Recap: Rudra killed Bhairavnath ruthlessly in order to save, Neil and Avni.
(Flashback continues)
Other serpents starts moving to their respective places. Neil and Avni are looking at each other. Avni knew something amiss happened when Rudra killed Bhairavnath. Rudra interrupted them in the middle, “What is going on between you two?”
Neil and Avni nodded their head in negative. Shivanya come there and was also surprised.
Shivanya – “Rudra, Neil and Avni… What happened? Why are you here? In fact, most of the serpents are here except me. What happened?”
Rudra – “I don’t have any idea for now. A sorcerer decided to kill all the serpents to gain powers. When Neil is about to save them, Bhairav used his wickedness and was about to kill Neil. Out of rage, I killed him.”
Shivanya – “How did you reach here? Why didn’t I charmed by the tune?”
Rudra – “Even I am not charmed by the tune. It’s because we are newly transformed serpents and we didn’t get the complete powers to become a serpent. So, the tune is not working on us. Also, I woke up due to the noise at outdoor. I saw a group of serpents moving. I decided to follow them.”
Shivanya looked at him amused. Rudra signs Shivanya that Neil told him all these things.
Rudra – “I don’t know why, but I feel like I gained power after killing the sorcerer suddenly.”
While they are conversing the matters, a guy come near Neil and whispered something in Neil’s ears. Neil nodded him positively and sent him. Neil moves from there taking both the swords. Avni understood the situation, whereas Rudra and Shivanya needs to know many things about him.
Neil reached the temple of Pataliputra. He entered inside the Sanctum Sanctorum (mandira griha in hindi) of the temple. He worshipped the Shiva idol and got blessings from him. He looked at the wall of the Sanctorum, which is made up of stone. He pressed a specific stone brick, and it got pressed inside and the place he stand, goes deep into the underground.
Neil reached the secret room of Naag haveli which is connected to the temple. Neil took a fire torch and lit the other fire torch of the room.
He waited for Naagraj as he had ordered him to come here. A hand patted his steamy shoulder and Neil looked back and then smiled. He took blessings from Naagraj and wiped his forehead sweat.
[Clarification: There are two castles. 1- Naag Haveli is the place where Naaglok King and Queen resides. It is located exactly below the Pataliputra Haveli. That is Naag Haveli is at underground and Pataliputra Haveli is above the ground. Pataliputra Haveli is the place where the king and queen of Pataliputra resides (i.e humans)]
“Naagraj… You have asked me to come here… May I know why?” Neil asked him eminently.
Naagraj hugged Neil tightly and thanks him.
Neil – “Naagraj….”
Naagraj – “Please Neil, don’t stop me… You’re the one who saved the entire Naag clan when I couldn’t. I didn’t deserve to be a king. I am forever grateful to you, dear son… ”
Neil – “Naagraj… Don’t say like this… Actually you were on a penance for the welfare of us. But the moron planned for such an attack at that time. You’re a father like figure for me.”
Naagraj – “Thank you so much Neil… I cannot save your parents from the death but still you didn’t hold any grudges on me.”
Neil – “Naagraj… please don’t say like this. My parents sacrificed their life for their mission. I am going to fulfill the mission for sure.”
Neil consoled Naagraj and make him relax. Naagraj asked Neil, “Why did Bhairav attacked the serpents?”
Neil – “He stated that he is going to gain Gandhak power by snake sacrifice. But it is obvious that he was lying.”
Naagraj – “But he was dead.”
Hearing this, Neil crumbled his fist on the wall tightly and it bleeds.
Neil – “Rudra shouldn’t have killed him. We lost our prime evidence regarding Gandhak. I am sure he must be knowing something about Gandhak.”
Naagraj was shocked as Bhairav was killed by Rudra not Neil.
Naagraj – “What? Rudra killed him! How? Its not even 24 hours since he turned into a serpent. How could that happen?”
Neil – “Even I am shocked by this. There is something fishy here. Rudra couldn’t kill such a powerful guy in a single go and he is not a blood-thirst to chop his body into pieces even after dying.”
Naagraj – “Whatever it is! Rudra killed a Brahmin (someone who is compeletely devoted to god). It’s a big sin. We need to do a compensation.”
Neil – “Is there any compensation to save Rudra?”
Naagraj – “There must be. I’ll ask the Naag Guru of our Haveli.”
*****
While Rudra is buying flowers and ghee for temple rituals, his eyes look at a girl who is heading towards the tree and collided and fell down. Rudra wondered if she is blind. Then, the girl (Avneet Kaur) again stood up and walked towards the wall of the house and again collided and fell down. Rudra confirmed that she is blind.
Rudra go near her and helped her finding her way to her house. Rudra came to know that her name is Swastika, a naagin. Swastika told him that she sacrificed her eyes for a ritual.
