The Cloud of the Princess - Part I Chapter 20

The conversation between the Vaithiyar and the person whom he identified as 'bhatha' ended after a few minutes and the so called bhaktha left the Vaithiyar's room after get his blessings one more time. The Vaithiyar not knowing that the girls were waiting behind, closed his eyes and started to meditate. Sembaruthi became a bit worried on seeing this. She had expected Jayendiran to have informed the Vaithiyar about their arrival. She did not have the courage to go and disturb the Vaithiyar herself. Even if she had the courage, she would have preferred not to do that. A part of the reason was the peculiar room where she was in. The strange vibrations were still there , but it did not increase and decrease randomly anymore. There was a constant pace to it and she could connect it with the recital of the magical phrase 'ohm' .
She was not sure what to do next except waiting for the Vaithiyar to see and call her. 'It might never happen as he is facing the opposite side and may just get up and go out of one of those doors. ' she thought looking at the five doors that were on the opposite. She decided to wait for a little while before deciding on something. She communicated the message through her eyes to the girls who were sitting nearby. The girls seemed to have understood the message and adjusted their positions as if beginning a wait for a long time.

The wait continued longer than what she had expected it to be. Slowly she began to lose hope about the Vaithiyar seeing and calling her when something suddenly occurred to her. 'I intend to meet the Vaithiyar and discuss what my husband has told me. But i cannot do it with all these girls. The matter concerns the kingdom and it is of utmost importance and secrecy. Is this not an opportunity that is coming my way now? I should make the best out of it. Let me send the girls out to look for Jayendiran while in the meantime i shall go and talk with the Vaithiyar. This is not a small house where these girls will find Jayendiran very easily. This is the biggest house in Araimedu, only after Oorasar Sethupadhiyar's palace. And with Kumudhini leaving tomorrow, hundreds of her relatives have gathered here. The girls will be stopped by every other person they meet in their way and they will have to spend at least a minute with each of them talking about the usual things. Moreover it is very possible that Jayendiran has left the house to do something outside. Yes. He did mention that he had some work to do before sending Kumudhini off. Let me hope that he is not in the house at all. So in any case it will take the girls at least the time to climb and get down a cocunut tree before they find Jayendiran. But...that is only one side of the story...even if the girls don't find Jayendiran soon enough,will i be able to disturb the Vaithiyar who is in deep meditation? Will he be angry at me if i did that? Haven't i heard about angry saints cursing people who break their thavam?. But from what Jayendiran suggested, the Vaithiyar wanted to see and talk to me. It is obviously about the message that my husband has passed across. So why not i go and wake him up myself. It is for the benefit of the kingdom and if i don't do it, i might repent for it later. Moreover there are too many mysterious things that have happened in a day and a half. The Vaithiyar seems to be the best person who can give a solution to the questions that are troubling me. Yes.I think i should wake the Vaithiyar up. And once i send these girls out, i have to be really quick. If luck is against me,I might not get more than a few minutes to talk with him alone and i should make the most of it'

Sembaruthi turned her head slowly and spoke something into Imayaazh's ears.Imayaazh listened carefully and passed the message across to the other girls in the same way as Sembaruthi did. After a few seconds, all the girls except Sembaruthi got up one by one without making any noise and left the room. Sembaruthi after making sure the girls had gone a few steps away,slowly got up without making any noise. She looked around carefully and made sure no one was watching her. With steps resembling a tigress hiding behind a bush, moving cautiously to pounce on its prey, she walked towards the Vaithiyar. She could suddenly feel that the vibrations began to increase and decrease randomly again. 'Oh my god. Is my head swirling? Why are these vibrations increasing and decreasing again. Is someone controlling these vibrations or is it my state of mind that corresponds to these vibrations. Am i walking properly?Or am i falling down into a bottomless dark pit? There is some force in this room. Is this man only a Vaithiyar or is he some sort of a magician? Is he controlling my actions? Here i am in front of him. I have no other option but to wake him up.'

"Ayya. " She called in the mildest of voices possible. She did not know what to expect. She was not even sure if the Vaithiyar had heard it at all.

The Vaithiyar responded without opening his eyes. His voice echoed synchronous with the vibrating frequency.

