He stared into the distance. The legends were true, the sword did sing. Though he heard it as Aindri's war cry.

Not that he cared for it. 

He did not care, not even for the fact the he was destined to wield the legendary blade, the one with the power to destroy demons. He believed that it could kill the Gods, not the he cared for that fact either, though a part of him was tempted to find out how true or easy it was. 

There was nothing he could bring himself to care for. 

It was selfish and maybe even childish of him to think in that way, but he could not, or  rather was not willing to accept what had happened. He closed his eyes as he remembered her eyes, Aindri had a silent plea in those deep brown eyes, eyes which once had mirth and fire, which had blazed with spirit and joy, were now telling him, begging him, not to stop her. He had been surprised that she thought he would stop her, there was no way he would grudge her anything and he knew that the price had to be paid willingly, he knew that even if he did not understand the magnitude of the sacrifice. 

Now, he could laugh at himself, he had thought he was being selfless in allowing himself to be sacrificed to activate the blade. No, she had been asking him forgiveness, for she would be sacrificing herself, her soul was the key to making the sword near invincible, she was the sword's song. Only now, it did not seem funny.

All he knew was that Aindri was not with him. 

And that with the blade in his hands he had felled down every possessed mortal who had stood in his way, not that it had helped. A part of the pisacha had gotten away. And when he had seen the faces of those who had survived the pisacha's attack, he wondered who was lucky, those who had died or those who were left behind to pick up the pieces of their tattered lives. 

They haunted him, those screams and the contorted faces, faces of men and women whom he had once respected and loved, people whom he had known from his childhood, who had changed into distorted beings of anger and blood lust. He tired not think about them, not that it helped. He could still see Ina, her eyes bloodshot and blazing with hatred and loathing; she was the closest he had to a mother and yet, he had killed her. It did not matter that it was a blessing, a release from the possession, nothing assuaged him. 

"It is fine, Vahin, you have to learn to let it go. All battles are not easy ones, some hard decisions have to be made, you cannot allow it to eat you away."

Aindri' voice, softer and gentler than she had ever been when she had been alive. No, when she had been physically present, in flesh and bone; he refused to think her dead. He might have seen her disappear into the sword, her soul dissolve into the metal, but she could not be dead.

Hence, the first time he had heard her voice, he was sure it was his imagination, and was convinced it was an hallucination  when he saw her pale shadow, a silhouette of a brilliant blue light, stand in front of him. However, Aindri as a sprite could be as persistent as she was when alive and after a couple of hours of seeing and talking to her, he came to the conclusion, that what he heard and saw was not an illusion.

"This is new, in all the times that the blade has awoken, none of the souls could exist outside the blade..."

Vahin whirled at the sound of that voice. He had never met him but now could recognise him; he stopped questioning as to how he knew things. He just knew it and the man, if he could be called that, was Dhumaketan. That was another strange thing he that had learnt about, Dhumaketan was a rakshasa, a guardian demon, a shape shifter, created for the sole purpose of protecting the Script Inker. 

And he was here, because at end of the carnage, Karamappa had entrusted the book and the Script Inker duties to Vahin, the sigil that had been burnt into his left palm still throbbed. It was yet another another thing that he found it difficult to accept, he hardly knew how to read or write, yet that task had also been entrusted to him. Thrust on him, for Karamappa had reached out to him, grabbed his arms and after a few seconds, had released him, only to fling the book at him. He was surprised that he had managed to grab it, and then Karamappa had snarled, "You are her only hope. For my sake as much as your own, do not give up on her."

Those words had not made any sense either.  He adjusted the sling bag across his back, pushed the sword harder into the scabbard and asked, "You can see her too? She is not just my imagination?"

Dhuma nodded, "I am not sure how it happened, but I guess her soul is too powerful to be contained in that blade so a part of her is without. Or maybe she still has something else to do. I do not know, though Karamappa would be better able to tell."

"Tatha disappeared once I took the book. Can you not trace him?"

"I owe my allegiance only to the one who holds the key to the book, which is now you. Even though we have been friends for long, I do not have the ability to trace him, though I could track him down."

Vahin despaired and at his downcast look, Dhuma was sorry, what the boy had gone through was overwhelming and could exhaust wiser and braver men then him; Vahin was still a boy though he stood on the threshold of adulthood.

"There are certain rules that have to be followed. They might not make sense but then they are rules and they are followed. Once the necessity for the sword disappears, the soul leaves it and the Blade Dancer dies, but not the Script Inker; he lives till the next time the blade is needed, till it sings and is held by a warrior who rises with the time. He does not age, does not fall sick and though leads a nomadic life, he is safe and protected, both by the knowledge of the ages and by me. It is like he is an immortal. Now do you see the paradox?"

Vahin shook his head, though Dhuma sounded wise, nothing made sense. 

"You as a Blade dancer must die when the there is no longer a need for the sword to sing, but you as a Script Inker have to be alive, healthy and unharmed, till the next time the sword is needed. And in all the eons that have passed since the sword was made, there there has never been an instance when the former Blade Dancer is alive so nobody knows what to do next. It is a conundrum that has the Gods in a dilemma."

