Man Crumbles to Ignorance , Everytime ( Part 2 )

"The day Abhaya will fall…" his mild voice shook the room, "is the day dryland nations will be conquered, the day Rtadhara will disappear from the face of Earth."

Sheesha's voice was hoarse as he asked, "Your Majesty…who will conquer the drylands?"

The fine featured, stately looking young man in front was often incomprehensible to him. But his voice always contained a serene form of confidence that accepted all things in their true form. Even when he was gravely injured and out of breath, back then, he always gently explained to Sheesha the things he did not understand.

Vajra sighed. "Uncle Sheesha, I've always liked you, but you are too simple minded. Do you really think Little Grass is just a wild mountain boy with no ambition? Did it really not appear to you the moment you laid eyes on him…his desire to conquer the world!" Sheesha was flabbergasted as he heard Vajra continue, "One day, he will take north and then the will take the south…then he will come for us."

"But he is Your Majesty's friend…"

"Like I said…so simple minded." Vajra chuckled. He raised and walked slowly to the cloth window of the tent. Varunapriya actually rode out in the late afternoon all the way to the capital's outskirts to have her appointment with her beau.

Looking at the partially covered silver moon in the rainy night, he spoke slowly, as though each syllable weighed a ton. "Everybody thinks I was the one who enabled Grass to raise so high in the world. But Grass was born to conquer the world. I merely streamlined his destiny so that the destruction he causes on the way would be kept at minimal. For instance, teacher Ashangi left him to his own devices to bring the barbarians out of the drylands. A nearly impossible task that would've needed the barbarians to call reinforcements from their tribes, not just once but several times. She wanted him to cut a path of destruction through the drylands. Perhaps for her, it was a form of tempering for Grass. A natural process that may involve some needless violence, but will ultimately toughen him up. Their fight was in the mainland. She never cared about what happens to the drylands.

"Fact is, I have always suspected the mainland Chandra faction for bringing the belief 'Rudra' to the barbarians. It was all a pre-concocted plan to take over the mainland. And they might have had it for more than a few decades. Grass just happened to be the one that fit to execute this plan. Left to his own devices, Grass still would've subdued the Asuras, claimed Manas and attracted Amaravati's attention and turned against them. All of this would've happened with or without my intervention because it's all been planned out in the first place. The only thing different now is that Grass had less failures and fewer stumbling blocks because I directed him on the path which Rta flows. What should've taken twenty years took less than five to achieve, because the natural order is smoother and more direct than what brute force and violence can achieve. If it really took twenty years for Kush to get where he was, he would've turned into a machine of war. A monster. As his friend, I could not let him go through that. Also, as the true king of people, I could not let the lands be affected by the carnage he creates. Even now, if I did not let him scatter the Asuras and build trade routes, those monsters would've begun to cause chaos all over the mainland, now that they already allied. One day, the confrontation between the Devas of Amaravati and the Asuras in alliance with Chandra Kush is inevitable. But if the action is brought about by chaos, it is unsure the direction in which Rta flows. The war will go on for a long time and people will suffer. But if Rta's flow is streamlined, then all can see on which side righteousness and justice is. It will be easy to choose a side and sooner everybody chooses, the sooner the new alliances stop forming, the lesser will be the confusion, and the sooner war will end.

"The Adityas are responsible for managing the flow of Rta in this world. Even if this eighth god is just a man, that does not deter me from my duty to ensure there is less chaos in this world. This is all I ever did for Kush…"

Listening to that even rhythmic tone of the king's monologue, Sheesha's emotions slowly became level. He quietened down and listened, feeling that soothing wave of confidence from the young king reach over and wash away the disturbance in his mind. Half of what the king said were things he didn't understand. But one thing was for certain. Sheesha was truly out of his depth when he decided to go along with the fourth princess's actions. He believed in a little girl who lived a cloistered life in the Tri-Shakti Palace Complex.

They say that man can face any monster with enough bravery. But no amount of bravery is enough to face his own stupidity. When man is confronted by it, man simply crumbles. There is no two ways around it. This is why, in this era, each man must choose his lord and serve him faithfully. In turn, the lord is descended from the gods, so his thirst for wisdom maybe sanctioned in full. This way man can never can go wrong when he makes a decision. He is protected from his own stupidity by his lord who is guided by the gods themselves. This was precisely the zeitgeist of this century.

But even this method was not foolproof. Because sometimes the lords have misguided elder sisters who seem even more confident than them.

Sheesha clenched his fists until his bones crackled. Even though his insides were crumbling, he was still a brave warrior. He raised his teary eyes to the king and asked, "Martanda, all your people believe in you. If you want, you can raise your banner and take over the entire drylands. You can present a united front against any invader when the time comes…"

"But isn't that Yuga-dheera's dream…With his intelligence, I'm sure he already foresees the same future that I do. He probably thought he could stand tall in history as the savior of the drylands when he unites them all into a single kingdom and stops the invaders," the teenage king's red lips glinted in the dark as he smiled.

"Silly fool! The fall of Abhaya is the fall of the drylands! My father was always right about that. Guided by Rta, he had foreseen this future a long time ago!" he suddenly shouted, alerting General Shaura who was standing outside, guarding the tent. "Unity is strength. In a multitude, the whole is greater than the sum of all parts. That's what unity stands for. But creating a sum of all nations and standing as its king, Yuga-dheera will only be setting himself up for failure. One man cannot stand against the entire mainland when it comes to absorb the Western Drylands. This is the nature of duality. This is the difference between Solitude and Multitude. One seeks peace in solitude. One seeks strength in multitude. He is an idiot if he thinks his peace can stand against Grass's strength."

Vajradandaka breathed loudly and spat on the ground. "A blockhead like that is only fit for the battlefield. The dryland nations can only ride this tide safely if all its kings stand as one, not become one! If only big brother was alive, he would've run a spear through that foolishly ambitious bastard!"

Vajra really hated himself for not having enough strength to do so himself. If he could, now was the perfect time. He had a valid reason.

Only now did it occur to Sheesha. He said wide-eyed, "Your Majesty, you're not saying that Yuga-dheera's thinly veiled ambitions to unite all dryland nations extend as far as Rtadhara!" If so, the fourth princess would've never done what she did!

Surely…?

"Heh," Vajradandaka sneered. "My sister probably doesn't think so, right? The dream to unite all the drylands actually did not start with Yuga-dheera. It rightfully belonged to my second mother's late brother and previous king of Dhija, Vishnu-vardhana. His whole life, he worked towards that goal. Forming a trade coalition with the eventual aim of toppling Abhaya was his brainchild. Unfortunately, the late king of Dhija did not have proper male successors. The few that he had died. It was then that Vishnu-vardhana installed young Yuga-dheera as the overseer of the trade coalition and even fostered the boy who had just come of age so that the project would go in the right direction. My uncle was truly a broadminded person.