Rudra found it as blunder despite being a Naag.
*****
At the backyard of the Pataliputra Castle, there is a big ground where the soldiers perform various stunts and dangerous stunts to please the king to get reward. Some practice warfare at the ground. Some gets trained in various arts regarding war.
There, the King of Pataliputra sat on his cosy throne and looking at the stunts of men.
Civilians are present there. They are encouraging their Crown Prince Vikramaditya. Vikramaditya (Siddarth Nigam) was surrounded by ten men in the form of circle. They were fighting with a sword. One of the ten men made the Vikram’s sword fly away from his hand. Then, the ten men started to approach towards him. Civilians thought that their prince is going to be defeated. But to their surprise, Vikram kicked one of the men’s head and jumped out of the circle and took his sword and Vikram captured the other man’s sword too. Vikram rolled the sword and defeated the other nine men.
Civilians shouts in joy for Vikram. The King gives a standing ovation for Vikramaditya and hugged him tightly.
“Prince Vikramaditya, you’re always proving that you’re my mighty son. I am sure that you would be a perfect king of the kingdom. You deserve the best,” said the king of Pataliputra Chandrashekhar
Vikram – “Papa, I always deserves the best. But the kingdom is just so low for me. I wish to travel all over the world but not to create rules for the people I barely know.”
Chandrashekhar – “Vikram… You must not say like this. The citizens of the state are our own children. You should not disregard it.”
Vikram didn’t heed to reply his father. He go the barn and took out his horse and leaves the palace. Chandrashekhar was utterly disappointed with his son’s desire to round the world and indulge in wars but not to rule the kingdom. He thinks that there is something up to his sleeves because of his obsession over travel.
Vikram rides his horse fast to the forest.
“I hope I’ll get answers for my desire,” he says and get inside the cave.
*****
Avni prepares a magical solution with her poison and some medicinal herbs and mixed it in a big bowl of milk. Avni recited a mantra whereas Neil, Rudra and Shivanya helped Avni. The white coloured milk turned into colourless one. Shivanya further recited some mantras so that the scene where Bhairavnath helding the yagna was shown in the colorless fluid. Avni was happy as her attempt has succeeded. But Shivanya is still in second thoughts.
Shivanya – “Avni, is there any use of it?”
Not only Shivanya, in fact the latter had the same thought. They were suspicious that someone had played a foul play during the fight between Rudra and Bhairav.
Rudra – “I too believe there was a foul play. How could a immature snake like me kill a powerful sorcerer like Bhairav?”
Neil – “Two things could have happened here. Either Rudra’s reason behind such super power is related to his birth or the guy who died is not Bhairav but some other shapeshifting snake”
The four starts looking into the water (colourless fluid) carefully.
Bhairavnath was playing the ‘been’ steadily until the target of 10000 snakes reaching there. He stops after the arrival of all.
As per the hypnosis, no one could take a further step from the place they’re standing. Though they slowly come out of hypnosis later due to their immunity, they couldn’t move their body. They looked at Avni who was standing helplessly. Neil looks at Avni and confirmed the same.
But a lady who is almost near Avni wore a scarf over the face was holding a Shiv’s damru.
Neil – “Avni, I am suspicious of that scarf lady. Let us focus on her.”
Rudra – “Yeah, Neil is right.”
Avni focussed on the scarf lady.
Soon after, Neil confronts Bhairav and they had a sword fight. As soon as Neil made Bhairav’s sword fell down with a thud, a scarf lady moves her ‘damru’ circular in an anti-clockwise direction. Then her hand come back to the normal position. This shocked the four.
Rudra – “None are supposed to move their body during hypnosis, but how could she move?”
Shivanya – “If she is a premature serpent like me, she couldn’t have been hypnotised and came here too?”
Neil – “It maybe a sign language.”
Avni proceeds focussing on the water bowl. Then, Neil was fooled by Bhairav and is about to get stabbed. Then, Rudra come and injure his hands by the sharp end of the sword.
Neil – “Look at the sword… There is a symbol.” (Imagine some ‘black magic’ star kind of symbol)
The trio noticed the sword’s symbol said by Neil.
Rudra – “I haven’t seen this kind of symbol anywhere. Also, its neither from Naaglok nor Pataliputra.”
Neil – “I am sure that Bhairavnath also won’t have the sword with that symbol and so neither me. Its evident that the sword was misplaced.”
Then, they focussed on the water again. The scarf lady moved the damru near her neck vein and after that sign, Rudra shoved off his head exactly cutting the neck vein of Bhairav.
Still it didn’t end. The lady moved the damru longitudinally over her body and divide into two. Then, she vertically moved the damru from left to right at three places. This signifies how Rudra cutted Bhairav’s body into two first and then into three, totally 6.
Then, later some powers get into him.
Serpents come out of the hypnosis.
