NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: Deep into Ancestral Memories
Svetavastra and the Kapala Chief continued to meditate, sitting cross-legged in the same position for the past three days and three nights. Svetavastra filtered through all the memories of the Kapala Chief and his mother. He could not find the trace of bloodlust that got corrupted with the dark energy. He suspected that the source of the bloodlust could be deep in the ancestral memories, a few generations into the past. If he continued to sift through the memories as meticulously as he was doing currently, his spiritual energy would be severely depleted by the time he actually encountered the dark energy.
Svetavastra’s spiritual projection in the tunnel of time and space stopped and floated in the space.
“What’s wrong?” the Kapala Chief asked, halting beside him.
Svetavastra took a moment to gather his thoughts.
“The source of the bloodlust is buried deeper than I initially thought,” said Svetavastra. “I don’t think the pace with which we are screening the memories is fast enough to dig through generations of past memories.”
“Ohh,” said the Kapala Chief, “what’s the alternate option you are considering?”
“I can fly through this tunnel much faster on my own,” said Svetavastra. “If you can continue to meditate steadily. I can focus on quickly moving through the ancestral memories to find the dark energy.”
Moving quickly through the tunnel of time and space was risky, if Svetavastra flew with such speed in the tunnel, it could create ruptures, and these ruptures held the realm of illusions. Any energy could manipulate the rupture and thereby the realm of illusions. One wrong move and he could get trapped in one of those ruptures.
“Why didn’t you start doing that in the first place?” asked the Kapala Chief curious.
“I was waiting for your breath-work to be stable enough during the meditation,” said Svetavastra. “If your meditation isn’t stable, the tunnel of time and space will collapse. I took you along with me so that you can experience it yourself.”
“Is it stable enough?” asked the Kapala chief slightly worried.
“Yes,” said Svetavastra with a smile. “You are doing a great job. Keep focusing on your breath. All your attention on your breath.”
“Okay,” said the Kapala Chief. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, his spiritual projection vanished from the tunnel of time and space.
What Svetavastra didn’t bother letting the Kapala Chief know was that being in Svetavastra’s company and in contact with his spiritual energy which was pure, as pure as it gets, naturally would stabilise the Kapala Chief’s own breath-work and meditation.
Svetavastra leapt into the air and bolted forward, whizzing into the tunnel of time and space, his spiritual energy leaving a trail behind. He sped through the lifetime memories of Kanaka, the Kapala Chief before Manavi who was also her father.
Kanaka had inherited the Kapala Chief through the tattoo on his arm from his father, Maruta, the then Kapala Chief. Maruta had left Kanaka with a bandit army of nearly a hundred committed men and women. Honed in strategy and combat from a young age by his father, Kanaka had established the Kapala Army as a force to be reckoned with. He orchestrated raids on corrupt merchants, intercepting their trade caravans and redistributing their wealth to impoverished villages, securing their loyalty. Slowly the number of troops under him began to rise.
The Kapala Army made their base in the obscure caves in the forest of the far West of the Dayita kingdom during this time. He consolidated the code of conduct for his bandits, where they were bound by oath never to harm those weaker than them. Tales of the Kapala Army raids spread across neighbouring kingdoms and it became famous for its vigilante justice.
The Kapala Chief would raise his tattoo showing arm into the sky and over his head and his army would kneel in front of out of respect, fear and loyalty, ready to go on raids and minor battles to keep the Kapala Army going. His most audacious act was securing a negotiation of a pact between two minor warring kingdoms adjacent to Dayita, alleviating his status from a bandit to a power broker. This rise did not go unnoticed in Dayita whose king issued several missions to capture and limit the Kapala Army. Many of them were unsuccessful due to the Kapala Army’s guerrilla tactics and deep understanding of forests and hidden places as well as the loyalty of villages who never betrayed their trust.
Kanaka died of old age, leaving a flourishing bandit army to his capable daughter Manavi. He lived all his life as a bandit chief, but he always remembered that he was but a pawn in the greater scheme of things and that his true identity was that of a yaksha. To boost the bloodline through his daughter, he along with all of his remaining yaksha relatives passed on their curtailed ancestral powers to Manavi through the tattoo on her arm.
Svetavastra kept flying in the tunnel of time and space.
“No bloodlust,” he said to himself confirming what he already had suspected.
He sped past Maruta’s life memories, the Kapala Chief before Kanaka. Maruta through his resourcefulness and commitment had raised the Kapala Army into one of loyal soldiers. His memories did not contain the blood lust as well.
The tunnel of time of space, with its translucent envelope started to form ruptures here and there. A sliver of energy would gleam from one of these ruptures. As Svetavastra was flying past them, one of the ruptures had a flash of dark energy and Svetavastra’s spiritual energy got pulled into the rupture with a sudden force.
Svetavastra was trapped in the realm of illusions now.