2 2. The Devil's Garden
Amidst the woods, and the sky the two looked like a red and a golden light moving like shooting stars. It wasn’t long before they stopped or rather Vinasaka stopped them inside a dark hall. With a click of his finger, the entire hall lit up with red lights all over. It was a huge hall with two other demons waiting near the throne probably for the master. However the entire hall was freezing cold for some reason. He noticed Sansara shrugging out of cold often as he was looking around and instantly put his left palm forward and created a blue flame and blew it towards Sansara. Sansara noticed it but did not understand what was going on in the head of the demon beside him. However he just thanked him with a smile.
“The ..the angels back there? Won’t you untie them?” Sansara looked at him not entirely sure whether he was brought as a guest or a captive.
Vinasaka, lazily walking towards the throne, said, “Oh that! They are long freed.” He patted his waist and the whip laid there rolled, tied with his belt. He didn’t realise when the whip had rolled itself back to its owner. What ease and skill!
“And the black cat?” he asked again.
“You worry too much. Relax! Mi-...my lord. Lyca is quite smart. He can handle that much of a situation.”
“Just call me Sansara,” he walked faster to catch up with the other, “By the way, Lyca, the name is nice. He is beautiful. I hope I can see him again.”
“You will soon,” Vinasaka said as he walked past the throne towards a wall and casted a spell. A door appeared out of nowhere and Vinasaka pushed it open. The other way wasn’t visible so Sansara was a little worried about whether he should follow him but soon after Vinasaka entered, he extended a hand for him. Was he taking him to the seven gates of hell? Was he going to be fried?
Without thinking ‘much’, he took the hand which was unbelievably gentle but firm. As he stepped in, he couldn’t believe there was the prettiest garden he had seen in his life. There was no end that he could find. Vast and vast patches of land only covered with thin mat of fresh grass, flowers all prettier than the other, plants and trees of different varieties, butterflies and rabbits playing all around. His eyes lit up with sparkles.
“This is sooo pretty. This is the prettiest place I have ever been!” Sansara exclaimed
Visiting the two most beautiful places on the same day right after he woke up, it was almost like a dream; first the angels’ abode and now the demon’s garden.
There were two women at a corner chatting and smiling. Seeing that Sansara said, “Oh, I thought this garden is yours?”
“It is, it is. You aren’t wrong.”
IT IS REALLY HIS BACKYARD!! HIS FUCKIN BACKYARD!
He didn’t question anything else regarding that but suddenly he remembered something more important, “Vinasaka?”
“Hm?” he looked at him, his eyes soft as they met Sansara’s. The former didn’t really expect this sudden eye contact so he paused for a while before he continued, “Umm, why did you bring me here?”
“Ahh, I can do with everybody misunderstanding me but not you.” Vinasaka said in a very matter of fact way. Seeing Sansara’s confused look, he continued, “This is the garden of spirits...”
Vinasaka was waiting for him to catch on but he was absolutely clueless. “Okay let me explain it this way. Since I am a demon overlord, I don’t really need to feed on souls to keep myself alive.”
Sansara’s eyes grew bigger, “You mean?...These are the souls of the people who did a deal with the demon?”
“Aaaa...precisely.”
“You didn’t eat them up?”
“Nope.”
“Not a single one?”
“Nope....actually the evil souls are devoured by my attendants here. They need to keep going after all.”
“Evil souls?”
“Yup, the kind of people who would summon me to take innocent lives and the ones who, after dying, would stir up trouble.”
Sansara was looking at Vinasaka with the most impressed looks when he felt a nudge from behind. He almost jumped to Vinasaka who held him really tight but as soon as he realised the situation, he hid himself behind Vinasaka instead.
Vinasaka only laughed softly at the turn of events, “It’s okay Sansara. It’s Lyca. See he is back.” Vinasaka kneeled on one leg and started petting the animal.
“WHAAATTTTT!!”
Vinasaka chuckled again.
“Are you telling me that huge white wolf is Lyca. The same Lyca as in the black cat I was holding earlier??!!” Now Sansara was more shocked at the new found fact than the wolf himself. However, upon a closer look those eyes, they were exactly the same blue and green. He couldn’t believe, just couldn’t but somehow managed to come out from behind Vinasaka and get closer to try and pet him and just as he did, Lyca scooted near him. A smile spread across his entire face and he didn’t even realise how long he was being stared at by the one beside him.
“I think I should head back now. Mohi will be looking for me,” Sansara said, suddenly realising that they were there for a long time now. Vinasaka had a dejected expression all over his face.
“I am sorry Vinasaka,” the later looked at him with confusion, “I misinterpreted you. Though I don’t really know you much, I can say you are not as evil as they make you out to be.”
When Vinasaka smiled but didn’t like the fact that he was leaving, Sansara smiled and added, “The rest we can find out later.”
