The dining hall, Aahaar, was the tallest hut in Vanyasa. Green chilli shrubs accentuated its edges, and a saffron flag flapped on its roof. It was where Idhika had carried out her punishment duties. With the constant background noise of the mess, she scraped fruit skins off banana-leaf plates and rinsed the clay plates. The water did turn cold in the ewers, but the steam rising from the cooking pots kept Aahaar warm and foggy.

Fayza, too, had done her task diligently, for she had imbibed the importance of keeping the valley clean. But she was used to overcompensating in whatever work she did, so she went the extra mile. She would keep aside the leaves she raked—from within dikes and under boughs and over rutted paths—to be used as mulch for farming. So by the time it was Suryast, the rhododendron tree by the Chakkar would boast under its bower a mound of leaves so tall that it reached up to its lower branches. Sometimes, just to annoy her, Yuvan would climb the tree with a fistful of leaves and throw them down one at a time, saying, ‘You missed one.’

Ujal had been meandering through the valley with a basket tethered to his back—to find wood and collect cakes of dung. Cutting trees was prohibited, so he would pick up fallen cones and dead sticks from within the coppices of Aranyala in the early morning chill. To collect dung, he would roam the fold that stationed the cows in the late afternoon. One day, as he stood there stacking dried patties of dung, he was suddenly confronted by the giver of his pickings. It stood there, chewing grass, mooing on occasion. Then it lifted its tail and fresh droppings splattered wetly on the ground. That was the last time Ujal went to the fold.

For the woodsorrel leaves, Aman had to hike up to Kalanag every day. Whenever he plucked the leaves from the glade behind the Temple of Indra, he thought of the mountain on which he stood and Pataan under his feet. He would often go back to the day of Sangram and Aarti’s victory over Guru Amrav. After Prithvi’s abduction and all the events that followed, they had never dared to return to Pataan.

One of those days, on top of Kalanag’s spherical surface, Aman thought to taste a woodsorrel leaf himself. It was then that he noticed something odd. At first, the heart-shaped leaf was utterly tasteless, only mildly cold because of the dewdrops over it. But when he chewed, wild sourness filled his mouth, making him pucker his lips, and the acidity rushed to his head. For a second, his body seemed to go numb; his vision waned, and he was forced to squint to see anything. When he looked at the Seven Hills, it revealed a different view: the shape of a long serpent.

The more closely Aman observed, the clearer he could see it. The ring of mountains that circled the valley and on which he stood curved sinuously and fell rhythmically. ‘It is a true gift that you have bestowed upon us mountain dwellers. The deceased body of the snake-demon, Vritra, will provide unparalleled protection.’ Aman recalled the dream in his Adwaita when he’d seen the Founding of Vanyasa in the hut with the lavish feast and four-armed Indra.