VishHaya (The Serendib Saga)

VISHHAYA

THE SERENDIB SAGA

MEL SABRE

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

EPIGRAPH

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE: THE MYSTERIOUS DOG

CHAPTER TWO: THE WAY

CHAPTER THREE: BINGA BEETLE JUICE

CHAPTER FOUR: THE JOURNEY BENEATH

CHAPTER FIVE: THE UNWORN PATH

CHAPTER SIX: THE SAUDAAMINII FOREST

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE KHAGI

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE COUNCIL MEETS

CHAPTER NINE: THE TWILIGHT PALACE

CHAPTER TEN: A MATTER OF CHOICES

CHAPTER ELEVEN: LION’S ROCK

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE END AND THE BEGINNING

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 by Mel Sabre

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. The author holds exclusive rights to this book. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

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Smashwords Edition

To my little vun,

I wrote this for all those times you longed for a bedtime story. Hopefully it is just brief enough to nudge you to sleep and notably notable to dwell in your dreams.

Always your M

Think of all that is great in this and other lands – the writing, the music and art, the science, the gifted creatures – that we have come to know and cherish. Imagine all that could have been but for the relentless trials of fate – the poverty, disease, and waste of wars, the simple absence of happenstance – which barred so many from grasping their full promise, and deprived us of their wonder. Now… dream how grand indeed this world might be, and how immensely thankful we should feel, for what it is.

Kumar of Sakir, Orb Hall

PROLOGUE

I could really go for some chocolate right now, wished the little girl; another of them lunged viciously at her as it whizzed past. Unseen explosions reverberated from one horizon to the other, lost in the mass of creatures fighting on the plain; the clash of sword and spear and flesh filled in the gaps of seeming silence. The onslaught was endless. The ring of defenders was collapsing in on itself, slowly but surely. The youngster could see it all. It was hopeless.

It ended much the same as it began. The sun fought fiercely through the lead-laden sky for a short-lived moment before darkness swept the lands once more. It was dusk and dawn, different but the same; how it had always been, and how it would hopefully be. That Fate would not be decided here in the soil and sea and sky, but in the hearts and minds of a select few. Every ending has a beginning, and sometimes, something before that. Our story, for it is as much yours as it is mine, begins in a seemingly simple place, as most tales do, where one of those few is not having a great start to the day.

CHAPTER ONE

THE MYSTERIOUS DOG

AMILA was just like most other twelve year-old girls: in a hurry to get older or, at the very least, a little taller. She had often wondered why her mother had given her a name like hers. Everybody, and that means everyone, pronounced it differently. Some said Amela or Amelia and others just spat out Umla. She didn’t worry about little things like that though. At least there weren’t many mean things that rhymed with it apart from Bumila which that awful boy in her class last year had started calling her. Thank goodness that hadn’t caught on, she had thought at the time. Well, I guess she did worry about her name just a little. When quizzed about it, her mother had just said that the name was a reminder of something very special in her life and left it at that.

The sun should have been up by now, Amila reasoned, but there was no sign of brightness in the sky. She glared down at the road through her cracked bedroom window and watched the goings-on in a lazy haze. People were walking to and fro in a hurried manner, with no real purpose in mind other than to get somewhere on time. Time; the little girl still was not used to the difference in it, even though a week had passed since she had arrived here. To her night was day and day was still night. She missed home greatly and still could not believe that they were all really here.

~~~

Deshan could not figure it out. Where was he? Why was he not there? He was sure that this was the right place. Everything was how it had been described to him; it was the correct lane, there was the wall, and that was most certainly the door. There was not much time, he thought, so what was he to do? He waited by the tall, arched door, set into the thick, stone wall for a few moments before scurrying off down the paved lane. He had made up his mind to return later when there were more rays in the sky.

~~~

Amila had managed to sneak out of the house later that morning. It was usually an easy task to accomplish. She now lived, along with her twin brother, Aaron, and her mother, on the third floor of a narrow, rickety, brickety house on Mill Road. It belonged to her aunt, the house that is and not the road, who lived on the bottom two floors. Her mother had brought them halfway across the world to start a new job here. At the moment she was very busy with work, so Amila hardly saw much of her. Her mother’s name was Amanda, and she would leave early in the morning, before the sun had even stirred, and come home late at night, after it had gone to sleep.

