Shon Mehta

Ularad was a man of simple means, yet he walked with the gait of a king. For fifteen years, his status in his tiny village was anchored to a single afternoon on the road to Sonira. Everyone knew the story. They repeated it often. The great Royal Scholar -- advisor to the Emperor of Jivavarta, a man spoken of as though wisdom itself had chosen him as its vessel -- had tumbled, absurdly and without ceremony, face-first into the mud. There had been a fallen cart, a broken axle, and a moment when greatness had been rendered helpless, ridiculous, and almost human. And then there was Ularad, a man so ordinary that no one had ever thought to notice him before that day. He had stepped forward to help. He had pulled the scholar from the mud. Thereafter, in the village, Ularad was no longer merely Ularad. He was "The Man Who Lifted the Wise." The title was probably given in jest, but in time gave value to his otherwise insignificant existence. So, when word arrived that the great Schol...

  The Vow:  Sthavira boats are lined with ancestral bones, carrying the weight of a stolen past. Kudhiveer woke up before dawn. The air on Jarodha was sweet, heavy with the scent of tropical blossoms gifted by the god Sarvabhu. It felt pleasant—and he hated it.  He was a  Sthavira .  His hatred had long ago ceased to be chosen and had become    habitual, just like breathing. Following the custom of his elders, Kudhiveer cursed the land before his bare feet touched the ground. The trees around his family dwelling sagged with ripe fruit, purple and swollen, their skins split with juice. He refused to look at them. To eat before a raid was to accept the land’s comfort, and comfort was a bribe. Instead, he chewed a strip of dried bark saved from the previous winter. It was dry and slightly rotten, and tasted bitter. For the Sthaviras, bitter was the only honest flavor. He glanced toward the eastern horizon. The morning mist was thinning, and beyond the wat...