Chapter 38
Wanderer
When we finally broke apart, we looked in each other’s eyes, and there was a knowing between us that hadn’t been there before. We were more than married then. We were grafted together and undoing one would undo us both.
Congratulations came then, and both of us were surprised to see the trees of the Silvanae had woven their roots together. They’d exploded from the ground, fashioning a great wedding arbor over us. Flowers sprung from the wood and rained petals down upon us. Skimming my hands down her waist, I picked Ana up, spinning her as she threw her head back, lifted her arms, and laughed in delight.
That night we feasted with the Silvanae, dining on sweet honey cakes, rich cream, lemon and lavender tarts, stewed fruits, and salads sprinkled with edible flowers. Kadam was delighted with the fare, and I laughed when I saw he’d asked for a bag full of treats to take home with him. Ana and I sat as close together as two birds in a nest, and we took turns feeding each other succulent berries and rich bites of pastry.
When I became more interested in nibbling on her ear than on the food, she stood, reaching for my hand. “Thank you, my friends, you have favored us with this meal and your company. We must take leave of you now, but I promise that we will visit again, often.”
“But where will you go?” the queen of the Silvanae asked.
“It’s time we began our honeymoon,” I said, kissing Ana’s fingers and smiling at the quiver in her delicate limb.
“Ah, of course. But you do not have to leave,” the queen said.
Ana looked at me, eyebrows raised in question.
I answered, “The Grove of Dreams is comfortable, but I don’t want to be focusing on anything except the goddess.”
“We understand,” the queen said. “That is why we’ve prepared a bungalow for you. It’s hidden away in a lovely part of the forest. The fairies have been working tirelessly to make it ready for you. There is plenty of food, a waterfall with a large pool to swim in, and the loveliest garden. It would honor us to have you remain for a time. We promise you will be left alone unless you summon us.”
“This is a gift we did not expect,” Ana said.
The queen replied, “And you have given us a great gift by marrying here. Our lands now heal and nourish us. Any being that steps foot in this part of Shangri-La will feel the power of the goddess wash over and refresh them. Please accept our small offering in exchange.”
Ana looked to me.
I don’t care, I said. I just want you. I could feel the shiver of excitement and nervousness that ran through her and rubbed my thumb gently over her knuckles.
She turned back, inclining her head graciously. “Thank you. We will accept your generous offer. If one of the fairies could guide us?”
“There is no need. The stones will mark the path.”
“Stones?”
They pointed and sure enough the stones that lined the dirt trail leading west from the village glowed a soft green color in the darkness.
We rose and Kadam stood also. He clapped my shoulder. “I’ll see you soon, son.” He hugged Ana, kissed both of her cheeks, and said, “I’m so happy to have you officially join my family.” Then, he added, “Take care of one another.”
“We will,” I promised him.
Together, Ana and I started down the path. With my tiger eyes, I could see her clearly even in the darkness. I played with her fingers as she led the way and allowed my eyes to rove over her lovely form, admiring the curve of her hips, her small waist, and the way her long hair brushed against my arm.
The Silvanae were true to their word. The small house they’d built for us was lovely. Ana was delighted by the garden, dappled with moonlight. I was personally more enraptured by the woman. The night-blooming flowers had opened, wafting their scent, but they were not nearly as intoxicating as Ana.
Now that we were alone and our minds were open to one another, I sensed her sudden shyness. The last thing I wanted to do was remind her of the terrible things that had happened to her in the past.
“Can we sit by the waterfall for a while?” I asked. “That is, if you aren’t tired.”
She agreed and I called upon the power of the scarf to make a thick blanket and dozens of fluffy pillows. After I sat, I drew her down to me and kissed her softly but briefly. “You look beautiful,” I said, then frowned. “We didn’t get any pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“Yes, remember? They’re like paintings but created instantly.”
“Ah, yes. Do you mean like this?”
She twirled her hand and threads stitched together, fashioning a tapestry of the two of us kissing as flower petals rained down upon our heads.
I laughed. “I suppose that will work,” I said.
As she snapped her fingers, the tapestry rolled itself up and she used the wind to send it into the little cottage. A flower petal drifted down from her hair and landed in her lap. She pointed up to her head and asked, “Are there more?”
Leaning closer, I whispered, “I’m actually a bit afraid the bees might attack you while we sleep.”
