Shishupal’s jaw dropped. He should have felt elated, at least about the Assyrian blade, said to be the finest, most expensive sword in the world, but all he felt was lost. He looked down, defeated, his crotch burning from the spilled wine. Surajmukhi stared at him from behind Lady Rasha’s skirts. Two creatures bound for a similar fate, he thought dismally. Chop, chop.

I

‘Are you confident about this?’

Now that was the sort of question one asked before a man sharpened his razor. But when he had the mad bull’s scrotum tied in threads, castrating implements at the ready, and the beast’s legs squirming to smash his skull, surely it was a little too late to enquire whether he was confident about it? ‘About as sure as I have been about anything in my life,’ Krishna replied as calmly as he could, though he rubbed his thumb nervously over the alien material of the obsidian bridge.

Satyabhama said nothing. Instead, she stared up at the time-worn towers, soaked red in the sunset, that stood on either end of the bridge. She placed a callused hand lightly over his as the day died around them. An unseasonal chill bled from the paved stones at their feet. Under his fidgeting hands, a faint blue light glowed wanly, then spread along the railing of the bridge, like the roots of an invisible carnivorous plant.

‘The hour of Roshnar is upon us.’

Silver-blue light zig-zagged like luminous veins across the bridge, along the streets, climbing over the shrouded towers, and spreading over the primeval island like spilled mercury on black parchment. And right on cue, the animated gasps from his guests below the bridge, filled the evening air. He had exclaimed in the same way when his own eyes had first fallen upon Roshnar.

The obsidian found abundantly on the island had been combined with glass by its ancient builders, to construct the city. This strange material had been called numerous names by the small-folk of yore. Frozen Fire. Mithril. The primitive texts of the Saptarishis called it vaikunshard. A name lost to time, for no one had actually set eyes on vaikunshard for centuries. That is, until now.

Every day, as the sun was swallowed by the West, vaikunshard fought against the night for a while longer than the rest of the world. It shimmered wanly in the twilight for a few hours, with shades of blue, illuminating the island in hues of sapphire, as if in a bid to defy Nature.