Ravana’s Revenge, Chapter 4.

September 1694, Cylone.
Raneesh woke up with a jerk. He felt the burning heat in waves all around him. He cried out in pain but the only sound came from inside his own ears. His mouth was stuffed with a coarse cloth and his scream echoed and died in his head. He tried opening his eyes but they were tightly shut by some kind of blindfold. It felt like the same material in his mouth. His head would not move, neither would any of his arms or legs. Raneesh panicked. He jerked his body again but the pain made him stop at once. His skin felt the blazing flames around him. His body writhed violently against the binders but they held him immobile on the wooden plank as more flames burst near him. He tried to breathe through his nose. He couldn’t. The suffocating air reeked with the smells of incense and oils. Then Raneesh smelled his own hair singeing.
The flames were getting closer and hotter. He jerked again as they touched his body at places and instantly blistered his skin. The flames, fuelled by the oils, leapt all around him as his entire body was engulfed in agonizing pain. He felt a hundred hot pokers stab into his every fibre, repeatedly. He could smell his skin on fire bubbling with the burning oil. He heard the loud crackling and pops of his own skin as the blisters burst on his face and neck under the flames. His head was on fire. Again he felt the pokers and smelled his own burning stench.
Hoary rumbling sounds rose around him as he struggled to breathe. He screamed again but there was no air left in his lungs. Raneesh couldn’t breathe. Instinctively he forced himself to draw a breath from his nose but this time his lungs filled instantly with steaming vapour from the boiling oil. He knew in that moment that he would die soon, very soon. The sounds around him rose to match his own screams in his head. He felt the men all around him and they were singing. He convulsed hard and heard his own skull pop under the heat. He felt no more. In his solitary final thought, he understood. He recognised the death-chants. He was on his own funeral pyre. Raneesh was being burned alive.
The pain was gone. He felt himself rise from the pyre and knew instantly that his world was gone. He was dead. The finality of the horror slapped him into a blinding semblance of sanity. Raneesh screamed. But without a living body, he didn’t cause even minor tremors in the ether around him. A bleeding thought raced across his mind – Shalini and their son. He felt his dead heart swell up inside him and explode. He screamed again. And again.
Then the rage came. A screaming insurmountable hatred against those who had done this to him. Invisible tears welled up in his invisible eyes. The futility, the injustice, the life unfulfilled – they would all pay. He didn’t know why and he didn’t care. He would NEVER move on till the whole world burned like he did. He would be avenged.
Even in his fury, he could see a growing circle of light before him. Cool, peaceful, soothing light. All he had to do was walk through it and all his troubles would be over. He knew it, he could feel it with greater certainty than even his love for his family. Just a few steps away – happiness forever. But he could not bring himself to walk through it. What would happen to his family, they were his responsibility. A choice was being given to him. This was the easiest choice he ever had to make. Raneesh turned his back on the light and floated away. The circle shrunk and disappeared with finality – forever.
He could now feel a wind pushing him, just him and nothing else. Like a feather floating in the wind, he felt himself being swept away against any control. Raneesh rose out of the mausoleum where he was burned and kept floating higher above an unknown landscape. He felt himself being sucked into a narrow confine. This was not what he wanted, he tried to stop himself and push back. But like the floating feather, he had no control. Suddenly, it became dark all around him and all his thoughts faded into nothing.
—
Raghunath was pleased with the results, he smiled as he lifted the small egg-shaped urn imprisoning the tortured soul of Raneesh. The urn had been carved out of the cremated bones of Raneesh’s father many years ago. It accepted the soul of its child easily. Safely locked inside the urn, the soul held no fear for Raghunath. He was afraid a little while ago when he wasn’t sure whether Raneesh’s soul would stay within the confines of the urn. The souls of those who die violent painful deaths rarely return to their resting planes but stick around in this mortal world being miserable and plotting revenge against the living. But now things were properly taken care of and he was safe. That is exactly what his master had wanted, Raghunath thought as he whistled down the steps to the cavern deep underground.
