Victory City(44)
Zerelda burst into tears. “We’ll come back,” she said. “It’s just a little trip.”
“If things go well for you both, you’ll never return,” her mother told her. “And in your place, considering our poor situation here, neither would I.”
Grandmaster Li spoke up. “I have already explained to Princess Zerelda that all of this is no more than a fantasy in which we are indulging ourselves, a way of traveling in our imaginations, and I have further explained that it cannot happen, because I am bound by my oath.”
“You must miss your own country,” Pampa Kampana said, “because, after all, you have been away for a long time, and this decline in our fortunes is not something you could have anticipated; and while you appear to be as expert in fantasy traveling as you are in the martial arts, it’s no substitute for the real thing. Therefore I release you from your oath. My daughter loves you and I see that she loves, too, the kind of journeying life you have in mind. So we must find a way for you to eat a fish curry in Goa with General Cheng Ho, and then go on with him or without him, to China or Timbuktu or wherever the spirit moves you, or the wind blows you, to experience whatever chance has in store. But before you leave, to keep you safe, there is someone with whom I must speak.”
* * *
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(It is at this point in her great work that Pampa Kampana writes about her first visit to the goddess Aranyani, and of the gift the goddess gave her. Such passages in the Jayaparajaya are not, we believe, to be interpreted literally. They are a part of the poetic vision that infuses the whole masterwork, and like all such visions must be interpreted as metaphors or symbols. It is for wiser minds than the present author’s to explicate the nature and meaning of such symbols and metaphors. We can only humbly draw attention to this requirement. For ourselves we will strive earnestly to understand how poetry tells us truths which plain truth-telling prose cannot reveal, being insufficient for the purpose.)
* * *
—
She was enveloped (or so she tells us) in a sudden whirlwind which wreathed her in circling leaves and bore her up and away and out of sight. Up there in the brilliance above the forest’s canopy, hovering in the air above the topmost tip of the highest tree, was a golden ball of light, even brighter than the sun, that dazzled her eyes. Around and above the golden ball a group of ferocious cheel birds, the pariah kites who look out for the world’s outcasts, was hovering. The voice that spoke to her from this ball was not ordinary, it seemed simply to exist in the air and be an aspect of the air. “Ask me,” it said. When she returned to the forest glade, brought down slowly by the whirling air that had raised her up, she said simply, “I asked for a certain gift, and she gave it to me.”
She refused to explain further. “When the two of you are ready to leave, you’ll understand,” she said. “And when that time comes, come to me, each of you holding a crow’s feather in your hand.”
After that she retreated into the forest to meditate for seven days. When she returned she was smiling calmly, and if she was grieving, she did not show it. “Are you ready?” she asked Zerelda and Ye-He and they said they were. Each of them held a crow’s feather. “I have a feather too,” she told them, “but mine came from a cheel. It’s sensible for you two to be commonplace birds that nobody will look at twice, but if I’m going to guard you on your journey, I need to look as fierce as possible.”
“What are you talking about?” Zerelda Sangama asked.
“Metamorphosis,” said Pampa Kampana. “It only succeeds if it’s not whimsical or frivolous, but arises out of your deepest need.”
Once she cast the spell which Aranyani had granted her the power to cast, they would all three be transformed, and would remain as birds until they released the feathers they held in their claws. “Don’t drop the feathers while you’re flying,” she warned, “or you will turn back into yourselves and plummet to your deaths out of the sky. Also, the feathers will only work three times—bird, person, bird, person, bird, person. Look after them. You never know when you might need their help to escape some bad situation.”
“So we can take nothing with us?” Zerelda asked.
“The clothes that you’re wearing, the gold in your pockets, the bags slung over your shoulders, the swords in their scabbards on your backs,” Pampa Kampana said. “Those will return when you regain your form. But that’s all. If it’s not connected to your body, you can’t have it on your journey.”
“When we meet General Cheng Ho,” Grandmaster Li advised, “then I will put down my feather, but you, Princess, must keep hold of yours and sit on my shoulder until we are on his ship and away from the shore, safely out of Hukka the Second’s reach.”
“What about you?” Zerelda asked. “Won’t you be in danger in Goa?”
“The moment we are with Cheng Ho and his party I’ll be safe,” replied Grandmaster Li. “We have found, we Chinese, that in this country people can’t tell us apart.”
Pampa Kampana gave each of the voyagers a pouch of gold coins from her secret hoard. “Good luck,” she said, “and goodbye, because although I’ll be flying over you, we won’t be able to speak.” Her face was expressionless. When Zerelda came up weeping to say her farewells, Pampa Kampana’s features were set in stone. “Let’s just go,” she said.