Chapter 5: Ashok

ASHOK

When Ashok was ten years old, he entered the deathless waters for the first time.

That was the right age for the first immersion. He had lived at the temple since he was no more than a toddling child. He’d been selected and trained. Taught not to complain when seated in the sweltering heat of the midday sun or in the cold night’s dark without a candle. He had learned how to cope with hunger, with the burn of an older temple sibling’s hands twisting his skin. That was how the temple children of the Hirana were taught. How they learned about pain and strength and the need to excise weakness.

It had been a normal morning, until then. Elder Saroj had led him and the others through their prayers and chores, and watched as they had prepared gifts for pilgrims to take home with them: vials of deathless waters, broken from their source but still a beautiful, glowing blue in their bottles; sacred wood, whittled into tiny charms; tender fruits, their piths studded with spices carefully pressed into place by childish hands.

But after all that had been completed, instead of releasing them as usual, she had led them to the waters.

“Three journeys,” she had said. “After three journeys through the waters, you will be elders like us. This is only your first journey. Don’t forget: Those of you strong enough to survive must still work hard and grow even stronger. It is our responsibility to keep the faith, and to preserve the memory and traditions of Ahiranya’s grand history. Even if the Parijatdvipan empire forgets what we once were, we do not forget.”

Those of you strong enough to survive.

Ashok had not been worried. He’d known he was strong enough, because he had looked at the carvings of the temple elders from the Age of Flowers, those men and women who had conquered the subcontinent on the yaksa’s behalf. Who had held terrible, incalculable power. He had looked and thought, I am not going to be like our elders, holding only a shadow of power, a faint echo of what once was. I won’t sit with the regent or bow to the emperor in Parijat.

I am going to be like you.

He knew—the moment he emerged from the deathless waters for the first time, gasping for air to fill his lungs, somehow both hollow and full—that he had been right. Because in his head he saw the sangam. A place of myth. A world beyond the mortal realm where cosmic rivers met; where once, the temple elders had been able to walk. That day, years before the other children began to change and grow powerful, before the temple elders realized what the children had become—before everything and everyone burned—Ashok knew. The yaksa had heard him. Ahiranya’s glory would return.

Now.

Now he stood in the confluence of rivers.

They met beneath his feet. River of soul; river of heart’s flesh, red and deep; river of immortality, bubbling the green of life and the gold of the ageless.

Rivers of the living. Rivers of the dead.

He waded in deeper, the water rising to his ankles, his knees. He closed his eyes and held his breath, then released it, slow and even. He had done this before. He knew the way of it: how a breath unspooled could lead a man’s mind from his flesh and deep into the grasp of the rivers. In Ahiranya’s forest, his body sat cross-legged, back straight and eyes fast shut, breathing just so. In the confluence of rivers—the sangam, the holiest of sites—his soul made its way to the meeting place.

She waited for him, in the same swirling water, a mere shadow of a woman. She was trembling. She always trembled, now. Around her the river was an oil slick of violet.

“You’re not well,” he told her.

“Ashok,” she murmured, lowering her head. “I’m well enough.”

“Are you?”

“I’ve almost found the way,” she said. “Almost. I’m sure.”

“Tell me everything.”

She wavered before him. The shadow of her was breaking—ink swirling into the river flow. She was not strong enough to be here. Every moment was a kind of agony.

“I can’t remain long,” she said. There was an apology in her voice, small and broken. “But I promise I—I’ll save us. I promise.”

He waded closer. He felt her then: her pain, her weakness, her love and loyalty. He held his hand out, a wisp of soul before him. Touched her cheek.

He thought of telling her to come home. He thought of telling her to return to her family, where she would be safe.

But if there was a hope—if there was a chance—

“I know what it means to be strong,” she told him. “I know everything has a price.”

So it did.

“Be strong, then,” he murmured. “And I’ll be here.”

She faded away and he remained, the sangam winding around him.