James McKinney was on an expedition. For three months now, he’d been leading a team of geologists, sedimentologists and mineralogists around the Kalakshetra jungle at the foot of the Himalayas. Invisible from the air, the majestic river Brahmaputra, son of Brahma the creator, disappeared into the dense vegetation of the Kalakshetra. Satellite scans were unable to penetrate the thick screen of foliage; hence James was charting the unexplored region for future expeditions on foot.
Kalakshetra was not a virgin forest. The secondary vegetation consisted of mainly dominant trees with rapid growth that was continuously being supplanted by yet another form of secondary jungle. Scores of men and women armed with the latest scientific and software technology had already scoured the Brahmaputra bed. Geologists had already analyzed samples ridden with pyrite and quartz, the proclaimed harbingers of the golden glitter.
The river was only a softly murmuring brook now. Sunlight trickled through the shiny green leaves and fell on the red and ochre pebbles smoothed by time. Sparks of sunbeams glinted off soft silt, while the clear water rippled gently over. James was moving upstream toward the source, climbing steadily to higher ground.
He punched in the Montreal coordinates and password, interlocking the scrambler. There was a delay of some seconds at both ends, as all transmissions were encrypted to escape eavesdroppers. He typed:
Last transmission. Will enter Kalakshetra tomorrow at daylight. Alone. Sherpas won’t budge. Next mail in four weeks.
He stared at the glowing screen as the reply flashed back:
Wait for new backup. Do not, repeat, do not venture alone. Await new supplies.
James ignored the answer. Now that he was so close to his goal, he could almost taste the success. For some minutes, after he signed off he sat still, alone in the silent sunlight.
James turned for a last look at Camp Sheba. He saw three flashes of silver, an orange flash of the kitchen tent and a small white blur of the dish antenna that maintained contact by satellite link to HQ in Montreal. It was a week since he’d left camp. A week with only the sounds of the jungle in his ears.
A subdued Brahmaputra snaked through Kalakshetra to meet destiny that awaited at the Bay of Bengal. Further down the delta, it roared and thundered over spectacular gorges only to meander meekly again through deep ravines. Kalakshetra was a relatively small forest, a dwarf compared to the giant Congo rain forest or the Amazonian jungle, yet it was even less explored. But that was all a thing of the past. The lure was gold. And diamonds. The biggest reserve yet.
James was a romantic at heart, with an intense longing for adventure. Though a scientist, his passion was folklore and legends. As a young boy, he had devoured legends of Celts, Gaels and Highlanders whose spirits still wandered the pagan woods where rivers roamed unfettered, the misty air rich with the scent of pine needles and moist earth. James had listened to the wind as it sang haunting melodies across moors where the fog hung thick and wet over fields of daffodils and bluebells growing wild in the woods and braes. He had lain on carpets of heather in spectacular hues of violet clambering the banks of a dark linne on which the sun glistened through patches of mist, dreaming of the stuff that legends were made of.
Everything had gone according to plan until the day the sherpas had refused to go any further.
The sherpas sat around the fire that evening and told ancient stories. James had read enough of the Mahabharata, the Upanishads and the Bhagwad Gita to grasp the meaning. With the heavy scent of beedis and incense sticks in the air, James lay flat on his back and stared at the black sky lit with the million stars.
‘Panthers and leopards still roam the jungle,’ Bahadur, the head sherpa said. ‘No man has ever come out of it alive. It is known as the land of no return. Even the elephants that roam the plains refuse to set foot in the jungle. And,’ he leaned closer to the fire, sucking deeply on his beedi, ‘there is a vast treasure buried deep in the jungle. There are the three ordeals to overcome before entry to Kailasa can be granted.’
What exactly those ordeals were, no one was ever quite clear about.
‘The panthers keep to the deep dark of the forest,’ Bahadur went on. ‘They guard the jungle. And its treasure.’
The king who had once ruled, Ashoka, the Sherpa went on, had been a favorite with the gods of Kailasa.
