Mayajaal: the snares of illusion || On hold ||

Chapter Nine

I stood on the grand staircase of the palace with others in line. We had been inside the cave that went through the study room of King's private chamber. No one really knew anything about it until today. Some had even explored it to find its second outlet, which was just behind the place where my father was kept as a prisoner, surrounded by trees. This makes me wonder if King had gone to see my father before announcing the punishment.

A soldier came running inside, telling us about the retreat of the enemies early morning. I remember that I felt a wave of relief thinking the King was still alive. We rushed outside, with Queens, princesses, and Nakul in the front.

And that's how we stood on the grand staircase, watching servants and soldiers carrying dead bodies from the battle field. By dead bodies I didn't just mean individuals with life threatening wound, most of the bodies were separated heads and hands. Soldiers seemed to collect body parts of one individual. They wrapped it in a cloth, hanging on their respective shoulders. Blood stains were visible on it. I could count the dead bodies without any separate parts on hand. I had to close my eyes at that. I couldn't see it. I makes me wonder, my body would have been like that if I wasn't inside the secret cave.

A bile of bitter saliva travelled up on my throat by remembering the dead bodies. I had to remind myself the verses my father spoke about the individuals that died are still alive that are still gonna get heavenly planets because they died in a battlefield.

And then my eyes landed on the king, who had been behind everyone. His eyes blinked slowly, as if he had been bereft of sleeping. His face was covered with dust, perspiration, and blood. Deep cuts were visible allover his body. Some of his body parts were covered with bandaid, while others had some paste applied. His armored hands held his helmet as he urged his horse ahead. He looked tired, broken. It's not like he hadn't been injured before. He was, but I used to see his face glow even amid the problems. It was because my father had been beside him all the time. But now, he was visibly broken inside out. Just as similarly as me and mother.

I held mother's hand as he crossed by. I couldn't see him this way, not like this. I wonder how many of them are still alive, not that it matters right now because I can see many of the soldiers are either injured, covered with blood, or dead.

But I found it out in the meeting that happened few hours later. King, after he was sober enough to speak, called his ministers, commanders, mother, and me. I really didn't know what was the point of calling me. Maybe he was going to discuss something about father related to me?

We stood just beside the main gateway of the temple in the courtyard of the temple where King paced back and forth. I could see zigzag lines forming on his head that were stubborn enough to go away. Maybe he was trying to gather his thoughts. Or maybe he was trying to control his anger, my heart spoke.

And my heart was right.

He looked straight toward us, "it's because of Chiran. We lost our spiritual master. We lost our elephants, army, weapons, and even our entire treasure. I'll cut him in small tiny pieces."

"Exactly. Had he been invisible to us, our Acharya would be alive." another minister spoke.

"And did you forget the evil deed of him? Did you forget his conspiracy of trying to threaten us? I certainly cannot forget this." one of the commander spoke.

Dhananjaya gripped his fist, "he did what he was mostly good at. But right now, we should be more concerned with ridding ourselves from the doom we have been facing now. We have lost our treasure and everything is burnt. We went down from being the foremost kingdom to nothing. We should think about that."

I saw King slowly nodded his head, "you're right Dhananjaya. Before that, there's more important thing we need to discuss." He looked back at us. "we need to discuss who will be the Acharya now. Who will be guiding us toward a life of simplicity and peaceful mind, toward blissful and healthy life."