It was midnight when I reached my destination — Nagarā, the city that refused to sleep. Lamps burned in every direction, dripping gold across the streets like constellations pulled down to earth. Even the people glowed; they wore bright colours — mostly red — making the night look like dawn trapped inside silk.
For me, Velan Dayanandh, it had been twenty-seven days since I entered the Kaalam — that divine realm where time was supposed to flow in a clean, obedient line. Yet it was broken then, dragging me from 2789 CE to a time nearly three thousand years earlier.
I stood still for a moment, overwhelmed. Nagarā at midnight felt more alive than the present I came from. Merchants shouted over each other. Buyers haggled with hands and eyebrows. Goods were exchanged for goods — no coins, no currency, just trade in its rawest form. The air tasted of spice, smoke, and salt.
Above all of it, the moon hung full and sharp, bright enough to paint shadows. It didn't feel like night. It felt like the world had paused just to greet me.
I stepped through the city gate, dressed in a black vētti and a loose scarf draped around my neck.
To my right, beside the gate, a fisherman-merchant squatted beside a shallow puddle where live fish swam in slow circles. I paused. Then my breath hitched.
Venpavalā.
A creature extinct in my own time, here swimming under lamplight as casually as a carp. Long like an eel, white as pearls, its scales shimmered with a soft fluorescence — absorbing the sunlight of the day, releasing it now in gentle waves. Its blind-looking eyes gave it an almost sacred dignity. The merchant's face glowed blue from the creature's radiance.
No wonder this thing became the crest of the Bāndhas, I thought.
And I wasn't wrong. Killing or eating a Venpavalā was a crime punishable by death. Yet here it was, alive and divine, waiting for someone worthy.
"How much for one?" I asked, opening my palm. Pearls rolled forward — smooth, perfect, hypnotic.
The merchant's eyes widened. "Those are flawless…" He swallowed. "Two pearls for one Venpavalā."
I handed them over without hesitation.
I didn't buy the fish for its beauty — though its beauty was undeniable. Venpavalā held abilities most people of this age didn't even know existed. Two pearls were a steep price, but worth it.
This was one of the reasons I'd come to Nagarā. And I hadn't expected it to fall into my hands so easily.
Now came the second reason — the harder one. But I had to complete the mission or my present would be in grave danger. That was what my master had said.
I needed the Venpavalā to refill my copper kada, the relic that allowed me to enter the forbidden depths of Kaalam, where only one being held dominion:
The Time Emperor Yaali.
A monstrous being — two arms, four legs, the body of a lion, and human-like arms ending in claws. Instead of a nose, it bore tusks and a curling trunk like an elephant's. Yaali was the keeper of time itself, a judge older than kingdoms. Its features were etched into my memory after seeing it just a single time.
If I refilled the energy of my copper kada, the second mission would be done.
I had to do it for the sake of the existence of the future.
The mission my master gave me was to…
kill the king of the Bāndhas[1]
[1] Bāndha was one of the kingdom of Epic Tridom (Sernas, Shoals, Bāndhas) and its capital city was Nagarā