Rain (The Quest Trilogy-Book Two) (16 page)

Then, somehow, my father managed to bribe the men manning a remote exit. That night, we all escaped from the village for good.

I arrived at the Seeker’s Field one day before the pass was revealed. I was extremely lucky. Mother and father gave me their gifts at the mouth of the Seeker’s Pass and then they left. I wanted to cry when I saw them leave but I was so happy to have made it, the tears just wouldn’t come!” Rainbow smiled at the memory.

Heart turned to Rain.

“See, Rain? Didn’t I tell you? Nobody can steal your destiny. Ill-wishers may delay you, but they can never take away what’s yours.”

Rain turned to Rainbow.

“Don’t listen to him. He’s just saying that because he revealed his Quest to me.”

“Really?” said Rainbow, “What’s your Quest, Heart?”

“My Quest is to heal my heart.” came the prompt reply.

“Cool! My Quest is to find the significance of the seven colors of the rainbow. I’ve got five down already. Two more to go.” she said, happily.

“And …” continued Heart, “I am very close to the end of my Quest, too.”

He was staring ahead with that wistful look in his eyes again.

“What’s with the look?” asked Rainbow.

Rain rolled his eyes. Girls! They just
had
to know everything.

“Because my mini-Quests will end with the meeting of my soulmate.” answered Heart.

Rain gave an exasperated sigh. Heart! He just
had
to answer everything.

Rain looked from one to the other, disapproval written large across his features.

“Why’d you two do that? You’re not supposed to reveal your Quests to anybody. It’s very careless of you two.” he reprimanded.

“Don’t listen to him.” said Heart, “He’s just saying that because he revealed his Quest to me by accident and now he is afraid.”

“Exactly! It was an
accident
!” said Rain, defending himself.

“He revealed his Quest to you? What is it?” said Rainbow eagerly.

“He has to collect twelve wisdoms.” said Heart sagely.

“Hey!” fumed Rain, “Keep my Quest out of your philosophies, okay?!”

He then grabbed the hot marshmallow at the end of his branch and angrily popped it into his mouth. It scalded his tongue and his eyes started to water but he continued to chew on it hastily, appearing quite comical in the bargain.

Heart and Rainbow dissolved into fits of laughter while Rain forcefully gulped down the marshmallow.

“Tell us something about yourself, Rain.” said Rainbow, wanting to diffuse Rain’s anger by distracting him. It worked. His face lost some of its color as Rain began to talk about himself.

“My parents were both sequestors. Both of them finished their Quest and were out of here in two years.”

“Just two years!” said Heart in astonishment.

“Yeah. Cool isn’t it? Anyway … so six years after that, me and my brother Star were born. We’re twins. Mom died a few days after giving birth to us. Dad’s raised us single-handedly since then …”

“Where did you two train?” asked Rainbow.

“At Mt.Chimpu, with Master Shengdu.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s kind of short. Wears glasses … he’s bald and looks Chinese. I’m sure he is from China. He’s real nice and a brilliant teacher.”

“Did you have dorms to stay in?”

“All of us stayed at the monastery, where four of us shared one room. The girls stayed on the first floor and the boys on the second. It was great training there.” answered Rain.

Rainbow turned to Heart.

“What about you, Heart? Where did you train?”

“I trained at Mt. Kalamitti, with Swami Rami. We stayed at the Ashram, where the girls and boys stayed in two separate wings. It was one of the most peaceful periods of my life. But enough about us boys. Tell us about you, Rainbow. Where did you train?”

“I trained at Mt. N-Ly10 with Professor Spark. She’s something else, our professor, she really is.”

Rain and Heart almost dropped their woody skewers.

“Professor Spark is a
woman
!?” exclaimed Rain.

Rainbow regarded the two of them disdainfully.

“Yes, you two chauvinists, Professor Spark is a female. She is gorgeous and an extremely skilled combatant. None of the boys in our batch were able to ever outdo her in anything. Or the girls, for that matter.”

“Describe her some more, please.” requested Heart, with a mischievous grin.

Rainbow pursed her lips impatiently but obliged.

