The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page B

meditation, you invoked Shiva. He came and stood in front of you, silent and blue as moonlight. You asked for a wish to be granted. He smiled. You asked for it again—and again. Five times you made your wish before he had the chance to say yes. Therefore, in this life, you will have what you wanted five times over.”
    Five. The word beat upon my heart, and the warnings of the sage, which I'd managed to push to the back of my mind over the last months, stung me again like poisonweed.
    “What was my wish?” I asked, my throat dry.
    “Haven't you had enough of prophecies yet!” Krishna said. His eyes, bright with amusement, were like black bees.

    King Drupad had invited Sikhandi to stay with him, but Sikhandi politely excused himself. (Drupad tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise his relief at this.) However, when Sikhandi said that he would like to stay with my brother and me instead, I sensed our father's uneasiness. Perhaps he was worried that Sikhandi would be a corrupting influence! But I was delighted. Something about Sikhandi drew me to him. Was it his easy acceptance of me? His own unusual life? He bore hisdestiny so casually, it made me worry less about Dhri's and mine. He made me realize the existence of possibilities I hadn't dreamed of.
    We whiled away his short visit in eating and storytelling and playing at dice (for Dhri had taught me this most unladylike pastime). We laughed a great deal, often at the littlest things. I composed poems and riddles to entertain my brothers and watched as they practiced with swords.
    Dhri bested Sikhandi easily, then asked with concern, “How are you going to defeat Bheeshma?”
    “I don't have to defeat him,” Sikhandi said. “I just have to kill him.”
    Reluctant to let him leave my life, I tried to tempt Sikhandi to remain longer. Was it because one day (if the prophecy about my husbands was true) I, too, would cross the bounds of what was allowed to women? I promised to write a poem in his praise, to let him win at dice, to have Dhai Ma cook his favorite fish curry. Dhri offered to teach him the newest wrestling holds.
    Sikhandi shook his head, his eyes regretful. “Thank you for making me so welcome,” he said. “All my life, people have been glad to see me leave.”
    Dhri gave him his favorite horse and the best spear in the armory. I gave him sweet laddus to eat on the way, and a yak-hair shawl against the approaching winter. In its folds I had secreted gold coins. I imagined his face when he'd discover them on a cold and hungry day in an unfriendly town.
    But he would take nothing.
    “To start my penance,” he explained, “I must travel light, living off only what the land yields.”
    “Penance!” I cried. “For what? It's others who should be doing penance for all the ways in which they've let you down.”
    “To kill the greatest warrior of one's time is a terrible deed,” hesaid, “no matter what the cause. It weakens the foundations of society. It's worse when it's done through trickery—and that's what I'll have to resort to, because certainly I don't have the skill to achieve it otherwise. I'm atoning for it in advance, as it's very likely that I, too, will die in the process.”
    Under the shadow of the palace gates, Dhri said, “Brother, you've been both woman and man. You must know secrets that others don't. Share some of your wisdom with us.”
    Sikhandi's lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Yes, I've learned a few things along the way, though now that I'm neither man nor woman they can't do me any good. But here's one that may be of use to you: the power of a man is like a bull's charge, while the power of a woman moves aslant, like a serpent seeking its prey. Know the particular properties of your power. Unless you use it correctly, it won't get you what you want.”
    His words perplexed me. Wasn't power singular and simple? In the world that I knew, men just happened to have more of it. (I hoped to change this.) I would have to ponder