Chapter 8: Caravan Ka Safar (Journey of the Caravan)

The caravan without wagons was not a caravan. It was a migration.

Seventeen people moving through the Chitrakoot hills on foot — the particular foot-travel of people who had never been without wheels and who were learning, painfully, that the body was a less efficient vehicle than the wagon and that the learning was measured in blisters and aching calves and the particular exhaustion that comes from carrying on your back what you used to carry on your axle.

Amba led. This was not discussed — Amba leading was the natural order, the way rivers flowing downhill was the natural order, the phenomenon requiring no explanation and permitting no debate. She led with the particular authority of a woman who had memorized the Vasishtha Rajya's geography the way other women memorized recipes: completely, practically, the knowledge stored not in books but in the body, in the feet that had walked these hills thirty years ago when she was young and the troupe was her father-in-law's and the walking was the troupe's way of scouting new towns.

They moved north-east. Toward the capital — Rajnagar — because Amba had, between midnight and two AM on the night of the river-camp (the processing hours, the overnight computation), arrived at the same conclusion that Ritu had arrived at by instinct: the capital was the destination. Not because the capital was safe — the capital was the opposite of safe, the capital was the Rakshak's headquarters, the High Throne's seat, the centre of everything that hunted them. But the capital was where the answers were. And the answers were, at this point, more valuable than safety.

"How long?" Devraj asked. Walking beside her. The walking that was — for Devraj — an adjustment. Devraj's body was a wagon-driver's body: the upper body strong from reins and lifting, the legs adequate but not designed for sustained walking, the body protesting the change of use with the particular complaints of a machine being repurposed.

"Eight days on foot. Through the hills, avoiding the Rajpath. Ten if the terrain is worse than I remember."

"The terrain is always worse than you remember."

"Then ten."

*

The days developed a rhythm. Not the rhythm of the wagon-caravan — that rhythm had been built over decades, the particular cadence of a life organized around wheels and axles and oxen and the performance schedule that gave the days their structure. This rhythm was new. This rhythm was the rhythm of flight disguised as travel, the rhythm that said: move at dawn, rest at midday (the Vasishtha heat demanding midday rest, the sun at its peak being an enemy as real as the Rakshak), move again in the afternoon, camp at dusk.

Lakku hunted. This was unexpected — Lakku was a performer, not a hunter, but the performing troupe's diet had always supplemented by what the land offered and Lakku's eye (the performer's eye, the eye that could spot an audience member picking a pocket at fifty paces) turned out to be transferable to hunting. He didn't use Omi's bow — Omi's bow was Omi's the way Amba's chai pot was Amba's, the ownership being absolute and non-transferable. Lakku used snares. The particular snares that Nat families had used for centuries: the string-and-branch traps that caught rabbits and the occasional partridge, the traps that were not efficient but were sufficient, the food that was not feast but was survival.

Omi hunted with the bow. The hunting was — Omi's contribution, the thing that transformed his presence from tolerated to necessary, the particular alchemy by which a distrusted outsider becomes an indispensable member. Omi brought back game: a spotted deer on the third day (the deer butchered by Lakku, who turned out to have knife-skills that the stage had never required, the cutting that was not choreography but anatomy). A brace of quail on the fifth day. Fish from a stream — Omi's hands in the water, the particular patience of a forest-boy who knew that fish-catching was not about speed but about stillness, the hands in the water waiting for the fish to come to them rather than chasing the fish, the patience that was the Vanvasi way.

Noor taught Leela embroidery. This happened on the rest-stops — the midday pauses under whatever shade the hills provided, the pauses where the group fragmented into smaller units and the smaller units did the things that humans do when they are resting: they talked, they ate, they shared skills. Noor had needle and thread in her pack (Noor's pack contained: needle, thread, scissors, three colours of fabric remnant, and a thimble — the seamstress's emergency kit, the kit that was as essential to Noor as the healing kit was to Leela). The embroidery lessons were — the surface of a deeper exchange. Noor teaching Leela the running stitch was Noor teaching Leela the Nat way: the way that valued making, the way that believed that the hands' work was the person's worth, the way that said: if you can make something beautiful, you are not nothing.

Leela taught Noor herb identification. The exchange in reverse — the Vanvasi knowledge for the Nat knowledge, the trade that was not commerce but community. "This is ashwagandha — the root, not the leaf, the root is the medicine. This is tulsi — this variety, the Krishna tulsi, the dark one, stronger than the Rama tulsi for coughs. This is neem — you know neem, everyone knows neem, but you don't know that the bark-tea cures more than the leaf-tea and the leaf-tea is what everyone makes because the bark takes longer."

