"Alright. Prepare for the oracle," Dharma declared, his voice assuming a formal, resonant tone that seemed to echo in the small chamber.
The others turned their full attention to him, the air thickening with anticipation. Then, Dharma looked at Rosa. "Rosa, take Adhithan to the outer Madan temple. Prepare him."
Rosa bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment, a gesture of deep respect for the ritual chain of command. She then turned her gentle but now solemn eyes to Adhithan. "Come with me, Adhithan," she said softly, opening the chamber door. The two of them stepped out, leaving the trio behind in a pool of tense silence.
As the door clicked shut, Tayammal and Linga swiveled back to face Dharma. The calm mask of ritual preparation slipped from Tayammal's face, replaced by sharp concern. "Leader," she began, her voice low but urgent. "Why did you agree to give the oracle? You know the ancient law as well as we do. A vessel can only channel the ancestors once a day. The body cannot bear the strain more than that. It's forbidden."
Linga leaned against the wall, his usual smirk absent, replaced by a look of serious agreement. "She's right. It's not just a rule; it's a safeguard. The spirit can burn out the flesh."
Dharma looked at them, his eyes weary but resolute. He lifted his gaze, meeting theirs, then let it fall, his head bowing slightly as if under a great weight. When he spoke again to Tayammal, his voice was a hushed, confidential murmur, laden with a deep and troubled suspicion.
"My doubts about him… they persist," Dharma confessed, the words heavy. "He is hiding something. I can feel it—a shadow behind his eyes."
Tayammal's own eyes widened in surprise, her lips parting slightly. Linga, however, didn't look shocked. A knowing, grim smile touched his lips, as if a private theory had just been confirmed. "I've had my suspicions about him too," Linga stated plainly.
Tayammal glanced between the two men, her analytical mind piecing together their unspoken concerns.
Dharma continued, his voice still low. "When I was in his mind, during the dream-walking… he was conscious, yes. Cooperative, even. But there were… chambers. Locked doors within his deepest self. I glimpsed flashes, fragments." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "It involves that book. The Illuminatti book."
Tayammal leaned forward. "But you believe he has genuinely forgotten, don't you?"
"I believe he thinks he has forgotten everything," Dharma corrected, his gaze intense. "But how did he survive in that burial ground? How did he draw breath when all else was death? My instinct, the whispers of the ancestors in my blood… they tell me it was that book. It has a will of its own. We need to understand its role. We cannot peer into a person's soul without their invitation for mere curiosity. That is a violation." He straightened up, his voice gaining strength. "But if someone asks for an oracle, if they seek a divine sign… then the channel is open. We can look. We can seek the truth that lies veiled even to them. That is why I agreed."
The logic, though risky, was impeccable. Tayammal's expression shifted from frustration to reluctant understanding. The ends, however dangerous, might justify the means if it revealed whether Adhithan was a lost soul or a hidden danger.
"Alright," Tayammal finally said, her tone resigned. "You should begin your preparations as well." She walked to the chamber wall, a section that seemed no different from the rest—rough stone. She placed her palm flat against it, closed her eyes, and whispered, "O tree that shelters us, that is our guardian and our path, expel me now."
A subtle shimmer passed over the stone where her hand met it. The solid surface seemed to breathe, its texture softening like bark. Then, without a sound, Tayammal was absorbed. Her form blurred and passed through the wall as if it were mist, leaving Dharma and Linga alone.
Linga moved to follow, his theatricality returning. Dharma caught his arm, his grip firm. "Listen," Dharma said, his voice grave. "I will be channeling for the second time today. The strain… it will be significant. If something goes wrong, if I lose myself in the current… you must bring me back. Use whatever means. My voice, a memory, a sharp pain. Do you understand?"
Linga met his leader's eyes, and for once, there was no mockery. He placed his free hand over his heart in an oddly formal gesture. Then, the poet in him surfaced. In a rhythmic, almost chanting tone, he intoned:
"Where Yama, Lord of Death, exists, why fear?
Where this Linga exists, why any fear?"
