Shraap
Parashu burst into the antechamber of the vaidyashala, a barely conscious Anjali in his hands and rain sleeting in behind him. Groans of protest rose from patients in the depths of the hall till one of the chitinous attendants of the vaidyashala scrambled up and slammed the door shut.
The attendant’s oily eyes slid over Parashu and the bundle of dripping blankets in his hands before it skittered away wordlessly.
“Please, wait!” Parashu cried out behind it, “Help!"
“Yes, yes? What is this?” A nagin slithered over on her scaly underbelly.
“It is my daughter Anjali, venerable serpent.” Parashu knelt down and tugged away the swaddling to reveal her pale and lifeless little face. His heart thumped anxiously. She'd gotten even worse since he'd started for the vaidya's residence. Her eyes were sunken half-moons and her sported streaks of white. “One of my farmhands told me the vaidya drove spirits out of his son last moon.”
“We are not dealing with possession here at the Vaidyashala, sir.” Her mandibles clicked dismissively, and she began to turn away.
“Please, oh venerable serpent.” Parashu’s voice trembled. “She is all I have left.”
The nagin peered at him like his childhood matron used to, before brushing a gray lock off Anjali’s forehead with a segmented hand. A ripple passed over the scales on her hindquarters. “Muradini.”
“What?” Parashu asked, puzzled.
“Miss Muradini; it is my name. Not ‘venerable serpent.’” The nagin reared half her body off the floor to tower over him. “Bring her in, the magus is seeing her now.” A few attendants had stopped to gawk, no doubt at the strange cocoon with the pale girl in it. Muradini unleashed a series of spine-chilling clicks in their directions, sending them scurrying back to their work. “Follow me,” she said, now addressing Parashu in perfect Kumudi — the words were mangled somewhat by her mandibles. “When did this start?”
“Last night, oh ven— Miss Muradini.”
“And you waited till now?” An angered chittering of mandibles.
“I ran here all day, miss. Fast as I could.”
“A farmhand last moon?” The nagin slid aside a beaded curtain and entered a corridor lined with jellied and preserved specimens sloshing around in liquid. “You are from Dagadapur? What is your name?”
“Yes! I am Parashu Dagade Patil, the watandar of the lands in and around Dagadapur.”
“I see. Yes. A watandar. Landholder, yes? Not physician? Nor magus? No. I think not.” They entered a large room with old plaster walls stained with leaks from the rains. “Who tells you the farmhand’s son is being possessed?”
“The farmhand, ma'am.”
Though Parashu knew nagins couldn’t sigh, Muradini came as close as they could before continuing. “He is not being ‘possessed’, sir. He is being gripped by a pisaach. The boy’s mother is dead a few days ago. His grief is turning into a pisaach. Understand? Good. Now, sit. The magus is seeing you now.”
“Will he be able to save her?” Parashu asked. The nagin’s face finally shifted into an emotion that wasn’t a jaded world-weariness. Parashu’s heart fell as he recognized it — pity.
“Please, sit. The magus is seeing you soon.” She repeated before disappearing into another beaded curtain.
Parashu clutched Anjali closer. Her shuddering had stilled early that morning, long before he forded the bridge into the snakelands. The perpetual raincloud that lay over this kingless realm had washed away her fiery fever, but her eyes were stilla closed, her breathing was still shallow, and the nagin had had pity in her reptilian eyes.
“Mister… Parashu?” The bead curtain slid open with a clatter. A man with flowing mane and beard of flowing black hair swooped into the room, his white robes fluttering in his wake. He held a heartwood danda like the ones used by saffron-cloaked mendicants passing through Dagadapur. The pommel of a sword peeked from under his robes as he raised the other hand in greeting.
"Vaidya Charak?” Parashu rose to his feet.
“Yes, yes.” The vaidya sniffed testily, “Now, what’s wrong with the child?” He ran a hand over her forehead before jerking it back. “Oh my.” His eyes widened in surprise, before narrowing again. A grotesque sort of fascination played in the man’s eyes, unnerving Parashu. “Tell me everything.”
“I found her shuddering and mewling in her sleep when I returned from the market. She had a fever then. The house-servants told me she got it from the festival sweets.”
