrit, a godly drink that could grant immortality to its drinker. 

The divine liquor had caused a great war among humans and other races. Thankfully Hara was alive in that era. The almighty one destroyed the Elixer and erased the knowledge from Dhanvantari's mind, thus making sure nobody could reproduce it. 

"Hum! What happened to you, lad?" a cute baby voice asked. 

Startled Ishti looked around. Beside the wooden table was standing a toddler made of ..Aum ..water or solid water. With his puffed round cheeks and blue eyes,  the bizarre creature was looking at him with a frown on his transparent forehead. 

A Kanchi' male! Ishit's eyes widened as he recognized the boy. Didn't they say that all the Kanchi's people were captured by Mora, the evil lord? How did the boy escape? 

Maybe because of the wizard. Ishit thought to himself.

"Stop gawking at me like a fool. " Kanchi boy said, "Tell me how you did it." 

"What?" Ishit had no idea what the boy was talking about. 

"Your name or what. Now it suits you perfectly." said the toddler. 

Bhadra, who was now covering the egg with some green gelly, gave a curious side glance to Ishit. 

"Oh! Thanks. Chalukya, the stone-eyed, named me." Ishit said smiling. He really liked his name-which meant 'born to rule.' 

"Are you dumb, human brat? I asked how you made it serve you. The last time I saw the name was conspiring against you." 

"Enough, Virtu. Go and play with your idols." Bhadra interrupted the glass boy. "I'll call you later if I need your aid."

"But Virtu doesn't want to play with the idols. They never speak. Can I bring the boy to play with me instead? I like his nose." The toddler said in his cutest boy, making a pitiable face. 

What do you mean you like my nose? My entire face is lovely.

Ishit rolled his eyes as he pondered over what the boy had just said. So he had met him before.  Ishit sighed. The memory pill had erased everything. He had asked his father why he had to feed him such a taboo pill. Didn't he know his son might go insane or catch the rare illness that Occum shrine called Sahastramastika ( having a thousand minds)?  Oman looked into his eyes and said in his familiar cold tone. 

"Do you think I don't care about you?" 

Ishit saw the pain hiding behind the stern and worry fraught face, and the invisible burden crushing down on his hero. Only one word could escape from his mouth. 

"No!"

Oman let go of him and sighed. He stared at the ancestor tree, supposedly gifted to their forefather by a traveling Mitra. The tree, whose roots were untraceable.   

After the gloomy silence no it was deathly silence, choking silence, he spoke in a tone, that he had never used before. 

"Son, I will not say sorry, for I'm not remorseful about risking your life. You owe to me, you owe to this land, you owe to all the ancestors whose blood is flowing in your veins. And one can't be free unless he pays back all his debts. So don't come to me again asking why I did this and that. It is my right as your father. Learn to live with this as I'm afraid you will need it soon. A life full of questions is waiting for you. And trust me, every question pricks the soul like the sting of an ember bee. " 

Ishit didn't know what he should make of it. He had left the chamber feeling more puzzled than before.

***

"Oh! Didn't you call him a thief last time? "  Bhadra said.

"Ah! I did. Anyway, he has changed now. Please master let me play with him. " The toddler pleaded, putting on his cutest look. 

Ishit couldn't help but gave the boy look.

When did I become a thief? 

"No! he has to prepare for his duel. Now, go and do whatever you like. " 

Udolf ignored the cutest look of the toddler, as he turned to Ishit. 

The boy's face fell. He gave Ishit a last look, the look a child gives to the toy shops when his parents refuse to buy him one, and he left mumbling something under his breath. 

"Don't mind him. He will be fine. " said the wizard noticing  Ishit's concerned look. 

"How do you manage to save him from the clutch of  Dark Lord?"Ishit asked as he followed the wizard out of the main chamber. 

"None survived the evil experiment of Mora. They all, infant and adult alike, perished. Virtu is from Glassia. After Princess Sia destroyed what was once a flourishing country, I went there to have a look. It was then I met him. Half dead, buried in ashes he was hard to notice amidst the millions of corpses. It was really ghastly sight." The wizard shook his head. They climbed down the winding stairs. 

Ishit's heart skipped a beat. The familiar pain stabbed his heart, making him grimace. He hurriedly circulated spirit to calm down his emotions. 

What was wrong with him? 

She must have died long ago. Or even if she had survived like Udolf, which was not possible as only death worshippers knew how to evade death, she would be a granny and had long forgotten him. After all, he was nothing but a short dream in her millennia-long life. 

Why did she destroy the entire country? What had made her so heartless? Was she also like Mora who loved to kill? 

"Wizard, do you really not know what made her so heartless? " He asked. 

"No! I was one month late. By the time got there, she had left leaving behind nothing but ashes, corpses, and howls echoing in the wind."

Bhadra said as he halted on the floor. On the dark stone walls were carved figurines of cloaked and long-bearded old men. 

"Then how can you say It was she who killed them?" Ishit asked as he looked towards the closed metal door. 

"The wind told me. Anyway, the tale of some blood-thirsty princess is not going to help you in the next match. When is it, by the way?" Bhadra asked as he fumbled his clock and took out the same coin made of nether iron. 

"Day after tomorrow. Don't tell me you're again sending me in the past." Ishit said, looking fearfully at the coin. There was no way he would let the old man play with his life again. 

Last time, he had narrowly escaped. The death fairies didn't miss the next chance. 

"Haha, Look at your face. I wish Oman could see. How spineless scion he has fathered! " Udolf chuckled darkly. 

Ishit's face turned red. 

"I'm not spineless " 

"Then come with me," He said as touched the rusty door. The door moaned and opened.. Ishit clenched his teeth and stepped in behind Bhadra.