The corner of Ana’s mouth lifted. “Will you help?”
“Absolutely.” I plucked out one petal and another, and then gently removed one twisted flower after another, threading my fingers through the strands of her hair to loosen them from the tight braids. It was a slow process but it was what both of us needed. When her hair was free of flowers, I massaged her neck and shoulders through the layers of gauzy fabric.
Ana used her magic to unmake the threads halfway down her back so my hands were now touching her bare skin. I inhaled deeply and tried to keep my focus on what I was doing and not on her smooth-as-satin skin or the delicate curve of her neck. When her hair got in my way, I scooted closer, brushing the mass of it over her shoulder, touched my lips to the spot just behind her ear, and worked my slow way down her neck.
She twisted around, and as her hands twined around my neck, I wrapped her in my arms and drew her onto my lap, touching my forehead to hers. “There’s no rush, Ana. I am content to be your husband.”
Pulling back slightly, Ana studied me. Her dress, half dissolved in the back, gaped at the front in such a way that was intensely distracting.
I stumbled through the words, knowing they needed to be said and willing them to be true. “We have a lifetime together, maybe even several of them. There is time for us to go slowly.”
Ana touched my face. “You do not frighten me, Sohan. I won’t deny that I might feel apprehension at times, but I know your heart. You do not wish to harm me.”
“I would protect you with my life,” I affirmed. “You are my lady fair, my treasure, my prēmikā.” I kissed both of her cheeks. “For the rest of my days, my greatest wish will be to please you.”
Pressing her supple body closer, she said, “Then let’s begin the first day now.”
Ana kissed me and I let her take the lead, lying back on the blanket with her stretched out on top of me. I was hesitant at first, keeping my hands still even though the threads whispered around her, unmaking her lovely wedding dress inch by provocative inch. The long train transformed into a second blanket that covered us, and with the golden energy humming between us, heightening each caress and touch, I didn’t realize until her hands roamed my bare chest that she’d unmade my clothing as well.
Stroking her back, I kissed her ear and murmured, “Tuma mere sapanom ki aurata ho.”
She raised her head, her long hair spilling around us in a curtain. Ana’s green eyes flashed as she smiled. “Would you like to see what I dreamed about?” she asked.
I lifted my body up, supporting my weight on my elbows, and kissed her, linking my mind to hers, and the two of us were soon wrapped in her dream. That night we made a few more come true as well.
***
The next day or, actually, afternoon, we realized that a new mountain range had risen in Shangri-La. I laughed but Ana bit her lip, concerned with the potential damage to the world she’d come to love. When a villager appeared after her summons with a basket filled with food, Ana asked about the changes to the landscape but he assured us that everyone was fine.
After we ate, we swam in the pool and bathed beneath the waterfall. I combed out Ana’s long hair, and then we lay next to each other as it dried in the sun, fingers entwined as we talked of the future. We made a pact then not to try to peek into our own. With a bit more practice, we soon discovered that the physical affection we showed to one another didn’t affect the world around us when we were phased out of time.
We developed a habit of using this power every time we wanted to be alone, a fact our children teased us about frequently later on. Ana and I both wanted a large family, especially after I shared the dream I’d had of hunting with our sons. We had nine children together. Seven boys and two girls. Though, in actuality, we ended up adopting dozens more as Ana took in lost children everywhere we went. After Ana gave birth to our seventh child together, our first daughter, Arundati, Ana began to show signs that she was losing her power.
It alarmed me more than it did her. When Kadam appeared, as he had when all our children were born, I expressed my concern. He remained as tight-lipped as he always was and left us with the cryptic advice to look at each day as a blessing. We had our eighth child and our ninth, and I realized that with each baby, Ana had given a part of herself, of her power. As I held our ninth child in my arms, our little boy, Jayesh, I told her no more. We could adopt more if she wished, but I couldn’t lose her. I wouldn’t, even if it meant never touching her again.
Ana thought I would ultimately give in, but after a month of avoiding being alone with her, she reluctantly agreed with me, and I stole into the future to get from Kadam what she needed to prevent pregnancy. Our life seemed to settle into a routine then. The two of us were often gone, serving in the role of goddess and tiger. In some cases, she healed or provided answers to whispered pleas. Sometimes she came down like an avenging angel, destroying usurpers and bringing justice to those who needed her.
