Garud tossed his fierce head and flexed his powerful wings, anticipating flight. ‘Away, my friend!’ Krishna lightly patted the griffin, who trotted out of the stable, shook his wings, and in a torrent of air, took to the skies. It was a strange thing that Krishna hated climbing high walls, but loved flying a griffin hundreds of feet into the sky. Perhaps it was the way Garud made him feel. Safe.

He could not say the same for the Wolves, howling like banshees behind him. Storm’s hat flew away, no doubt snatched by some offended God of Fashion. ‘My hat!’ she cried despairingly.

Masha’s Auguries

The faded tapestries hung dead on the wall behind the ornate desk. In the narrow spaces in between, numerous scrolls were stacked on desktops, alongside pieces of obsidian and stone. In this repository of tomes, eyes the colour of a dirty pond, regarded her, not appearing to approve of what she saw. Huge tusks framed her thin mouth and jutting lower lip. The greyish cast of the skin of the only Rakshasa Matron in the House, made her look ghastly, even in the hearth’s warm light.

‘You smell like a fresher.’

‘I’m a Matron,’ Masha said defiantly. As if anyone else would be found in the Restricted Section of the library. None but Matrons and caged Oracles lived in the House. And Banshees, of course. Masha drew out the papers Maimed Matron had given her. ‘I seek access to the journals on the Sun. I have the approval here.’ She handed over the papers.

The woman smiled at her. ‘Of course, you have. A thousand restricted books here and all you girls care about is flicking off to that golden-chested boy. So be it. Your name?’ She picked up her quill to write in her leather-bound register.

Masha hiccupped. She obviously could not say, ‘Masha’. It was her old name. She wasn’t even supposed to remember it. But the official naming ceremony hadn’t yet begun. After that, she would be called by something dark and ominous like Burned Matron and Maimed Matron. ‘I…I am just a Matron.’

‘Ah, told you I smelled a fresher. Those scars fool no one. These papers,’ she pushed back the references from Maimed Matron, ‘do grant you access to the Sun’s journals, my girl, but you are not permitted entry to the Restricted Section till you are a named Matron.’

‘Please! I need to study him to complete my Links.’

‘Do you even know what Links are?’

‘Certainly. Links are bridges connecting the visions of various oracles to form a single narrative.’

‘Memorised rather than understood,’ the woman snorted and went back to her register, pointing her quill at the door that led outside.