I opened my eyes and the very next moment a fat drop of water hit me right on the forehead. Dani and Lia’s heads were on my shoulder and they were sleeping. Last night the three of us had gone to sleep at the base of a large tree. I looked up at the sky, even as I recalled the strange dream I had seen. The sky was filled with dark clouds and every now and then a few drops of rain were falling. Lighting cracked in the sky and I knew there was going to be a very heavy downpour soon.

My mind however was stuck with the dream. It had been so vivid. Had it been real? Whatever the rabbit had said could explain how I was suddenly seeing the Sense Screens. I also recalled that the urge to travel towards the civilised realms had felt like a very foreign urge. But still, how could the rabbit’s consciousness be inside my mind? I looked down on my chest, which Dani was holding in her sleep. Had the rabbit really been a sorcerer? And was he Mintuk’s father for real?

There was something disturbing about the idea that I was hosting the consciousness of someone else in my mind. I didn’t know if the dream had been a random creation of my own mind, or if there was really the consciousness of the rabbit inside me. I told myself that I would be really careful if I ever had a very strong urge to do anything.

I was abruptly broken out of my thoughts when I saw a bolt of lightning shoot down from the sky about a kilometre away from where we were. It hit a couple of trees such that the trees were immediately set on fire.

I was quick to wake up Dani and Lia, even as more lightning bolts struck the earth not far away from us. I was scared as hell. I had seen lightning storms, but nothing of this kind.

“What is going on?” Lia said fearfully.

“We must take shelter,” I said. We were sure having one hell of a morning. I was beginning to shiver even as I watched more and more lightning bolts hit the forest. Dani and Lia were also shivering in fright.

“But where?” Dani said.

Barely had she spoken, when a lightning bolt hit the ground about a couple of hundred metres from us. In less than two seconds another lightning bolt hit the ground, this one even closer at only about a hundred metres away. And then a third one hit fifty metres away. It was as though the lightning bolts were approaching the giant tree at the base of which we were. Instinct took over us and the three of us fled away from the tree. We had only come a short distance when a bolt of lightning hit the tree and the tree burst into many pieces, such that we had to lay down on the ground to protect ourselves from flying chunks of the tree.

“Darn it,” I said, panting hard. Lightning was hitting the forest all around us. Dani, Lia and I clutched each other and we prayed the lightning would go away.

“Are we going to survive this?” Lia said, a bolt of lightning flashing in her eyes.

“We are not dead yet,” I told her almost angrily. I was not ready to die now, not when I had made up my mind to do everything to rescue Rozy.

“It’ll go away soon, it will go away soon,” Dani kept saying in a shivering voice. The forest had caught fire all about, but thankfully the rain was also beginning to fall as though the heavens had been flooded. The number of lightning bolts hitting the forest was starting to go down, but every now and then there would be a great boom not a great distance away and the three of us would clutch each other tighter. I tried to think about other things, more to calm myself than anything. I thought about the rabbit inside my head. If Xoris, or whatever his name was, actually existed then why wasn’t he creating any urge inside me to do something that could potentially save us from the lightning storm?

But then, Xoris couldn’t possibility know what to do to save us from a lightning storm, could he?

And then as I was staring into the distance I saw a strange thing. A plant suddenly grew out of the ground in the distance and then shrank back and disappeared.

What the hell had I just witnessed?

I kept looking at the spot where the plant had been, but the area was covered by bushes. I tried to recall the plant. Had it actually been one? It had had a single flower, the petals of which had been very straight and slim.

The more I thought about the plant that I had seen, the more I began to doubt that it had been one. Hell, for all I knew it could have been the arm of some human, considering how fast it had shot up and then fell back down again. The flower could be the palm and fingers.

A lightning bolt had struck a tree not far away from the spot where I had seen the plant/arm. Was it possible that there was an actual human at the spot who had been hurt by the splinters of flying wood, and who possibly required help?

But who could it be?

Who dwelt in the barbaric realm?

Maybe it was some Wahaki person spying on us. In that case I didn’t care if the person lived or died. But we had been careful to avoid sense screens. I was well aware of the fact that there were other tribes who dwelt in the barbaric realm. The people of the civilised realm did not know much about those tribes since it was rare for anyone from the civilised realm to come to the barbaric realm and go back alive.

“I think somebody’s there,” I said to my wives, pointing at the spot where I had seen the plant/arm. “I am not sure if it’s a person, but it might be.”

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Both Dani and Lia frowned hard at the spot.

“I don’t see anyone,” Dani said.

“Me neither,” Lia agreed.

“If there is indeed a person then they are hurt,” I said, “I saw their arm once and that was all.”

We decided to check out whether it really was a person. It turned out to be a very good decision as a few seconds after we had left the spot that there was an explosion behind us as a tree burst after being hit by a lightning bolt.

We also discovered that there was indeed a person. It was a young tribal woman. She barely seemed unconscious. She was bleeding all over and splinters of wood were embedded to her body. She was lying on the ground with her face down and there were smears of what looked like turmeric paste on her shoulders and on her feet.

***

The heavens were being very cruel to a part of the forest.

Ramda, standing near a cliff in the Wahaki mountain, had never seen a worse lightning storm in his entire life. Thankfully even though the forest had caught fire several times, the rain would not allow the fire to last for long. At least that was good. Ramda felt pity for all the animals in the forest, and also for humans of other tribes who might have been out of their village when the lightning storm came.