We spent the equivalent of many lifetimes lost in time, tending to our work and taking breaks just to be alone together, but we always returned home shortly after we left so we were never far from our family. They understood the need to heed the call of the goddess. Once our children asked why we both needed to go, and I told them I’d made a vow to always protect their mother. My sons understood and made vows of their own to serve at her side whenever and wherever possible.
Isha, Yesubai’s old nurse, finally died when our youngest was eight years of age. She’d been a nursemaid to all of our children and we’d grown to love her. The woman had recognized me immediately upon our return to our mountain home, and the three of us cried together over the loss of Yesubai. We spoke of Yesubai often, as we did of Ren and Kelsey, Nilima and Sunil, and of our parents. They were distant relatives we taught our children to honor.
The exception was Kadam. He visited on and off through the years, attending every birth and even helping me train my sons from time to time. He always appeared as himself and I wondered if Phet was gone for good. Sometimes he asked for our help. Though our list was long finished, he still had a great number of things to check off on his, and he’d recruit either me or Ana to help him.
I was with him when he gave Kelsey the henna tattoo. Kadam patted my back and smiled as the carefully wrought drawing came to life when I waved my hand over it, linking it to the power within her. I recognized the tattoo now for what it was—a physical manifestation of the love between a white tiger and the girl he eventually married, a means to reveal the bright golden light hidden beneath her skin.
Kadam also asked me to go with him to take away our healing power just before the battle with Lokesh. When I asked why, he said that Yesubai’s spirit was connected to ours, and with her father dead, it was time for her to rest at last. He added that the mermaid’s elixir and firefruit would sustain both me and Ana going forward.
I argued to wait another day until the battle was finished. That way, Ren wouldn’t have to die. But in his patient way, he explained that Ren had to perish so I would make the sacrifice. It was saving my brother that gave me the fortitude to stay behind.
Ana went with him to take the memories of being lost in time from Nilima. She also accompanied him to the time when Phet released the white tiger from service. The others didn’t see the tiger when he leapt from Ren’s body. Ana knelt next to him and stroked his head, thanking him for serving the goddess for so many years.
He turned and nuzzled Kelsey’s hand though she didn’t feel it and gave Ren a long, piercing look. Then, with long strides, he ran into the forest, his ethereal body becoming just a whisper in the grass. Once the tiger was gone, the golden magic lifted from Ren and Kelsey, her henna tattoo disappeared, and the golden light settled back into the amulet hanging around Ana’s neck.
Once, we found a note from Kadam left tacked to our door. He asked us to join him at a shrine in Japan and gave us specific instructions in how to dress and that we should disguise ourselves. To Ana’s delight, we found ourselves spectators at Ren and Kelsey’s wedding. We looked around for Kadam only to see the Shinto priest who was marrying them stop and wink at us. He placed a hand on his heart and nodded in our direction, and as Ren kissed his new bride, he clapped and cheered louder than anyone else, wiping away tears.
Time passed as the two of us happily focused on our family. We took great delight in raising our young ones. When our children, who became mighty hunters and skilled warriors, were old enough, they accompanied us into our battles. I watched proudly as they fought and was able to heal them merely by touching the Damon Amulet to their skin.
One by one, they left us. It was always sad and we visited them as often as we could, but eventually our children and then our grandchildren died. They lived long past the age of the mortals around them. They were each leaders in their own way, and we were proud of them.
We attended each funeral, birth, and wedding, in some cases openly, as parents and grandparents, but then, later, as strangers. When our brood became too large to keep track of, we left off watching them, though we could sense, through the truth stones we wore, when we came across certain people, that they were a part of us.
Every decade, on our anniversary, I started a tradition of adding to the gifts I’d given Ana. The mango tree had thrived under her care, and I plucked the ripest fruit and planted her a new tree until a great grove of them had risen near our mountain home. With the help of Yínbáilóng, the white dragon, I found a grouping of giant clams and was able to add more of the precious black pearls to her necklace.
We visited the home of the phoenixes, and each new bird gifted me with a feather, which I wove onto her belt. After hundreds of years of adding to her wedding presents, the magic inside each one grew until we realized what we were looking at. They were the gifts of Durga. The single pearl had become the Pearl Necklace. The belt of phoenix feathers became the Rope of Fire. The green veil, the one she wore most frequently, was now imbued with even more magic and it became the Divine Scarf.