"Sembaruthi. Quick. Run.Close all the nine doors of this room. You have already wasted a lot of time"

Sembaruthi was shocked to hear the Vaithiyars reply. 'Did he know that i was waiting for him? So why was he meditating all these time then.' She could not think any more. She felt as if something beyond was controlling her. She ran across the circular room closing each door as quickly as possible.
She closed all the nine doors when a slight doubt entered her mind if she had properly closed the eighth door. She went to recheck if the door was closed properly. She tried to push the door to see if it opened but it did not. She suddenly realised that she had not locked any of the doors but still they could not be opened by pushing. She pushed the door in front of her even faster but was not able to. She felt as if she had fallen into a trap. 'How can i open these doors now? I am sure it cannot be opened from the other side. But if i cannot open from it even from inside, then what does all this mean?' she could not find any answer.
The Vaithiyar was still sitting in the middle of the room , meditating.
Sembaruthi checked if the knife she had in her waist was still there.
It was!
She moved slowly towards the Vaithiyar. She came now in front of him.

She was about to ask what the Vaithiyar was up to when the words jammed in her throat. Her head broke into infinite pieces. Her body was drenched in sweat. She witnessed a terrifiying sight.

Oh my God!
The eyes!
The eyes!

The same eyes that made her faint and roll down Madiyamalai three years back!
The same horrific eyes!

Sembaruthi screamed and fainted down locked up alone in the Vaithiyar's room.

Dhalapadhi Maithreyan's chief ottran was starring at her with his red blood eyes.

The Cloud Of The Princess - Part 1 Chapter 19

The Pallakku reached Araimedu.

Sembaruthi and the girls got down one by one. Jayendiran, the one year younger brother of Kumudhini and the only son of Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar waited to receive the girls from Ponvilayur and took them inside the house and showed them places to be seated. It was a happy moment for Jayendiran to meet the friends of his sister after a long time.

“Welcome Devi, Welcome back to Araimedu. We in Araimedu are the happiest people in Pavazhanaadu right now to be blessed with your presence. And Kumudhini I am sure must be the happiest girl in earth to meet her old friends again before she goes to the other side of Amudhu. I Hope the King and the Dhalapadhi are in the best of their spirits back at the capital. We are all indebted to them for our lives.”

Sembaruthi replied after a gentle smile.

“The King and the Dhalapadhi are doing well. And Thanks for the warm welcome Jayendira. We have known each other right from our childhood days and it is really happy to see you and everybody else here again. If you think Kumudhini is the happiest girl on earth, then I will have to disagree with it. Do you think we are all not as happy as Kumudhini? In fact we are even happier, especially because we are back to our own Araimedu. Wherever we live, doesn’t the place where we spent our childhood remain the best place in our lives? Don’t the games we played there remain the happiest times in our lives? And more importantly don’t the friends we gained there remain the closest in our entire lives? It feels as if I have found some missing part of my body back by being here. I don’t know if it is the heart that constantly beats yearning to be here or the brain that constantly thinks of this place or the eyes which long to see this place again. Jayendira…. I just can’t wait to see my Kumudhini. Where is she? It’s been three long years since I have come here. And I think my heart will not allow me to wait any longer”

Jayendiran smiled gently.

“Devi, I am sorry if I don’t have good news for you. I kindly request your heart to prepare itself to wait a little longer before it can flush out the deeply buried seed of friendship. Kumudhini is now with her husband’s mother and it is a customary practice as you know for the mother of the bridegroom to talk to the bride a day before she leaves her birth place to begin the long new journey with her husband. I have always wondered what the groom’s mother will talk to the bride for so long but I found only yesterday from the progidhar’s that the practice involves among other things a promise from the bride to accept the groom’s mother as her own mother and a promise from the groom’s mother to accept the bride as her own daughter. But why do they do it in a separate room , I don’t know.”

Imayaazh cut in

“Jayendira… I think you should stop wondering at things that are meant only for the girls. If you need options to wonder at, I can provide you some. What about thinking why the sword you have is curved rather than straight or why not…”

Sembaruthi interrupted.

“Imayaazh. Have it started it again? Jayendiran is no more a boy that we know of. He is a soldier now in Oorasars Sethupadiyaar’s elite army and we must be proud of it. You can’t behave like that to him”

Jayendiran cleared his throat.

