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ravished and slaughtered like your countrymen below? Your brothers, perhaps? Or your birth-mother? Or— 
     
    Rama lashed out. This time he struck without discipline or stance. Pure rage fuelled his actions. The sword slashed through empty air. He came to his senses a moment later, at the far end of the tower chamber, sword vibrating in his double-handed grip. He had traced an interweaving mandala pattern that covered every square yard of the chamber. There was no living being here. His eyes misted with impotent rage. 
     
    ‘Who are you? Why do you show me these monstrous visions? Reveal yourself, damn you!’ 
     
    Boy. You still haven’t seen the real horrors. The best part comes later, when the survivors are taken back to Lanka as my slaves and whores. Shall I show you that now?  
     
    ‘What do you want from me, demon?’ 
     
    The cry was torn from his throat by an emotion more powerful than simple rage. It was an attempt to understand, to make sense of the evil that confronted him. 
     
    Now, you begin to learn. Yes, I do want something from you. A vow of allegiance. Bend your knee to me now, this instant, and swear fealty to me. Do this now, and perhaps I shall see fit to spare Ayodhya when my armies lay waste the nations of Arya. Kneel, boy, and live. 
     
    He forced his breathing to stay measured, his voice as steady as he could keep it. It took more strength than wielding the sword. 
     
    ‘The only time I would bend my knee before you is when I kneel to aim an arrow at your cursed brain. Show yourself and face me like the man you claim you are, coward!’ 
     
    Lightning shattered the sky above the Seers’ Tower. Lightning out of a pitch-black sky. Thunder boomed and echoed an instant later. When the voice resumed, it sounded like giant teeth gnashing in frustration. 
     
    Boy. Still just a boy. But you will learn. I will teach you the song of pain and terror. And you will bend your knee then. You will beg and cry for the honour of kneeling to me. Until then, sleep your childish sleep, boy. And remember this well: Ayodhya will fall. 
     
    Another blinding flash of white light. 
     
    He woke in his bed, chest heaving, sweat-drenched, fever-hot, bone-chilled. He sprang to his feet, stood naked on the cool redstone floor—he had tossed off his loincloth as the night grew warmer. Even as he reached for his sword, he knew that it was still there on the bed where it had lain all night, untouched. 
     
    Just another bad dream, he thought, willing himself to calm down. He remembered the perfection of his movements and asanas in the dream, and also how futile all his training had proved. Who was this faceless beast that tortured him this way? This was the third time this week alone that the monster had appeared and shown him similarly horrible dream-visions. Too horrible to discuss with anyone else. He hadn’t even told Lakshman, and he always told Lakshman everything. Just another nightmare. As real and terrifying as all nightmares usually were. 
     
    But this time, it felt like something more. 
     
    It felt like a prophecy. 

THREE 
     
    The traveller reached the top of the rise and paused. 
     
    Ayodhya. 
     
    He was clad in the simple garb of an ascetic. The coarse white dhoti girding his loins, wooden toe-grip slippers on his feet, matted unkempt hair swirling around his craggy face, the long straggly white beard, the red-beaded rudraksh mala around his neck, all marked him for a hermit returning from a long, hard tapasya. His gaunt face and deep-set eyes completed the portrait of a forest penitent, a tapasvi sadhu. 
     
    Yet there was something about him that set him apart from any ordinary sadhu or hermit. An indefinable quality that belied the obvious first impression. An alertness in his intense predatory eyes, a sense of banked power in his fluid movements, a hint of hidden strength, and most of all, an unmistakable regal air. 
     
    He had been a warrior once. A king even. Lord of an