The walls of his city, Dwaravati, were of yellow stone studded with bronze panels on which golden suns, silver moons and planets shone. His palace was of gold and crystal, the roof flat blue sheets of turquoise inlaid with lapis lazuli and yellow topaz. He was a handsome king too. His hair, held together by golden strings, was fragrant and streaked with gold. It fell in shining waves to his shoulders. His eyes were as green as the forest. A broad gold chain studded with brilliant gems fell across his naked chest. Pendants hung from his earrings and bracelets, reflecting light in a thousand colored arcs. Around his waist was a silk dhoti of the sheerest blue and on his head, a golden crown.
One day, King Ashoka was contemplating the philosophy of life on the soft banks of a lake where giant white lotus with blushing hearts bloomed. Bottle green gossamer wings of dragonflies shimmered in the light filtering down through the canopy. They swirled lazily above the lotus and lily pads, the air sweet with the scent of the blossoms. A flash of light caught the king’s eye. His green eyes fell on Suryavati, daughter of the Sun God, Surya, bathing in the lake. He watched her rise out of the water, drops glistening like diamonds on her skin. She was so beautiful, the king fell hopelessly in love with her.
When Ashoka saw Suryavati the next time, she wore a flowing blue robe, studded with stars and moons. Each time she moved, it was as if heaven itself swayed to and fro. Three black sinewy panthers, their fur sleek and shining, prowled at her feet. She lifted a delicate hand and stroked the head of one mighty beast, stilling the growl that was rising in its throat. Just as King Ashoka leaned forward for a better look, she turned and her dark, mysterious eyes caught his glance. The king felt his whole being turn hot, burning hot. He realized he was looking at a goddess and quickly closed his eyes. No mortal could gaze upon her face without being singed. When he opened his eyes again, she was gone. She’d become one with the beasts.
Suryavati too, could not forget the king. There was pride in the way he held his golden head. There was strength in the shape of his chin. And the eyes that mirrored the forest, shone even greener. The sun turned the silky strands on his head into liquid gold and an unexplainable energy radiated from him, casting his spell, pulling her towards him. No mortal had ever had this effect on her.
She went to her father, the Sun God Surya, and begged him to release her from her immortality.
‘Daughter, I can’t do it,’ he said, his golden smile beaming across his face.
Suryavati thought he was laughing at her. Then she remembered he was the Sun God after all. He always beamed. ‘I promised your mother, Savitri, I’d take good care of you. And marry you to someone fitting your status when the time is right. You are the last in my line. I’m getting too old to look for another heir. I find that I am losing my patience with children,’ he sighed, remembering the times when he and Savitri had played hide and seek between the clouds with their many children, throwing fire bolts the far into the distance.
Suryavati saw his attention was wandering. Again. She became angry. She thought about striking down a palace or two in Kailasa with her golden fire. But she was a sensible girl. She realized that it would only serve as an exhaust for her frustration and not really change anything. Except maybe incur the wrath of a god or two.
‘But,’ she heard her father say, ‘since I cannot refuse my daughter anything, I will allow you to remain in Kalakshetra and await the king’s return. And don’t forget, in a thousand years you will have the power to bestow immortality on anyone. If your king is still around then, you’ll welcome him into your arms and body. If he is strong, he will survive the merging of your bodies. If his love for you is pure, your spirits will become one. At the end of four weeks, he will be yours till the end of time,’ he prophesied with a dazzling hot smile.
Knowing he couldn’t look upon a goddess, yet unable to forget the ache in his heart, Ashoka searched high and low for Suryavati. He preferred being consumed by her fiery gaze than face his empty life. For just an instant he wanted to forget who he was, for just a while to give in to oblivion, to escape from the serene tranquility of his life. He was a very learned king. He had read all the books ever written, listened to all the music ever composed and known all there was to know about being a king. And it was not enough. He looked at his sumptuous palace and found no beauty in its splendid lines and angles. He lay on his soft bed that was covered with the softest silk and imagined Suryavati’s skin to be softer. He had never questioned his life. Until now. Being the learned king he was, he knew he couldn’t continue his fantasies about Suryavati and keep his sanity.
Dreams that never could be fulfilled were the undoing of the sanest of minds.
Yearning for a dream that never could be his, Ashoka forgot himself, his kingdom, everything. He renounced his worldly possessions, leaving it in the hands of his guardians, the Rakshasas, who were black-skinned golden eyed meat eaters. Soon after, the trees stopped bearing fruit and the jungle slowly regained possession of Kalakshetra.
