Bhattacharya Krishnarjun - Horsemen of Old

THE TANTRIC TRILOGY

Tantrics of Old

Horsemen of Old

Myths of Old

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Copyright 2016 Prakash Books India Pvt. Ltd.

Copyright Text Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978 81 7599 409 6

For Dunna

The original storyteller

Beware the Horsemen

Born lands dark and cold

Patience eternal, beings eternal

Beings of the hunt four.

Eaters of life, life itself, a mere morsel

Rend to pieces then, little ones

And no beast may run

No bird may fly

Not in their great hunger

Beware the Horsemen Old.

Adri Sen O-dree Sh-eyn

Fayne Fay-i-n

Baal Bay-l

Zabrielle Zaa-bree-el

Ghosh Gh-oh-sh

Aurcoe Aww-r-ko

Mazumder Mo-joom-daar

Francois Fran-so-aa

Dahouffe Daa-hoof

Anulekha Anoo-ley-khaa

Asheem Chakravarty Aw-sheem

Chawk-row-bowr-tee

Dhritiman Dhreet-e-maan

Jed Alfan Jade Aal-faan

Edha Ay-dhaa

The boy sat silently, watching the Demon eat.

He was terrified, but despite his horror he was connecting the dots. Dots lost to him earlier, dots ignored, dots now recollected through the stench of blood, the filth of innards. This was what he was being prepared for. The books, the callsigns, the dead, dead language. This was what a summoning actually felt like, it felt cold. Clammy. Damp, like the last torch that flickered. Damp, despite fire.

The diagrams of the beasts, the weird scratches, the claws, the horns, the teeth, it was all real. Demons existed. Everyone in the room was dead, everyone but him. It had proceeded to devour the rest. The whole affair had been a hidden ritual, and the boy, even at his age, knew that no help was coming.

The Demon of Shadow ate with a savage delight. It lowered itself onto the dead bodies and ate. Occasionally it would tear away an arm or a leg and eat it separately. Organs lay strewn across the stone floor, washed in blood. A platter. Lungs wolfed down, livers, kidneys, the brain, sometimes a bone or two, mostly the ribs. Skin. Other bones, mostly vertebrae and the skull, ignored, sometimes briefly gnawed on.

It would occasionally glance at the boy, as if making sure he was still there.

The boy did not have a choice but to stay. The door was locked, the key lost somewhere in the pockets of one of those the Demon was devouring. It was in the hopes of spotting the key that the boy watched the Demon eat; it was pulling something new out of a body. A heart.

Your heart, it beats like a drum, it whispered.

The boy gave a start. The Demon was looking at him. White teeth, sharp. Fang-like, but not quite. The heart, bit into. Blood, black, oozing and running down its hand, black.

Name, the Demon said.

The boy did not reply.

Name! the Demon hissed.

A-A-Adri, the boy stammered.

The Demon gnawed at the heart with a disapproving shake of head. Names, they have power, it said, mouth full. Tell me your full name, boy.

A-Adri Sen, the boy whispered.

Adri Sen, the Demon drawled. My name is Chhaya, and I am not going to eat you.

The boy did not react.

Arent you... glad? the Demon asked, its attention back on the feast. Loins. Muscle, often resisting. Chewy.

Silence, again.

If you do not speak, Chhaya said, then you will never speak again, boy. Your silence makes me impatient.

You would break your word? the boy asked, slowly.

What word?

You just told me you will not eat me.

There is a story about silence, Chhaya rasped. About silence fickle, silence eternal. Thin line between death and silence. But the past is in the past. You seem to have found the voice.

If you will not eat me, the boy said, again with thought, then I can talk. His voice was strained. It threatened to break at places. This was costing him every ounce of his courage, courage he never knew existed.

Ah, old flesh, Chhaya said with relish. Tough to chew, but sometimes it has an aftertaste, like a lifelong marination. It lowered itself onto a body and breathed in deep. This one was born for me.

You killed them all, the boy spoke softly, more to himself. This was death, more death in an hour than he had seen in his life, and now, desecration. It was wrong, the way the Demon ate them. It wasnt supposed to be. There was norespect.

This old flesh had a name, Chhaya said. He was called Mryttik. Do you know why I was summoned?

The boy shook his head.

He wanted me to kill someone. An enemy of his. And after hearing your name, I see you will understand. He wanted me to kill Victor Sen.

The boys eyes twitched. His father. The old Necromancer had wanted to kill his father. He searched for his sympathy for the ones murdered, the ones being eaten. It was still there.

The Demon was watching him again. How does it feel, boy? This could have been the flesh of your father.

Flesh is still flesh, the boy replied, unable to believe what he was saying, but transported, his opinions being given temporary freedom.

Indeed it is. Wise beyond years, boy? If so wise, then tell me the three rules of summoning our kind.

The boy snapped himself out of the stupor. A different classroom, a very different teacher. The same questions. Higher Power, The Telephone Call, and Precautions, he said with practiced ease.

Explain, the Demon said, biting into a calf.

Demons belong to a higher power, the boy said. They are greater creatures than humans, not servants to be summoned and banished. It is this respect that must be remembered at all times, by every Tantric.

Second, Chhaya rasped.

A summoning is like a telephone call, the boy continued. The Demon in question always and always has the choice to either reply, thus be summoned, or simply let it ring.

Last one.

Never summon without precautions. Call a Demon only if you carry the power to send it back, ideally the power to end it if need be.

Yes, Chhaya hissed. Yes, nice rules, good rules. Keep you safe. After tonight, do you think they work?

Mryttik broke two, the boy said.

Yes he did, the Demon said. He also called something from a realm which does not answer to your kind, never has. What do you say to that?

The boy did not know what to say. He had just seen death for the first time. These questions did not suit him.