The vaidya started muttering something under his breath. “In her sleep? Not kanthrika then.” A faint halo of light formed on Anjali’s brow as the vaidya cast a spell of divination. Charak continued his muttering as the light pulsed and expanded and contracted per his bidding. “Not nirjeevana. Not kumth. Not gaveshu. Did you say festival sweets?”
Taken aback at being addressed mid-chant, Parashu stammered as he spoke, “The kheer from the harvest. Blessed by the priest himself.”
“This priest.” A faint smile appeared on the vaidya's lips as Anjali groaned softly, “Bit of a pillock?”
Parashu whispered a quick prayer, “Please, guruji. She is very ill.”
“Well, it’s not the sweets, far as I can tell.” The halo of light spread out over her forehead in a net of light, and the muttering started again. “Not falenu. Not falvenu.. Hm… I wonder.” His muttering redoubled and the glow grew brighter and brighter, throwing the blackened patches in the room’s corner into stark contrast. Abruptly, the light winked out and the vaidya swore. “Never mind that, then.” He stood up with a flourish of his cape. “Right, let’s go. Miss Muradini, my week bag and rain coat. Mister Parashu, lead the way.”
“Guruji?” Parashu asked, dumbstruck.
The nagin skittered in, an apothecary in one hand, a crocodile skin cloak in the other. Charak slipped on the cloak and was fastening the leather hood when he noticed Parashu was still seated. He snapped his fingers impatiently at Parashu. “Come now, hurry hurry.” Parashu leapt to his feet and made for the door as Charak followed him through the building, barking orders in his wake and setting the chittering underlings to their tasks. The three halted at the door, and Charak addressed Parashu, “Have you ever ridden a naga lord? I imagine not. Don’t worry about it. It’s incredible. Like all your senses are alive.” The ground shuddered faintly as something landed outside. “I’d strap your girl on tightly, though. What did you say her name was?”
“Anjali.” Parashu said, his voice catching.
“Anjali. Tribute. Offering.” The vaidya repeated stiffly, “Yes, a good, strong name for a good, strong girl. Come now,” he flung open the door with a flourish, revealing the source of the tremors.
A hulking golden serpent crouched beyond the door, its carapace heaving up and down as it breathed. Parashu flinched as the beast turned one of its eyes upon them. A stream of rain sluiced down the twitching eye, only to be lapped up by a tongue that had sneaked out from between slavering fangs.
“Don’t be afraid, he’s a darling, really. Come now.” With that, the vaidya floated up onto a saddle on the naga lord’s back. Parashu noted that the raindrops were sizzling away into steam a few feet around the vaidya, and felt a sudden flash of irritation that he was still being drenched. There was a lurch in his chest as Anjali and he were tugged up to the saddle by the vaidya’s spell.
“Anjali tied in?” Charak asked, and then without awaiting an answer he continued, “Good. Let’s go.”
The enormous serpent reared back like Miss Muradini had, before leaping into the air and finding purchase on the wind. The world fell away and back. Below them, the ever-thirsty landscape of the snakelands zipped back, turning gradually into the squares of tilled and fallow lands of the man-kingdoms.
◆◆◆
It had taken Parashu the better part of a day to run from Dagadapur to the home with Anjali’s weight holding him down. The naga lord cleared the snakelands within a candle-third and reached within the next.
The residents of Dagadapur were awake despite the hour, singing songs around the harvest bonfire and passing flasks of sour mahua purchased from the tribals. Damned shirkers, thought Parashu. The naga lord crashed into the ground with a bone-rattling thud, and the shirkers’ merriment curdled into horror. A fair few of them looked like they had to go fish for new britches. As Parashu slid off with Anjali’s deadened weight in his hands, he took some pleasure in seeing the expressions on the usual troublemakers’ faces.
“Good… good evening, Patil saheb.” Savidhu said, ending his welcome with a hiccup. His tongue’s slippery track over the syllables indicated how long the revel had been going on. Who was working the fields, Parashu wondered, but bit his tongue in front of the guest.
The guest, for his part, had resumed his muffled muttering. What little amusement remained on the villagers’ expressions was wiped out as they huddled together in superstitious fear at the sight of Charak going about his divinations. Strange colors and wyrd forms burst from the vaidya’s fingertips as he diagnosed the surroundings. His forehead grew furrowed and his spells grew faster and more frenzied as he desperately sought out something in the air.
