The morning sun filtered through the canopy, illuminating the devastation in the small forest clearing. Rudraksha descended from the tree branch, his young muscles aching, his body rigid from the tense, vertical sleep. The first pangs of true hunger hit him, a stark, physiological demand that temporarily eclipsed the emotional void.
He quickly retrieved the remaining dry rations and ate sparingly, washing them down with small, careful sips of water from the military pouch. His movements were calculated, efficient—the mechanics of survival taking over.
While eating, his eyes caught a metallic glint near the base of the tree. He walked over and picked it up. It was one of the daggers he had thrown the previous night, smeared lightly with the hyena's blood near the tip. It must have dislodged after striking the beast, falling back into the undergrowth where he hadn't noticed it in the dark. A small, cold victory. He cleaned the blade on a patch of wet moss and secured it to his waist.
Next came the hardest part of the morning.
He moved to the mud-caked mound of his mother's body. Slowly, reverently, he removed the outer layer of mud and the scavenged tunic clothes, revealing Gauri's face—serene now, the pain gone, the fierce beauty of her features unmarred by the final struggle.
He had to carry her. Cremation, the sacred ritual of fire that liberated the soul, was the final duty a son owed his mother. To leave her here, in the cold, wet earth, felt like the ultimate failure.
He maneuvered his small body, placing his hands carefully under her shoulders and legs. Gauri was light for a seasoned warrior, but she was a grown woman, and Rudraksha was an eleven-year-old child exhausted by two days of terror, fighting, and grief.
He strained, his face turning red with the effort, managing to lift her lifeless weight. He took one step, then another. The distance covered was perhaps three meters down the muddy alleyway. He stumbled, catching himself before falling, and gently lowered her back down to the ground.
Rudraksha collapsed beside her, heaving deep, ragged breaths that did nothing to quell the burning in his chest and limbs. He was completely spent.
It's useless.
The thought was a cold, pragmatic knife thrust into his heart. If he kept doing this, fighting her weight, he would exhaust himself completely before he even reached the edge of the forest. He would become easy prey, failing both his own survival and his mother's final command.
He sat back against the tree, closing his eyes, seeking clarity in the darkness behind his eyelids.
"Should I go back to the village? It's only a day's walk. I can be safe there."
The instinct for self-preservation, the primal, deep-seated urge of human nature, screamed at him to choose the familiar, the safe land. Safety. Family. A place to grieve.
But then, Gauri's voice, a dry, faint whisper, echoed in his mind: Taxila.
He shook his head vehemently. If she had wanted him safe, she would have told him to return to the village, to disappear into the familiar community. But she hadn't. She had demanded Taxila, a distant, mythical center of wisdom and power. There must be a reason, a hidden purpose, a long-term strategy she had envisioned even as her life was draining away.
She never wanted my bad.
After a tense, internal monologue that spanned seconds but felt like hours, he made his decision. He would go to Taxila. He would find out his mother's intention. He would keep his word.
He glanced at the dense wall of trees. "The forest is no good for me to travel," he muttered to himself. "It's unpredictable, and I don't know Taxila's direction. The main option is the road. It must be about five kos away to the closest city… yes, Sangraha city."
But the main problem returned, coiling like a serpent in his stomach: cremation.
He curled his knees up, resting his head on them, his gaze fixed miserably on his mother's corpse. His thoughts became a confused, warring mess—duty vs. love, logic vs. despair. He wrestled with the terrible choice. Logic, the cold voice of the Samrat-in-training, screamed: Leave the body. Move forward. But the son, the eleven-year-old boy, wept.
To leave her here is to deny her dignity. To abandon her soul to wander.
He silently made up his mind, a decision born of deep, crushing despair: I will stay here. I will never leave. I will wait until I die beside her. He could not do it. He could not perform the ultimate act of abandonment.
The confusion, the pain, the exhaustion, and the profound hopelessness—it was too much. The world blurred, colors swam, and the sounds of the forest faded. Rudraksha's head suddenly slumped forward. He lost consciousness, closing his eyes against the unbearable reality.