“Devi, let me tell you one thing. If the flowers don’t have a fragrance, they are not flowers. If the fruits don’t taste divine they are not fruits. So does everything in this world have its own characteristics. Imayaazh is not an exception to the rule. If not for the wit she has, no one would even believe she is Imayaazh. Even after fifty years from today I can’t imagine an old Imayaazh sitting at the corner of her house chanting slokas. I would rather imagine an Imayaazh running around and playing with her grandchildren …. and if my guess is not wrong, she would probably be giving them a tough time too”

The girls burst into laughter. Sembaruthi laughed her heart out. She then spoke

“Imayaazh. What do you have to say for this?”

Imayaazh, as if was waiting for the question, fired back

“Akka…. my answer is same as what I told before. The Elite soldier should pick better things to wonder and imagine at. Even I hate to imagine myself fifty years older. And I wonder why he should do it?”

Sembaruthi saw a spark of light in Imayaazh’s eyes. She turned to Jayendiran and saw him trying to control a smile that was balancing itself between his lips and was in the danger of falling out anytime.

Sembaruthi cleared her throat and spoke.

“Jayendira… I have totally forgotten something as we have been speaking and laughing here. Let Kumudhini come once she is done with the groom’s mother. We won’t disturb her immediately. In the meantime can we meet your father and get his blessings. We would be very happy if we can do that”

“Why not Devi? … My father would be really happy to meet you all. Even yesterday night at the dinner, he was mentioning that he would be happy to see you and talk with you. I was quite surprised initially when he told that but only later realized that he had received a message from the Dhalapadhi about your arrival. And you must know how happy Kumudhini was when she heard that. It was like seeing the moon change into the sun”

“What is that Jayendira? The moon changing into the sun?” - Sembaruthi asked.

“I meant her cheeks Devi. Those which were white changed into red because of happiness. Like a lotus covered by a rose”

Imayaazh had no intentions of sparing Jayendiran at that remark.

“Akka. It is a real pity that wars don’t happen frequently in Pavazhanaadu. Is it not because of the lack of wars that soldiers try to become poets?”

“Everybody is a poet in his own world Imayaazh. I, Jayendiran am a Poet. Devi, Sembaruthi is a poet. My Sister Kumudhini is a poet. Why, the King of the nation, Kunjidhapadhanaar is also a poet. But once I have said that, I have to say this too. While everybody is a poet in his or her own world, only some are poetry themselves”

“That was a spark of brilliance. What do you say Akka” Imayaazh looked at Sembaruthi and started to laugh. Everybody in the room knew that it was sarcastic may be except Jayendiran.

Sembaruthi did not want to let Imayaazh go in her way and wanted to spare Jayendiran.

“Jayendira. I don’t wish to drag this conversation. Let us go and meet your father if possible”

“So shall we, Devi. Please wait while and go and find out if it is the right time to meet him”

Jayendiran left the place to go and check if his father was free. Though the Vaithiyar was busy attending someone, Jayendiran did not want to disappoint the girls. He rather asked them to wait in the Vaithiyar’s room while his father would finish talking to whom he was. Also he mentioned that he had to leave to do some works that were pending before Kumudhini left for Eezham.

Sembaruthi thanked Jayendiran once again for the warm welcome before he left the place after showing them the way to the Vaithiyar’s room. The girls opened the door that Jayendiran had showed them and entered Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar’s room. Sembaruthi suddenly felt it was totally different from where they had been sitting so far. The place was so silent that she could hear her own heart beating. All the girls had become absolutely silent. It was a huge room with a number of doors. Sembaruthi counted them by glancing across and there were nine in number. Though Sembaruthi had known Kumudhini and Jayendiran right from her childhood, she had never come to this room. May be it was obvious that at that age, she never had a desire to go and see how the Vaithiyar’s room really looked like

Sembaruthi immediately understood that she and the girls had entered from one of the backdoors of the room. She could see the vaithiyar’s back at a distance and there was someone sitting right in front of the Vaithiyar. Both of them were silent and the man opposite to the Vaithiyar had his eyes tightly shut for some reason. The place was very dimly lit with only three flame torches at the top, each far away from each other and Sembaruthi wondered why they were arranged so. Moreover she was surprised to see the Vaithiyar attending patients even a day before his daughter was leaving for Eezham. She had heard a lot of things about Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar. He was regarded as the best Vaithiyar in Araimedu. Though people all over Araimedu and its surrounding villages knew him, there were only a very few outside Araimedu who knew him. She assumed it was mainly because he never traveled outside nor did he want to spread his name around.

