KRISHNA CORIOLIS#1: Slayer of Kamsa Read Online Free PDF

prithviloka.’

    five

    ‘Father?’
    Devaki had scoured the palace for Ugrasena. When a sipahi informed her that her father was still in the sabha hall, she was surprised. It was the last place she had expected to find him, so long after the ruckus caused that afternoon by her brother. But when she entered the darkened hall, lit only by the light of a few flickering torches that created as many ominous shadows as they threw light, her heart sank.
    Ugrasena sat on his throne in exactly the same position in which he had been seated when she had left the hall hours earlier, after the fracas over Kamsa and his boorishly violent actions had disrupted the celebration. As she walked the several dozen yards to the throne dais, the crackling mashaals sent the shadows of the endless rows of carved pillars fleeing and skittering in every direction. The echoes of her footfalls whispered from the far corners of the large chamber which was acoustically designed to carry the words of every speaker at the public sabha sessions to even the farthest reaches of the great hall.
    She shivered, feeling the cold damp stone of the chamber pressing down upon her. Through her childhood and brief youth thus far, she had come to associate this hall with war: war councils, preparations, emergencies, talks, negotiations, breakdowns in talks ... Until today, her strongest memory was of angry voices raised in heated discussion over some seemingly insignificant matter of territorial water rights or foraging boundaries – those twin bugbears that had plagued the Sura and Andhaka clans since the time of their mutual forebear Yadu himself.
    She reached the foot of the dais and instinctively bowed formally, awaiting the liege’s permission before approaching closer.
    Ugrasena sat like a statue wrought of old wax, his lined and worry-worn features as deeply etched as with a sculptor’s chisel. His posture, leaning back and resting sideways, with the side of his head resting on one palm, suggested anxiety too. She waited patiently for him to respond. Finally, he broke out of his reverie and registered her presence. He sighed and frowned down at her, eyes watering either from strain or age.
    ‘My good daughter, why do you stand there? Come, come to me. Why do you stand on ceremony so? You need no permission to approach.’
    ‘Father,’ she said, climbing the stone-cut steps to the raised platform that served to elevate the Andhaka seat of governance above the sabha hall’s floor. She knelt on one knee, taking her father’s hands in her own. She was shocked to feel how cold and witheredthey were. Had they been so weathered this morning when he clasped her hands and uttered the traditional blessings? She didn’t think so. He seemed to have aged years in a single day. Her heart went out to him and she leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the brow. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the unexpected affection, but she knew he was pleased. Her mother was not given to demonstrations of affection, and she had often felt that her father must suffer from its lack.
    ‘What occasions this generosity?’ he asked, a faint trace of a smile on his puckered mouth. It pleased her to know that she was the one responsible for it.
    ‘I am rich today,’ she said brightly, determined to elevate his mood.‘I am rich in family and friends and allies. And soon I shall be rich in matrimony too. This is the happiest day of my life, Father. And I owe it all to you. You promised that I would wed Vasudeva and you kept your promise. You are truly a king among men!’
    He laughed. A brief chuckle, gruff and involuntary. But still a laugh. It gladdened her heart to hear the sound of his amusement as she now felt confident that he could overcome the day’s setbacks and Kamsa’s awful transgression. He was her father: King Ugrasena, lord of the Andhaka Suras, the greatest nation in all Aryavarta – in all prithviloka – and nothing was impossible for him!
    But the chuckle turned