Every time Nasatya thought of Avanti, the image of the Sky Palace floated before him. That was where King Saudipta and his royal family resided, a sprawling structure made of sandstone, sitting on a wooded hill. It was neither extravagant like the Gold palace nor exquisite like the Twin palace, but it was a rugged reminder of how hard the humans worked. They called it a palace, but it was more of a fortress, with tall, wide ramparts and battlements guarded heavily by Malay men. It was a long climb, too, from the royal street to the courtyard of the palace, up the winding cobbled path.
It took Nasatya a few moments, but he noticed fine metal threads that ran along either side of the paths, dotted at long intervals by glass lamps. He sauntered over to one to study it closely.
"It lights up," Rebha explained with hushed excitement, "like stars in the night sky, but without fire."
Nasatya straightened up slowly, taking in her words. He gazed over the low wall hemming the path. Below, Lake Giri's tranquil waters washed up to the outer defensive walls of the Sky Palace. Nasatya remembered last time when Saudipta eagerly showed him how he had the lake held with a masonry dam and how his engineers had built him a rope and gear system to lift buckets of the lake water all the way up to the hilltop.
"Come. We must not keep the king waiting," reminded Rebha, pulling at Nasatya's wrist.
The cobbled path snaked its way up the hillside until it reached the very top where the yellow and white Sun Gate, enormous and looming, led to the first courtyard. Nastya stood there patiently and watched with silent abandon Darsa taking his sweet time walking up the hill as if to spite Nasatya. Rest of their party stayed in the city while the twin brothers paid a visit to the king to plead their case.
When Darsa noticed Nasatya's frustration, he chuckled. "Punctuality is too dull, dear brother," said Darsa, patting Nasatya's shoulder, "keep them waiting, and you will know who sees you as worthy."
"This isn't a game, Darsa," Nasatya snapped. He had little patience left for Darsa's whims. He turned around and stepped through the gates into the open courtyard. Ashwin Rebha's company meant the guards would not dare stop and question them.
The three marched into the shouts and bellows of men and whinnies of horses in the First Courtyard. It was awash with red uniforms, assembled in smaller units, practicing their parades, trying out their whetted swords, and sharpening their aims with bows and arrows. Laborers moved rocks and timber where the engineers told them to. One carried a thick spool of the same metallic thread that Nasatya had spied before.
When Nasatya reached the center of the yard, he looked up as he always did. From there, the entire palace looked like three mountain peaks that needed to be scaled. The clamor of the courtyard converged to a tighter stairway guarded by two mounted sentry boxes. It passed through the Common Gate and opened into the second smaller courtyard where King Saudipta held his court.
From there, a flight of arched stairs entered the exquisitely built King's Gate decorated in frescoes and led to the heart of the palace, the living quarters of the king, the Mirror Palace. There the ceilings were made of a million mirrors that created a million reflections, and if you open your eyes from the bed, you feel you are sleeping under the stars.
Above the Mirror Palace was the final peak, the Flower Palace, where the Royal family women lived, the queens and the queen mothers and the concubines and their attendants. They say the air up there smelled of heavenly flowers. Nasatya had never entered the Flower Palace himself, but he did hear Darsa brag numerous times how he had earned a name for himself there, Darsa The Sater. Perhaps the name should be Darsa The Fleeting. Nasatya chuckled at the thought.
"Your mood has improved," observed Rebha. She was still holding his hand. She was wearing a pretty pink skirt with a green blouse today, with her hair done in braids, looking like a lady, unlike her training days when she looked like one of the men.
They passed through Common Gate and approached the raised platform where the king was holding his audience with the common public. Giddiness washed over Nasatya as he found his way through the petitioners who waited outside in the yard.
"I spent my childhood playing in this yard," Nasatya said, "of course, I am pleased."
The three proceeded through the thick crowd gathered around the audience hall, sidling their way around the elephant-headed colonnades until they reached the very front. Rebha stopped there and waited, and so did the ashwin twins. From that corner, Nasatya could see the faces of the people, some ecstatic, some gloomy, but all with a common reassurance that justice would be dispensed.
Saudipta's courts were not a grand show of royal splendor. Instead, the king sat among his own people and heard their appeals, the King of the Commoners. There was no separate raised platform for the king nor was there a majestic throne. Instead, King Saudipta sat there at the same level as his people, in the same ordinary wooden chair as his ministers. Before him, the petitioners sat on rows of benches, and so did the spectators who came to bear witness. Only enough guards stood there to keep an order to the proceedings.
"My king, I had the deed locked away, I swear by Mother," beseeched a middle-aged man, with a farmer's hands and a tattered cloth wrapped around his head. He was bowed before the king and his council of ministers. "This man has it stolen. He must have used his sorcery." The farmer pointed an accusatory finger at a younger man, robed in black, with a red belt. In these parts, tantrics were scarce but not unheard of.
"That is….." the tantric began to speak but stopped when he saw the king lifting a hand.