Chapter 17 Deception on the Vindhya Mountains and the Trial by Fire
Agni guided Neer back to his chambers his grip on his husbands elbow firm but not unkind He settled him onto the edge of the bed the silken covers cold and unwelcoming Sit here Rest I will return shortly
He didnt wait for a response didnt meet the confused clouded blue eyes that followed him He strode out his pace measured but urgent a king containing a cataclysm within his own stride
In his own austere room Agni didnt light a lamp He folded himself onto the cold stone floor in Padmasana the lotus position Closing his eyes he brought his palms together before his chest For a long moment there was only the sound of his own heartbeat a frantic drum against the cage of his ribs Then he began to breathe deep measured pulls that stoked the inner furnace
A glow kindled between his palms Not the wild destructive orange of battle fire but a concentrated sacred gold shot with crimson light the flame of his highest sadhana the fire of pure intent The light grew painting his stern features in stark relief casting long dancing shadows that seemed to bow and pray on the walls
Margdarshak The invocation was not spoken but poured from his spirit into the flame Margdarshak guide me
Within the heart of the conjured fire the air shimmered The golden light resolved into a familiar aged visage Margdarshak Vishrayan his image woven from flame and will His voice was distant thin as ancient parchment yet clear in Agnis mind What troubles you my child
Pranam Margdarshak Agnis mental voice was strained I need your aid The talisman it holds the surface calm but its feeding the fury beneath The shadow grows angrier not weaker
The fiery image of the Margdarshak seemed to sigh The shade has made a nest of Neers flesh Agni It is not a guest it is a landlord claiming its property
I am fighting a war with no weapon Agnis projection roared silently in the flame Every path is a dead end Show me a way Any way I will pay any price to pull him back from that abyss
The Margdarshaks flame face grew solemn There is one path Do you remember Agni when you journeyed to claim the Agnyastra Who you met in the heart of the living mountain
A memory old and potent surged the scent of volcanic stone the feeling of immense feminine power a voice that was both song and seismic shift Mother Mayaangini Agni whispered
You must seek her counsel the Margdarshak affirmed She told you then to call upon her in your hour of ultimate need Go my son To her ancient temple in the Vindhya ranges There you may find the key or the lock
Agni found Neer exactly where he had left him sitting stiffly staring at his own hands Neer Agni said his voice carefully neutral We must take a journey
Where
To the Vindhya Mountains There is a rare herb there for Nirag
Neers head snapped up Nirag But he was fine just
Agni led him swiftly to Nirags chamber Inside a small scene had been arranged Nirag lay on his bed face pale and drawn a sheen of cold sweat on his brow Anvay sat beside him a damp cloth in his hand his expression one of grave concern
Father Nirag moaned his voice convincingly thin My stomach it burns The royal physician said only the Moon Lotus from the Vindhya peak can draw the poison out
Neer stared a crack appearing in his detached calm Deep lines of worry etched his forehead But you were well
Nirag convulsed a choked cry tearing from his lips The pain It comes in waves
Neer flinched He looked from his sons agonized face to Agnis implacable one Very well he said the words clipped He turned to Anvay Watch over him
Anvay met Agnis eyes for a fleeting second a silent promise passing between them I will guard him with my life Acharya
As soon as Neer turned to leave Nirag sat up the pain vanishing from his face replaced by keen anxiety Tauji will he be alright
Agni placed a hand on his shoulder a brief proud squeeze Well played Now you two must be the fortress we return to Guard each other
The journey was a silent tense procession of two They crossed the borders of Prakashgadh swiftly the lush fields giving way to rocky foothills Agni tried to bridge the silence
Nirag is twelve now he ventured watching the path ahead Do you think we should tell him everything The truth of his birth Of us
Neers reply was a shard of ice No Not yet
Do you remember Neer The Trikuta Mountains fourteen years ago We were just boys chasing legends Agnis voice was soft probing an attempt to summon the ghost of shared laughter
I remember The words were flat
Are you alright
I am FINE Agni The retort was sharp brittle the sound of a man holding himself together by sheer fraying will
They reached the foothill town of Bhanupur as the afternoon sun bled into the hills The town was ancient a skeleton of crumbling temples and narrow alleys choked by the encroaching jungle But its true state was more chilling than its decay An unnatural silence hung over it No children played No vendors called Shutters were drawn tight over empty eyes The air itself felt watchful and stale
Their horses had barely halted when an old ascetic emerged from the shadow of a broken archway His robes were rags his body skeletal but his eyes held a desperate lucid light Maharaj Agnivrat Maharaj Nirvrah You are here His voice trembled not with age but with awe and dread
Agni stiffened You know us
The ascetic nodded slowly his gaze lingering on Neer with a peculiar mixture of pity and fear This town is the threshold of the Vindhya The air here it wakes old ghosts But you must reach the temple before nightfall The town holds echoes They grow hungry at dusk
Neer urged his horse forward Show us the way Sadhuji
The old man pointed a bony finger down the narrowest alley There But be wary the echoes walk They cry for what they have lost
They entered the alley The moment the high moss slick walls closed around them the whispers began They didnt come from a direction they seeped from the stones breathed from the very air
Neer Agni come back The voices were myriad but each one held a haunting twisted echo of Neers own melodic tone
Agnis jaw tightened An illusion A psychic trap He felt Neers hand where it rested on his own reins grow rigid He glanced over Neers knuckles were white and a terrifying physical cold began to emanate from his skin frosting the leather of the reins
