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ancient and illustrious northern Arya clan, master of a great throne and monarch of a rich dynasty. He had given it all up millennia earlier to pursue a life of total dedication to the pursuit of Brahman, the life-force that knit the universe. Now, he wielded this wooden staff instead of a sword, voiced mantras instead of royal edicts. His kingdom was the realm of atman and Brahman, spirit and power. His name had passed beyond history, across the boundaries of legend, into the misty realms of myth. A guru among gurus, a seer that other seers looked up to reverentially. A Brahmarishi. Yet the regal bearing and manner had not left him entirely. And at this fateful moment, this cusp of history, as he stood sketched against the sky on that high peak, gazing down at the lush, epic beauty of the Sarayu valley, he looked every inch the king he had once been. 
     
    Leaning lightly on the head-tall wildwood staff, his large frame silhouetted against the dusky purple of the pre-dawn sky, he resembled nothing so much as a warrior-king surveying his battlements. He would have looked at home on a royal chariot, gripping the carved bonewood of a longbow, polished armour gleaming in the cold sunlight, contemplating the battlefield’s lie. 
     
    Even the gentle northern wind that rustled the vast rolling banks of kusa grass below seemed to pause briefly, awaiting his command. The waters of the Sarayu, ice-pure and crystal-clear, stilled their gurgling momentarily. The world grew silent, marking the moment, as he spoke aloud a sacred mantra. Not just a mantra, a maha-mantra. The sacred and omnipotent Gayatri. 
     
    As he spoke, the lines of destiny swirled around him. The faint blue hue of Brahman, the raw energy of spiritual enlightenment, caressed his form, an invisible cloak of power. From here on, every step he took closer to Ayodhya would bring about change, historic change. For on this cool, crisp morning, the last night of winter, the first day of spring, he was about to make a king. Perhaps the greatest king of them all. What he wrought today in that city by the river would reverberate down the corridors of human history. 
     
    Gripping the hefty staff more firmly, the seer-mage Vishwamitra stepped back on the well-worn cart track of the king’s highway and began the long downward trek to the first wall. The city itself was still a whole yojana distant and he wished to be there before daybreak. But first he had to alter his appearance. It would not do to appear as himself. The unannounced appearance of a seer-mage of his legendary status would become the talk of the city, bringing Brahmins by the hundreds out of doors to pay their respects, which would only delay his urgent mission. 
     
    Without slowing his pace he spoke the mantra of transformation. The glow of Brahman grew brighter around him as nature itself responded to the sacred incantation. Countless tiny motes of bluish light began to swirl around him, blurring his form. A large boulder lay off to one side of the road and he stepped off the path and into the knee-deep kusa grass, droplets of dew clinging to his dhoti like beads of quicksilver. As he strode around the rock and passed out of sight, his body shimmered as if seen through a curtain of smoke. 
     
    When he emerged scant seconds later on the far side of the boulder, it was no longer as the great seer-mage Vishwamitra. The man who stepped back on to the cartwheel-ridged mud road was a muscular, dark-skinned young man with the traditional animal-skin loincloth, bone necklace and body-pierce adornments of a sudra hunter. A bulging game bag was slung over one shoulder, a gleaming sickle-spear clutched in the other hand. A few scattered motes of blue light trailed behind him, winking out slowly like fireflies extinguished by rain. 
     
    The hunter strode towards Ayodhya. 

FOUR 
     
    High on the hill, a dark shadow detached itself from a small grove of eucalyptus trees. It hopped forward cautiously, reached a