Amila’s aunt, who had the sweetest face of any old lady Amila had met, was supposed to look after them during the day; but she had a habit of being extremely crotchety on each occasion she set eyes upon the children. The peculiar lady also kept very much to herself. Amila wasn’t even sure she was a proper aunty. She had never heard of her before moving here, and her mother had never talked about any family in England. There was also the curious fact that her aunt never liked being called aunty, at least not when Amila and her brother were alone with her. She would always huff and puff and scoff and tell them in a shriek of voice, My name is Missus Gerald T. Twitikins. To Amila, it seemed a rather strange name for a lady, but her mother had always taught her never to judge people. Please address me by that and only that title! the crotchety woman would go on. They never did of course. It was one of their only joys in that dark, dingy house to see her wriggle and squirm whenever they called out to her.

Aaron’s other joy was video games. You could hardly pry him away from the controls and the television, especially when he had gotten his hands on a new game. Their mother had felt especially guilty about uprooting the children and had bought Aaron several of them. Amila had not been so easy to satisfy, and so her mother had given her an IOU. For those who don’t know what an IOU is, it first of all stands for the phrase I owe you, and yes, for the sharp few who read carefully, this doesn’t quite make sense. Nevertheless, it is a seemingly wondrous gift, given frequently in the form of a piece of paper by the giver, spelling out that she or he owes the givee something of substance in the near future. Now this something can be decided beforehand or worked out at a later date, usually by the givee. To make it all nice and official it is signed by the giver, almost always at the bottom of the piece of paper. Amila had kept the scrap of paper containing the IOU in her favorite winter coat pocket, just in case she saw something that caught her eye when out and about.

As she stepped on to Mill Road, Amila pulled her long, straight, jet-black hair into a pony-tail, and made sure her knapsack straps had enough slack. Together with her red coat, she had her beloved white beanie on, complete with a fluffy, woolen ball on top. Mill Road was a very long road, or so it felt to Amila. It was lined with drab-looking, identical houses that were joined together in an apparently endless line on one side, and colorful shops of all types and forms on the other. The city or town of Cambridge, the little girl didn’t know which, seemed to be full of these streets. She was used to houses that were on separate plots of land, with large gardens in the front, side and back. These English houses were tiny and squashed together and almost had their front doors opening out on to the road. A great many other things maddened her about England. She couldn’t comprehend how it was so cold yet it wasn’t snowing. Her mother had promised her snow but it was nowhere to be seen. Though she had never seen it except in photos and on television, she absolutely loved snow. She loved the incontestable fact that it made everything look prettier than it really was. What confounded her more about this place was the large number of people walking and cycling about in freezing weather in just t-shirts and shorts! Whenever outside, she was bundled up in at least four layers of clothing; and indoors, she was well and truly glued to the room heater. She secretly wondered if the English had thicker skin than others, cultivated over thousands of years, or if they had a special winter cream that protected them against the cold temperatures, much the same way sunscreen did for the hot climes. Still, there was not much to grumble about; she was out of the house and set for a nice day walking around town.

~~~

Deshan was back in front of the tall wooden door once more. He kept looking at the street signs in the distance. Free Ishcool Lane, he murmured to himself. Yes, that is the one, and Botolph Lane is down there. The door was still shut. He was not used to this place and how things were done here. He hated the fact that he could do nothing but wait. Events were stirring, and he was hardly adding to the pot.

~~~

There were a good many things to admire about Cambridge: the prestigious university, the old ornate buildings, the lovely landscapes, the tradition and culture simply spilling out of every crack and crevice. Amila, however, didn’t care much for any of these things. What she did like was chocolate, and there were a few absolutely delightful chocolate shops within the old town centre. There was Chocolat Chocolat on the high street, which served the thickest, the darkest, and the richest drinking chocolate that she had tasted in her life. One helping was enough to numb Amila’s thirst for chocolate for half a day, and that was by no means an easy feat. Then there was Hotel Chocolat, round the corner, which had the most original designs and shapes of chocolate she had ever seen. Christmas was just over a week away, and you can imagine what wonderful creations lined the shelves. There were Santas and snowmen, mistletoe and reindeer, candy cane and Christmas trees. The shapes were endless and the smells mouth-watering. Nevertheless, she did wonder why the people here spelt the word chocolate without the ‘e’. The little girl made a mental note to ask her mother about the curious spelling. The shops also gave away free chocolate, not all the time mind you, but just enough to keep her coming back to check every single time she was near.