“Blast and damn and buggrit.” Charak swore. He pointed a gnarled old finger at Parashu and barked. “You, where do you live? Take me there.”
Parashu led the vaidya to the Patils’ large plaster-and-brick home towards the village rim. Once there, the vaidya wordlessly resumed his spellwork, growing agitated with each new one he tried. He peppered cuss words in between bouts of increasingly complex spells whose muttered incantations grew longer and longer. Finally, the vaidya’s shoulders fell and his arms followed.
“Put Anjali into bed.” He snapped at Parashu. “Lugging her around like a sack of potatoes isn’t helping anyone. Set her down and let her rest.”
“Yes, guruji.” He laid her into the bed upstairs and piled blankets onto her as his mother had done with him when he’d taken ill. Worry gnawed at his heart at the sight of her. She looked so frail in the flickering flame of the near-spent candle. He puffed out the flame to spare himself the sight. After a few more moments at her bedside, he decided to rejoin the vaidya downstairs. The vaidya had lit the fireplace and was boiling a kettle-full of water.
“Her mother. Dead?”
“Yes, guruji. Dead by the womb.”
“Yes. Very good.” The Vaidya replied, obviously distracted. “And this village. How old is it? As we landed, I felt something mangy and savage worrying at its bones.”
“I do not know, guruji.” Parashu said. He was too tired and dispirited to be angry.
“Tea? I find it’s better made with the hands. Any magicks used and tea starts to taste like licking tin spoons in a thunderstorm.”
“What has happened to my daughter, guruji?” Parashu asked, taking the cup offered.
Charak took a long sip from his own cup before speaking again. “Do you know what a shraap, Mister Parashu?”
“A curse?” Parashu whispered fearfully.
Charak nodded. “More precisely, a curse that has been cast.”
“Gods help me!” The watandar gasped.
The vaidya’s bushy mustache twitched and a little frown appeared on his head. “The gods? I think not, Mister Parashu.” He turned back to his tea and continued. “This looks like a sharirik shraap. Do you know what sharirik means, Mister Parashu? It means body. A sharirik shraap is a cruel little curse that worms its way into the accursed to devour their essence whole. First it puts them to sleep, then it mutes their humors one after the other, and finally it ruptures their heart.”
“Anjali has that?” His face had gone pale.
“Anjali? Yes. Or no, maybe she does.” The vaidya replied, “That is the fear, you see, with shraaps. We can only know it is shraap if we already know it is nothing else. And though I know not of anything else that might cause this, but I also do not know it is nothing else.”
Parashu looked upstairs and nervously rubbed his hands. “How do we lift it, guruji?”
"There are two ways to do so,” Charak said, “We find the caster and force him to do it. Or we find someone to stand in Anjali’s stead till the caster tires themselves out.”
“Who did this to her, guruji? Tell me how to find them!”
“It is hard to tell, Mister Parashu. Ordinarily, it is passing tantrics or aghoris practising their dark arts. Has anyone approached you, offering to cure Anjali? For a fee, of course.”
“No, guruji. The village hasn’t seen any travelers. Everyone is busy with the harvest.”
“Hm…” Charak grunted, “Sometimes, an ajakava’s sting can appear to be a curse. Is this ajakava country?”
“What is an ajakava, guruji? Forgive us, we are illiterate bumpkins.”
“Never mind, then. Are there any that might wish you harm? Not tenants. No farmhand could have cast this spell. What of the priest? You said Anjali had just eaten a harvest day pudding.”
“None that I know of, guruji. I am a just man, and my tenants respect me for it.”Parashu looked back up at Charak, worry weighing down his brow, “What happens if we cannot find the caster, guruji?”
harak looked away to spare Parashu embarrassment, then shook his head gently.
“No. No this will not do.” Parashu replied, licking his lips nervously.
“Very well, even if it isn’t a shraap, she could still use the help.” The vaidya drained his tea. “Go ask your tenants if any will stand in her stead. I will watch over her.”
Parashu nodded and stepped out into the night to find his tenants. Back at the bonfire, the men had gotten over their fear of the serpent and were now warming their hands on its golden-brown carapace. Savidhu waved him over, and Parashu headed over with a relieved smile on his face.
◆◆◆
Charak sat by the girl’s bedside with a cup of tea in his hands, watching for any signs of progression and irritated that he’d had to fall back to shraaps. Every stumped vaidya reached for the convenient shraap to assure the parents that something could be done. And it was never a shraap.