Dharma couldn't help a small, exasperated snort. "I see. You're a professional poet. But don't let that tongue of yours season everything with rhyme, especially not my safety." The rebuke was light, but the underlying plea was serious.
Linga grinned, the moment of gravity passing. "Understood, O word-weary one." He then turned to the wall, repeated Tayammal's invocation, and dissolved through the living stone.
Alone, Dharma took a deep, centering breath. He removed his outer tunic, standing in simple, worn trousers. From a small pouch at his waist, he took a handful of fine, fragrant sandalwood paste. With deliberate, ritualistic motions, he began to anoint his body. He drew lines along his arms, over his heart, across his forehead—the cooling paste a stark contrast to the heat of his apprehension. Each stroke was a prayer, a layer of purification between his mortal self and the forces he was about to invite in.
Finally, prepared, he approached the wall. He placed his sandalwood-smeared palm upon it. "Guardian, path, my vessel is prepared. Grant me passage."
The stone acquiesced. The sensation was not of moving, but of being gently unraveled and rewoven on the other side. There was a moment of profound dislocation, a void of neither here nor there, and then his feet were on solid ground again, cool grass under his bare soles. He stood now beneath the immense, ancient banyan tree that housed their sanctuary, its aerial roots like a hundred silent sentinels in the gathering dusk. He was ready. The oracle would began
Aadhithan followed Rosa up a worn, winding staircase carved into the heart of the great tree. The silence between them was unfamiliar, palpable. Rosa, who usually moved with a quiet, flowing grace and often offered reassuring words, was profoundly silent. Her focus was ahead, her profile serene but closed.
This quiet unnerved Aadhithan more than any argument could have. "Rosa," he ventured, his voice echoing slightly in the hollow stairwell. "You don't like it either, do you? The idea of me becoming a Siddha."
Rosa didn't turn her head. She continued ascending, her steps measured. "It's not you becoming a Siddha that troubles me, Aadhithan," she said, her voice even. "It is your choice of the Agastya method." She left the statement hanging, a verdict without an explanation.
Aadhithan let a few steps pass, the only sound their footfalls and the distant rustle of the tree's immense life. "What is it?" he pressed, frustration edging his tone. "What is it about the Agastya Siddha path that holds such terror for all of you?"
This time, Rosa paused. She turned on the step above him, looking down. Her eyes, usually so gentle, held a deep, ancient sadness. "The tree we just walked through," she said slowly, "the one that is our home… it is a Siddha. A long-forgotten one who merged with its essence. That is why it shelters us, the Night-wanderers."
Aadhithan's breath caught. The concept was staggering. A tree, a Siddha?
Rosa saw his astonishment and gave a small, sorrowful smile. "Ask me nothing more from this point, Aadhithan. When you truly become a Siddha—if you walk the true path—you will understand. Knowledge without experience is a hollow, dangerous shell."
She turned and pushed open a simple, unadorned door at the top of the stairs. They emerged from the tree not at its base, but from a seemingly natural hollow high in its trunk, onto a wide, smooth branch that served as a pathway. The world outside was in the throes of a magnificent, melancholic transition.
To the west, the sun was a sinking ember, bleeding crimson and gold across the horizon as it prepared for its nightly slumber. Its dying light painted everything in long, dramatic shadows. Simultaneously, in the eastern vault of the sky, two pale yellow moons had risen. They were not yet bright, but their faint, twin glow was beginning to wash the high clouds in a sickly, beautiful ochre, as if the sky itself were being gilded with a ghostly brush.
Birds, black specks against the fiery and ashen canvas, wheeled and cried as they returned to their nests in the tree's canopy. The sight, so normal yet framed in such surreal beauty, stirred a tempest of questions in Adhithan's mind. If this tree was a Siddha… then could other trees be? Could the great Cosmic Royal Tree of my homeland's legends… could it, too, be a Siddha? A living, conscious pillar of the universe? The thought was vertiginous, expanding his understanding of reality itself.