She also knew that he was not only a doctor. He had mastered several arts. Some of them Sembaruthi knew of were astrology, painting and sculpting. She had often heard people say that he was very different from the other Vaithiyars. Some said he used magical powers to cure people but Sembaruthi had not given it much thought so far. As far as she knew, he was her closest friend’s father and that was all about it. But now after seeing the vaithiyar’s room, she felt very strange. She even thought if all those said about the Vaithiyar were really true at all. The room had a peculiar feel. She felt vibrations inside her body especially near her neck. The vibrations suddenly increased a second. The next second it suddenly decreased. She did not know what was causing the vibration. She felt as if things inside her heart were trying to flush its way out through the mouth and got struck near the neck. She had gone through a lot of emotions over the last day and a half. Especially the previous night was really scary. She still had not found an answer to whom she had hit with the stone. She had not got a chance to talk with the Chief Sevagan in private and so was still confused with why he had tied a cloth around his head. She also had begun to doubt the Poosari for reasons she did not know clearly. The things that Maithreyan had said to her were still echoing in her ears like hot fire balls. Bad dreams had haunted her the night before. She felt as if she had unnecessarily fallen into a trap that she did not want to get into at all in the first place.

Problems, problems, problems!! Confusions, confusions, confusions!! They were the only things that were ringing constantly in her mind. She feared for the unknown and she had to find some way to get out of it. Coming back to Araimedu and meeting known people after a long time did help her relax a bit, but she knew it was only temporary. She had to break out of this iron shell that she had wound around herself. She no more wanted to be a snake dancing to unknown mysterious tunes. She wanted to be a rock. Immovable. Strong.

She needed peace. Permanently!

Sembaruthi suddenly opened her eyes. She realized she had lost herself in disturbing thoughts for a few moments. She understood she had heard something at a distance and opened her eyes. What was it?

She heard sound that vibrated in a peculiar frequency. It greatly pacified her speed of thoughts.

“Slowly open your eyes bhaktha”

“Ayya”

“How do you feel now bhaktha?”

“better Ayya”

“do you think you are completely alright now?”

“Ayya. When I had my eyes closed, I was in a different world. It was peaceful there. It was beautiful there. The fruits were sweet, the people were sweeter.When I open my eyes, I am in the same old poisonois world. The fruits are bitter. The people even more. And I not peaceful here”

“Good”

“Ayya”

“Tell me bhaktha”

“Is there not a medicine for peace?”

“bhaktha”

“I have gone to a number of vaithiyars all around Pavazhanadu. But nobody seems to have a medicine for peace”

“what made you think I have it bhaktha?”

“I don’t know ayya. But I strongly feel you have the medicine for peace”

“good”

“can you give me that ayya. I need it badly”

“sure”

“where can I find it ayya?”

“bring me the little golden box that you see in the left corner”

“in a minute ayya”

“here it is ayya. Does this contain the medicine for peace ayya?”

“it does bhaktha”

“can I have it ayya?”

“yes you can have it Bhaktha”

“if so, please give it to me immediately ayya. I need it badly”

“but I need something from you bhaktha before I can give you this”

“I can pay you in land or in gold ayya”

“how much bhaktha?”

“how much ever you desire ayya”

“or is it how much ever you don’t desire bhaktha?”

“ayya?”

“I don’t need land bhaktha. Neither do i need gold bhaktha. Instead,I need a promise”

“what is it ayya?”

“promise me you won’t desire anything bhaktha”

“I promise ayya”

“here is your medicine of peace. open the golden box and you shall find the medicine of peace”

“ayya. thanks a lot. I shall open it immediately.”

“ayya… you have betrayed me. the box contains nothing”

“bhaktha…you have cheated me too”

“what do you mean ayya?”

“you have broken the promise you just made”

“how is that ayya?”

“didn’t you desire to see the medicine of peace when you opened the little golden box”

“yes I did”

“so did you break the promise ….”

