5 5. The Birth of the Demon Child

“Who’s in there?” Vinasaka instantly glowed up the cave with a ball of flames in his hand, “Why did you-...” As they walked ahead, they discovered a faint light slowly becoming brighter until they both were left gaping at the sight in front of them.

In front of them was an enormous red stag sitting with its legs folded. It was this magical being that was exuding the white light all along but strangely, it looked as if the light was fading little by little.

“Forest spirit!” Vinasaka whispered. Hearing the words, the magical creature, lifted his head slowly to discover the two in front of him. It wasn’t moving its mouth but the entire cave was echoing with the sound, “No wonder the vitalities felt familiar. It’s been a long time.” The voice sounded quite pained as if it was suffering. There was no doubt that it was the forest spirit speaking to them but something about it was not right.

“Do you know us?” Sansara was quite taken aback after hearing the last line.

“Better than anybody else,” it said slowly. As much as Sansara wanted to ask the reason, he still held himself back and asked, “Is there something wrong with you? You don’t sound very good.”

“Well, I am afraid you cannot help,” the light was beginning to waver with one moment glowing at its brightest while the other moment getting faint and vague. The sound echoed again clearly more strained than before, “A while ago, some people came to Kahuna because they had lost their way at sea. Since I don’t see many people often, I went to visit them...” Both Vinasaka and Sansara had huge question marks on their faces. Seeing that, it paused and reframed his speech, “...Umm in disguise as a deer.” The rest was very clearly understood, so Vinasaka asked, “How did you escape?”

“I do have a lot of friends here. They helped me but the major damage was done,” it pointed towards one of its hind legs. It looked like the wound was quite severe but it has been attended to. Just as they were engrossed with the wound, a blue bird flew into the cave with several leaves in its beak and sat beside that particular leg.

Almost like something instigated within Sansara, he went to have a closer look at the wound when the bird leapt away at the sudden intrusion.

“What are you doing?” the forest spirit tried to sit up but couldn’t and Vinasaka rushed to offer his support.

“Please allow me,” Sansara focused his energy at the wound and brightened up as if he had discovered something amazing. He extended the forefinger of his left hand towards the bird, “Hello blue bird,” to which the li’l bird almost instantly hoped onto his finger, “Will you do me a favour and get me some herbs please?”

Vinasaka smiled under his breath proudly. The little blue bird soon returned with several herbs in its beak and rested on his finger. Sansara let it climb on his shoulder after having taken the herbs and carefully laying them down. His expressions were confident but serious and he casted a spell on each and applied them on the wound one after the other very carefully and delicately.

“There, it should help,” Sansara looked proud and satisfied at the same time.

“Wonderful, it works wonders,” the forest spirit was able to smile again, “But...why do I feel so sleepy?’

“Ahh, it’s okay. You need a good rest to recover completely,” Sansara assured.

“Thank you so much. I am indebted to you both.”

“Can we ask you for a favour, forest spirit?” Sansara asked.

“Yakshi, my name....I’ll be happy to help in any way,” the forest spirit replied, trying not to lose focus.

“Then do you happen to know how to reach the diamond kingdom. I am afraid we are in need of the red diamond which is under the jurisdiction of the diamond kingdom now.” Vinasaka quickly inquired since he could fall asleep any moment.

“Then you have come to the right place my lord... this cave itself will lead you to the diamond kingdom.”

Both their eyes lit up and they looked at each other. Sansara was about to ask quickly, “Will you be kind enough to...” but he stopped mid-sentence as all they could see in front of them was a peacefully sleeping Yakshi.

.....

.....

......

“I guess we wait here till he wakes up?,” Vinasaka said to which Sansara nodded and they both rested against the cave close to the sleeping forest spirit.

“Should we call the others too?” Sansara said after a while since it was too quiet.

“No need.”

Soon as if he found a new topic to talk about, he said, “Vinasaka, why do you think he said that he knew us?”

“Mmm... do you want to hear a story?” Vinasaka replied quite cheerfully as if he had been waiting for this for a long time but Sansara didn’t quite get why he suddenly shifted to telling a story but he agreed anyway, “Hah?... a story? Sure, we have a lot of time anyway.”

Suddenly as if realising something, he turned to Vinasaka with the same puppy eyes, “Is it about you?”

Vinasaka decided to ignore that question and chuckled before he began his story and Sansara listened to it with all of his concentration.