The Patil returned shortly with the man who had greeted them upon their landing. He introduced the man as Savidhu the greengrocer. “A lovely man. Lovely man. Lives near the village gate with his wife and his eldest.”
“Greengrocer, eh?” Charak asked, cheerily. “How is business?”
“Shabby, my lord.” Savidhu replied, in a voice made stringy with tobacco. “Trade tracks are risky this time of year. All the soldiering moved seaward after them blasted Baudhin and the snakes started their raids.”
“Well, at least you’re fed.”
Savidhu smiled weakly at that, and continued, “Where is the little mistress?”
The three went upstairs to where Anjali was sleeping, where Charak bade Savidhu sit down so he wouldn’t hurt himself. “You’re sure you wish to do this?” When Savidhu nodded, Parashu added, “You’re a good man, Savidhu. A noble man.”
With that, the vaidya pressed two fingers to the pulsing vein on Savidhu’s wrist and his other hand to Anjali’s breastbone. Silvery life drained from the grocer’s wrist and clambered up into Charak’s veins. A gleaming web shone through the vaidya’s papery skin, zipping across the vaidya’s body. The glow briefly turned bloody red as it crossed his heart and then poured into Anjali’s body. The light reached her heart and was sucked in, leaving the room feeling darker than before they had started.
The girl sat up with an enormous gasp. Parashu cried out in joy and reached over to hug her, but she knocked his hands away. She took ragged, gulping breaths before turning a crazed glare on Charak and him. As they watched, her dark eyes rolled back into her head and she fell back jerking and twitching. Slowly, her body eased back into sleep.
“No! What happened? Guruji, please!”
“She is well, or she will be.” Charak replied, “Him? I do not know.”
The greengrocer seemed to have switched skins with the girl. Her pallor had improved, while Savidhu appeared pinched and drawn. He was now slumped back into the chair with his eyes closed. He had fainted when the glowing seam of life had left his body and entered Charak. His slumber was silent — as the girl’s had been — while she was snoring gently.
“Thank you. Thank you, guruji.” Parashu said, his voice quivering.
“Keep an eye on her and Mister Savidhu overnight.” Charak tapped his knees and sat up from the chair, “I will go find lodgings. Good night, Mister Parashu.”
“Nonsense, guruji! You must stay here.” Parashu exclaimed. He fell to the vaidya’s feet, humbling himself. “There is only one inn in the village, guruji. And though the inn belongs to me too, a thousand curses would befall me if I did not confess that my house is much more comfortable.”
Charak, uneager to hunt for a bed at this hour, took up the offer. After a quick supper of daal rice paired with the sour wine from the workers, Charak and Parashu headed upstairs to their respective rooms. The watandar made a beeline for his daughter’s room and sat at her side, her minute hand in his. Charak smiled grimly at the sight. It was a sweet enough picture if one squinted to avoid the sight of Savidhu and his waxen, drooling visage. He hoped the grocer would make it.
The next morning dawned bright and brisk, but Mister Charak was not awoken by the crowing of the village roosters. His sleep was broken by a piteous cry from the other room. He bolted upright and ran into Anjali’s room, where he immediately grasped what had happened.
Parashu was shaking his daughter by the shoulders, bellowing in her face like a man crazed. Her skin was ashen and her sleep was silent again.
Charak turned away from the fraying watandar and looked to the greengrocer. Savidhu was now leaning ahead in his chair with drool dripping down the side of his face.
His heart had stopped in Anjali’s stead.
◆◆◆
Muradini tagged along with the naga lord when he returned from the vaidyashala bearing Charak’s change of clothes. After the nagin had delivered her report on the vaidya’s patients back at the halls, the two retired to a copse of fig trees on a ridge overlooking the village to talk through the bewildering curse on the girl.
“It could still be a shraap.” Mister Charak said to Miss Muradini.
“No, it couldn’t.” Muradini replied, “What is you hoping for? That she is leeching off villagers forever?” An angry ripple ran down her scales.
“Just long enough to find out more.”
“A man has died so you find out more.” She enunciated each word with care.
Charak glanced at her through narrowed eyes. She hadn’t stepped out under cloudless sunlight for nearly a decade now. He was almost taken aback at how bright her carapace gleamed in the man-kingdoms. “Would you have preferred it be a little girl that died?”