It did not stop there but Sembaruthi suddenly felt a lot more relaxed after hearing the conversation between the Vaithiyar and his patient.

The Cloud of the Princess - Part I Chapter 18

Three men were sitting inside a beautifully decorated Mandabam in the Kings palace. All four walls of the mandabam were painted with beautiful drawings depecting natural scenaries. Pictures of different seasons were drawn from left to right following the actual pattern of change of seasons. The perfection of the paintings seemed to baffle the ordinary viewer with its beauty. Especially a painting of the powerful winds accompanied by a hard and vociferous downpour uprooting a huge tree from its base was a masterpiece. It would have made anybody who saw the painting wonder if the artist really sat in the middle of the strong wind and fierce rain while he drew it.

All three men in the room were silent and they had three different expressions on their faces. Their state of mind could be easily compared to the paintings on the wall. King Kunjidhapadhanaar was biting his nails and seemed a bit tensed and confused and his state of mind was similar to the tree blown off by the powerful winds. Dhalapadhi Maithreyan seemed calm and composed and focused on something that he was thinking. His state of mind was similar to a painting that showed a girl in the dark carrying a log of wood on her head as she was walking down the hills finding her path to her home with the help of moonlight. She was focusing both on the rocky path that she had to take and the log of wood on her head that cannot slip off. And so was Maithreyan trying to strike a balance between a number of things that were running inside his head. The other person in the room was Kangeyan and certainly more than the other two, his state of mind had the perfect match to a painting on the wall. The painting showed two ferocious tigers pouncing fiercely over an escaping bear. The bear was just out of reach of the tigers. But that is all that the painting showed. It would have been anybody’s guess that the bear would have not figured anywhere in the painting had the artist captured the scene a few minutes later.

The King cleared his throat and began to speak.

“Dhalapadhi…. what do you think about what Kangeyan has told us now?”

The Dhalapadhi turned to look at the king.

“Ayya… I understand only a very few things from what he has just told us now. We need some more clarification on what exactly happened three years ago on the day when Kangeyan was arrested by my men.”

The King looked at Kangeyan.

“Kangeya! Tell us whatever you know. And you shall get the suitable reward that you are looking for”

“I have told you everything my Lord. I don’t understand what exactly the Dhalapadhi is trying to know". He paused to stare at the Dhalapadhi. It was clear that there was a wave of anger and hatred flowing between the Dhalapadhi and Kangeyan.

Maithreyan cut in.

“I am looking for the truth. And exactly the truth. I don’t want your own stories to be intertwined with the facts. It doesn’t make you any better than what we think you are.”

Kangeyan shouted.

“Do you think I care for what you think about me? Never. I have told the truth and only the truth. And I have told it only because I respect the King and not any other officer who works under him. Not especially those who would dare to marry a girl when she was supposed to marry someone else”

The King interfered before Maithreyan could respond.

“Kangeya… stop it. If you show disrespect to the Dhalapadhi, it is being disrespectful to me. And I won’t tolerate it. If you wish to have what you want, answer whatever the Dhalapadhi asks you. You have no right to speak as you have done now. Don’t think I won’t do anything to you just because you know a bunch of secrets that I don’t. I would very well forget about the cloud of the princess and other such things but behead you at this instant and roar my heart out at your blood that would flow down the floors of the Mandabam”

The voice echoed back and forth and it took a few seconds to die off.

The last few words especially sent a shiver down Kangeyan’s spine. He started to sweat. He realized how stupid he had spoken. He knew he cannot miss a golden opportunity like this just by speaking from his heart. He had to speak from his head. Without giving way for emotions to flush out through his words. He can tackle the Dhalapadhi who had taken his lady love away from him later. More important things need to be done now. He wanted to rule seperately. If this was the chance for it, then there was no reason why he would miss it. He replied without any expression looking at the king's face .

“I am prepared answer the Dhalapadhi’s questions.”

The ever calm and composed Maithreyan seemed irritated at the remarks Kangeyan made about Sembaruthi. But he knew it was not the time he should lose his temper. . He shall save it for the future and unleash it on Kangeyan when the right time arrives. There were more important things to do now and personal emotions had to stay back. He thought for a moment or two and started asking the questions.