At a bend in the alley stood an ancient dry well Leaning against its crumbling rim was the translucent figure of a young woman Her robes were blue her hair flowed like water but her eyes were solid weeping pools of black ink
Neer her voice was a liquid sigh full of bottomless sorrow You left me behind in the deep Now I will take you with me
Neers horse stopped dead He stared transfixed his own blue eyes reflecting the specters void For a moment his own essence seemed to thin to yearn toward that watery grave
NEER Agnis shout was a crack of thunder in the psychic fog
The specter smiled a sad drowning curve of her lips and dissolved backwards into the dark mouth of the well
Neer shuddered a full body convulsion He blinked disoriented horrified Agni that was me A part of me I drowned long ago
Agni grabbed his forearm the heat of his touch a brand against the unnatural chill It is a phantom A memory given form by this place Do not listen Move
The temple was not a building of beauty but of raw terrifying power It was carved into the living rock of the mountainside its entrance a jagged maw guarded by stone serpents whose eyes seemed to follow them Inside the air was still and heavy smelling of ozone and deep earth The center of the single vast chamber was dominated by a great fire pit the Agnikunda It was cold filled with ancient grey ash but around it were scattered archaic metallic yantras their geometries speaking of rituals older than kingdoms
Margdarshak Vishrayans warning echoed in Agnis mind Here the shadow will be drawn out But a price will be exacted
Neer stood at the edge of the cold pit his back to Agni His voice when he spoke was hollow echoing in the cavernous space Agni if the shade emerges I may not be who returns to you Are you prepared
Agni stepped to his side taking his cold hand in his own burning one You will always be my Neer Now and after Begin
Neer began to chant The language was pre human the syllables like drops of ice falling into the silent dark As the cadence built a wind stirred from nowhere swirling the ancient ash in the kund Then a spark A single blue white flame flickered in the center of the ashes It grew not with warmth but with a fierce cold light
Neers body began to shake A low groan escaped him warping deepening into something else a guttural grating laugh that was utterly foreign His head lolled back When his eyes opened they were twin pools of liquid night
Agni the voice was a layered horror Neers tone buried under millennia of icy malice You think to cage me with parlor tricks
Agnis hands came up wreathed in pure golden flame He didnt attack He focused the energy into a containment field a sphere of molten heat around Neers trembling form FIGHT IT NEER YOU ARE STRONGER
A wrenching tearing sound not of flesh but of spirit filled the temple From Neers chest a plume of absolute blackness thicker than smoke colder than space began to pour forth It coalesced into a shifting man shaped void above him attached by a tether of darkness to his heart The void had a face a screaming hateful rictus
ANDHAK I AM ANDHAK it shrieked the sound shattering the remaining yantras And he was my perfect vessel
Agni unleashed a torrent of fire The flames passed through the shade harmlessly cooling and dying as if doused in liquid nitrogen The entity laughed You cannot burn nothingness little sun king
AGNI RUN Neers own voice strangled and desperate broke through for a second IT CANT BE CONTAINED
The shade roared and rushed back into Neer not as an invasion but a claiming Neers body straightened the struggle gone His now completely black eyes fixed on Agni He raised a hand From his fingertips a torrent of black viscous liquid like corrupted ink shot forth his water element poisoned to its core
Agni met it with a blade of white hot fire vaporizing the stream into a foul freezing mist that coated the temple in hoarfrost
Neer Andhak smiled With a casual gesture the legendary Chhaya Damaru materialized in his hand carved from bone and frozen shadow Did you think you could save him Your love is a feeble shield
Agni drew Agnishikha The steel gleamed in the eerie light Release him Or I will carve him free
Or what Andhak sneered twirling the damaru Will you pierce your beloveds heart to reach me
I will do what must be done Agnis voice broke with the admission
Then try hero
Agni dropped his sword He raised his empty hands palms together He began the incantation for the Agnyastra the ultimate fire weapon a mantra that pulled at the very core of his life force The air around him superheated warping vision A searing concentrated light began to form between his palms a miniature sun hungry and pure
For the first time a flicker of something other than contempt crossed Neer Andhaks void eyes A sliver of primal fear It stepped back You you would not
For him I would unleash the apocalypse Agni growled the energy straining his form cracks of light appearing on his skin
Andhak recovered a cruel laugh bubbling forth It raised the damaru and beat it once A visible wave of distorted sound and solid shadow erupted not at Agni but at the forming astra The two supreme forces collided in mid air The Agnyastras light fought but the nullifying wave of the damaru absorbed dissolved The brilliant light snuffed out with a sound like a dying star
The backlash threw Agni across the chamber He hit the stone wall with a sickening crunch slumping to the floor A trickle of blood bright and shockingly red traced from his temple into his hairline His eyes fluttered shut
Silence deeper than before reclaimed the temple
Neer Andhak stood over him the damaru now still in his hand The void eyes looked down at the fallen king the husband the would be savior The entity knelt bringing Neers face inches from Agnis With a chilling tenderness it used Neers thumb to wipe away the blood from Agnis brow
The game it whispered Neers lips brushing Agnis ear with a lovers intimacy has only just begun
It rose turned and walked calmly into the deeper darkness of the mountain temple leaving the King of Fire broken and alone on the cold stone the only light the fading ember of his own fading consciousness The Vindhya had witnessed the trial And the fire had been found wanting
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