"Help! Help me, my lord." The man sprinted along the dirt path with a small child in his arms. Agni Asura Yaman rushed to meet the man halfway down the road, the rest of his disciples behind him. Puru followed.
The man laid down the child on the ground. The child's body was still and blue.
"We found him like this in the field. He does not breath, does not speak." The man fell to the ground and wept in agony.
Yaman crouched immediately beside the child, taking his limp little hand into his own. Puru watched pensively as the agni asura spent moments examining the listless body.
"I do not sense any life in him," Yaman uttered those words with pain.
The man cried out in despair that drew more villagers out of their huts. Puru could hear murmurs. "A child mustn't die like this." "Is it Tantra?" "He is blue. Must be poison."
"Lord Yaman," Puru spoke before the crowd grew impatient, "allow me to return with the man to his home and search for any threat. As God King Arya's pupil, it is my duty to help people of this land."
Lord Yaman raised his hand that halted Puru. "What manner of lord would I be if I cannot protect my own followers?" He returned to his feet, with the small, limp body in his arms. "Nandi, distribute the remaining offerings among the disciples and see that Lord Puru is properly escorted back to the temple. I will not be back until I have some answers."
Lord Yaman followed the dead child's the father, leaving behind his congregation in a fog of doubt.
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"Goddess Dimuka suspects deceit." Puru's words left his tongue even before he entered the guest chamber of the temple living quarters.
Lord Gajanan was lazily sprawled on the bed, under the cool afternoon sunlight, streaming in through the open window. He spared Puru a glance. "She must. She never trusted us to begin with. It is the people's faith we must win."
Puru smiled uneasy. "And by doing so, we misuse her generosity." He walked across the room and placed his own share of the offerings on the table. The temple quarters were convenient but modest; the roofs and walls were entirely made of wood, which eastern folks used commonly to build their dwellings. The simple dwelling was made special by the miniature palm-leaf illustrations hanging on the walls, reminding Puru that they were guests of the Agni Asura of the East.
Lord Gajanan sighed. "You believe she welcomed you in her home because she wanted to be generous? You forget, my friend, who you are, who you are to her. You are the only living remnant of her past she so desperately is clinging to."
Puru chuckled at the suggestion as he flopped down on a sleeping mat on the floor. Gajanan was known as the cleverest god in the entire heaven, after Lord Arya. His mind was as sharp as his limbs were lazy. He was said to have gained this supreme wisdom by outwitting his brother, Murugan, the god of wars, in a contest to circle the world for a blessed fruit.
"I am not troubled about my stay. But what use does the goddess have for you, Lord Gajanan?" Puru knew Lord Gajanan was immortal from consuming the blessed fruit. Only few gods could boast of that. All Goddess Dimuka could do was banish him from her temple.
"The goddess would need a god to be on her side when people point fingers at her pet." Lord Gajanan picked up a delectable looking vibrant yellow sweet from the sweet bowl and took a bite.
"What about the dead boy?" Puru reclined on his mat and stared at the ceiling, painted with a scenic eastern landscape.
"That was my mouse." Lord Gajanan straightened himself on the bed, as well.
"And the father?"
"That was my tortoise."
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Puru trod down the cold, damp passage, which turned darker the further he ventured. The entire Yaman temple was quiet and still, in the middle of the night, with few torches lit at long intervals. Puru snatched up a torch and padded down the corridor in quiet, soft steps until he reached the end. The passage came to an abrupt stop, with nothing but a blind stone wall. Puru waved the torch around, but all that was there were more blind walls. He wondered if he should have invited Lord Gajanan along, as the god was never short of ideas.
Puru moved the torch once more, and this time, it swayed past the floor, and he saw a glint of metal. It was a hatch door on the ground. Puru bent down and grasped the metal handle. At first, it did not come off. He tried again, this time with all the demonic strength he could muster. His jaw tightened, and with a snap, the hatch door came off, followed by a splash of cold breeze.
Puru saw the stairs leading down into the cellar in the guttering torchlight. He squeezed through the small opening, making as little noise as possible. The dank cellar smelled of the scent of wet earth and something else, a scent of a land from long ago when Puru was a child. He marched on, his torch held out in front of him. Its flame shook in the occasional cold draft until it was small as the light of a candle. But Puru hardly needed it. He already sensed where the creature was hiding, the one he had come down here to search for.
Puru carefully waved the torch in front of him from one wall to the other, eyes sharp and his other senses sharper. He sensed the creature's heart beat in his own heart, and his skin prickled like the flints jutting out from the walls. He stalked deeper into a snaky, pitch-dark cellar, the glow of the torch barely enough to show the path ahead. Another icy current snuffed out the light, and it was nothing but pitch black darkness.
Puru halted his step and touched the wick with his right hand, muttering a chant. Immediately, the torch was reignited, and in that fresh, blazing light, Puru saw the scales glimmering right in front of him. He lurched back from the living, breathing thing in front of him, and the torch fell to the ground, rolling away to a corner.
"Go ahead," a female voice drifted in from behind Puru, "touch him. He has not spoken to an agni asura since Yaman."