Time does not pass in the soul-urn. Decades may pass before a single thought passes through the imprisoned soul. Raghunath would never bear witness to the eventual release and enslavement of this victim’s soul. He had a simpler though more physical job. He had to ensure that Raneesh’s wife and son were properly provided for. Even their future generations had to be well provided for. Somewhere in the unforeseeable future, when some distant descendent of Raghunath would be asked to raise this soul, the exploding fury would be controllable only if the soul could be convinced how well his family and their descendents been provided for. Then when the fury abates for a soul without a purpose except revenge, it would forever become enslaved to the master. It has no other agenda and is without might.
Forty-six year old Raghunath was the head-priest of the Grand Asur temple. He, like all the heads before him, was a direct descendent of Kalatra, the founder of the temple around him. Even though that was almost three thousand years ago, Kalatra’s line had never failed. Since then successive sons of the head-priests had proudly served the temple. Raghunath was no exception. He was deliriously proud of his heritage and he diligently learnt his trade under the guidance of his father and grandfather. This was probably the most honourable profession he could think of, except maybe the king.
Carefully, Raghunath adjusted his elaborate ruby encrusted head-dress and descended spiralling stairs to the bowels of his temple where the egg would be sealed with bat’s blood. The dimly lit stone staircase dully echoed his footsteps as he wound his way down. Every few feet an oil-lamp, hanging from the wall, would try to fight the gloom with its weak light. Out of sheer habit, he counted the 670 steps to the bottom, matched by the 670 mantras he uttered by the time he reached the bottom. He walked into the preparation chamber. The oil-lamps were now replaced by torches casting more light but somehow still managing to increase the gloom.
The chamber was almost completely circular. In the center sat an ancient stone altar. It had already been prepared by his apprentices in anticipation of his arrival. A small ivory receptacle for the urn had been placed in the centre of the altar surrounded by gold bowls with intricate carvings. The bowls contained freshly extracted blood of bats. Raghunath placed the egg in it’s receptacle and picked up the brush he would be using to enchant the soul-urn. He dipped the brush in the blood and started writing the inscriptions on the egg.
This was the second soul he had imprisoned in his life. No priest in the long history of Kalatra’s line was ever asked to imprison or release more than three souls in his life. Each case took years, sometimes decades of preparation before it’s unwilling host was forced to part with it. Raneesh’s father was carefully selected by Raghunath’s father and was observed meticulously throughout his growing years. His bride and the time of his marriage was carefully controlled. Even the time and place of Raneesh’s conception was determined by Raghunath.
It was never easy. All this had to be accomplished without the slightest knowledge of anyone other than those serving in the temple. Even Raneesh’s life had been a clockwork of events controlled by Raghunath. From his first steps, everything in his life – education, food-habits, material skills, were determined and controlled by Raghunath with a single purpose, to effectively prepare the soul for the ordeal ahead. And Raghunath was proud of his work. The soul was almost flawless. He could not have done a better job if he had been asked to do it again. Raghunath was very satisfied.
It took almost four-hours for the inscriptions and the protective spells to be cast on the urn. When it was finally over, a tired but happy Raghunath carried it over to the storage catacombs in the next room. This large room was almost dark except for a single oil-lamp burning in the centre. All around him rows upon rows of small holes had been carved into the walls. Each just enough to hold a single soul-urn. He kept the soul-urn in one of the hundreds of small crypts containing soul-urns painstakingly collected through the centuries.
On the floor near his feet, an iron bowl with a large needle sticking out of it had been placed containing the necessary sealant for the hole. He bent over, scooped a handful of the goo prepared with mud, bat-entrails and honey and proceeded to cover the hole. Slowly, chanting more spells he filled up the small chamber with the freshly placed urn. He picked out the needle and engraved identifying marks on the sealed hole. Then he stood before the hole, arms raised above his head and loudly spoke a command for the safety of the urn.
It was over. Raghunath exhaled and relaxed. His work was done. Here, Raneesh’s trapped soul would await a time his master determined to break the seal and commission it.