Quite a few buskers were playing, or trying to play, in the old city centre, but she never gave them any money. One of the reasons was she simply didn’t have much money. Her mother gave her only three pounds of pocket money a week, and she thought that was generous. This predicament left little for the absolutely essential things in life, such as chocolate, which was sadly not cheap. The one thing she loved more than chocolate was dogs, and she could not help but give some of her precious pocket money to the more unfortunate on the street who had them. Amila could not bear to think that doggies would be going hungry during the gloomy, cold nights here. She had left her own dog behind in Australia as ‘Aunty’ Gerald simply did not allow pets. She missed him terribly.

Here you go, she said to the sleeping brown mutt, as she gingerly placed twenty pence in an upturned cap beside his snout.

Thank you, miss, said the disheveled old man next to the animal.

You’re welcome, whispered Amila, still talking to the dog.

Today, Amila was determined to buy a burger, not a sandwich as they called it here, from Maccas. She was tired of the food at her aunt’s house. It wasn’t because the food was bad, it just was not very good, and it was much the same everyday. Amila had found the fast-food restaurant quite by accident. She was used to seeing the signs for it in big bold lettering, but here it was tucked away behind the market square, in the middle of a pretty cobble-stoned street called Rose Crescent. Most people would have sat to eat at the patisserie next to it and enjoy a famous Cornish pasty, whatever that was, but not Amila. She loved the fast-food place, not because the food was that much better, but for the simple reason that it reminded her of home. She used to eat at her local restaurant in Australia each weekend and just watch the people pass by. The youngster found out early on that you could tell a lot about a person just by what they were wearing or carrying. England was no different, she thought, as she sorted the passersby into categories: there were the business-minded people, who wore shiny, pointy shoes and paraded around with smart leather satchels and even sharper coats; the studious ones, who mainly lugged around books in chic backpacks and wore the most awful-looking scarves; the tourists, all of whom flocked here with cameras and odd-looking hats; and for the current season, the late Christmas shoppers, who ran around from store to store as if their very lives depended on it. It really was that straightforward to the little girl.

As she sat down to eat, her burger very much in hand, Amila spotted a bushy, black and white tail steadily making its way through the throng of people heading toward the market. Completely forgetting her lunch, she tumbled out the door in pursuit. She didn’t know why she reacted that way, just that she had the urge to do so. She soon found out that the bushy tail belonged to an equally bushy dog. He (for to Amila every new dog was a ‘he’), had an absolutely gorgeous black and white coat, and ears that flopped to the side of his head in the cutest fashion. Amila wondered why the dog wasn’t on a leash. All the dogs in Cambridge had leashes. At that moment the little girl realized that she had never seen a stray dog in the town. She looked around for his owner but saw no one. The dog had made his way through half the market before Amila caught up with him. He seemed to have a purpose, a journey in mind, so much so that he didn’t notice the little girl shadowing him. Amila was intrigued by the animal, but was content enough to follow a few paces behind. At that moment the bells of the church overlooking the square began to chime. Amila peered down at her wristwatch to see that it was midday. She looked up to return to her vigil of the mysterious dog, but he was gone. Amila quickly glanced left and then right in a desperate attempt to find him. Her eyes locked onto the dog, scampering down a narrow passageway adjacent to the church. Amila hurried on after him, not wanting to lose sight of the lovely animal. She emerged out of the other end of the passage just in time to see the dog jump a low wall, run across a small patch of grass, and disappear behind a magnificent conker tree. She walked briskly up to the wall and tried to peer around the tree. This task was truly impossible, she soon found out, as the breadth of it was so great. The branches alone, robbed of their delicate leaves by winter’s clutch, were so broad that many kissed the ground far from the tree’s giant trunk. The little girl had visited this very spot on the weekend with her mother and brother. She was standing in front of King’s Chapel, an extraordinarily beautiful building of stone, possessing two exquisite towers that soared above the town. It had large stained-glass windows that seemed to hold up the immense, vaulted ceilings. The chapel graced the grounds of King’s College, a most prominent college founded in the town in fourteen-hundred-and-something by an equally impressive king of England and France. Amila waited for the dog to appear once more, but he never did. The bells of the church had fallen silent and only smatterings of people were about. She wanted to search behind the tree, but remembered the warning that her mother had given her: Walking on grassy areas around most buildings is strictly forbidden. There were signs everywhere saying that very thing. The little girl found it rather silly that you could not walk on grass. Grass after all was for walking on, wasn’t it? She thought it even sillier to hear that certain members of colleges, however, were allowed to walk on the grass. Rules should be