“Kangeya. Let us go back three years in time and see what happened on the day when you were arrested. Let me remind you a few things. These are the things that my lord…even you may not be aware of. Kangeya…on that particular day, you had come to the bottom of the hill temple in Araimedu and when you went near a group of girls standing there, you were arrested by my men. I know you were not drunk that day. But I arrested you because some of my men had given me information about the secret group you were forming and I wanted to arrest you all.My first question. why did you come to the hill temple on that day?”

“To meet the girls”

“Do you want me to believe this?”

“I never told so. It is up to you to believe it or not. My Lord ...if the Dhalapadhi wants to provoke me and make me lose my temper, unfortunately he will not be able to do so.”

Maithreyan continued without letting the king to respond.

“If you came to meet the girls, tell me one reason why you wanted to do so?”

“I came to meet my Sister’s daughter. In other words the wife of the Dhalapadhi of this kingdom.I don’t remember the reason why though”

“If you don’t remember, let me remind you a few things. When you came there, your sister’s daughter … the wife of the Dhalapadhi...Sembaruthi was not there in the group. She had gone up to the hill temple. But the first question that you asked after coming there was not about Sembaruthi. It was rather aimed at Kumudhini, Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar’s daughter. I remember the exact words that you told her. ‘Kumudhini… Wait’ were the words. And don’t tell me you wanted to know where Sembaruthi was when you told that. It doesn’t make sense. I am not that big a fool to beleive that either. Tell me the truth. Why did you want to meet Kumudhini? “

“You are clever Dhalapadhi. “

“That does not answer my question”

“Why do you want to know all those things? I have told you what you want to know. The Cloud of the princess will not spare you much time. It is already the second povurnami of Sittirai. You can torture me. You can behead me. But they will take over you. That is bound to happen. The mighty kingdom called Pavazhanadu that the mighty king Aadhirayan built would break up into pieces. It will happen for sure especially if the clever Dhalapadhi will waste time at this important juncture by asking unnecessary questions about some unimportant group of girls who have no relation with the Cloud of the princess or the matters of the Kingdom”

The King interrupted

“Dhalapadhi… even I am quite surprised at your questions. What are you trying to arrive at? How does his meeting with Kumudhini help our cause”

Maithreyan took a deep breath.

“Ayya… if Kangeyan will not tell what happened on that day, then I think I need to tell you. I just was waiting for things to fall from his mouth…but that might just not happen. He is too stuborn and too foolish to under estimate us.

So let me make things clearer. So that we don’t misunderstand or misinterpret the situation.

On that particular day, I had gone to the hill temple beacuase I had one of my Ottran waiting for me at the top of the hill with some information. We had planned to secretly meet on that particular evening near the Sannidhi of the hill temple when he would share all the information that he had collected in the previous month about various things i had asked him to spy for. But before I went there, I saw Kangeyan coming that way and I thought it would be the best chance to have him arrested. So I arrested him and then went up the hill. It tuned out that the information my Ottran had was related to Kangeyan. My Ottran had been following Kangeyan for a while since he was one among the secret group that planned against the oorasars and he was surprised to see what Kangeyan had been doing a day before the arrest took place. The night before all this happened, Kangeyan had followed a group of men to a forest outside Araimedu and had overheard a few things. Unfortunately my Ottran who was following Kangeyan was not able to hear what Kangeyan had heard. Kangeyan had not slept the whole night and the next morning the first thing he did was to rush to Kumudhini’s house. Since he had not slept the whole night, his eyes were blood red. And on seeing this, the soldier outside Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar’s house misunderstood that Kangeyan was drunk refused to let him in.

Kangeyan searched in different places to find Kumudhini, but was not able to. Finally in frustration, he went to the market place that afternoon and slept off. This is when my Ottran left Kangeyan alone and went to the hill temple as we had already planned the secret meeting in the hill temple a long back. And if you remember my lord, my beloved wife Sembaruthi had seen somebody in the hill temple and had fainted the same day. It was none but my Ottran. It happened so that my Ottran was waiting for me a long time and since I was busy with the arrests, he thought I would not make it to the temple that day. Moreover he thought it would be important to follow Kangeyan rather than waiting for me. It was also getting dark and so he started to walk down the hill when he saw an already frightened Sembaruthi. Sembaruthi on seeing the red blood eyes of my Ottran lost balance and started to roll down the hill. My Ottran was about to help her when he saw light flashing from the somebody’s flame torch .He ran away int he opposite direction not knowing that it was the Poosari who was coming down after finishing the temple errands. If I had met my Ottran on that day, I would have known a lot of things long back. But I could not meet him for a long time. And when I met him and when he told me all that had happened, I did not guess that there would a secret group called the cloud of the princess. I miscalculated the whole thing since I had already arrested all the important persons of Kangeyan’s secret group and I thought everything was over. But it doesn’t seem so”

