Ravana sighed and passed a hand over his face. “Tell me, did Rama accompany you?” he asked.
“No. Lakshmana made the journey with me.”
“Good, good,” he said, almost to himself.
“I will not tell Lakshmana—or anyone else—what we have spoken of.” Ravana had once given me the gift of secrecy and protection. Now I would repay that debt.
He leaned forward and clasped my hand. “Thank you, Kaikeyi. I knew I could trust you. But there is something I must know. Is it true that Rama mistreats Sita?”
That was the second time he had dismissed Rama’s character. I tried not to be too angry. “Of course not. Where did you hear such a thing?”
“I hope you will not be offended if I say I have a few people in Ayodhya’s court keeping watch over Sita. But I cannot fully trust their accounts. After all, they are biased enough against Ayodhya to be willing to serve as spies.”
“Their marriage is young,” I said, giving him a diplomatic smile, even though the thought of spies in my palace unsettled me. “And so are they. She is not always happy, but it is not mistreatment, it is poor communication. They care for each other and are learning to be married. And he is yuvraja, not some asura. If you are worried for her, know that she trusts me, and she will come to me if she ever has real concerns. If need be, I will protect her, as I protect any and all women of my city.”
Ravana got to his feet and paced before me. “Your son is more than he seems. I saw that too, at the swayamvara. This asura—he wishes to burn a path to Ayodhya to prove his dominance. I am sure it is because of your son.” It sounded absurd, and yet—gods were reborn into this world in order to rid it of evil, and the gods and the asuras were eternal enemies. “I went back to Lanka to see if I could find anything more about this asura. I thought surely there would be something in Lanka’s great library. But I found nothing.”
“And I’m assuming Janasthana’s library was destroyed in the fire?” I asked.
Ravana looked up at me, startled. “No, they keep their books in cellars, and we rebuilt over them.”
“This asura is from their forest. Why wouldn’t—”
“Stupidity,” Ravana said immediately, rising to his feet. “Sheer stupidity.”
Of all things, that was easily forgiven.
I went home to collect Lakshmana, for his memory would be of great aid in this task. It turned out Raja Danda had an extensive collection of scrolls and no particular method of organizing them.
On the fourth day of our searching, I found Lakshmana, usually very industrious, sound asleep against a shelf. I shook him several times, but he would not wake. Just when I was beginning to fear some illness had taken him, his eyes snapped open.
“I know where it is, Ma.”
“What?” I reached for his forehead, but he ducked under my arm and moved briskly toward the farthest end of the chamber, weaving in and out of the labyrinth of papers. He paused near a hanging shelf, then began shuffling through the scrolls there. He was working through the mess with great determination, so I decided to let him be.
At last he offered me a thin, rather unremarkable-looking scroll. My eye immediately caught on an illustration halfway down the page.
It was the asura from the forest.
“How did you find this?” I demanded.
Lakshmana shrugged. “I dreamed of it, of this shelf and scroll. When I woke, I knew where it would be.”
I set aside that odd proclamation for a moment to read. The scroll was dated more than a hundred years prior and spoke of an asura called Bhandasura, born of a forest fire that had nearly razed Janasthana to the ground.
I realized, with mounting dread, that the story had uncanny parallels with what what was occurring here and now. At first, people in the city had dismissed the stories of women as mere nightmares. And had I not done just the same, when the trader had told me her tale? The city’s old council had heard the claims that strange beings walked the forest, but when nothing more came of it, they took no action.
It was only when the fires began that people took note. Women would wake up in their own beds, covered in agonizing burns, and describe a demon with the head of a bull and the body of a man, who had kidnapped them. Not all survived.
Now deeply afraid, the people of the city prayed to the gods. But the gods did not come to their aid. Instead, the gods told them the asura was not as powerful as his more ancient counterparts, and a mortal could bring him low—a spearman was fated to strike him down.
So the soldiers of the city armed themselves with spears and marched on the asura. Only five returned.