Tripura has fallen. I, Arjunarireva, have seen the holy flames bestowed upon the second city by Tripurantaka, extension of the great Shiva. The corpses of my kin surrounded me. Some corpses walked, some corpses were eaten by the children of demons from far-off lands, some were of my own family. The head of Brahma looked over Tripura before reciting a poem over all the land:
"The blood of Asura stains this land,
"You, demons who have traveled to [lion land? land of the lions?], have tainted the soil of its steppes,
"It is no longer fitting for the feet of men, no less gods,
"So I banish this land to [lost? waiting?], where Kaal's mark will be dismissed
"And the soil shall be replaced with great fields of salt, where the feet of the Asura will be burnt and destroyed.
"To wait without waiting; such is your fate. The good men of Tripura will be relinquished of their shackles to this land
"And re-birthed in a new cycle of Earth."
And the land below my feet ceased to exist, and instead suspended itself in a black ocean. The air was grey. It was a new world of mist. Winged creatures spotted us from black trees and sprinkled salt from their talons. The salt burned my flesh. I saw survivors hiding among the debris jump out and scream as the salt fell unto their skin. I fled but the birds followed. There was a mountain, one that looked much like Mount Meru. Stones spewed from the top of this mountain. I ran until the salt melted my bones.
On a new day, in a land covered in dark soil, I crawled up from the dirt in a new body. I had become human. I saw a pile of salt which did not burn my flesh. I was no longer an Asura, and had been reborn as human. Here, in this valley, there was a white river at its bottom. The water was sweet and cold. I walked upon that river, where I discovered cowering rakshasa in stone huts. One asked me, "you are new to the land of the lost," to which I replied with the story of Tripura, and Tripurantaka's conquest against the three cities. The fifteen-headed rakshasa laughed. "No such city could exist in [lion land? land of lions?]. Brahma would let no such thing pass."
I continued to march down the river until I stumbled upon a lake. The shore of the lake was muddy. Skinny things in holes by the shore bit my toes. I caught one with a stick and ate it. The land was colorless and misty. The mist poured down from boundless black mountains in the distance. Past these mountains I could see the white ocean of salt.
Gods had left this land. First there was Patalahvasukih, who landed in the salt sea. Banished much like me and the people of Tripura. And then I found the footprint of Srngavataddhati, who killed himself upon seeing the black ground and white waters of the land of the lost. Srngindhanurbhrt, son of Srngavataddhati, did the same upon viewing the ghastly corpse of his father. As I spent time in the land of the lost, it seemed the trace of a forbidden history entered my mind. And through this world, time bent around its firmament, as I would soon learn.
I met a wise old hermit atop a mountain called "The fourth mountain through the white river of the valley", whose people spoke Telugu. The wise hermit was kind, and allowed me to live in his hut. It was made of straw. He taught me how to catch the fish from the white river, who had no scales but instead fur like rodents. Their meat was white, like the river, and tasted sweet as the river's waters. The wise hermit's name was Sachin, who was human before he was banished to the land of the lost for crimes against the Devas.
Sachin told me many stories of magic. On Earth he taught his five children to turn ash into gold, and he could give cattle the wings of birds using old techniques from a flooded world. He told me of red gods, descended from a false king; the fourth of a lineage of nine suns. There was an aspect of chaos, who was struck down by Shiva, but could never die. There was the black river to which worlds entered and where the council of gods gathered upon the end of each world. I learned of the grand betrayal, and how the humans would one day usurp the council of the gods.
I have the body of a human but the soul of an Asura. I feel the paths of gods who have left these damp and putrid lands. Gods who died, or gods who could wait no longer. One day, I asked Sachin if he would come with me to explore the land of the lost. He refused, and I said goodbye and left his care. I descended The fourth mountain through the white river of the valley, and found myself upon another hexagonal salt flat. I walked for days, without food or water. The birds would sometimes come down and stand on my head. I dared not wave them away for fear of the birds pecking at my eyes or tearing at my skin. On the fifth day a bird said to me "Ahead is an ocean, do you wish to drown? You shall be re-birthed once again as a far lesser being. First you are human, descended from Asura. Human becomes animal, and animal becomes worm."
I did find that ocean. Its waters were green. The bird perched on top of a boulder, which I sat upon and pondered. In my ignorance I thought of plunging down into the green sea and letting my frail human body sink and be destroyed. But the bird said: "Human becomes animal, animal becomes worm. The human may become Asura, whose goal and destiny it is to become gods. But animal will forever be ruled by the human dominion, who, in all worlds, ascend past animals. The luck of the humans is their ungodly blessing. For this, the godly council trembles before humanity."
