Chapter 17: Yuddh Ki Tayyari (Preparing for War)

The Great Library was not a library. The Great Library was a civilization's memory made physical.

The building at the city's centre — the dome of amber glass that Meghna's second letter had described — was larger than the Rajvidya Academy's entire compound. The dome rose from a circular base, the base being stone (the same integrated stone as the other buildings, trees growing through the walls, gardens continuous with the interior) and the dome being glass — not ordinary glass but Shakti-infused glass, the amber glass that filtered the kingdom's light into the particular golden quality that made everything inside look illuminated from within.

Inside the dome: shelves. Not the catastrophic overflow of Guru Markandeya's tower, not the bibliophile's chaos. Organised shelves — the organisation of a civilisation that valued knowledge and that had created a system for its preservation. The shelves were carved from living wood (the trees growing through the building serving as the shelving, the branches shaped by Vanaspati Shakti into horizontal planes, the books resting on living wood that was still, even after sixteen years, alive and growing, the bark encasing the shelf-edges, the leaves sprouting from the shelf-tops).

And the books — the books, the scrolls, the records — were thousands. Tens of thousands. The collected knowledge of the Saptam Rajya: Shakti manuals (the collaborative Shakti practice that Leela had intuited and that was, here, documented in detail), agricultural records (the soil science that had made the Seventh Kingdom the breadbasket of the seven kingdoms), architectural plans (the integrated design philosophy), musical notation (the performing arts that had been the Saptam Rajya's cultural foundation), medical texts (the healing practices that paralleled the Vanvasi traditions that Mata had practiced), and — the histories. The real histories. Not the High Throne's version.

Karan read for three days. Not continuously — he slept, he ate the food that the group prepared from the preserved stores (the grain in the storehouses, the dried fruit, the particular provisions that the Saptam Rajya had maintained and that the sealing had preserved), he emerged periodically to report findings. But the reading was — consuming. The court mage's apprentice in the library that the court mage had spent thirty years trying to access, the reading that was both scholarship and penance, the penance of a man who was learning that everything his education had taught him about the Seventh Kingdom was wrong.

"The Saptam Rajya had no royalty," Karan reported on the second day. Sitting in the sunflower garden of Meghna's house, the group gathered, the particular council-formation that the group had developed: Amba and Devraj at the centre, Mata beside them, the younger members surrounding. "No king. No queen. No throne. The kingdom was governed by a council — the Saptarishi Parishad, the Seven-Sage Council. Seven members, elected by the population, serving seven-year terms. The council made decisions by consensus, not by decree."

"Elected," Amba said. The word spoken with the particular emphasis of a woman who had lived her entire life in kingdoms governed by hereditary rulers and for whom the concept of election was not theoretical but revolutionary.

"Elected. By everyone. Every adult in the Saptam Rajya voted. Men, women, performers, farmers, healers. Everyone."

"The Nats?"

"The Saptam Rajya didn't have a separate Nat caste. The performing arts were — universal. Every citizen participated in performance. The Saptam Rajya's annual festival — the Rang Utsav, the Festival of Colour — involved the entire population in a collaborative performance. The performance was not entertainment. The performance was governance — the decisions of the council were presented through performance, debated through performance, ratified through performance."

"Governance through performance." Devraj's voice. The performer's voice, hearing that the thing he had done his entire life — the performing that the seven kingdoms treated as low-status, the performing that Nats were marginalized for — had been, in the Seventh Kingdom, the mechanism of democracy. The performing was not entertainment. The performing was power.

"That's why the High Throne destroyed it," Mata said. "Not the Shakti. Not the agriculture. The example. A kingdom where performers governed. A kingdom where everyone voted. A kingdom where the hierarchy that the High Throne required to justify its existence — the hierarchy of caste, of birth, of inherited power — did not exist. The Saptam Rajya was proof that the hierarchy was optional. And that proof was — intolerable."

*

The plan that Ritu developed was not a military plan. The plan was a performance.

"We cannot fight four hundred Rakshak," Ritu said. On the fourth day in the Saptam Rajya. The group in Meghna's garden. The sunflowers fully awake now, the blooms completed, the flowers turning toward the amber light with the particular determination of sunflowers everywhere. "We cannot fight the High Throne. We are fifteen people. Fifteen people do not win wars."

"Then what?" Lakku asked.

"Fifteen people can give a performance. And a performance can do what an army cannot: change what people believe."