Suryavati spent nine-hundred and ninety-nine years roaming the jungle and searching for him, waiting as day merged into night, as the seasons whipped over the jungle and time slipped like soft mist between the valleys and gorges, imperceptibly yet inevitably.
‘Rakshasas. Demons,’ Bahadur had said.
‘Bad?’ James asked.
‘Depends on who you ask,’ Bahadur replied. ‘To man they are bad, but to the city of gates, they are good. They are its protectors and the guardians of the realm.’
It was then that James laughed and shook his head, forgetting his passion for legends, his scientific ambition rearing its cold calculating head. This was the age of the PC, the cell phone and satellite communications. There were no more mysteries, no more secrets. Panthers indeed! If they were so numerous, how was it they hadn’t found a single track? Panthers, just like leopards, were almost extinct. The only ones left alive were in the zoos of the world.
Monkeys started chattering again. James heaved a sigh of relief. He moved along cutting the heavy undergrowth with his machete. Breathless, he paused. He was higher now, the air considerably cooler. There were no bears, boars or deer. No frogs sang joyfully, no sparrows chirped and no cuckoos sang seductively. To the west, thick dark clouds rose furiously in the sky, whirling crazily in the arms of the capricious wind.
He leaned his wicked looking knife against the trunk of a mango tree and…
Mango tree?
Surely he was mistaken! So deep into the jungle?
He stared up at the familiar long, pointed deep-grooved leaves and at the boughs so heavy with fruit that some hung to the ground. Just looking at the fruit caused a rush of water in his mouth. For the past week, he’d been reduced to munching nuts and other unrecognizable dehydrated nutrients and to sipping the dew and drops of rain collected in the heart of young shoots. He trembled and reached out for a fruit, the skin on his forehead glistening with perspiration. Greedily he bit into a succulent mango and the sweet juice spurted down his chin and trickled down his hands. He sunk his teeth into the aromatic golden flesh, lips closing and sucking. He closed his eyes in delirious joy.
Suddenly, he heard it.
A soft jingle, so tantalizingly soft, he’d have missed it if he hadn’t paused to take a deep breath. A soft mist swirled around. It was when he opened his eyes again that he saw her. In a skirt so blue, it reminded him of the loch in summer. When streams of sunlight hit the stars on her skirt, it reminded him of the white cherry blossoms awakening slowly from the deep embrace of winter. A diaphanous veil covered her breasts and the long black hair that spilled over her shoulders almost reached her ankles. The lights in her hair reminded him of a dark clear placid pool strewn with pebbles that glistened in the sunlight. She didn’t move, just stood there appearing to float, looking at him with her wonderful black eyes, a smile on her lips.
‘James,’ she said, startling him, confusing him with the music in it. ‘James,’ she said again, gliding towards him, the soft jingle in the air. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
Suryavati saw the gold streaked hair and the curls that were tied with a golden string. The skin on his arms and legs was of an equally golden hue. With startled recognition, the emerald eyes looked back at her from a face she’d seen a thousand times in her dreams and searched for nearly a thousand years.
She had looked for him everywhere. From the gates of Dwaravati to the foot of Kailasa, yet never found him. She had felt his presence in the caress of the wind on her skin, in the warm kiss of the sun, in the cooling relief of a summer rain, in the silver touch of the moon. The yearning for him kept her search alive, with the hope burning strong that one day her love would reach him and bring him to her.
He stared at her, rooted to the spot, mouth agape. She came closer. And closer still. Still unable to speak, he wiped a hand across his mouth and watched her come even closer. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Her dark eyes were mysteriously shadowed, the lashes long and dark, the eyebrows arched like delicate wings. Her skin was the color of honey and glowed as if there was a fire underneath. In the faint light, he saw the swell of her breasts and the small slender waist. Her smooth arms were adorned with silver bangles that jingled sweetly each time she moved. Her lips were curved and full and suddenly he had an unbearable urge to kiss them. He took a step forward. Her perfume filled his nose.
Gardenia, he thought. She called me James.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, not knowing what else to say to this beautiful vision.