Lost in this cosmic speculation, he followed Rosa down a natural, root-formed path that led away from the tree-sanctuary. They arrived at the Nattar Kovil, the folk temple. It was an open-air structure, simple and powerful. Two large torches, their flames dancing defiantly against the encroaching twilight, burned in stone holders. Sparks, like orange-red fireflies, occasionally spat upwards, briefly illuminating the carved, weathered faces of deities and guardians.
Between the torches was a short flight of six steps. They were painted in alternating bands of stark red and pure white, a vivid contrast that immediately reminded Adhithan of the boundary temples back on his own world—places where the mortal realm met the divine. Flanking the steps were statues: a proud, rearing horse carved from dark stone, and a massive, powerful black bull, its obsidian surface gleaming in the firelight.
At the top of the steps was a simple altar. Upon it stood a single, formidable object: a long, curved sickle, an arival. Its steel blade had been anointed with sacred ash and sandalwood paste. A small oil lamp burned at its base, its tiny flame making the metal seem to waver between solidity and liquid light.
Before this altar, already in position, knelt Dharma. His torso was bare and gleaming, fully coated in the sacred sandalwood paste, which made his skin look like ancient, polished ivory in the flickering light. Tayammal and Linga stood on either side of the altar like solemn attendants. They had arrived before them, a fact that sent another jolt of disquiet through Aadhithan. How did they get here before us? What other secret passages, what other wonders, does this world hold? He shook his head slightly, a gesture of overwhelmed resignation.
Dharma's eyes were closed in deep meditation. In his hand, he held a small, hourglass-shaped drum called an udukkai. He began to tap it softly, the rhythm slow, primal, and resonant. His body started to sway with the beat, a subtle motion that gradually grew more pronounced. He was beginning the aattam, the divine dance of possession.
He rose from his knees, moving up the red and white steps with a fluid, unnatural grace. At the altar, his eyes still shut, his hand reached out and closed around the hilt of the anointed sickle. He lifted it, the blade catching the torch and moon glow. Turning, he descended the steps, moving directly toward Aadhithan. He extended the sickle, not as a threat, but as an invitation, a conduit.
Aadhithan's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat competing with Dharma's udukkai. A primal fear surged—this was a weapon, now a sacred object, pointing at him. Yet, beneath the fear, a stubborn resolve held. He did not look away from the blade's cruel curve. He stepped forward, meeting Dharma halfway.
Dharma's eyes opened. They were not his own. They were voids, pits of obsidian that seemed to swallow the light around them, deeper than the night sky. A voice emerged from his throat, layered, echoing, as if multiple beings spoke at once. "State your need, child. Speak it, that I may lay it before the Divine."
Aadhithan swallowed, his mouth dry. "I wish to become a Siddha," he declared, his voice surprisingly steady. "I ask the God… what is Your will?"
The possessed form of Dharma threw its head back and let out a guttural cry—"Irubaa!" (Let it be!)—that was both invocation and surrender. He began to dance in earnest now, the sickle in one hand tracing arcs in the air, the udukkai in the other maintaining its hypnotic rhythm. His movements were a storm of controlled power, the sandalwood paste on his skin shining with a faint, ethereal sweat.
Then, with a motion both terrifying and gentle, Dharma brought the curved tip of the sickle forward. He did not strike. He simply, reverently, placed the cold, pasted point of the blade in the very center of Adhithan's forehead.
The effect was instantaneous and absolute.
A shock, cold and electric, not of pain but of profound unmaking, shot through Adhithan. His vision collapsed into perfect, velvety blackness. All sensation in his limbs vanished. He was a consciousness untethered, a spark ejected from the moorings of his own body. He felt himself falling, or perhaps floating, into an abyss without direction.
---
Aadhithan existed in a formless, weightless state. This was the liminal sea, the vast, silent ocean that lies between the shores of waking reality and the continent of dreams. He was adrift in a featureless grey expanse. In the distance, he perceived two immense doors.