The plan was: the Rang Utsav. The Festival of Colour. The Saptam Rajya's annual collaborative performance — the performance that was governance, the performance that was truth-telling, the performance that was the kingdom's soul. Ritu would bring the Rang Utsav to Rajnagar. Not inside the Saptam Rajya — outside. In the capital of the Vasishtha Rajya. In the Grand Plaza that sat at the base of the palace hill, the plaza that was the largest public space in Rajnagar and that was, by law, a free-speech zone (the particular legal fiction that the High Throne maintained to create the appearance of openness while controlling every other space in the city).

"We perform in the Grand Plaza," Ritu said. "We perform the truth. The truth about the Saptam Rajya — what it was, how it was governed, why it was destroyed. We perform the truth about the Dwar Shakti — what it does, who it belongs to, what the High Throne is afraid of. And we perform the truth about the door — the door is open, the Seventh Kingdom is intact, the hierarchy is a choice."

"And the Rakshak?" Amba's voice. The practical voice, the general's voice, the voice that always asked the tactical question behind the strategic vision.

"The Rakshak will come. Of course they'll come. The performance will be public, visible, impossible to ignore. The Rakshak will attempt to stop it."

"And?"

"And I will open the Mahadwar. In the Grand Plaza. In front of everyone. I will open the door to the Saptam Rajya and I will show the people of Rajnagar what is on the other side. The sunflower fields. The library. The buildings. The kingdom that the High Throne said it destroyed and that is, in fact, perfectly preserved and more beautiful than anything in the Vasishtha Rajya."

"You're going to open a portal to the Seventh Kingdom in front of the entire capital city."

"I'm going to give a performance. The performance will include a portal. The portal is the set piece."

"Ritu." Amba's voice. Not the general now. The mother. The mother who had raised a daughter and who was now watching the daughter propose to stand in the centre of the enemy's capital and perform an act that would make her the most visible target in the seven kingdoms. "The Rakshak will not stop because you're performing. The Rakshak will arrest you. The Rakshak will—"

"The Rakshak will attempt to arrest a performer in a free-speech zone in front of the entire population of Rajnagar. And the attempt — the attempt will be the performance. The arrest will prove the point. The point being: the High Throne is afraid of a girl who can open doors. The High Throne is afraid of a performance. The High Throne is afraid of the truth."

"And if they succeed? If they arrest you? If they—"

"Then the door is still open. The door doesn't close when I'm arrested. The door is open. And the people of Rajnagar will have seen it. And the seeing cannot be un-seen. And the truth, once performed, cannot be un-performed."

The group was — quiet. The particular quiet of people who were hearing a plan that was brave and brilliant and possibly suicidal and who were processing the three qualities simultaneously.

"I'll need a script," Ritu said. "Not a full script — a framework. The performance framework. The Rang Utsav format: collaborative, everyone participates, the truth is told through the performing."

"Everyone?" Noor asked. Her hand on her belly. The pregnancy now visible, the child-to-come present in every conversation.

"Everyone who wants to. The performing is voluntary. The Rang Utsav was voluntary — nobody was forced to perform. The performing was the choice."

"I'll perform," Devraj said. Immediately. Without hesitation. The performer who had been denied his stage for weeks, the performer whose wagons had been left in the hills, the performer who had been loading cargo on docks — the performer who was, in this moment, a performer again. "I'll perform Rani Kasturi. The real Rani Kasturi — the version that the Saptam Rajya wrote, the version that the other kingdoms modified, the version that we've been performing the modified version of for thirty years without knowing that the original was different."

"The original is in the library," Karan said. "I found it. The original Rani Kasturi is a Saptam Rajya play. The original version is — different. In the original, Rani Kasturi doesn't die. In the original, Rani Kasturi opens a door."

"A door."

"The play was allegorical. The door was the Mahadwar. The play was about the Door-Keeper. The play was about — you, Ritu. The play has always been about you."

The silence was — the particular silence that follows a revelation that reframes everything, the revelation that takes a thing you thought you knew (Rani Kasturi, the play you've performed since childhood) and shows it to be something else (the prophecy, the story of the Door-Keeper, the allegorical truth hidden in the performance).

"We perform the original Rani Kasturi," Ritu said. "In the Grand Plaza. With the real ending. The ending where the queen opens the door."

*

The preparation took four days. Four days in the Saptam Rajya — four days of reading and rehearsing and the particular intensity that a performing troupe brings to the creation of a new show. Except this show was not new. This show was the oldest show — the original Rani Kasturi, the play that the Saptam Rajya had created and that the other kingdoms had appropriated and modified and that was now being restored, the restoration being both artistic and political.