Ramda was a Wahaki. His body was adorned with the same intricate tattoos that his fellow tribesmen wore. Yet, he had somehow been unable to accept the savage nature of his tribe. The Wahaki were at war with pretty much all other tribes of the barbaric realm. The Wahaki could never maintain any cordial relation with any other tribe for long. The Wahaki did more thinking with their muscles than with their heads, which was why the Wahaki were now under the authority of a sorcerer.

A sorcerer who in a month’s time was going to sacrifice the one girl whom Ramada had ever truly loved.

Ramda hated to admit it to himself that he still loved Rozy, even though she was the wife of another man… a king from the civilised realm. Ramda had a wife who had given him a healthy child, but he didn’t love her. His wife was filled with all the poor qualities of the Wahaki, while Rozy on the other hand had somehow escaped the savagery of her tribe, which was why Ramada had fallen for her in the first place.

But for some reason or the other Ramda had never been able to speak his heart out to Rozy. The two of them had always been close friends, however their friendship had stayed a friendship. What more, it had been Ramda who had helped Rozy go to the civilised realm because she wanted to see if the civilised realm were any different from the barbaric realm. Rozy had ended up staying there, while Ramda despite his dislike for his tribe had been unable to ignore the call of the Wahaki mountain where his tribe dwelt. Sometimes people got attached to things that they had been exposed to for long, and the same had happened to Ramda. Rozy on the other hand had successfully evaded the call of the Wahaki mountain and decided her own life.

And then the sorcerer Mintuk had come. At first he had brought gifts for the Wahaki, at the same time demonstrating the powerful things he could do. He had eventually said that he wanted to be their ruler and the Wahaki had rather easily accepted his authority. The old chieftain had been beheaded, since he had never really been that popular with the Wahaki who felt that he wasn’t savage enough to be a chieftain anymore.

And then Mintuk had done the worst thing. He had gone to the civilised realms and abducted Rozy. Rozy had a birthmark on her shoulder and this birthmark was vital in helping the sorcerer complete a ritual that would increase his powers of sorcery by an unthinkable amount making him the most powerful sorcerer in the world. In a month’s time Mintuk was going to sacrifice Rozy… and Ramda was going to do nothing to save her. Heck, Ramda had been helping Mintuk all along together with the other Wahaki by helping him acquire other things that the ritual required. Ramda knew he was weak. He was quite incapable of speaking his heart. And he did not wish to betray his tribe at all.

Ramda had however sent a letter to the husband of Rozy. He had been very torn between whether he should send the letter or not, but eventually had decided to send the letter, even though he knew that if somehow the sorcerer came to know about it through his magic, Ramda and his family would have to suffer.

But Ramda’s only good deed had worsened things. When the husband had come to the civilised realm, Mintuk had come to know about him through a magic of his. The sorcerer had boasted how he had sent some Wahaki men and some slave monkeys at the dead of the night with a special gemstone using which all powers and abilities and skills that Rozy’s husband had possessed were taken away.

Ramada shouldn’t have sent the letter. Now Rozy was aware of the fact that her husband was somewhere in the forest, without his powers, and he would require a hefty amount of luck to survive. The letter indirectly was being a cause of pain to Rozy.

Ramda got to see Rozy everyday during the daily council of the Wahaki villagers with the sorcerer. Even though most of the time Rozy was kept in a dungeon, during the councils and Mintuk would display her to the Wahaki as it was Rozy around whom all his plans revolved. Everyday Ramda had to see Rozy in her miserable state chained to pillars. She had lost considerable weight ever since Mintuk had abducted her. Out of guilt, Ramda always avoided eye contact with Rozy. She was the same woman whom he had once loved… and still did. He didn’t have the guts to protect her. Heck, even if he had had the guts to protect her, it would have changed nothing. Mintuk was simply way too powerful.

Ramda was broken out of his thoughts when he saw a group of slave monkeys climb up the slope of the Wahaki mountain. They were coming from the direction opposite to where the lightning storm was taking place and were hence safe from it. The monkeys were carrying cages, inside which were tens of monkeys who would be enslaved.

The Wahaki had been enslaving monkeys for long, however after the sorcerer had come he had accelerated the process. Mintuk had created an artefact that looked like a banana and kept it in the part of the forest where the maximum number of monkeys lived. The monkeys were unable to resist the lure of this banana artefact because of its magical properties and were drawn to it. However, immediately after touching the banana device a monkey would go in a state as though drugged. After that it was simply a process of putting the monkeys into cages and bringing them up the Wahaki mountain to a trainer who would repeatedly say things to them such that in the time span of a few days they became enslaved and were very much ready to do anything that the Wahaki told them to do, including dying or killing others.

Suddenly a horn went off at the very top of the mountain where the sorcerer resided in the old fort of the Wahaki. The tribesmen began to run to the old fort. The horn announced the daily council with the sorcerer in which all the Wahaki were supposed to listen to the preaching of the sorcerer.

Ramada was well aware of the fact that he should have never returned from the civilised realm. He was also well aware of the fact that he was weak, that he didn’t have to oppose what the world forced him to do. And with this awareness, Ramada began to take one heavy step after another towards the old fort.

***