Vinasaka’s smile grew evidently larger as he accompanied him out of the netherworld.
As soon as Sansara came out, cries after cries started flooding his ears, “My Lord, My lord, where are are you? Can you hear me? My lord!!”
“Ahh..slo...slow down Mohi, I can hear you.”
“Thank goodness!!”Mohi arrived quickly and took him back to the angel’s abode.
They arrived in the main hall, the tulip conference hall, where Sansara found that a lot of other angels(presumably) had gathered, and in the centre was a figure dressed in all golden, hair tied up neatly, his aura blinding. He stood up as he saw Sansara and rushed towards him. Instantly checking his forehead with his two fingers, he confirmed that Sansara was fine, “Where were you? I was so worried,”he asked.
“Are you my father?” Sansara asked.
“Um..technically I created you so yes!”
The entire court was silent. It seemed like they knew what was going on.
“Mohi told me that you have no memories which is possible because you were injured very severely during your last mission. Don’t worry. I hope you will soon regain them. But tell me one thing where were you all this time?”
His tone of voice became very strict during the last sentence and the entire court along with Sansara became stiff.
“Where did the lowly demon take you?”
Sansara gulped and gathered his courage, “Lord... I mean father, please calm down. Vinasaka is not as bad as you think!”
“You are even taking sides with him now?”
“Father listen to me please!”
“You will not meet him again. Now go back to your chambers and rest.”
Everyone already understood that they were not supposed to speak anymore and the meeting was adjourned. Even Sansara got the hint and was followed back to his chambers by Mohi. He went inside and jumped on his bed facing the ceiling.
“Are you going to follow me for 24 hours now?”
“That’s the order I received,” Mohi said very plainly and sat on the divan beside the bed.
“Mohi?”
“Yes my lord?”
“Were you there with me since I was a child?”
Mohi was quiet for a while and then he replied, “Yes my lord. Don’t put too much strain on your head. You should go to sleep.”
“I don’t feel like sleeping anymore. All I have been doing is sleeping for the past 300 years. Right now I feel like there is something that I must remember.”
As he said, he had stayed up the entire night feeling excited for reasons who knows what and as soon as Mohi opened his eyes the next morning, he found a smiling Sansara looking at him closely like a baby waiting for a candy.
“M..y lord what are you doing?”He sat and wore his outer robe.
“Mohi let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere is fine. I want to know more about everything.”
Just then both of them heard a noise in their ears, “Attention everyone. There is an announcement! A red coral sword has resurfaced in the kingdom of Spade. We need angels to investigate the matter.”
“PERFECT!” Sansara clapped his hands with excitement. “My first mission. Let’s go.”
Sansara almost dragged Mohi away with him when in a hurry Mohi had still managed to send a letter to the lord almighty about the news.
“Oh and by the way, you need to teach me that bird summoning spell. I want to be able to do that too.” Sansara shouted as they both disappeared into the air.
When they reached the spade kingdom, where the sword had surfaced, they found a huge crowd but the crowd was comparatively far away from the sword. Nobody dared to go near it. It was emitting a vicious aura from all over. Sansara and Mohi disguised themselves as cultivators with plain yellow and blue robes and tried to go near the sword when they found two other angels were also present.
“Sila? Roy?”Mohi said in a calm voice as Sansara looked at them since he couldn’t recognise any of them.
“My lord! Guardian angel Mohi?” they exclaimed
Mohi ssh-ed them reminding them of the crowd surrounding them and that they were in a disguise. It looked like Mohi was senior to them.
Sila and Roy both were young angels as far as Sansara could make it out. Sila carried a sword at his back whereas Roy carried a staff tied to his waist.
“As you both can see this is no ordinary spiritual sword. This red coral sword emits a very strong vicious energy as if ....it still has someone to kill,”Sila said with a tensed face.
Both of the newly arrived angels were quite taken aback by this piece of information.
Roy continued, “He is right. The holy texts contain evidence about this sword. It does feel like the same sword as mentioned there.”
“You mean the demon sword ‘catastrophe’?” Mohi added as if he remembered something crucial.
“Yes,” said Roy, “And if we are not wrong this was supposed to destroy the world when it was buried underneath the earth by the owner centuries ago with his spiritual powers. Sansara didn’t quite relate with any of the texts that the other three were blabbering about and he went towards the sword half emerged from the earth. Something in his head aroused his curiosity and he was about to touch it when a tremendous flash of lightning struck the sword but luckily he was pulled back immediately by a pair of strong hands within the second. The light was so strong that it almost blinded the crowd and the three angels.
Meanwhile Sansara found himself on top of a very familiar face.
The crowd started running like insane having sensed danger and finally when they could see who it was, Sila stammered, “De-demon overlord!”
