Samsaara : Devadoot

Red Sky at Night

The Ethereal gate opened at the top of the spire where we left. I came out facing one of the windows; the whole majesty of the citadel of Soma was visible from there. The other three towers stood gallantly equidistant from the central hall. The naturally grown gardens made the whole place more beautiful.

Lord Ishrafil hastily walked towards us.

"Omar my son, what happened?" Lord Ishrafil asked.

Omar told him about all that happened. He wore a grave expression on his face. Finally, when we were done he spoke.

"Asrasya always finishes the work before he informs us. I didn't think it would be too much of trouble for you people. Strange," the old man muttered as he walked away.

"Asrasya? Who's that?" I asked Omar.

"I don't know much about Asrasya, no one does. People say he is a guardian just like us, but no one has ever seen him. Apparently, he wanders the world looking for watchers and stops them single handed," Omar replied.

Paviraa added, "I remember my father once overheard Lord Gibrail say that he is almost as strong as himself."

"Umm, we should not be, Umm, discussing about this, really, we should not," Mary panicked.

"OK, now what?" I asked, "What about the artefact that I found, doesn't he want to see it?"

Omar had carried the ring inside his robe. When we took it out Lord Ishrafil turned around at once. He must have sensed its presence. In full speed he marched towards us and took that object from Omar's hands. It was an olive green stone that looked like a ring with a hole passing through it.

"Such a menacing presence, I need time to analyse what this is. Miss Fremd, I advise you to get some rest and report tomorrow morning. We will need you in my lab for working on this. The rest of you may disperse until we call you for the next mission," Lord Ishrafil said.

"Of course," Mary and Paviraa said in unison.

All of us then went back to our quarters. I had work to do now. The others weren't aware of the tug on my wrist that I felt from my core. Now I had to find out where it led. Also, I had the stone core that I picked up from the presumably dead man with superhuman strength. Once back in my room, I took off the black robe and hung it on the hooks behind the door. Just as I put my hands inside the pocket to remove the stone core, I felt a sharp shooting pain on my finger. I pulled my hand out immediately.

Unbeknownst to me, the dragonfly that had come out of the chrysalis had been hiding in my robe. It fluttered about and finally sat on the top of the wardrobe. It looked around with its strange crystalline eyes. My finger developed a sudden itch and I noticed it had become red and inflamed. A small bite mark appeared on my fingers. By the time I looked back up, the dragonfly was airborne. It went straight into an air vent above the wardrobe and escaped.