Rudraksha found himself somewhere else.
The transition was seamless, a smooth slipping from reality into a space that shimmered with impossible colors. He was standing on sprawling, gentle hills covered in flowers that defied earthly biology—blooms of brilliant sapphire and ethereal silver, exuding a silent, ringing energy. The air was warm, scented with honey and something else, something transcendent, like sun-warmed copper and ancient sandalwood.
He noted the soil beneath his bare feet: it was a strange, luminous blue-green, feeling soft and warm, like silk upon his skin.
He raised his gaze, utterly fascinated. Strange, magnificent beasts roamed the valley. He saw an Eka-śṛṅṅga, a pristine white horse with a single, spiraling horn of gold, grazing peacefully beside a flock of Hamsa (celestial swans) whose feathers caught the light like polished gems.
A colossal Nāga—a serpent with thick, muscular legs, its scales shining like polished jade—slithered lazily past, its gentle movements causing the strange flowers to sway. Overhead, a majestic, winged horse, an Aindri, circled gracefully, its mane flowing like liquid fire.
Drifting the sky, there is a glorious, burning bird with a long, fiery tail—a Phoenix. Many other mythical beasts which he couldn't recognize are also present and are roaming here and there.
The strange thing was that none of these majestic creatures showed any fear of him, nor did they show any hostility towards each other. They simply roamed, happy and content. A few even walked directly through his body, causing a brief, shimmering sensation, confirming the unreal nature of this place.
Further away, a colossal waterfall cascaded down a cliff face. The water was not just clear; it was crystalline, breaking into droplets that sparkled with the colors of the rainbow, feeding a winding river of pure, flowing light.
Rudraksha was mesmerized, his grief temporarily forgotten in the face of this impossible, beautiful world. He recognized some of these forms from the faded, torn drawings Gauri had shown him, whispering tales of ancient gods and mythical kingdoms.
As he admired the waterfall, his gaze directed forward, away from the valley floor, towards a nearby hilltop.
There, seated upon a smooth, white rock, was a figure. The back of a woman.
A simple, flowing cloth—a sari of deep, celestial blue—billowed gently around her in a silent wind. She was sitting with perfect stillness, her hands delicately occupied with plucking one of the strange, sapphire flowers from the earth beside her.
Rudraksha focused, concentrating on the quiet serenity of the scene, and then, he heard it. The faint sound of muttering.
It wasn't conversation, nor singing. It was a low, melodic, continuous sound—a deep, rhythmic hum, a soft, intimate sound of comfort and peace, like a lullaby woven from the deepest recesses of the soul.
As he concentrated on the sound, his heartbeat began to accelerate rapidly, not from fear, but from a profound, immediate recognition. A wave of heat rushed over his body. His mouth dropped open.
Wai… wait. Is th… that her?
The sound—the distinct, specific pitch of that intimate hum—was unmistakable. It was the sound she always made, the ancient, nameless chant she would hum when tending to him after he was hurt, or when she was deep in thought.
He began to walk toward the hilltop, muttering to himself, a confused mix of awe and burgeoning hope. His emotions—grief, exhaustion, and despair—were momentarily fused into a single, desperate, unstoppable force.
Then, his walk broke into a frantic sprint.
His small feet pounded on the blue-green soil. The strange flowers bent away from his path. He ran faster than he had ever run in his life, droplets of light sweat falling to the ground as he raced toward the single figure that held the promise of everything he had just lost.
He reached the base of the rock. He scrambled up the smooth surface, his breath ragged, his vision tunneling onto the woman's back.
The cloth flowing around her, the delicate curve of her shoulders, the peaceful angle of her head... it was all too familiar, too utterly real in this unreal place.
Rudraksha stopped, completely shocked, the impossible, unbearable truth of his vision overwhelming him. He tried to speak, his throat seizing up with emotion, before finally tearing out a single, broken word:
"Maa…"