Rudra – “Neither the two assumptions are true. The one who was killed is Bhairav. I don’t have any birth secret but I become powerful when I killed him. So, here the scarf lady played her game. The sword was exchanged in the middle. Maybe the sword could have the power to kill the sage, so it did, not me.”
Shivanya – “But Rudra, how could she know the exact moves of you? Were you hypnotised by her? And you’re not a sort of person who would cut corpse into pieces.”
Rudra don’t know what to say and he felt he might be hypnotised.
Neil brings the sword and it was his sword and there is not any unknow symbol.
Neil – “I think, someone replace our original sword with magic and after the mission ended, they kept the original sword as it is.”
*****
Vikram get inside a cave of the forest and looked at the cave. He recited a mantra and there appears a short and wide tree with greenish leaves and glowed brightly despite the darkness of the cave.
He jumped from his horse and sat under the shadow of the tree and did penance with utmost silence by holding the breathe and standing on single leg. He continued it for seven hours and his body turned blue but the soul didn’t left his body.
He continued straining himself and seven snakes appeared from the branches of the tree and coiled around his body holding him tightly but Vikram didn’t heed to that and stayed at his penance consistently.
One of the snakes bite Vikram with its sharp teeth which caused a miserable pain for Vikram. Other snakes bite with more intensity and blood comes out due to the carnivorous bite.
But in vain, the wounds in the body got healed and the poison didn’t harm Vikram.
The snakes continues growing large to smash Vikram’s body but his body also grew accordingly.
Sensing that no one could stop, the snake shrinks and return back to the tree and then becomes invisible. Vikram too come back to his original size.
A magical mirror appears with a voiceover, “Vikram, your strong penance has impressed me and you are strong enough to withstand the seven dangerous snakes too. You deserve the reward and this is the mirror where you can get answers.”
~Vikram’s POV~
I opened my eyes and the bruises and wounds disappears.
I know how it happened and it is because of her help.
Savage me! I have acquired the biggest dream of my life. I am going to get hold of the gandhak now with the help of the magical mirror.
I am still headstrong to be proud of the fact that I sacrificed many things for acquiring the state of balance in my body to acquire this weapon, gandhak. She also helped me to gain that but my sacrifice is superior.
I haven’t seen gandhak nor no one seen it or they don’t have any idea about the gandhak like how it looks or anything…
But all I know is, Gandhak can control the world and it is an integral part of the balance in the world. It can help to visit 14 different worlds in the universe
[According to Hindu mythology, the universe comprises of 14 worlds where in each world, a different set of people stays like humans stay in earth, Snakes in Naaglok, God in Devlok etc…]
I know many things than my peers and my parents. There are lots of secrets hidden from the human beings like us. People thought that there is a single world that is composed of humans and animals. But that is wrong.
In the underground, there is a part of the kingdom called Shesh Vansh (clan) is residing there. They are Ichhadari Naag and Naagins who can transform into humans as well as the form they desire for. Neil, my mate in sword fighting, is an Ichhadari Naag. Neil, being the son of Naaglok’s magicians, is as strong as me. The magician couple were the masters in magic, spells and charms. They had a vast knowledge regarding the world of Magic and snakes. During their research on some ancient magical instruments, they found the reference of Gandhak in the ancient scriptures.
It is never known where it is located. It also has the power to travel back to the past and forward to the future. Gandhak can be used to kill anyone irrespective of their superiority. Sources states that it was obtained from the divine milk of Kamathenu (a special cow) and was blessed by all the gods of Devlok (abode of gods).
Neil’s parents sacrificed their lives in order to locate the Gandhak but even a life didn’t pay for Gandhak’s worth. But my penance paid off. Neil must discharge his duties as son to find the gandhak to fulfill the wish of his parents.
But he doesn’t know that, I am going to obtain Gandhak.
My thoughts are broken as the light reflection hurt my eyes. I covered my eyes and looked at the mirror. I remembered to ask what I want.
“I need Gandhak. How should I acquire the thing? How does it look like?” I asked the mirror.
The mirror shows the pic of a hour clock.
The blue hour clock looks magnificent with gold powder revolving around it and it shines beautifully.
I am quite surprised I expected Gandhak to be a stone, but no issues regarding that. Then gradually the sand clock disappeared and the scripture was appeared.
It reads as, “It would appear once in 120 years on the day where the moon is violet and the sky is red and sun is the blood red.”
~Vikram’s POV ends~
To be continued….
Author’s note:
I hope you all have enjoyed the episode. Next episode will mark the end of First birth and what happened at AvNeil, Rudra-Shivanya, Vikram, Swastika and all. Guess who is the scarf lady. Mostly a easy guess. I have tried to add some of my edited pictures also. Also, it is the first time I’m editing. If you didn’t like, kindly forgive me.