Vahin said nothing, he only stared at his palms, the right one marked with a pattern of wavy ridge lines, the sword hilt burning into the skin. The left one had a brand, a sigil, which he now knew opened the book. And as the import of Dho words sank in, he smiled, "Then it was clever of tatha to do what he did."

"Clever, definitely not; courageous and foolish, quite possibly, downright reckless, absolutely. You, young man, have not understood the magnitude of that single act of his."

 And when Vahin's face fell, he changed tracks, "Do you know what the inscription reads?"

Vahin snorted and Dhuma intoned, "It read as Dhairyé, Saahasé, Veereyé, but you know what it means."

He did; tatha would often say that phrase, in a language that was ancient, supposed to be spoken by the Gods themselves, a phrase that meant, 'bravery, courage and valour'. Though he was not sure how it could be used for him, he did not feel brave, only helpless and tired.

His despair must have shown for it was in a whisper  that Dhuma spoke, the hesitancy evident in his tone, "It is not that you did not have a choice, Vahin–"

"I did not? I had to kill them, I accept that..."

"–you could have walked away, rather than kill them and bear that deed on your conscience, remember that."

"What does it change?"

"Your perception.  Remember you had a choice, a very difficult one, a choice that would cause you pain, irrespective of what you chose but you chose what had to be done. Remember that, it was your choice. Keeping that in perspective gives you the power, you are not a mere simple pawn in this game of the Gods, you still are a pawn, but one who chooses his battles.

You have to understand, Vahin, the Gods that you and me and all other creatures worship, in this and in the multiple realms, are not the Creator. IT is different and the Gods you pay obeisance to are also its creations. Our lives and those of the animals and plants and all this happening around us, is more like a game to the Gods, you cannot truly think that they spend all their time listening to you and your dreams and your prayers, without doing anything else."

"For a raakshasa, you seem to be quite knowledgeable and philosophical."

Dhuma looked at Aindri, "Firstly it is rakshasa, not raakshasa, the later is a destructive demon while the former is a guardian, a protector. Secondly, for someone who does not die easily, I have a lot of time to learn and observe, which now is going to be reserved to teaching our young man here how to read and write and maybe you could learn to be patient and a little less headstrong."

Not one to back down so easily, though she could see where she had gone wrong, Aindri asked, "Does not die easily? But, I thought you raa...rakshasas are immortal?"

"That we are, it does not mean we cannot die, we are just unlikely to do so as easily as compared to you mortals, so we live for much longer periods, eons compared to the years you have. The only thing truly eternal and everlasting is time."

Vahin sagged his shoulders, , "So apart from having to learn to read and write, what else would I have to do?"

"Well, you could do what all men in your position do, play the hero, fight a few wars, save the world."

"I never wanted to be an hero, Aindri was the one who..."

"That is what makes you a hero, you will do what is needed, not what you want. And Karmappa must have had something in mind when he made you the Script Inker, maybe there is a way to free Aindri, maybe a way to end this cyclic battle fought for the pleasure of the Gods."

Yet when Vahin's eyes lit up at those words, he cautioned them, "There is a saying in one of your languages, 'Only Time will tell', unfortunately, Bhairava is in no mood to tell, so till he decides to grace us with that knowledge, we will continue doing what we have to do..."

And before Vahin's astonished eyes, who was sure that there would be no more surprises in the world, Dhumaketan sank to his knees, the awe unmistakable as he stared at the skies.

Vahin looked at the horizon, where the sky had slit to let slip a few rays of and as he kept looking, he noticed it; there was no change. 

The slit did not widen, the night was not receding, the light had not grown. He noticed other things too, everything was still, there was no wind, no rustling of the grass, no whisper of the trees, no warble of the birds. He turned around, wondering if what he thought could be possible, and saw the flames frozen in the air, even the smoke seemed to be still.  

It was as if the world had come to a standstill. And Dhuma's whisper confirmed it.

"Bhairava has stopped; he does not want nature to keep moving, the worlds to continue spinning and you humans to go about your lives, exhausting yourselves with mindless battles, while the Gods decide how to change the rules of the games. He is giving you a chance, to balance the odds."

Vahin sank to his knees beside Dhuma, as did Aindri; it seemed the right thing to do; man and demon and sprite, knelt beside each other in silence, as Kala Bhairava stilled in his eternal march. And it was after sometime that Dhuma spoke,

"You are blessed indeed, Vahin, you have been blessed by Kala Bhairava himself."

It was as though in response to Dhoomketan's words that the sun began to rise and nature was restored to its usual pace. Apparently, the Gods had made their decision and the game would begin again. 

As one, the three rose, turned to the left and started to walk, away from the pyres, where the life that they had once known was in flames; away from the rising sun, which heralded a rise of a future that they were not sure they had a place in.

They would play the game and maybe, defeat the Gods, once and for all. 

That hope was all they had.