One day as we were walking in the grove of mango trees, we forgot to phase out of time. Inspired by the bucolic setting, I’d drawn Ana beneath the branches and kissed her. As we were leaving, I noticed something shimmering above us on a high limb of the tree. Ana lifted her arms, wrapping a bubble around us, and we rose in the air. There, nestled among the other mango fruits, one lone globe bobbed, the sunlight sparkling off the shining skin.
She plucked it and held it out to me with a smile. We now had all the gifts and we knew where they’d come from. They’d been woven together by time, love, and magic.
Eventually, the story of the goddess and her tiger changed and people forgot. Prayers and supplications became not only less frequent but less pressing. Ana became ill for the first time since she’d accepted the role of the goddess. Alarmed, I sought out Kadam.
He mixed a drink for her. When I asked him what it was, he replied, “Soma. The restorative of the gods.”
“The same one you gave me all those years ago?”
“Yes. She can recover from this sickness, Kishan, but I fear it will sap some of your energy as she draws upon the healing power inside you. Do you remember when Kelsey healed Ren from the Gáe Bolga?”
“Yes,” I answered, hope filling me.
“You can do the same with your bond. Just be cautious not to give so much that there is nothing left for yourself. At this point, she cannot survive without you.”
“I’ll do it,” I insisted. “Take whatever you need to.”
“Kishan,” Kadam said, “you know that neither you nor she is immortal. Ana has wielded great power over the centuries. It’s taken a toll on her. She begins to show signs of age.”
“Then I’ll gather more elixir from the mermaid. I’ll go to the phoenix for help.”
“The elixir no longer works on her. She is now immune to its effects. As for firefruit juice, I fear it is the same. This is the natural way of things. I’m sorry, son, but Ana’s body is tired. Her energy wanes. She must draw upon your stores now if she is to heal.”
Looking down at my lovely wife, I touched my fingers to her dark hair. Even in the throes of sickness, she looked as young as the day we married. If her eyes weren’t as bright or her skin wasn’t as firm, I considered it due to her illness. Ana wasn’t aging. I couldn’t accept what Kadam was saying. This time he was wrong.
“Ren didn’t age. And you’ve lived as long as she has,” I argued, desperate to find a solution.
“I have led a quiet life other than these last few months. As for Ren, the tiger and Yesubai’s gift kept Ren young,” he explained. “The Damon Amulet grants long life, especially to you and Ren, who embraced the essence of the tiger. But you and Ana have lived many, many years. Much longer when you consider how many weeks and months you’ve skipped through time. And you’ve drawn upon the power of the amulet in ways the rest of us haven’t.
“Ana has always wielded her power through you,” he said. “It’s been shared freely between you all these years through your bond, allowing you both to do many great things in serving mankind, but it burns through her now. She is beginning to feel the weight of her mortality.”
“You’re certain?”
“I am.” Kadam touched her shoulder and I saw something else in his eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I want to say I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t cause this.”
“No. But I accelerated the process.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you…if you didn’t have to save me from trapping myself in the grave, the two of you might have had many more years together. I’m afraid saving Ren’s life and then rescuing me cost you both. We drained your power significantly. It’s a terrible thing, son. I cannot ask you to forgive me, for there is nothing I could ever do to make up for this loss.”
I took her hand as she writhed in fever, pressing her fingers to my lips. We didn’t speak for many moments. “It doesn’t matter,” I finally told him quietly. “Ana would have wanted you saved no matter the cost. I knew there would be a price to pay.”
Kadam nodded and stayed nearby, watching over Ana with me all night. I tried once to press him to tell me how long we had left, but his gleaming eyes gave away nothing. We could have centuries left, years, months, or days. The not knowing was the worst part.
If I were a petitioner, I might have prayed to Ana for help, but who could a goddess and her lowly husband pray to? For two weeks, I sat at her side, wiping her brow as I tried to stave off the little voice that niggled at the back of my mind, a harbinger, telling me there was more to this sickness than Kadam was saying.
Ana recovered, but she wasn’t the same after her extended illness. Her powers had diminished greatly and she was indeed beginning to show signs of age. Soon, every time I touched her, I willed energy into her. It became an obsession of mine. Each day I watched as new lines appeared around her mouth and dark spots bloomed on her hands. White strands of hair shone among the black and even her beloved garden began to suffer. For the first time in centuries, her roses began to die.
