She looked at him with a torn expression. Aman knew he had convinced her.

The two made haste and left Sanaka’s hut with the box. As soon as they entered her cottage, she rushed to the lantern by her rug, taking out the palm leaves so she could study the faded marks. ‘Come. Look here. Although the ink has dissolved, the thin tip of the pen did leave faint cuts on the surface of the leaves. Small sections of these drawings can be recreated. For example . . . this one here is clearly Aranyala, and this, Pandayam Tal . . . and—these are maps!’

‘And these? What are these?’ Aman asked, pointing to the biggest leaf lying on Idhika’s side.

‘I don’t know. Another part of the valley? Let’s see,’ she said, bringing it closer to the flame. ‘I see a larger shape.’

She traced it with a pankh dipped in fresh ink until a pointy triangle had formed. It was only when Idhika said ‘it looks like a tail’ that Aman recalled what he’d learnt recently: that Sarp-poonch’s peak was in reality the tail of the serpent Vritra.

After that, the more they looked at the remaining palm leaves, the clearer it became to them that most of the drawings were of caves in Mount Sarp-poonch.

‘Was that where Father was?’ Aman asked. ‘In the caves up in the mountain on the other side of Aranyala?’

‘No. Impossible,’ Idhika said. ‘The height of Sarp-poonch is never-ending. It’s too steep. No Vanyasi has ever made it up there in human form. Only through Atmayog to patrol the caves—and it’s not just Sarp-poonch that’s insurmountable, but also upper Rohini and the less-travelled areas of Kalanag. Guards of the Sabha and Samiti could go up there as birds, or mountain goats . . . But a human, never.’

‘For people of the valley, sure,’ he said. ‘But you underestimate the tools available in the plains. The high caves make for a perfect hiding spot.’

Idhika thought for a bit. Later, after having further studied the palm leaves, which carried text in Sanskrit, she said, ‘You’d mentioned that your father and his men called themselves “The Preservers”. But that cannot be. The Preservers make up a rogue wing—one that is not necessarily attached any more to the army of your plains, from what I gather based on these notes in Sanskrit.’

Aman’s head was spinning with all this information. He felt like he was at the threshold of the answer to the puzzle—but the door was firmly locked.

The next day, early in the morning, when Sanaka was at Aahaar for breakfast, they put the box back in his hut, save for one photograph. Then they went to Idhika’s cottage.

Idhika sat still while Aman paced about. She was in Atmayog, her spirit up in the caves of Sarp-poonch. She had had her eyes shut for over an hour, her chest rarely moving and her Deh glowing, when she suddenly gasped for air and her breathing returned to its normal pace. ‘Aman! You were right. There are people there! Two in the few caves I checked. I couldn’t stay for long. A sparrow may not be the wisest animal to Atmayog into for this. One of the men even looked at me suspiciously and threw a stone, so I had to fly away.’