"You think your god will save you?"

Timir opened an eye and examined the darkening sky. "We've been moving east for how many hours now?"

"No more than two, I think," Ahala said.

"You should return then beautiful," Timir said, closing his eyes and lying back down. "Koru will be upon us soon."

Ahala was about to ask him what he meant when the bickering inside ceased and the jadukar emerged from the constabulary looking like he was going to set the place on fire. She only had time to fling one last whisper at him, "What is your name?"

"Timir," he replied before the carriage resumed lurching ahead. Ahala stood there until the first raindrops started touching the back of her neck. She noticed, as she pulled up her headscarf and started heading back, that the sky was promising a storm.

There was no news from Aramba for a month, aside from the usual proclamations from their council and an occasional rebel raid on their supply wagons. The rains had been merciless and all the ships that had stopped at Sueila before the season began were still anchored there. The city's nobles were hosting some of the larger ships' captains in their palatial homes and portside inns were full of sailors and those they brought to their beds most nights. After nights of drunken revelry, they were back in taverns by midday for more drunken revelry.

Ahala spotted the Aramban soldier one such rainy afternoon in a tavern near her shop. He was without his spear and his regimental garb and what he did have on had seen better days, much as he had. He sat drinking from a battered wooden mug mere paces from where she stood listening to a rebel member of the metalworkers guild talk about the need to unite against the Arambans before it was too late. She had been attending more of these meetings lately, now that the monsoon had trapped the Arambans in Sueila and their local Commandants were going easy on resistance meetings for fear of forcing their hand into starting something they didn't have the numbers to end.

"You are part of the Aramban regiment, are you not?" Ahala said and found no recognition of her in his bloodshot eyes when he turned to look at her. Their encounter seemed to have happened in another age, as far as he was concerned. Also, he seemed to have been crying.

"Leave me be," he said. "You can have your little meetings. See if I care!"

"You were with the prisoner," Ahala said.

The soldier looked up, the keenness returning to his eyes along with a nameless dread. "Which prisoner?"

"The… rakshas? You were with the jadukar who were taking him to Aramba… in a cage… Do you remember?"

The soldier stared at her, remembering. "You were there too. I remember you now. You were speaking to him." He stood abruptly up, knocking back his chair. "You know him!"

"I met him on the same day you did, not long before you, by the port," Ahala said calmly. The soldier stared at her like a madman, then looked around and realised he was surrounded by Sueilians and checked his disquiet before sitting back down.

"Did you take him to Aramba?" Ahala asked.

The soldier shook his head and quietly took a sip of his soma.

"Is he here in town?" Ahala asked.

"I don't know where he is," the soldier said, his voice breaking. "And I should thank almighty Reho if I never have to lay eyes on that abomination again."

Ahala waited until his breathing returned to normal before touching his hand gently and saying, "Tell me what happened."

The soldier turned to look at her, tears returning to his eyes, and began speaking.

"We had left the eastern tip of Sueila behind an hour ago when it began to pour for real. Soon there was thunder loud enough to spook the horses and I doubt they could see farther than ten paces through the downpour. I covered the wagon, cage and all, as best I could. The rakshas slept through it all. Some time later, the captain asked me to come into the cabin…"

"The jadukar?"

"Captain Heerak," the soldier nodded, speaking with as much pride as he could muster. "Captain of the Aramban ship Suryasetu, direct disciple of the seventeenth Consul, master of the arts, feared by the low filth of the southern islands and conqueror of…"

Here he broke down and couldn't carry on any longer except to whisper the words "such a great man" and "such a good man" over and over again between sobs. Evidently, he had spent many long years in the jadukar's employ. Ahala let him mourn the loss of his master and soon he returned to his story.

"When the rain didn't cease, some of us suggested turning back, but the Captain refused. He wanted nothing more than to have the rakshas face Aramban justice. But then Reho started hurling down thunderbolts and split a tree nearby in two. I and another got out to keep the horses from rocking the carriage when we noticed the cage… or what was left of it.

"We thought the rakshas gone, but found him standing in the rain nearby, a silver lined shadow in the dusk's torrent. It wasn't until he let out that unearthly roar that I discovered it wasn't quite him."

"What do you mean?" Ahala asked.

"For one thing, his sword had returned to him somehow. He held the full load of it in one hand as easily as if it had been a branch the rough wind had cast down. He was almost twice as broad and a head taller. When he parted his jaws a second time, I saw a row of tiger teeth lining them. The servant beside me, one called Sahu, fled into the trees at the terrifying sight. The rakshas moved, and though I saw powerful muscles rippling beneath its grey skin as he crouched, his leap was a blur and didn't know where he was until he landed on top of the carriage and one of the wheels cracked loudly under the impact.

"He ripped the roof off and reached in with one long arm, but withdrew it immediately and I saw it scorched when he fell back into the mud. The captain had summoned the mystic sun again and was holding it aloft to ward him off. But then the rakshas raised his black sword and brought it down upon the carriage, splitting it in two and killing one of the other soldiers at once. He then leapt back and waited.

