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Servant of the Gods
It had been a hot day in the valley beneath the temple. Prabodh knew from experiance as he walked with serenity up the hill to the temple. His meditation would not begin again for a little while, but he did not like to be caught racing for the temple. Such was not in his nature.
It was his fifteenth year at the temple, he knew, and he was ready to accept the temple as a lifetime commitment. He knew the Vedas, the Rig-veda, the Ramayana all by heart. He understood what the balance between Vishna, Shiva, and Brahma and why they were needed. He meditated daily to find the Answer, the Divine Understanding. He wanted so much to attain oneness with the universe as his mother had hours after he was born.
A few more feet and a few more thoughts of despair led him to the top of the hill, and to the temple gates. He was dusty and worn from a journey to the nearby town for news. There was little to be reported. The rainy season would come and that would bring news, as it always did, of towns wiped out from flash flooding and lightning damage.
He took a rest, half-way up the hill, in one of the small courtyards set aside for Vishnu. There were many brilliant trees with beautiful flowers, which filled the world with heady perfumes. Prabodh took a deep breath, basking in the sunlight, and sat in the sun, enjoying the sounds of the birds, the warmth of the sun on his brown skin and orange robes. He relaxed... and cleared his mind.
***
She had called him Eidea'kerdu, fiery darkness. His mother had, anyway. He couldn't tell what had happened to her, her heartbeat, or the small thought-prints of his siblings. All he could feel was the warm and peace and tranquility of the sunlight on his egg shell. He rolled it, every now and again, to somewhere less warm, lest it cook him.
It was a good place, wherever he was. However he had gotten here, far from the dark lands where his mother had lain him. It was a place that made him warm with sunshine, brilliantly warm, warmer than anything he had ever known. Even what he assumed was night, even then it was warm. Even then it was good.
Now it was daylight. Now it was noon. Now he was growing too big for his own shell. He would need to get out soon. He wondered how he would do that, because part of his mind thought that his mother was supposed to be there, to sing a certain song to encourage her children.
There was no song.
Well then, Eidea'kerdu reasoned, he would have to sing it himself.
***
Prabodh's meditation was interrupted sharply by a fierce squawking, like a bird, the likes of which he had never known. All the other birds fell deathly silent and looked upon one another in a curious manner before quitting the trees, leaving the monk alone to find this curious, wretched creature making so much racket.
The warbling grew in pitch and badness as he crouched on his hands and knees and pressed passed a fern, trying not to listen and be guided by his ears at the same time. It was a horrible noise, truly.
There was a crunching noise, as a giant green-black stone rolled over a dried branch of a plant. The stone stopped and promptly rolled over it again. And again. And again. Until all the crunching was out of it.
Prabodh stared in horrified fascination. This was the work of the gods. Surely. Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma, or all three together.
And then, the stone split down the middle and revealed the most horrible creature Prabodh had ever seen. The Ramayama had not spoken of a demon in such a way before! Small, the size of Prabodh's forearm, and bony, and bright yellow with wings! Its eyes, like jewels, but black as pitch, and horns! Horrible horns! Like gilded bones!
It caught a bug with the tips of its tail, which was a pair of spines, and quickly set to munching on it. The monk stared in awed silence, and the demon did nothing to acknowledge his presence.
Perhaps, Prabodh thought desperately, perhaps it is stupid. The temple elder. He will know what to do.
Suddenly, there was a thought in his head. *Kerdu vajana makyna. Tu jana makyna, tu maklari bertalara dun fus.*
Prabodh stared in fear at the creature.
*Ik, Kerdu klatad ak.*
Prabodh continued to stare at the demon creature. His mouth worked as if to say something, but he could think of nothing.
*Tu batut!*
Prabodh took in a shuddering breath and gathered his robes about him and hurried up to the temple. Such a creature could not be in any ways good. Not at all.
***
Kerdu, as he had decided to call himself, since Eidea'kerdu was impossibly long and ridiculous sounding, watched the monk leave in a hurry. He smirked and rustled his wings. Stupid brown thing. *Makyna dun fus,* Kerdu laughed out loud.
He slithered, since his wings, he figured, were too frail upon hatching to support his weight. *Etalasan,* he chirpped cheerfully, basking in the warm light of the sun. *Etalasan.* He made it a game to say it in every range of sound that he could. He growled it. He chirped it. He warbled it, mimicking a bird in the bushes.
*Gael,* he interrupted himself suddenly. *Gael keh etalasan!* He peeked inside the bush and found the bird. *K'jama, gaelan!*
The bird regarded kerdu curiously and flew away suddenly. In the rush of blue-black feathers, Kerdu laughed good-naturedly to himself. *Da'nin, gaelan!*
Suddenly, a beetle flew by his small yellow head and landed on a leaf in the bush. *K'jama...?* Kerdu asked. *Aka jana tu?*
He inspected the beetle with glassy black eyes. *Fus! Fus! Fus!*
Suddenly, the beetle flew away.