One day, as I took her hands, blowing on them and rubbing them, pushing as much strength into her as I could, I heard her voice in my mind.
Sohan, she said softly. It’s time to stop, my love.
I lifted my head and asked out loud, “Am I hurting you?”
No.
Frowning, I said, “Then what is it?” Ana looked at me then and something inside me unraveled and tore. “No,” I said vehemently. “No, Ana. Not this.” Tears blurred my vision and I sobbed. My Ana, my wife, wrapped her arms around my back and pulled me close as I cried.
“Shush, my tiger,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “It’s time. We have postponed it for as long as we could.”
I lifted my head. “I can do more. I can—”
“Come with me,” she interrupted. “Take me beyond this plane one last time.”
Ana had long since lost the ability to time jump and relied solely on me to move her back and forth. I’d stopped doing it after noticing how each leap drained her. I was going to deny her, to try to argue with her, but she locked her mind with mine and any assertion I was going to make drained away in the face of her certainty.
Lifting her gently in my arms, tears trickling down my face, I asked, “Where do you want to go?”
She smoothed the hair away from my eyes, kissed my sticky cheek, and said, “You know the place.”
I nodded and took my wife back to our little cabin in Shangri-La. Her body trembled from the transition.
“We’re here,” I said.
Her voice was soft and still in my mind, Take me to the waterfall.
I did. Making a blanket, I settled down with her in my arms, my back against a tree. She leaned against me, her silky hair tickling my neck. Promise me, she said.
Squeezing her waist, I answered, Anything, prēmikā.
Promise you’ll finish carving the truth stone.
It had never seemed important before. There were too many things I wanted to do, most of them involving Ana. Every time I’d picked the stone up to finish it, something happened that drew my attention away. I’d always rationalized that there was plenty of time. Now, it seemed, my time was running out. I nodded, brushing my cheek against hers.
We sat quietly together, watching the water. Our minds were locked together and there was no need for words. No need to talk. I knew her every thought and every wish as she knew mine. Her biggest regret at the end was leaving me alone. She made me promise that I wouldn’t try to cause harm to myself and that I would check in on our progeny from time to time.
With those final wishes settled, the only thing left was the contented hum of our love. It burned softly, ebbing and flowing between us, growing fainter, until, finally, my Ana was gone. She looked so peaceful, so still, as I turned her in my arms. It was as if she were merely sleeping. Crying openly, I kissed her lips a final time and then her cheeks and each of her closed eyelids, not wanting to part from her.
We had been together for centuries, but it still hadn’t been long enough. Even an eternity with Ana wasn’t enough time. The two of us had been one in service, one in mind, one in spirit, and one in love. But now, with Ana gone, there was just…one. I was alone now and would be for the remainder of my days. The best I could hope for was that it wouldn’t be long.
“I love you, my lady fair,” I murmured, the salty tears dripping down my cheeks and falling to her porcelain face. I wiped them away, then stood and prepared a final resting place for the woman I loved. The house in the garden melted away and in its place rose a great stone. Carvings of flowers adorned the smooth granite.
Picking up the goddess Durga, the mother of our children, my still-beautiful wife, I lay her on top, folding her hands across her chest. As the scarf made her a lovely dress and flowers sprung up in bunches around her shrine, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, son,” Kadam said. He hugged me tight as I cried anew into his shoulder.
We stood together for a time, just looking at her. The two of us lingered at Ana’s grave for three days, keeping vigil, much as my mother had done for my father. During that time, neither he nor I slept or ate. I caused silvery moonlight to rest on her lovely face at night and shielded her from the heat of the sun during the day. When three days had passed, I approached her stony bower and touched my lips to her forehead a final time. Then the stone crept up and over her, sealing her in her tomb.
I don’t know how long I stood there, my palm pressed against the stone, but it was long enough for Kadam to leave and return, because he said, “The Silvanae know she is here. They will keep vigil over her for as long as their race exists, and the fairies will maintain her garden.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “Come, I’ll stay with you a while.”
Kadam remained with me for another week after that, though I knew it cost him. No one lived at our mountain home now. All our closest friends had died, Lady Silkworm had been long since buried next to Isha, and we no longer needed servants once the children left. The supplicants had dwindled away years before. So, I was alone now in the home I’d once shared with Ana.