Mata and Amba formed an alliance. The two elder women — the healer and the performer, the Vanvasi and the Nat — discovered, in the walking, that they had more in common than their communities' shared position at the bottom of the hierarchy. They had: stubbornness (both women possessed the particular stubbornness that was not obstinacy but principle, the stubbornness of women who had survived by refusing to accept the terms that the world offered and who had, through the refusing, created their own terms). They had: humor (the particular humor of old women, the humor that was dark and specific and that derived its power from the assumption that nothing could shock because everything had already been survived). And they had: the children. The children being the point around which their alliance organised itself, the children being: Ritu and Leela and Omi and Karan and even Lakku and Noor and Jai — the entire younger generation that the elder women were shepherding through the hills and that the shepherding was their purpose and the purpose was their survival.

And Ritu learned.

Karan taught her. The lessons happened in the mornings — the hour before the group moved, the hour that Karan had negotiated with Amba (the negotiation being: Karan explaining that Ritu's Shakti was a safety risk if uncontrolled and that the control required daily practice and that the practice required time, and Amba responding: one hour, dawn, not a minute more, and if anything glows I will personally end the lesson with my bare hands).

The lessons were: meditation. The basic Rajvidya technique — the closing of the eyes, the regulation of the breath, the particular internal observation that allowed a Shakti user to feel the energy in their body and to begin the process of directing it rather than being directed by it. The technique was standard — every first-year Academy student learned it, the technique being the foundation on which all court magic was built.

But Ritu's Shakti was not court magic. Ritu's Shakti was — different. The meditation worked, partially: she could feel the Dwar Shakti in her palms, she could observe it, she could note its fluctuations (the Shakti was stronger in the morning, weaker in the afternoon, responsive to her emotions, dormant when she was calm). But the directing — the deliberate opening and closing of portals — remained elusive. The Shakti opened when it wanted to. The Shakti closed when it wanted to. Ritu's will was a suggestion, not a command.

"It's because the technique is wrong," Leela said. On the fourth morning. Watching from a nearby rock where she sat, ostensibly reading her healer's guide but actually watching Ritu and Karan with the particular attention of a person who had a theory.

"The technique is the Academy standard," Karan said.

"The Academy standard is designed for court magic. Court magic is — imposed. The mage imposes their will on the energy. The energy obeys. That's the court way. The Vanaspati Shakti doesn't work that way. The Vanaspati Shakti is — collaborative. I don't impose on the plant. I ask the plant. The plant decides."

"You're suggesting the Dwar Shakti is collaborative?"

"I'm suggesting the Dwar Shakti is not court magic. The Dwar Shakti comes from the Saptam Rajya. The Saptam Rajya's magic was not the court system. The Saptam Rajya's magic was — older. Wilder. More like Vanaspati Shakti than like Rajvidya."

Ritu listened. The listening was — the listening was the performer's listening, the active engagement with two voices that were saying different things and that were both, she suspected, partially right.

"So I should ask the door," Ritu said. "Not tell it."

"Try."

Ritu closed her eyes. Felt the Shakti in her palms — the warmth, the gold, the presence. But instead of directing it (open, close, obey), she — asked. The asking was not verbal. The asking was — the asking was like Leela's hand hovering over the ashwagandha: close enough to be felt, far enough to not impose. The asking was: are you there? Will you open? I'd like to see the other side.

The Shakti stirred. Not the involuntary stirring of fear or emotion. A different stirring — a considered stirring, as if the Shakti were an entity that had been asked a question and was contemplating its answer.

A shimmer. Faint. Gold. In the air in front of Ritu's palms. Not a door — not a full opening. A window. A peephole. The size of a chapati, the round opening through which Ritu could see — the garden. The sunflower garden. The garden from the Saptam Rajya.

"She's doing it," Karan whispered. "She's doing it on purpose."

The peephole held. Five seconds. Ten. The holding was — different from the previous openings. The previous openings had been explosions — the Shakti erupting, the door bursting, the control absent. This was — gentle. This was the door opening because Ritu had asked and the door had agreed.

She closed it. Not by force — by asking: thank you, you can close now. The shimmer faded. The air was air.

"That," Leela said, "is the old way."

