CHAPTER 26

A VOICE IN THE NIGHT

Lightning flashed, flooding the world with a blinding flash of brightness – and in those few moments, Gundodharan stood petrified, his hands and legs rigid, staring at the sight of the Buddha bikshu standing on the banks of the lake, cackling like one demented, hands raised towards the skies.

He stood like a tree rooted to the ground for a few moments; then shook himself out of his trance and walked slowly along the banks, slipping and staggering. Another bright flash of light tore the skies as he walked in the general direction of the small cleft in the bank.

In the queer, unearthly light, Gundodharan saw that the previously tiny cleft had widened, and that the water was coursing along it more rapidly than before. The Buddha bikshu could not be seen anywhere, but the small spade he had used still lay in the slush and mud.

Gundodharan felt a spark of confidence light within him. He gathered himself, and leapt in one bound to the other side of the small canal. He felt about in the slush for the spade, picked it up, and began to heave mud across the canal, in a bid to close it.

There doesn’t seem to be any point in closing up this gap, his mind thought vaguely, even as he began filling it.

That very instant, he felt something touch his neck briefly from behind, and abruptly rose, dropping the spade.

A tall, dark figure stood in front of him.

In a flash of understanding, Gundodharan realized that it was the Buddha bikshu, and that the monk was trying to clasp his fingers around his neck and throttle him. Gundodharan’s strong fingers fastened themselves on the bikshu’s wrists. The next moment, the bikshu’s harsh cackle could be heard, ringing above the younger man’s head.

A strange battle began, then, on the slushy banks of the lake, with its waters trembling and roaring, lapping along the banks. Lightning flashed and blinded the countryside, tearing through the dark skies, leaving the night even darker then before. And in that strange half-light, battled two figures—the smaller, rotund figure of Gundodharan and the tall, wiry form of the Buddha bikshu, grappling each other like wrestlers in a bout.

The whole incident could not have lasted more than a quarter naazhigai, when a voice rose above the searing roar of the lake’s waters crashing against the banks, the waters rushing through the ever-widening canal, the ear-filling sound of rain thrashing the earth, and the ‘virrrr…’ of the winds blowing furiously into a gale.

“Gundodhara!” called the voice, sharp and strong. “Gundodhara!”

The two combatants stopped their wrestling and stood dumbstruck, for an instant—but their handholds on each other never wavered. Gundodharan wondered who the strange caller might be. There had been the sound of horse hoofs even behind him, when he had left Ashokapuram, he remembered.

“Gundodhara, stop fighting!” called out the clear voice. “It’s a waste of time to close the gap –don’t try to! Save Aayanar and Sivakami! Do you hear me?”

Abruptly, Gundodharan understood who the speaker was—the voice belonged to one whom he revered as his master’s master. “As you say, my Lord!” he yelled.

The moment he answered, a streak of lightning lit up the skies, blinding his eyes with the brilliance of a hundred thousand suns. Gundodharan realized that an enormous crack of thunder was going to descend on them the next instant. ‘Like a cobra stunned by thunder…’ — the old saying came to his mind, and he grasped the bikshu’s wrists stronger than ever.

Thunder rolled across the heavens. It was as though the skies had exploded and were descending onto them with a mighty roar.

As soon as the peals stopped, Gundodharan’s ears could no longer discern the sound of rainwater pattering onto the ground, or the waves crashing onto the banks—instead, his ears buzzed with a strange ‘ngoiiiiiii….’

Good God, have I gone deaf? He wondered. Simultaneously his senses indicated that the bikshu’s grip had slackened. He wasted not a moment of his advantage. Gundodharan gathered all the strength he possessed…

…and gave the bikshu a mighty push.

Dimly, he saw the monk roll over and over the slushy mud and drop into a depression gouged out by the falling water. Astonishment filled him at this: how had he been able to see the bikshu, when there was no lightning? Ah! What was this light, creeping around him?

Gundodharan looked around him, and saw that a small palm tree, some distance away, was burning. Ah…so thunder had struck this tree, and the resulting fire was the cause of the light!

Gundodharan saw something else, by the light of the burning tree: a horse was galloping away, just past the palm tree—he knew that the man who had called out to him was the rider on the horse. Another horse stood tied up to a tree, by the banks of the lake—the bikshu’s steed.

Gundodharan wished to see nothing else; he made off towards the horse at once, not even registering his slippery descent through the banks.

The wavering light from the top of the burning palm tree went out the moment he clambered onto the horse; the rain, which had been a small drizzle, chose that moment to turn into a deluge. Many were the showers Gundodharan had seen, in his lifetime—but nothing came close to the pelting rain he saw, that night. It was as though the skies themselves had ripped open, and water was cascading down to the earth through them.

Well, the rains and the lake match each other, thought Gundodharan. Naganandhi could not have chosen a better time to breach the shores of the Thiruppaarkkadal. He, Gundodharan, would have to reach Ashokapuram before the floodwaters did, he determined to himself.

His resolution came to nothing.

For, long before Gundodharan drove his horse to Ashokapuram, the lake waters had broken their banks, tumbled over the countryside, flooding the whole area—and had reached Ashokapuram before he did.