When I came to myself enough to notice the fatigue showing on Kadam’s face and in his eyes, I told him he needed to go home. Assured that I was stable enough in my despair, he did.
The years going forward were a blur to me other than a few notable experiences. I went about carving the truth stone, and as I did, I realized I had a companion after all. One day, I was sitting in Ana’s favorite chair, working on the stone, when I noticed a gleam in the window.
“Hello there,” I said, happy to see her. I set down the knife and dusted the fragments from my legs.
Fanindra lifted her head, swaying in the sunlight.
“What do you think?” I asked, showing her the ivory stone with the orange and gold veins running through it. She tilted her head as if considering my work. “I know, I know. It’s not my best effort. I’ll finish it though, have no doubt.”
The snake stayed with me after that, and when I grew restless, I packed a bag with Ana’s gifts, placed Fanindra in the top, and began wandering. After a few months, I came upon a clearing and something about it seemed familiar. It took me a while, but I eventually realized it was the place where Phet’s home should have been. Blowing out a breath, I lifted my arms and created the small hut, deciding to make it my new home base.
I traveled through time with Fanindra every so often, spying on those I loved, though each jump drained me for weeks afterward. Still, it staved off the loneliness. And it was gratifying to find they were all happy and content. Even Ren and Kelsey’s children grew up strong and healthy. They had five children in total. I watched them for a time but didn’t bother following their offspring after they left the home.
When Ren died, I was at his side. Kelsey had passed away before him, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. I was there, but none of them were aware of it. Invisible, I bent over her hospital bed as she slept and kissed her wrinkled cheek. Even with painkilling drugs dripping into her veins, she opened her eyes and looked at me as if she could see me. I returned her smile and stood by Ren as he held her hand and she passed into the next world.
Their children didn’t make it in time when Ren died of a sudden heart attack. I sat beside him on the bed in his small home. He looked so old, I thought, though his eyes were just as blue, and even at that age, he was still handsome. It was becoming harder for me to do, but I froze time, like Ana had done for Yesubai, and I spoke with my brother for a great length.
After restoring all his memories, he frankly forgave me for all the pain I’d put him through, and we cried together over the women we loved and the sorrow of lives lived separately. I told him I loved him and he asked if it had been me who had gifted his son with the family seal. I answered that it had indeed been me and Ana, though I knew the unfinished seal still sat in Phet’s hut in my own timeline.
I told him what the seal really was and that Kadam gave the one he’d used to open the Cave of Kanheri to me on one of his visits and that he’d said it was time for us to pass it along to the next generation. After leaving it with Ren’s eldest son, we followed its path for a time. Ren’s children never knew the importance of the object or its power.
As I sat with Ren, I knew the seal currently rested on the fireplace mantel of one of Ren’s grandsons. I wondered how many generations it would take for the simple history they knew to be forgotten.
Ren berated me for not visiting him and Kelsey over the years, and he said, “If it weren’t for the letter you wrote, we wouldn’t even know what happened to you.”
“Letter?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a cough. “You know, the scroll?”
Nodding, though I didn’t know what he was referring to, I gave him a drink of water and changed the subject. I stayed with him for hours, sharing all my adventures, and listened to him talk of his. He was proud of his family, as he should be, but he was more excited about the possibility of seeing Kelsey again.
“Do you believe she’s out there somewhere?” I asked.
“If anyone would know, I’d think it would be you,” Ren answered.
I glanced out the window at the morning sun, frozen in place, and then looked at the clock. It read 6:38 a.m. “I wish I could tell you I was certain,” I said.
“Well, if you’re not, I am.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I can feel her. Here.” He tapped his chest.
“I think that’s your heart attack speaking,” I said.
“No. It’s something more than that. It’s like…like she’s calling me. Asking me to find her.” We looked at each other for a long moment. “I…I think I’d like to go to her now, brother.”
Nodding, I rose and took his hand, squeezing it in my grip. His returning squeeze barely felt like a flutter against my skin. “Good-bye, Ren,” I said. “Go find Kells and give her my best.”
“I will. And Kishan?”
“Yes?”
“I love you too.”
Tears filled my eyes. Starting time again, I left, unwilling to watch another person I loved die.