"The captain was unhurt, but his made sun was beginning to smoke under the rain. By the time he stepped out of the ruined carriage, it was all but gone from his hand. The rakshas laughed something cold and spoke to the captain, challenging him to a duel in the falling rain. He thought the captain had run out of magics, but he was wrong!

"I stepped back as the captain dug his fingers into the ground, chanting. The rakshas swung his sword around, as if hearing unseen enemies come at him from all around. Then I heard it too — echoes of the captain's chant. It was as if a thousand voices were repeating his words from beyond the line of trees. As if to prove I was not imagining it, Sahu came running back out of the forest, screaming like the falling rain was burning the skin off his back.

"Sahu was the first to notice that the ground beneath our feet was now parched despite the rain. The captain's chants had turned the mud to dirt and it was as if the falling rain was now disappearing as soon as it hit the earth. Now my skin crawled and I heard the rakshas laugh again. His laughter did not subside even when serpents… no vines… vines erupted from the ground around him looking to tie him up. He swung and spun, visible only in the moments when he stopped to look at the kneeling captain and laugh. I did not understand at first, but then I saw an entire line of trees wilted by the roadside, turning black so the invading vines may stay green. This was a soul-sucking magic! The captain's skin was turning white as the earth fed upon him. His lips weren't moving anymore - the forest had taken up the chant.

"Despairing, I hurled my spear at the rakshas, who had his back turned to me at that moment. The spear lodged in his thigh and drew blood that the vines began to lap at. Sahu threw his spear too, and even though the black blade knocked it away, we knew then that its wielder had been weakened. The vines tightened around his arms and legs, driving him to his knees. The captain let out a groan, and I saw that colour was returning to his face. He freed one hand from the earth, then another, and the forest stopped chanting.

"Staggering to his feet, the captain gestured for my aid and together we made for the rakshas, who was now kneeling, his throat in a green hold and his arms helpless to free him even though his sword arm still held his weapon. He turned to look at us and said he was glad to see the captain had paid the price too. The captain was too drained to speak, so I told the rakshas to be quiet or lose his head.

"I looked to the captain to see if he wanted to say anything, but found that he was chanting again — different words this time, but also a different language. It sounded like nothing I have heard spoken among Aramban mystics, or among any people I have ever met. Though his lips moved, the sound that came out of his mouth was not that of spoken words. It was as the rasping of a dying animal, played to an unnatural, hypnotic rhythm.

"The captain pushed me away and managed to stay on his feet as he continued to chant. The rakshas struggled with such fierce restlessness, I thought the vines would snap. Perhaps, beast that he was, he sensed the meaning the captain's chant carried.

"The captain knelt beside the bound rakshas and placed an emaciated hand on his massive chest. The vines pressed tighter around his throat, killing any words that might have escaped. Before my very eyes, the captain's white hand began to turn blue — a bony claw that dug into his enemy's grey flesh, paying him in pain, stealing his inhuman strength from him in return.

"It wasn't only colour that was returning to the captain. I watched his limbs stretch into a tree ape's and his head flatten into something resembling a fish's snout. Frothing at the mouth, he greedily pushed his claws deeper into the rakshas and I could almost see the beasts's perverse power flowing into him, granting his arms muscle and sinew even as it bent his spine till he could no longer stand straight.

"My throat dry, I realised that the captain was gone. I whispered, then screamed his name at the thing that stood where he had a few moments ago and drew its gaze, but there was no recognition in its beady eyes—only endless greed. It left the now unconscious rakshas and turned to me, but its legs were too short and soft. All it could do was move its muscular arms, dig its claws into the mud and drag its misshapen form towards me, emitting an unearthly moan as it advanced.

"The thing that had been my captain reached out for me. Whether it sought my help or was looking to feed on me, I couldn't say. But then I heard the snapping of vines and looked up to see the rakshas break free from his bonds and rise, a weaker man than before but a man nevertheless. The magic that moved the vines appeared to have faded after the captain's attention moved to me. Heaving hard, he picked up his sword with both hands and brought it down on the creature that lay in the mud before me, pinning it to the earth.

"Sahu had fled some time ago. I stood alone before the man who had been a rakshas when the sun had yet to set. Now, in the early hours of darkness, I saw his strength return to him by way of his sword, which was still lodged in the dead creature. Though he let it back in with eyes closed, I thought him sadder for it, resigned to being home to a power that could not live anywhere else.

"Having thus restored himself, he moved closer and looked me in the eyes. After a moment during which I thought he was going to end me, he swung his sword one last time and struck the creature's head clean off. Then he kicked it into the bushes nearby for good measure."

Ahala waited for him to continue, but when he said nothing more, she got up and prepared to leave.

"He… He told me not to follow him," he said.

"You better not then," Ahala said.

"Do you think… he is here? In the city? What if I run into him?"

"I don't think you need to worry about him anymore. I think he went west," Ahala said before pulling up her scarf and stepping out into the Sueilan rain.