*****

300 years ago,

That night, the moon was soaked in blood, and not a single star was visible in the sky. Her royal highness was pregnant with her fourth child. A sharp cry was heard from the king’s pavilion and the king came running to the queen’s chamber but all he could find was blood all over and the queen holding the newborn in her arms as if she was trying to protect it from something.

The curtains of the enormous window revealed a black silhouette, robes constantly fluttering with the heavy wind, a drawn out sceptre in his left hand. The king turned around to see the attendants unconscious, only the queen holding the little baby securely in her arms, quivering but could not move her eyes away from the terrifying presence in front of them.

“18 years later from now... HE... WILL DESTROY THE WORLD AND ASURA’S REIGN WILL BEGIN! HAHAHHAAA!” The air filled with the evil cynical laugh of the demon King Asura and a red mark appeared on the chest on the little human with the name ‘Vinasaka’ inscribed on his skin.

It was a curse. A curse from the demon king Asura himself! There was absolutely no way to counter it. Word was sent to the gurukul immediately, and the master himself arrived in the royal residence. The entire royal court was in chaos. It was the king’s order that the kingdom should not be let on with any information about the curse whatsoever.

When guruji arrived, he was taken to the queen’s chamber immediately. He asked everyone to leave except the royal highnesses.

“This is not your child, your highness! Am I right?” Guruji said his head bowed to the king.

Owing to the queen’s fourth pregnancy, there was always a looming fog among the royal family. The king became furious with the arrival of the news months ago and naturally the tensions between them led the king and the queen to grow further apart from each other. The king never asked who the father was and even if he asked, queen Yahana probably wouldn’t be able to say as well.

The king, shamefully lowering his head, nodded only quietly.

“Will her highness be willing to let me know if she had visited any ritual or festival before you bore the child?” Queen Yahana was almost convinced that guruji would probably ask her about the father of the child and she was prepared to deny it but this question suddenly caught her off guard.

“A ritual?” she asked suddenly concerned.

The king asked almost at the same time, “What do you mean Guruji?”

“I do not know if it’s related but when I went to the town some ten months before, there was indeed a gathering near the east valley. They were all women gathered...,”

“Were they wearing red?”Guruji interrupted.

“Yes, how do you...,”she was interrupted again.

“Did they feed you something?” Guruji asked as he gulped.

“...They said it was ...” this time she stopped by herself as she realised what it really was.

“The chalice of the red rose.” Guruji put it in the formal way to make it sound less horrific, however the king after hearing the words almost broke out in a cold sweat, “The demon child bearing ritual! You mean the chalice of the demon blood.”

The queen screamed and the palace echoed with her painful cry. She refused to let the baby go and held him closer to herself. She was definitely scared of the fact that the little boy she had carried in her womb for nine months had the blood of the demon running in his veins, the very demon who had cursed his own child the moment he came into the world. No wonder, the queen looked like she had aged twenty years in the past nine months.

The king turned to look at the queen probably for the first time properly in the past months since she was found pregnant. He felt the ache in his heart, the regret about not asking the father of the child, the regret of not believing his own wife. As he slowly bent forward to hold the baby, she held it even closer to herself refusing to let go at all when suddenly a pair of small little arms sprang forward towards the king. Even Guruji was stunned at what was happening in front of him.

“I will never let you kill him. He is my child. Please,” the queen sobbed as her tears kept flowing down, her voice coarse and full of rage.

The king was hurt at the words but he understood why she was like that. It was probably his own fault that made her like that. However, he wasn’t thinking of doing anything of that sort.

The queen however wasn’t able to hold on to the baby anymore when it almost jumped to the king’s arms. The child had absolutely no trait of a demon at all except that his strength was too much for a newborn. As soon as he went into the arms of the king, it started to tug at the jade pendant he was wearing, soon tearing it off. The jade pendant was a gift from the king’s mother. Queen Yahana had her blood running cold at the thought of what might happen to the child now.

To her utmost surprise, the king smiled at the little guy holding the pendant and said, “Do you like that? Fine, you can have that. Haha!”

“But your highness...,”Guruji was about to warn him regarding the curse but the king had decided. He called in his attendants, “Jay, let the whole world celebrate the birth of the third prince of the kingdom of hearts!”

Everyone was confused as to what led to the sudden change in his highness. If only they had seen the smile on the face of the little one as he managed to crawl into the arms of his father....