I did not jump into the ocean. I instead turned around and returned to the mountain. The bird flew out to the ocean, and a day later another bird flew on top of my head, which I smashed with a stone and ate. I had become human, and human is destined to become Asura. I returned to Sachin's hut. he saw me and gave me food and drink. I told him of the bird's lesson, and he nodded. "The human is strong," Sachin told me. "The human is strong, and was created by fate to usurp the gods. Humans usurp humans, who become gods."
The next day Sachin took me to his brother's home on the steppe near the white river. Here we caught tree-shaped fish who had tough, red meat. His brother, whose name was Pradeep, lived with his wife, whose name was Shailaja, and their two children. We laughed and talked, and Pradeep told me of his family's time on Earth. They lived in an old forgotten kingdom which built a great palace near a forgotten lake. But over time, the lake grew stagnant, and the water became deadly. One day, a great demon surfaced from the lake and destroyed the great palace. Sachin's family was forced to use magic, forbidden by the Devas, who banished them to the land of the lost.
I slept at their house, and left the next day. Pradeep and Shailaja had prepared me a cloak and water for the journey ahead. I promised Sachin we would meet again. On my journey I walked until I found myself at the edge of a great forest. I stood up on top of a hill, and in the distance I saw a new land across the green sea. I had no materials to build a boat, so I sat and hunted for fish. I built a fire and slept. While I slept, I had dreams of magic things. I dreamed of the black river of the worlds, and unimaginable things. I saw new colors no creature had ever seen before. I saw a color like red, but not. The colors reflected off of diamonds, who bounced onto glistering droplets of water caught on spider nests, making them shimmer with color. Below the spider webs and the diamonds, there was a pool of blue. The blue reached up to the spider nests and broke them, sending the water droplets tumbling into the air. Some would evaporate, some would sink into the blue pool. I woke up, and saw birds standing around me.
One of the birds, who was the same bird from the cliff by the green sea, told me, "The forest you see before you is the home of the serpents, who once ruled over the green sea. There is a temple, and if you are to survive you must find this temple. It is a temple for humans, and serpents go there to dream of becoming human. Go there, and do not let the serpents bite you, for their venom is potent, and will soon lead to a painless death."
The human body is strong. I marched into the forest. The trees obscured the light from the fog-covered sky. I heard rumbling horns in the distance. Things that escaped sight swung through the trees and scattered among the tall grass. I waded through marshes and climbed piles of rocks. Soon, caught sight of a temple. It was decorated with red and white. Statues of men and women decorated its roof, and surrounding an altar placed in its center were countless snakes with scales like jade. I picked up a long stick and jumped over the rock, startling the snakes. Some bowed, and some jumped up at me. They displayed their fangs and tried to bite me, but I would hit them with my stick and fling them into the bushes. I made my way onto the altar. Finally, when I stepped on the temple's floor, the serpents only bowed to me.
I climbed to the top of the temple. In the horizon I saw the ruins of Tripura. Birds flew above its shining towers, now covered in burns and fire. I put my hands together and closed my eyes. I prayed for my kin, and my ancestors. Tripura was a blessing upon us Asura, and for that I am forever grateful.
The next day I awoke to the shaking of the ground. Ahead of me I saw Tripura, carrying the land below it, marching towards me. The bodies of my ancestors hung from the ruins. I jumped from the temple and ran from the monster, but the hands caught me by my arms and pulled me up. It was dark, but then there was a light. I could see a color, like red, but not red. I felt my body, my bones, my heart, my brain, my eyes, and I could feel the bodies of my ancestors, my people, next to me. We became one, and our hands lifted great Tripura, re-born as a god, off of the ground. Our arms became the wings, like birds, and the birds perched upon the towers of Tripura. We flew up through the grey skies, and above the clouds there was a domain of night skies and shining stars.
It seemed we flew for years. As we went higher, the stars became distant. We encountered worlds that spun around stars that were like the land of the lost. But we went higher, and the stars grew dim. And when Tripura hit the firmament, we kept flying, and dug through the firmament. Human usurps human, and human becomes god. And I flew through the firmament, and I saw worlds on webs. I saw the spider webs from my dreams, and the blue pools, and the diamonds that reflected forbidden colors upon the worlds on the webs. And there it was; home. We saw home and eagerly flew to it. And we keep flying. My name, Arjunarireva, has been lost, for I am now the people of Tripura, whose name is Tripurisvara. And we will keep flying. The firmament of the true world is strong, but we will keep flying for the glory of Tripura.
The scroll containing the text above is stored within Site-078's Deep Info-Storage Well. Do not duplicate.
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