‘You know me James. You’ve seen me before. I heard you calling and I came.’
Yes, he knew her, he realized as he felt a jolt of recognition run through him.
She laughed softly. He thought of the wind singing over the mist laden glen and whisper across a blue loch. And he shivered. He did kiss her then. Or did she kiss him? Her mouth was sweeter than the mango, her skin softer than velvet, the cloud of ebony silk wrapped itself around him as if it had a life of its own. His fragrant golden curls brushed her shoulders, entangling around her darker strands. Her delicate hands left a fiery trail on his body and her lips whispered forgotten secrets into his mouth. With his pulse pounding, James let the fire consume him. He pressed his lips to her eyes and cheeks, the flames of desire devouring him until he lost all recollection of who he was. Briefly, he registered her stretch languidly.
Like a cat, he thought, as he drifted on the nebulous waves of utter contentment.
She licked her lips and curled closer to him. The dark eyes, half open now, looked into his own green ones. He was certain she purred.
When James came to his senses, beams of sunlight streamed down from the canopy breaking the smoky air into strips. She was gone.
James never knew when she’d come. The soft jingle was the only warning. And the scent of gardenia. He held her against him, afraid to let go, his chest tight with apprehension. He didn’t want her to slip through his fingers like the mist. In the sunlight, she was radiant, and he saw her, with a catch in his throat, entwining her fingers in his. In the silver moonlight, shadows draped her in magical allure, their passion burning hotter in the velvet darkness.
James forgot that he was on a mission to chart a jungle where no man had ever set foot before. As each new day dawned, his hunger for Suryavati became acute. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t remember the numbers to log on his computer. His link with the world became weaker as the days went by. He felt alive when she was near and was miserable when she wasn’t. Sometimes he thought he saw her watching him from behind the dark shadows. He thought he saw the fiery eyes, yet when he called she never came.
It was four weeks since James had left Camp Sheba. He now heard the jungle. He heard the soft whisper of the leaves as they swayed high up in the canopy and the rustle of ground animals as they scattered through the undergrowth. A faint scent of gardenia teased his nose. He drifted towards the source, deeper and deeper to the place where there was almost no light. He saw golden eyes staring at him without blinking. He couldn’t see the rest. It was just a dark shadow. He opened his lips to call out Suryavati’s name when he heard a growl. He whirled around to face a large black head, gnashing fangs and a snarl so ferocious it chilled his blood. He smelled the musky animal odor. He almost fainted when he heard a roar. When the fangs sank into his side, he really did faint.
James McKinney awoke to a silent world. Isolated beams of stark sunlight twinkled like stars from between the dense canopy, scattering light which fell to the underground in a diffuse veil. Creepers hung down massive tree branches swinging from tree to tree, in a tangle here and there, holding on, refusing to let go. Huge leaves, shone with moisture, orchids nodded daintily in the hot air. Thick roots rose up form the ground like serpents frozen in time, smothered in the embrace of soft moss. James felt cleansed, his head empty of all thought. He looked in wonder around him. This was a virgin forest. He had never seen such trees before and the vegetation was familiar only from books. Yet, he knew this place. He’d been here before.
He was lying on a silken bed. The walls of the chamber were of crystal inlaid with panels of gold. A broad gold chain studded with brilliant gems hung around his neck. He raised his arms. Bracelets hung with pendants that reflected light in thousand colored arcs, adorned his wrists. He saw gates tower into the heavens, the bars thick as tree trunks, studded with precious gems. He caught a flash of the red of coral, the blue of turquoise, the violet of the amethyst and the white of the pearl. He saw the walls of yellow stone studded with bronze panels. The gates opened silently, and Suryavati glided towards him, in a white robe, the pattern of which changed each time she moved. There was music in his heart and in his mind. It swirled softly around him, seducing him like her sweet laughter had done. It invaded his empty soul, curled about his spirit like a caress, its lilting notes taking him higher and higher. The sounds of the flute merged with the pulse beating in his veins and James was home again.
The white antenna dish turned its head delicately to capture the incoming signals. The screen on the monitor glowed blue before it flashed into life.
James, James are you there? It has been more than four weeks…..