“She has thick, long, red hair and green eyes. She always dressed in these cat-suits that would drive the boys insane. It’s a wonder they ever learned anything.”

“Sounds like my kind of training ground.” said Rain.

“Sounds like heaven.” chipped in Heart.

Rain frowned. “That’s not fair. I want to train at Mt. N-Ly10 too!” he complained. “Wish Master Shengdu was a woman.”

Rainbow arched a mocking brow.

“Short, bald, Asian women? With that kind of eclectic taste, it’s no wonder my feminine charms are having no effect on you.” she teased.

“Maybe you should display your charms some more. I’ll bet they’ll have an effect on me then.” suggested Rain naughtily.

Rainbow flung another marshmallow at him.

“All right!” cheered Rain, catching the marshmallow such that it skewered itself onto the twig.

“You keep giving all your marshmallows to him. What about me?” protested Heart.

Rainbow flicked a hand over the marshmallows once more. This time they appeared to be dotted with bluish-green fungus.

“Be my guest.” said Rainbow, politely offering the marshmallows to Heart, who turned his nose up on them in disgust. This time, Rainbow did not change them back to their original white color but ate them just as they were.

“What was the disciplinary action at Mt.Kalamitti like?” asked Rainbow.

“We had to go in for two hours of meditation…” said Heart.

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“On a bed of needles.” finished Heart.

“Ouch!” exclaimed Rainbow, while Rain burst into a fit of laughter which he seemed unable to stop.

“Something funny, brother Rain?” said Heart, who didn’t find this amusing at all, having had actually gone through the agony of it. Rain took great gulps of air and shook his head, almost choking on a marshmallow.

“Just remembered s-something … nothing that you should b-bother about. Relax.” he sputtered.

“What kind of punishment did you guys have to go through at Mt. Chimpu?” asked Rainbow.

And Rain collected himself and told them all about the ‘torture chambers’ at Mt. Chimpu.

Done with both, their conversation and their marshmallows, the three of them got up and put the fire out by pouring some sand over it. They pulled out their sleeping bags and lay down side by side beside the snoring Subodh and were soon fast asleep.

*****

CHAPTER 12

That night, just before dawn, Rain’s chain began to glow. His Geeya shook his shoulders softly to wake him up. He sat up groggily, still clutching the bow and quiver he always slept with. He could feel the wind rushing by his ears and by the time he opened his eyes, all was silent again.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice still heavy with sleep.

“You are in the forest of …”

“Shh …” Rain held up a hand, pricking his ears. “Do you hear that? Sounds like someone is crying.”

His Geeya nodded.

“It’s coming from over there.”

All the sleep left him as he jumped to his feet and ran in the direction of the sound. He came upon a small girl of about six lying on the forest floor, covered in dirt and crying her eyes out. Rain knelt down next to her and gently brushed the dirt off her face.

“What’s the matter, little girl? Why are you crying?” he asked.

At the sound of his voice, the little girl sat bolt upright and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“It’s my brother! He’s trapped! Please help me save him or he’ll die!” she cried, tugging at Rain’s jeans.

“Where is your brother? Take me to him.” said Rain.

The girl jumped to her feet and shot forward like a bullet on tiny legs. Rain kept pace with her easily as she led him through the forest.

“There he is!” pointed the girl.

Rain saw a huge black tree with no leaves on it, below which lay a boy who looked to be about as old as the girl.

“He’s barely conscious.” said Rain, feeling the boy’s pale, sweaty forehead. “What happened to him?”

The girl began crying again and among chokes and sobs, she pointed to her brother’s feet.

Two thick vines had bound the ankles of the boy together while several hair-like appendages had dug themselves deep into the soles of the boy’s feet, keeping him trapped and immobile.

“What on earth …!” exclaimed Rain.

He drew out a knife from his belt and chopped off the vines. Three more grew in their place and dug into the boys flesh, taking up from where the previous vines had left off. Rain kept chopping them off but more kept growing in their place.

“What’s happening? Why can’t I stop this?” Rain asked the sobbing girl.

She spoke through her tears.

