Trixy and The Crescent Of Rana

CHAPTER 31 : CRESCENT OF RANA

She jerked open and found Sarat shaking her with great vigour. She must have fallen asleep. She looked at the clock in the passage way. It was showing three twenty and she reckoned she couldn't have slept for more than two hours. She soon noticed Sarat's lips were moving too. He was talking.

She spent a few seconds rubbing her eyes to understand what he was saying - "He has woken up."

His eyes were bloodshot and cheeks puffed up, indicating how bad he should have wept. Silly guy, she thought. He was acting so steady and sober all this time and now is crying like a child, once he had finally woken up. Oh, shit. Tears were running down her cheeks too. She smudged her eyes with the sleeves, exclaimed something incoherent to Sarat and dashed inside hastily. Quiroshi followed her with equal passion.

She closed the door and stood at the entrance. Maahir was half sitting, looking gravely tired, covered with bandages all over his chest and left side, on a sleek blue bed, under blue linen bedsheets. His left arm seemed immovable but he was stretching out his right one on the bed, which Quiroshi began to lick enthusiastically.

"No, you can't climb on the bed, Quiroshi," she replied and strode front.

He posed his usual grin, with a little awkward contortion, making her skip another heartbeat. "So, how is Vinpur now?"

"Vinpur?" she asked, amused, sobbing and smiling, "The same as usual. What did you expect to happen to Vinpur in twenty hours?"

"Burnt down to ashes by an indignant young woman?"

"What is that even supposed to mean?"

"Haven't you heard how Kannagi burned down the city of Madurai after Kovalan was wrongfully sentenced to death by the Pandyan King? I was hoping she would be your inspiration."

She chuckled. "You keep on hoping. But neither am I Kannagi nor you are Kovalan."

"That I am not," he said, "I don't have a Madhavi."

"I'm saying you can't even have a Kannagi and you are longing for Madhavi!"

He laughed gauchely and ended up choking. She got him the jug of water on the table and settled on the only wooden chair in the room beside the bed while Quiroshi lied down beneath her. She then handed him the card which she had obtained not more than seven hours ago, with supposed pride and hidden shame.

He took and reviewed it with wild astonishment. He read it many times over and over to make sure it wasn't a mistake.

"Chief is really cruel, you know," he said finally, "He decides to make you permanent the moment I get bedridden."

"You think he did this for you?!" she cried vivaciously, and proceeded to elaborate the whole account of her session with Chief, omitting only the particulars of the resignation letter, which she hoped she might never be obliged to learn to write.

"I know," she concluded, "how hard it is to believe. I too was absolutely stunned when he threw up the card suddenly on the desk and declared I am to be a permanent member out of nowhere."

"Really? I rather find you becoming an officer easier to believe than me getting stabbed by a psycho killer."

The atmosphere turned lightly grim. Her thoughts moved to other serious matters which she had wantonly ignored so far. What happened to the killer? What is to happen to the case now? Are they going to give up on it for good?

"Have we got any leads?" he asked, a bit seriously.

She smiled to herself. This guy would not abort the mission for the world, not until he is forced to. She looked into her handbag and produced the chain that his sword had yanked from the killer's neck artfully. She had forgotten about it entirely until this moment.

He examined it closely, with great muse and wonder. Only his eyes weren't on fire.

"I wish I am wrong," he said, "but I believe I'm not. After seeing this, I am even more astonished how I am still breathing. I should be grateful to know I battled a war veteran and returned only with this scratch."

"Don't say battled. He jumped down, stabbed you and jumped back."

"While I was graciously plucking his dear dollar."

She stifled another smile.

"And not just a war veteran," he continued, "but an original member of Udhir's White Ops. This relic in my hand is so famous that it had found its way in every Theligaian History textbook. It is The Crescent of Rana, the symbol signifying the Hundred men in mask who operated directly under the command of Udhir during the Independence War. It is a semi lunar moon with a sword pierced through the centre obliquely. It looks like a cross from one angle too. Most significantly, if I am right about its origin, this dollar was made from Udhir's own Saberwhite, just like the sword!"

The mention of the sword reminded her of a few more things she had wantonly ignored. "Maahir, about that sword, I'm afraid it was the one I shipped in with me in the January when I came to Gali. It was my last shipment which I failed."

It was his third time that night to gape open at her. "Are you sure?" he asked, croakily.

"I'm positive. It had the same outward design and the yellow stone embedded in the hilt. It had a few carvings too which I don't remember exactly. I used to carry it in a long wooden box but it got stolen in a lodge I stayed. It was after that I began to run out of money and resorted to Rosui beach."

"Why did not you complain to the police immediately?!"

"I had been grown to keep away from the police and there were particular orders to avoid them as much as possible. But I never expected it to end up in the hands of such brutal men."

"You thought people order swords to chop carrots?!"

She guarded silence.

"Never mind. I don't think it's your sword that's in the killer's hands anyway. But for your knowledge, if you are right about your sword being similar to this one, both are Vals. As I told you, these Vals were made up of an amalgam of Saberwhite, the crystal materialized by Udhir's atrial ability. Remember how it glowed a translucent blue in his hands? We literally saw his S.E flowing out. Saberwhite is a very high-grade crystal and with S.E enhancements and war experience like that, it would have cut down my Silamb like a twig, if I they had crossed each other. There were a lot of Vals, handed out by Udhir to his higher soldiers during the war. It's no surprise to see White Ops carrying it. However, the origin of your Val, and its current whereabouts will prove to be quite a bit of mystery indeed. But, I think, we'll have to leave those matters for the future. We have a more pressing task at hand.

Believe it or not, this dollar in my hands is a national treasure. After Udhir's vanishing, most of the White Ops disappeared too. A very few came to the open, that too only on their deathbeds, but even they could not say why or where Udhir vanished to. I reckon only six or seven dollars such as this would have been seen by public, most in museums and a few passed down in the powerful families. This mission is proving to be more and more sensational by every day."

"But why is a White Ops member, who fought for the country, now running amok and killing innocents madly?"

"We got independence in 1445, Udhir disappeared in 1447 and today is 1497. You can never guess how much fifty years can do to a man.

And we are not necessarily sure it's the warrior himself. It could be very well be his son or grandson, seeking some sort of misplaced revenge. I was only guessing when I said he was a war veteran. He seemed a very experienced fighter to me - his manoeuvre adept and strikes precise. But then I'm really inexperienced or he could be just a trained fighter, trained somewhere else.

But anyway first of all, get this chain to Chief in the morning and ask him to verify its credibility. Ask him to give it to the Forensics Division. They should be able to confirm if it's really made up of Udhir's Saberwhite or not."

He reached out the chain but it slipped through his fingers and dropped on the floor. Ezhil bent down to pick it up, but Quiroshi began to bark excitedly as soon as he got a whiff of the dollar that fell near him.

She slowly came up, her face turned ghostly white, and said, with forced calmness, "Maahir, Quiroshi has found the killer."