There was a soft knock. The guard appeared again, but this time he was sweating. ‘My Lord, Karna is not here.’

‘What do you mean he isn’t here? I asked him to be here. Has he not been waiting for the last two hours? Go fetch him this instant!’

The guard nodded miserably and hurried away.

‘My Lord…’ Shakuni said, knowing it was useless.

‘No, Shakuni. You’re done.’

II

Narak had only one set of ironbound doors, ten feet tall, guarded and locked from the inside. A square block in the door slid open as Shakuni approached, and a face silhouetted by the lantern behind, appeared. ‘State your business.’

‘A roll of seven,’ said Shakuni formally.

He heard a clatter and the heavy doors swung outward. A man stepped out to meet him, hand raised in salute. He wore a dark leather vest, bracers and boots over red doublet and breeches. A black hood was drawn around the back of his head, and his face was covered with an enamelled mask that had only two holes in front of the eyes. Three marks were drawn between the eye-slits of the mask, denoting his status as Captain. The expressionless mask-face was worn by every officer who worked under Shakuni to ensure peace within the city. The Mists.

Merciless hunters, the Mists were responsible for weeding out conspiracy and corruption in the city. The Secret Police. They were the faceless heroes of Hastinapur, for while soldiers earned glory on the battlefield, the Mists only earned fear for the things they did for the Union. It was due to the dark nature of their tasks that they were also considered the best gaolers for a place like Narak.

Shakuni followed the Mist into the entrance hall, which was divided into two sections by a wall of black iron bars, running from ceiling to floor across its breath. On one side, the hall led to the Office of the Mists, where the Union’s dirty work was done. But Narak’s true purpose was served by the two ancient stone vaults that went far beneath the ground, into the bowels of the earth. That was where Shakuni was headed now.

They reached the end of the hall where another Mist, this one with two marks between his eyes, saluted Shakuni and opened the door to a spiralling staircase, using the key strung around his neck on a leather thong. Narak was a prison built to imprison Gods. Nobody really knew who built the two levels of this gloomy pit in the bowels of Hastinapur, for the pit predated the city itself by centuries. But what was known was that Narak was cursed with dark magic. Spending more than half a day here without drugs could swallow the songs in one’s head. The two levels of Narak, however, affected their inhabitants differently. The air of the first level, where Shakuni was hobbling through, was known to stunt intelligence over time, making escape impossible to plan. In some prisoners, it erased the concept of escape entirely by destroying memories, so prisoners had no reason to leave. Amusingly, first level of Narak was the only dungeon in the realm that posted no guards. It was reserved for those prisoners who had somehow earned the King’s Clemency.