The King was in shock as he listened to the Dhalapadhi’s story. Kangeyan was hundred times more shocked than the King. He had never expected the Dhalapadhi to know so many things that he thought only he knew.

The king spoke

“Dhalapadhi…. things are really frightening me now. So if you know everything that Kangeyan knows, what else do we need to know from him?”

“Ayya… if I had known everything that Kangeyan knows, then I would have found out and destroyed this so called cloud of the princess a long back. But I need to know exactly whom Kangeyan followed into the forests the night before his arrests and what was spoken exactly on that night “

Both the King and the Dhalapadhi turned towards Kangeyan. Kangeyan’s look passed from the king to the Dhalapadhi. It seemed he was mentally preparing to answer the Dhalapadhi’s question.

“Dhalapadhi. You know almost everything. I shall tell you the missing facts.

I first came to know of this group when I was sleeping below a tree in the crowded market place a few months before my arrest. Normally secrets groups would exchange information in secluded places like forests and dilapidated Mandabams. But this group seemed different. They exchanged their secret informations in crowded places. So that they will neither be suspected nor can be followed. Moreover the place was so crowded and noisy that nobody would even hear what they spoke about. I just woke up from my sleep when two men were talking about bringing the king and the kingdom down. I should say I was also thinking in the same lines at that time and so their speech caught me in sudden interest. I pretended to sleep and continued to listen to them. They were clever than I expected. They never mentioned a name in the Kingdom. Their speech was I suppose following some wierd method that I could not understand. Except that they were planning something against the kingdom. And planning to attack some important personality in the kingdom. I tried to follow them after their talks ended. Each person went in a different direction and so i followed one of them . Bu unfortunately i lost track of him in the crowd. I did not talk about this group to any of the members in my group. I wanted solid information before i could do something about it. After a few months by pure co-incidence,I saw them again but this time their place of information exchange seemed to have completely changed. For some reasons I don’t know, they chose a hut in the forest to be their place. I followed them till the hut. I understood that they had a big plan to bring down the kingdom and to execute the plan they needed at least three years. They agreed on the exact date when they would start their attack. And that was the second povurnami of the sittirai month after three years from then. Though they spoke tamil like all of us do, their usage of words was so confusing that an ordinary person like me could not find out much by lisstening to it. After that i kept a close eye on one of them. Though i could not find out where he stayed or what he did, I got only one more chance to follow him and that was on the night before my arrest. On that night ,they discussed a few things that I again did not understand much. But one thing was clear. There was one man in that group who had been living in Vaithiyar Elanchezhiyanaar's house for a few months. Though I did not know the exact reason why they chose the Vaithiyar’s house, I thought it was a blessing in disguise for me. I wanted to meet that person and talk to him about my group so that we could join hands together. And I could not sleep that night. The next day I went to the vaithiyar’s place to find that man there and the Dhalapadhi has told everything that happened after that”

The King looked at the Dhalapadhi.

The Dhalapadhi looked at Kangeyan.

“Do you have any other information?. Why did you plan to meet that person rather than finding more about them by following them. You said you wanted solid evidence before proceeding. And what evidence did you get?”

“Aah… that is the scariest part of all….I forgot to tell you something. I understood that it would be of no use to follow them from then on because of a peculiar reason. And exactly because of that reason, i decided to find out that man in the Vaithiyar's place rather than following him till the forest everytime”

“What was that?”

“They had decided on that night to change their place of information exchange and secret meeting. They had also decided o something else”

"What was it?"

"To change the mode of exchanging secrets"

“And that is?”

“They decided not to exchange secret information verbally”

“then how did they plan to do it?”

“music"

“What do you mean”

“A flute…. they signaled through the strange music of the flute!!”