Before his own floating awareness stood a colossal, dark gate. It was shut, and from the cracks around its edges seeped an impenetrable, living darkness that seemed to pulse with a terrible, ancient patience. This, he somehow knew, was the door to his own buried memories, his forgotten past, guarded by the shadow of the burial grounds and the whispers of the Luminatti.
Far across this psychic sea, he could perceive another door, smaller but vividly clear. Through it, he had a paradoxical, dual vision. He saw the physical world: his own body, rigid and eyes closed, standing in the folk temple with the sickle at his brow. He saw Dharma, entranced, holding the blade. He saw Tayammal, Rosa, and Linga watching, their faces etched with tension and hope. It was a window back to reality.
But in this liminal space, Dharma was present too. The leader's conscious spirit, separate from his entranced body, had also descended into this between-place. Unlike Adhithan, who floated aimlessly, Dharma's spirit-form acted with purpose and familiarity. He willed himself downward, his feet finding purchase on an unseen platform in the grey void. He had walked these shores before.
He first looked toward the massive, dark gate looming near Aadhithan's spirit. A frown touched his spectral features. Still shrouded in darkness, he thought. His memories have not yet stirred. The lock is still firm.
His attention then turned to Aadhithan's drifting consciousness, a soft, glowing ember in the grey. Dharma moved toward it, his form gliding over the non-ground. He observed the boy's peaceful, closed-eyed expression, his form gently undulating as if in a slow current. Reaching out, Dharma's spirit-hands sought to make contact. He needed to grasp the threads of Adhithan's psyche, to trace them back to the moment of survival, to find the fingerprint of the mysterious book.
As his luminous hands were about to touch the edges of Adhithan's aura, a sound shattered the profound silence of the void.
"Dharmaaaa…"
It was a voice that was not a voice—a vibration that resonated through the fabric of the liminal sea itself. It was a call, intimate and immense, filled with the gravity of ages.
Dharma's spirit froze. Slowly, he turned his head, a movement filled with awe and dread. From the formless grey, a shape coalesced. It began as a swirling vortex of pure shadow, a deeper blackness against the grey. Then, like smoke being drawn into a figure, it began to take form. The darkness receded, not to reveal light, but to unveil a presence.
It was the figure of a mighty warrior, clad in ancient armor that seemed forged from night itself. His face was stern, majestic, etched with lines of timeless wisdom and burden. A radiant, dark halo of power shimmered around him.
Maadan.
The ancestral deity of their lineage. The first Night-wanderer. Dharma's own spiritual progenitor.
Without hesitation, Dharma's spirit fell to its knees in the void, hands pressed together in the ultimate gesture of reverence. He bowed his head deeply, humbled to his core.
The majestic spirit of Maadan looked upon his descendant. His eyes, stars in a face of noble shadow, held both distance and profound care. When he spoke, his words were not heard but directly imprinted upon Dharma's soul, clear as crystal.
"My heir. Trust in me."
A pause, heavy with meaning, filled the expanse.
"And trust… in this youth."
Having delivered this simple, monumental decree, the form of Maadan began to dissolve. The darkness that composed him bled back into the featureless grey of the liminal sea, leaving no trace but the echoing certainty of his command.
Dharma remained kneeling, head bowed, overwhelmed by the direct intervention of his ancestor. The suspicion, the fear, the strategic plotting—all of it was swept away by a tide of divine assurance.
And floating nearby, unseen and unheard but psychically present, Adhithan's consciousness had witnessed it all. He had felt the seismic arrival of the presence, seen Dharma's profound submission, and perceived the weight of the spoken trust. A name echoed in his formless being, a revelation and a mystery gift-wrapped together:
Maadan.
The oracle had been given. Not through chanting or signs, but through the direct word of a god. The path was sanctified. But as Dharma's spirit rose, filled with new conviction, and as Aadhithan's awareness began to be tugged back toward the light of the physical world and the cold steel on his brow, a final, treacherous thought whispered in Adhithan's deepest self: They trust me now. But do I trust what they saw? And what did I just see? The door to his own darkness remained shut, but a divine key had been placed in the lock from the outside. Who would turn it?