Devraj directed. This was his gift — not the acting (Devraj's acting was competent, the solid foundation on which better performers built) but the directing. The shaping of a performance from the raw materials of talent and text and space. Devraj read the original script (Karan translating from the old Prakrit, the translation being simultaneous, the court mage functioning as a real-time interpreter, the particular utility of a classical education applied to revolutionary art) and Devraj shaped.

The original Rani Kasturi was — Ritu read it and the reading was recognition. The play she had performed in Haldipura — the play that had opened the first portal — was a shadow of the original. The original was larger, deeper, more complex. The original had songs that the modified version had cut. The original had scenes that the modified version had removed. And the original had the ending — the ending where Rani Kasturi, facing the enemy army, does not fight. Rani Kasturi performs. And in the performing, Rani Kasturi opens a door. And through the door, the truth is visible. And the truth defeats the army.

"The truth defeats the army," Ritu repeated. Reading the stage direction in the original script. "Not a weapon. Not a Shakti attack. The truth."

"The Saptam Rajya believed that truth was a Shakti," Karan said. "The highest form of Shakti. Not the Academy's Shakti — not the imposed Shakti, the commanding Shakti. The truth-Shakti. The Shakti that reveals rather than conceals. The Shakti that opens rather than closes."

"The performing is the Shakti."

"The performing is the truth. The truth is the Shakti. The Shakti is the door."

Leela made costumes. Not alone — with Noor, whose embroidery was the thread that connected the costumes to the performance, the needle and thread doing the work that props and set-pieces would usually do. The costumes were made from the Saptam Rajya's preserved textiles — the fabrics in the storehouses, the silks and cottons that had been woven sixteen years ago and that were, like everything in the kingdom, perfectly preserved. The colours were — the Saptam Rajya's colours: sunflower gold, earth brown, sky amber, leaf green. Not the Nat troupe's usual bright stage-colours but the kingdom's colours, the colours that said: we are from the Seventh Kingdom, and the Seventh Kingdom is real.

Omi built the stage. This was unexpected — Omi was not a builder. But Omi was a forest-boy, and the forest-boy understood wood, and the understanding of wood was the understanding of building, and the building was: a portable stage. A stage that could be assembled in the Grand Plaza in ten minutes and disassembled in five. A stage that was light enough to carry through the Mahadwar and strong enough to hold performers. Omi built it from the Saptam Rajya's wood — the living wood, the wood that Leela blessed with her Shakti (the blessing being: be strong, be light, hold the performers, hold the truth).

Mata prepared medicines. The particular preparation that was not for healing but for endurance — the herbs that sustained energy, the preparations that prevented fatigue, the particular pharmacy of performance that every troupe carried and that Mata adapted from the Saptam Rajya's medical texts. "This preparation," Mata said, grinding herbs in the mortar, "is described in the Saptam Rajya's performance manual. It's meant for the Rang Utsav — the extended performance, the performance that lasted hours. The preparation sustains the performers without depleting them."

And Ritu rehearsed. Not the lines — the lines were memorized within hours, the performer's memory being the tool that years of training had sharpened to the point of immediate acquisition. Ritu rehearsed the Shakti. The performance-Shakti. The integration of the performing and the portaling that she had discovered on the midnight street in Rajnagar — the juggling and the opening, the stage-presence and the Dwar Shakti, the two being one.

She rehearsed opening the Mahadwar while performing. She rehearsed holding the Great Door open while speaking the lines. She rehearsed the ending — the ending where Rani Kasturi opens the door and the truth is visible and the truth defeats the army.

On the fourth day, the rehearsal was complete. The performance was ready. The performers were ready. The costumes were made, the stage was built, the medicines were prepared, and the Door-Keeper had practiced opening the Great Door while performing Rani Kasturi and the opening had worked — the door responding to the performance the way it had always responded, the Shakti and the performing being the same thing, the same gift, the same inheritance.

"Tomorrow," Ritu said. To the group. In Meghna's garden. In the Saptam Rajya. In the kingdom that had been sealed for sixteen years and that was about to be revealed to the world.

"Tomorrow we go back through the Mahadwar. Tomorrow we go to the Grand Plaza. Tomorrow we perform the original Rani Kasturi. Tomorrow we open the door."

"Tomorrow," Amba said. The word spoken by the general. The word spoken by the mother. The word that was both strategy and prayer.

Tomorrow.