Karan looked at Leela. The look was — Ritu recognised it, the look of a person whose academic framework had just been challenged by a practical demonstration and whose framework was now adjusting, the gears turning, the model updating. "The old way."

"The Saptam Rajya's way. The Vanvasi way. The way that the court system replaced. The way that works with the Shakti instead of against it. The way that asks instead of orders."

"They don't teach that at the Academy."

"No. They wouldn't."

*

The evenings were for performing.

Not for audiences — there were no audiences in the Chitrakoot hills, the hills being populated by trees and animals and the occasional goatherd who would not appreciate a full production of Rani Kasturi. The performing was for the troupe. For the family. For the particular necessity that Nat families had always understood: performing was not just livelihood. Performing was identity. And a Nat family that did not perform was a Nat family that was losing itself.

Amba decreed it on the third night: "We perform. Around the fire. For ourselves. The audience is us. The performance is — the performance is the thing that makes us us."

And so: the evening performances. Lakku doing his villain's monologue — the Mayavi Rani's speech, performed with the particular intensity that made the forest animals go quiet and the fire seem to dim (Lakku's performing was weather — it changed the atmosphere, the performing being so real that the environment responded). Suraj doing the King — badly, as always, the badness being part of the charm, the charm being the particular comedy of a young man who knew he was miscast and who performed the miscasting with such dedication that the miscasting became the casting. The children doing the chorus — three voices, off-key, the off-key-ness being the beauty, the beauty of imperfection that only children could produce.

And Ritu. Ritu performing — not as Rani Kasturi, not in costume, not on stage. Ritu performing as Ritu. The girl who could open doors. The performance being: herself. The particular performance that is not acting but being, the being that Ritu had accessed on the stage in Haldipura and that she was now accessing deliberately, the opening to the audience (the family, the fire, the forest) of the self that was real.

She juggled. Three stones — not props, not professional juggling balls, but river-stones, smooth and heavy, the stones that the Chitrakoot streams offered. The juggling was — muscle-memory, the body performing what the body had been trained to perform since childhood, the three-stone pattern that was the foundation of Nat juggling and that Ritu could do in her sleep.

"Teach me," Karan said.

"You want to juggle?"

"If a performer can learn meditation, a mage can learn juggling. It seems fair."

"Juggling is harder than meditation."

"Nothing is harder than meditation."

"Clearly you've never tried to keep three stones in the air while your brother is throwing rotten fruit at you. That's how Papa taught me."

The teaching was — the exchange. The mirror of the morning lessons. Ritu teaching Karan to juggle the way Karan taught Ritu to meditate: patiently, incorrectly, with the particular comedy of a teacher watching a student fail at something that the teacher finds effortless. Karan's juggling was — terrible. The stones went wrong — sideways, backward, into the fire (once), onto Omi's foot (twice, the second time provoking a look from Omi that could have been classified as a threat under most legal systems).

"If you can keep three stones in the air," Ritu said, "you can keep three spells going at once."

"If I could keep one stone in the air, I'd consider it a victory."

"The stone is not the point. The awareness is the point. The awareness of multiple objects in multiple positions at multiple velocities. That's what juggling teaches. That's what the Dwar Shakti needs — the awareness of multiple doors, multiple destinations, multiple openings. If I can juggle, I can portal."

"You just connected juggling to portal magic."

"I connected everything to performing. Everything is performing. The world is a stage and we are all—"

"Please don't quote the philosophers."

"I wasn't quoting the philosophers. I was quoting my father, who quoted his father, who probably quoted the philosophers but would never admit it because Nat men don't quote philosophers, they quote experience."

The laughter. Not the almost-laugh — the actual laugh. The laugh that happened around the fire on the sixth evening, the laugh that involved Ritu and Karan and Leela and Omi (even Omi, whose laugh was rare and surprised and the surprise being that he was laughing at something the court mage had said, the surprise that the court mage was funny, the surprise that humour could cross the divide between the court and the forest).

The laughter that was — the thing. The thing that the Nat families had always known and that the Vanvasi had always known and that the court mages had never learned because the court did not teach it: that community was not built by shared purpose or shared danger or shared identity. Community was built by shared laughter. The laughter that said: we are here, together, around this fire, and the fire is warm and the stones are flying poorly and the court mage has just hit the archer's foot for the third time and the archer is considering murder and the healer is laughing and the door-keeper is laughing and the grandmother is laughing and the mother is — Amba was laughing. The sound that none of them had heard in days. The sound that meant: we are alive and the alive-ness is the victory.