“Shraap is killing slowly, not overnight.” “What else would it be?”
“A majnuvan curse? Something rubbing off from boy you are curing last moon?”
“The possessed boy?” Charak asked.
“You must stop telling people that.” She chittered peevishly.
“It’s all they can understand, the bumpkins. The supernatural and the divine. Possession. And gods.” He shot a quick look around to ensure they weren’t being listened in on. “And another thing… if a pisaach leeching off his humors isn’t possession, then what else is? Besides, I took care of that bloodsucker, so it’s not infesting Anjali.”
“Her mother is dying too, no?”
“Her mother died years ago in childbirth.”
“Because of it?” Muradini asked. “I am meaning is she dying during childbirth, or is she dying because of childbirth?”
“While I’m sure the distinction is quite fascinating to snakes, it holds little water in the world of man.” Charak snapped. He noticed the look on her face and sighed, “I apologize. It’s been a trying day. Why do you ask? Do you think it’s a ghost or something ridiculous like that? Should I go tear down the banyan outside the house and see what happens? Ghosts aren’t real, Mura.”
“Not ghost. Perhaps resentment? His wife is died of the womb. Strong and dark emotion can birth them too. If a father hates his daughter? That not birth a pisaach?” Miss Muradini chittered. “But it cannot be. He is carrying her in his hands overnight. From here to home, all himself. He is loving her too much to harm her. He is staying at her bedside. He is letting grocer die to keep her alive.”
Charak gasped softly. “It’s not shraap.”
◆◆◆
Little golden flecks swam in the light streaming in from the windows of the Dagade Patil house when Charak and Muradini entered. The watandar wasn’t in the hall. He was upstairs, still clutching at his daughter’s hand.
“Should I ask someone new to stand in her place?” The watandar asked without facing them. Savidhu’s corpse had been cleared from the room. The chair was still there, upholstered with fabric that looked more expensive than some of the other homes in the village.
A sour taste twisted Charak’s mouth as he spoke, “Mister Parashu, what were you doing when your daughter fell ill?”
Parashu Dagade Patil turned slowly to face the vaidya. “I was at the market.”
“Yes, but what were you doing?” Charak repeated, emphasizing the last word.
“I don’t recall. Likely dispensing a few loans.”
“What about when your daughter was born. What were you doing that day?”
“I am the watandar of this village, guruji. I manage the land for the king, I manage the village’s monies. It is likely something of that stripe. It’s just that. Day in and day out. Why?”
“Was Mister Savidhu a beneficiary of these loans and managements of monies and lands?”
Parashu grew beet-red, “And so what if he was?”
“You must be rather beloved in these parts.” Mister Charak continued, “For a tenant — a tenant who owes you money, even — to stand instead for your daughter. No?”
“What are you trying to say?” Parashu’s voice was still and cold.
“Did Mister Savidhu die with his loan forgiven?"
“So what if he did? Now his children no longer owe the money.” Parashu turned to face Anjali, tenderness in his eyes. “Do you have children? Do you know what they mean to those of us that do?”
“I suspect they mean a great deal.” Charak replied.
“Everything.” Parashu said, flatly, “They mean everything. I have worked hard and toiled every day to ensure that Anjali will be cared for. I have done everything I can to ensure my family’s name, honor and wealth are sustained. So if a drunk that can’t put together two pennies and spends like a king instead of the pauper he is… If that drunk passed so that Anjali didn’t, then I say it is good and just. Where is the lie? Anjali means everything to me.”
“She certainly means enough to drop everything and carry a twelve-year-old girl two candle-thirds of naga-flight over muddy tracks and dirt roads.” Charak asked. Parashu looked at him, stunned. “Did that not strike you as odd, Mister Parashu? That one pudgy landholder hasn’t worked a day in his life carried a young girl further and faster than most horses? Have you even carried her before? Did you think you could just do it one day since you needed it?”
“What are you getting at? Spit it out.”
“It’s you, Mister Parashu. You’re doing this.”
“I beg your pardon?” Parashu stood up angrily, still holding Anjali’s hand in his.
