That was that. From then on, if Nala wasn’t practicing the asanas, she was spending hours unscrambling the mandalas, the mazes Parshuram prepared for her. Turns out the Mandala, Vyas had conjured in Meru, had been a simple one. The ones used by their ancestors to drive out the Daevas were truly complex, and the way to understanding a mandala was to unlock its maze. And for that, she had to practice them on parchment. No matter how complex, they always contained a seed at the centre – the seed which Parshuram said symbolized the sacred snake in Nala’s spine.

When she was not working on these, she was meditating to summon Dhyāna but it felt like stumbling after smoke. More often than not, she ended up napping while seated in one of these ‘meditative’ trances. Mostly, she used her meditation time to conjure alternate universes. During one of these ventures, she was imagining Varcin and herself ruling over a world where Acharyas were slaves, when she heard the sound of urgent footsteps. She immediately straightened and began chanting a meditative mantra.

‘You aren’t fooling anyone, Nala.’

She opened her eyes guiltily.

‘I was hoping to have more time here, but I have been called back to work. Your training will now have to be on the road.’

‘You work for someone!’ Nala was shocked. Who would be pinecone enough to employ him?

Parshuram smirked. ‘Everyone works for someone. And we are going to meet those I work for.’

Nala swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. ‘We?’

‘Yes. It is time for you to meet the founders of Meru. It is time to meet the Saptarishis.’

Masha’s Auguries

I

Masha made her way up the ice-sheathed stairs with morbid enthusiasm. She was on oracle duty today. She suspected it was her Supervisor’s way of telling her to come up with results or be sent to the banshee quarters. She had not managed to unravel a single link. Even Maimed Matron had ceased to aid her.

She reached the high-ceilinged chamber with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. The oracle, no older than six summers, lay spread-eagled inside a ring of vials and candles. The air in the chamber was a mix of suspended frost intertwined with steam. A large stone, from which heat rose in waves, rested on the oracle’s breasts. It had not been so long ago when Masha herself had been tied up in the same way.

Burned Matron had told her that almost all of Masha’s visions had been useless. Incoherent gibberish about a man called Muchuk. It was difficult to separate dreams from visions, but that was the Matron’s duty. Masha had apparently sent all the Matrons on a wild goose chase when she had ‘seen’ Muchuk, the man of her visions, slay a monster made of smoke. False leads were common in the House of Oracles.