“This is the tree of Murshi. Murshi was a priestess of the royal temple. She wanted to be made the Queen’s personal advisor and head of the royal temple. The queen refused and in retaliation, Murshi turned one of the queen’s daughters into a lotus. The queen then ordered the palace magicians to put a curse on her. They did, and trapped her inside the very pond over which she had turned the princess into a lotus. A few days later, this tree grew out of the earth. Since then, it traps unsuspecting people who take rest under it. Once it has my brother firmly in its grasp, the tree will pull him inside and make him a part of itself. Nobody will ever know what happened to my brother or where he went!”

The little boy gave a weak moan and twisted in pain.

“Tell me how I can free him.” demanded Rain.

“You will have to kill Murshi. She is the real life of this tree.”

“Where can I find her?”

The boy gave another moan and then his eyeballs rolled up in his sockets and his body went limp. The tree then began to pull the boy towards itself. Again, Rain tried to cut the vines but with no luck.

“It’s no use getting the tree. Don’t waste what little time we have left. Come with me, I will take you to the pond under which Murshi is trapped.” said the girl.

The two of them ran to the pond that was just a few feet away from the tree. There were several lotuses floating over the pond.

“She is in there. Hurry!” said the little girl.

“How do I get to Murshi?” asked Rain.

“Just walk into the pond. She will pull you in herself.”

Rain walked into the pond hesitantly. It was shallow. As soon as he reached the centre of the pond the water started swirling around him like a whirlpool. Rain had the funniest sensation of passing through invisible layers of energy and then he was standing alone on a deserted street in the dead of the night.

A few streetlamps cast their dull orange glow on the ground below at regular intervals.

Sensing the need for urgency, Rain began to half jog as he looked around himself for some sign of Murshi.

A short distance ahead, a beautiful woman came running down the large white marble stairs of a palatial bungalow, and began walking ahead briskly without so much as a glance towards Rain.

Rain ran behind her. She continued walking, ignoring his presence. Rain was wondering if he should call out to the woman when she stopped and turned to face him.

“Are you Murshi?” said Rain.

She shook her head.

“Do you know where I can find her?”

She smiled and began walking ahead briskly once more, seeming to almost fly away with the wind. Rain followed behind. She just kept on walking, seeming to be headed nowhere in particular. Rain was starting to get annoyed and was about to stop her when his eyes fell on her feet. They were turned backwards, facing him.

His heart missed a beat and he sucked in a sharp breath. The sound of it rang heavily in the silence of the empty street. Ahead of him, the woman stopped walking.

Slowly, while her body remained absolutely still, her head turned a hundred and eighty degrees to look Rain straight in the face.

In that moment, she was no longer beautiful. She was terrifying.

Rain couldn’t move. He was frozen to his spot with fear. The woman began to cackle loudly. Around him, the empty street dissolved and he found himself standing inside a dilapidated warehouse, facing the woman he was now sure, was Murshi.

“Prepare to die, fool, for I am Murshi, the powerful!” she boomed.

“Not so fast!” said Rain, pulling an arrow out of his quiver and stringing it on his bow.

Murshi’s eyes went wide with fright for a second and then an evil smile stretched across her face.

“Exactly …” she crooned, “not so fast!”

She spread her arms and fell backwards, her body breaking up into a thousand rats which went scurrying in every direction, filling up every inch of the warehouse.

“Which one is her?!” exclaimed Rain, baffled.

“That, you must figure out on your own.” said his Geeya. “I can tell you, though, only one
rat among all of these is a real rat with a real heart. The rest are all decoys.”

Rain looked at the red eyed rats. They seemed to be laughing at him. Rain kicked them out of his way in frustration. He could spend all of his life here, killing them one by one, and still never chance upon the real one.

How was he supposed to figure out which rat had her heart and life, and then kill only that rat?

He needed help. Something that could sense the heartbeat of the real rat. Rain wished Heart was here, now. He would have been able to point out to Rain exactly which one was Murshi. But Heart wasn’t here, so he would just have to use his own resources to get past this.

Now, what means did he have of gauging the difference between the real rat and the …

Rain snapped his fingers.

That was it! A snake! A snake could see the heat emanated by the body of its prey and only the animal with a real heart that was pumping real blood through its body would be warm.