Charak drew a mandala of light in the air and sent it flying at the father and daughter. Parashu flinched, but not fast enough. The ring of light passed over their clasped hands, revealing a shadow stretching between Parashu and Anjali. The mandala passed over and the shadow was hidden again, but not before Charak caught a sight of dozens of fanged mouths all over its dark body.
Parashu dropped his daughter’s hand in horror and leaped back. “No! This is a trick.”
“I’m afraid not, Mister Parashu. Your greed has manifested into a pisaach, much like the farmhand’s grief had. But instead of draining you, it drains those around you.”
“Oh, so it’s not shraap anymore, is that right?” Parashu hissed at him, reaching towards the scabbard on his own belt. “Who sent you?”
“Mister Parashu, I am a vaidya of the immortal path.” Charak replied, calmly, sweeping his robe gently to the side to reveal the pommel of the sword. “You can try me if you desire, but I must warn you that the toothpick at your belt will serve you poorly.” Parashu stumbled backward on shaking legs as Charak continued in that calm tone. “Nobody has sent me. You called on me. You came to me to find out what ails your daughter. And now you know. Your greed formed a pisaach. The demon wore away at her resolve, opening wounds in her soul. And your headlong flight to my home drained her.”
Parashu fell back into his seat. “So… my wife?”
“It’s possible.”
“How do I fix this? I must save Anjali. I’ll do anything.” He fell at Charak’s feet, “Please, guruji. Help. Help me save her. What will it take? I will pay you anything. Money is no object. Please help.”
Charak grimaced and pried Parashu’s hands from his cloak and flung the watandar back with disgust before pinning him to the wall with a wave of his danda. Charak and Muradini then began weaving the same enchantment they’d crafted to sever the pisaach from the farmhand’s son. Circlets of light appeared in the air, floating over to Parashu’s struggling form before settling on his skin in silvery burns. The watandar twitched and jerked, silently mouthing agonized screams, his words eaten up by the powers of Charak’s enchantments.
A squirming slug-shaped shadow spurted out from Parashu’s chest and plopped wetly onto the floorboards, opening a dozen mouths in a screeching shriek.
The beginnings of legs began sprouting at its sides but, before the pisaach could gain use of them, Muradini rammed her stinger through its back and popped it like an overripe grape.
The creature melted into a heap of black gunk and began oozing slowly across the floor.
Parashu’s crumpled to the floor as Charak released him from the bindings to the wall. The watandar’s eyes brimmed with tears as he took in the collapsed heap of black gunk, “Thank you, guruji. Thank you so much. You are truly a noble man. A noble man! May all the gods bless you and yours. And I will give up usury. I will tear up the papers in my safe, throw away the scrips, write off any losses. No more greed. I promise.”
The nagin and vaidya looked at each other, then at Parashu, and finally towards the bed where Anjali slept. The girl was beginning to stir as the pisaach’s hold on her humors faded away. “Get her up and get out. You have till I reach the fire-pit.” Charak said, and walked out of the house. Muradini followed him out into the sunlight and the two of them made their way to the remains of the workers’ bonfire.
The golden glow of Muradini’s carapace matched that of the naga lord coiled around the smoldering embers.
“This is why I live with the snakes.” Charak told her, soaring onto the naga lord’s head.
“I am never asking, am I?” She replied, skittering up after him.
At Charak’s command, the naga lord uncoiled slowly from its lazy snooze, shaking and stretching the muscles rippling under its sinuous form. It strode across the huts in the village till it reached the brick-and-plaster home of the Patils.
Parashu and a tottering Anjali ran out of the house hurriedly, shielding their eyes against the sun. Anjali screamed shrilly at the sight of the massive serpent rearing over their home’s thatched roof, mandibles waggling in anticipation.
A cascade of greenish-orange flames dribbled out from its fangs and onto the thatch, which caught fire instantly. Charak watched the house go up in flames with grim satisfaction on his face. Somewhere inside, a safe full of the debtors’ papers of the village awaited the flames. When the inferno died down, only ash and molten iron would be left.
That would be payment enough, he thought, as they rode the wind back to the snakelands.
A “shraap” is a curse on a person, usually placed by an irked deity or a wandering sage. While there are likely much more serious and academic treatments of the subject of punitive magic, most Indians are likely familiar with curses as part of a nagin’s repertoire of tricks. Some free-associative steps later, we get this story of curses, deduction and vice set in a constructed world of fiefdoms and snakemen.