Chapter – 2

He stood near the door thinking for a while. The fingers of his right hand twisted as they touched his cheek. His left hand lay along the length of his tall figure. His eyes looked into the outside world. Huge clouds towered, obscuring the setting sun. Strong winds blew around him. His questions needed answers. And he had to find them whatever be the cost.

A thousand years. Why a thousand years? To this question, he knew not the answer. How would he find it? To this also, he knew not the answer. All he had in hand were the words of a child who named himself the Wind. Was he really the wind? Again a full stop. And to the mission of finding these answers, he now devoted himself.

He remembered the sage. When he had fled from his city, he had come to a hermitage that lay beside a small muddy road that led towards unknown lands to the east. A sage appeared in front of him and pointed his hand towards him. And then the sage had spoken,

For a thousand years you shall nurse your revenge and time will decide whether you pass the test or not. For a thousand years shall you wait in solitude, speaking with no human and when the winds speak to you, you shall be released to your doom.

And to that, he had replied, What test?

The sage had said, The test of your sanctity, the test of your righteousness. Fear not the exile, son of the earth. Finally, it is the righteous who are victorious over those who are not.

But why me?

You are chosen because you are the herald of those who believe that the righteous shall rule the earth unchallenged. You are the epitome of sanctity, of holiness. True it is now that you have been defiled and through you, they have defiled the sanctity of this kingdom. But you shall rise, O King, and then you shall overcome those who sent you to your exile. Fear not and make your way to the South. Diminish away from this sinful world and when it most needs you, they shall call you. When the world sees that it cannot stand the rivers of sin any longer, it shall call you and the wind shall be its agent because none now exists in the world that can move faster than the wind. So, son, wait. You shall be rewarded.

As the dreams gushed through his mind, he still asked himself the question, Did the world require thousand years to understand that it cannot stop the rivers of sin from flowing? And to this question, his conscience replied To this question, the world must give the answers, the world must give the answers.

The world must give the answers. He smiled as he received a sensible reply from his clear conscience. And to seek these answers, he must roam the outside world; he must roam the outside world and ask those who had once dared to defile him. He believed that by seeking these answers, he might even seek his long withheld revenge that burnt in his heart.

Strong winds gushed again and the towering clouds moved towards the mountains under which he had delved his home. He nodded his head, "The wind was the call. The call of doom. I must leave this place now, must leave this place."

Saying this, he took his sword that lay hanging on the escutcheons placed on the right hand wall and without once looking back strode out of the cave never to return.