Back in Phet’s hut, I thought often about what Ren had said, and I gathered ink and a parchment and sat down and wrote him and Kelsey a letter. Ren had said it was a scroll, and I rolled up the parchment, thinking about where a scroll, delivered to them after they’d married, might have come from. The timing would have to be just right so that it didn’t impact their future.
I carried it around with me for years, and when the paper tore and faded, I made a copy, used the newly finished seal of the House of Rajaram to bind it, and fashioned a glass to protect the paper from damage. That was when I knew what it was. I’d seen it before.
Knowing what to do, I visited the phoenix who, when I asked about a substance that would open a mortal’s eyes so he could see things hidden from others, bade me to juice a firefruit. I did and presented it to him. He bent over the liquid and blinked. A single teardrop pooled at the edge of his eye and fell into the liquid.
“How long will it last?” I asked.
“It will remain potent until the last phoenix falls,” he said.
I thanked him and headed to Tibet. Instead of making my presence known to all the monks, I materialized before the first Dalai Lama as he walked alone in his garden, likely pondering the secrets of the universe. If he was startled to see me, he didn’t show it.
After presenting him with the scroll and the ointment, I used the power of the scarf to create a tiger medallion like the one I remembered and hung it around his neck. I finished by warning him that the contents of the scroll were not to be read and gave him all the other instructions I thought were pertinent to help Kelsey and my former self in their quest.
Every time I thought of Shangri-La, it brought a tightness to my chest. With the letter gone and the seal finished, there was nothing more for me to do. I wandered for a few decades, helping people where I could, knowing Ana would have wanted me to. I came upon a young man during my travels and my hand thrummed when I shook his.
I knew immediately that he was one of my many descendants. He told me his name was Tarak, and I started. I was in the presence of my own grandfather. To make sure, I asked where he hailed from and he confirmed my suspicions. We traveled together for a time, and when we separated, I offered him a gift.
“What is it?” he asked, unwrapping the cloth.
“A very precious heirloom. Seeing as I have no progeny”—the seal remained cold in my hands, responding to my lie—“I would be honored if you would keep this in your family.”
His eyes grew large when he saw what he held in his hands. “Are you certain you wish to part with it?” he asked.
“I judge you as one deserving of it. Besides, the time has come for me to move forward without it.” I was about to turn aside when I thought of something else. Hesitantly, I pulled a second priceless treasure from my bag and placed it in his hands. “This belonged to my late wife,” I said. “Perhaps one day your wife or daughter might take to it.” I touched my fingertips to Ana’s ivory-handled hairbrush and then smiled, knowing it would someday soon be in my mother’s hands.
He clutched my arm in a familiar gesture. It was the warrior’s vow. The words had changed somewhat since my wedding, but the promises made still stirred my heart. I clutched the boy to me, pounding his back. “May luck be with you always, young Tarak.”
“And with you.”
The boy waved as we parted ways and I continued on my journey, drifting back to Phet’s hut. I often pondered the idea that I could somehow be my own ancestor and wished I could have shared the information with Ren. I decided to write a new letter, one including my recently discovered fact, and traveled back in time, switching it with the old one as my other self lay sleeping in the hut.
Phased out of time, I looked at my own face as I slept. There were streaks of gray in my hair, wrinkles around my eyes, and I’d lost flesh. It appeared time was catching up to me. When I shifted back, I groaned. I felt old and world-weary as I settled in. Days passed in a monotonous way, especially because I sensed my work was finally finished.
One morning, Fanindra woke me. She sat on my chest and lifted her head. “Hello, my girl,” I said. She flicked out her tongue and I could barely feel it when it touched my cheek. “Ah,” I said sadly. “You’re saying good-bye. Come back to me someday if you can. For I shall sorely miss you.” After a moment, she slid down to the floor, and when I looked, she was gone, as were the gifts of Durga.
With Fanindra and the gifts gone, I felt my power draining quickly. I could no longer move through time, summon weapons, or create food or drink. Shifting into tiger form, I hunted instead, widening my territory until I came upon the old grounds where my parents would, someday soon, build a home near the waterfall. I didn’t become a man for over a year and I found, when I tried, that I no longer could.
I lost the love of the hunt soon after and got up only to drink from the pool. How many days had passed without me eating, I didn’t know. But one day, in the late afternoon, as I was napping, I caught a scent, one I hadn’t come across in years.
“Hello, son,” Kadam said, his back to the setting sun.