Kerdu stared at it. *Fus nikaetalas?* he asked the air. *Fus nikaetalas keh etalasan?*
Kerdu continued to explore the rest of the day, until sundown, when he found a nice, warm place to sleep, his little yellow head sticking out, and the pale triangular jewel on his forehead shining brightly with the reflected rays of the sun.
***
"You must believe me! I saw it with my own eyes!" Prabodh told his superior monks when he arrived at the temple.
"Truly, just a vision, Prabodh. Do not let it bother you any longer."
"But! I can't! I can't get those eyes out of my mind! You had to see them! Two black jewels, just boring into me! And it spoke! Its voice was so .... unnatural! Truly this must be a demon of the vedas!"
"Prabodh, please. The vedas were written in a time long before our own. All the demons are gone since long before this time."
"You had to see it, then," Prabodh sighed, shaking his head, his eyes wide with fear and awe and misery. "I cannot believe that you would have to see something to believe it, my brothers. You, who have sworn belief to our lord Shiva, yet have never seen him and his divine presence. Please, I entreat you to believe me in this matter."
"Perhaps," said an elder priest, "it would be prudent to search for Prabodh's demon, just in case."
There were some murmurs of approval.
"Perhaps. Come, brothers. Let us seek Prabodh's demon."
***
Prabodh led the way down the slope from the temple to the place he had stopped to meditate. "It... It was around here. I swear it," he told the others.
"Alright. We'll spread out," one of the elder priests told him.
Inch by inch in the moonlight the holymen crept along, pushing around rocks and looking under bushes, looking in trees, searching everywhere.
Suddenly, there was a startled cry. Everyone looked up from what they were doing and hurried over to the priest who had cried out. He was pointing with a shaking finger down at a shape on the ground, curled up, and glowing out of some part of it.
"Prabodh!" one of the men whispered. "Is this it?"
Prabodh gave a nod and swallowed hard. One of the men brought a net and swooped it over the sleeping form, who woke immediately, stuck through its horn and tail, tangled in the net.
*Monora!* was the screeching thought in everyone's head. *Monora monora monora!*
"GAH!" One of the elder priests fell to the ground, his hands over his ears. "Get it out of my head!! Get it out!"
*MONORA!!*
Prabodh bent by his elder and looked at the net. "Be quiet! Please!" Prabodh implored the shape.
*Bee kvaiyet!* the form mocked Prabodh's request and cackled. Then, it looked up at the net. *MONORA!* it said again, and bit through the string and slashed its tail free.
*Tu humanas, monora. Pff.* It looked around at the lot of them. *Ku humanas,* the thing sniffled, looking pathetic, *makjilkal h'hirgyaeghan!*
One of the priests knelt by the thing and poked at it. The thing tried to bite off his hand. "What do you think it is?"
*Watt do joo t'heenk eet ees?* the thing parroted.
"I think it's annoying," someone answered.
*Makjilkal!?* the thing warbled, looking stunned and shocked.
"I tell you the thing is a demon," Prabodh said sternly. "We should take it back to the temple and --"
"No. We should not take demons to the holy grounds."
"But if any can destroy them, surely Lord Shiva--"
"No. If it truly is a demon, it should not desecrate the holy grounds."
"But--"
"There will be no discussion of this, Prabodh."
"Just to the courtyard, then. Let me watch it. I will be responsible for teaching it, reforming it."
"Demons cannot be reformed, Prabodh!"
"Let me try! Has any before us found a demon so young? Perhaps evil is learned, as good is!"
The elders looked around at each other and sighed. "Very well, but it rests on your head. You are destroying this thing's kharma by not fulfilling your dharma. When you are a cow again, in your next life, it will not be our fault."
Prabodh nodded and reached out towards the thing.
It bit him. Twice. The second time it drew blood.
*Tu!* the thing shouted, glaring accusingly at Prabodh. *Tu, div! Div, makyna fus!*
Prabodh stood his ground and picked up the yellow thing and firmly held its jaws shut before wrapping it in his robes to keep it from escaping. He nodded to the others, and they returned to the temple, having captured a demon.
***
*Makyna humanas,* Kerdu thought bitterly as he stared around at the stone walls, draped with gaudy tapestries. *Kerdu jana hirgyae, vajana 'deeeeeemon.'* Miserably he stared around, taking it all in with his greatly slanting black eyes. *Ugh. Vakaliv, vakaliv, Kerdu vakaliv.*
"I wonder why it keeps saying 'Kerdu'," someone said.
"It keeps saying a lot of things," the one holding Kerdu said.
*MAKYNA HUMANAS!* Kerdu snarled. *Tu valal Kerdu d'gaelas un isa fusas! Vakaliv tu! Vakaliv vakaliv vakaliv!* He was very angry, not wanting to address these idiots in their language, though he was picking it up quite easily. He wanted out. He wanted the quiet and the undisturbed peace of that place he had been. Not the stupid stone walls with these horrible ugly humans.
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