The last wall held multiple television screens, all of them showing the same video feed. A blue-skinned yaksha in a sparkling suit spoke into the camera: “We’re coming to you live from the audition field of THE FINAL STAGE, the multiverse’s only talent show for what may very well turn out to be the last and final age!” The yaksha let slip a frantic laugh. “Which is fine! Everything is…fine. So, um, let’s meet the newest contestants, shall we?”
“WHAT DRIVEL,” groaned a voice from the chair.
“Tumburu, I have some people I’d like to introduce you to,” said Menaka.
Aru braced herself as the chair slowly swiveled around. She knew that a gandharva was a celestial musician, but she’d never heard the name Tumburu before they arrived here. Was he going to be awful and condescending? What if he refused to help them?
Do you know anything about this guy? asked Aru through the mind link.
Nope, said Brynne. But he’s a gandharva, so he’s probably going to be super tall, super handsome, and—
Tumburu was a horse. Well, at least he had the head of a horse, which was not what Aru had expected. Short, glossy sea-green hair covered his face and neck. His mane, which was sea-foam green with white ends, had been artfully coiffed to one side. From the neck down, he was a well-dressed man. A white silk scarf hung around his throat, and beneath it he was wearing a navy Nehru jacket with golden cuffs, black pants, and a pair of satin loafers with the words THESE COST A LOT embroidered along their tops.
Tumburu must have been just as surprised as Aru, because when he saw them he skittered backward in his chair, hand clutching his scarf.
“OH, DEAR LORDS!” he exclaimed.
A moment later, there was a loud pop! as Mini and Rudy appeared beside Aru. Mini was wearing the same clothes as before and she still looked a little sad, but she flashed a smile when she saw Aru and Brynne. That didn’t take too long, Mini said through the mind link. How’d it go?
Aru was about to respond when Rudy groaned. He was draped in a cloud robe and wearing a face mask. “I was right in the middle of a meditation session.” Two cucumber slices peeled off his eyelids and hit the floor. “HORSE!” he yelled, jumping back.
“EW!” said Tumburu, cringing before he looked at Menaka. “My dear, what in the world is this? Why are you accosting me with”—he wiggled his fingers at them—“lower life-forms?”
“Calm down. We’re just teenagers,” said Aiden flatly.
“I stand by my choice of words.”
Touché, thought Aru.
“Tumburu,” said Menaka, pointing to Aiden. “This is my grandson. And these young ladies…are the Pandavas.”
“Don’t mind me,” muttered Rudy. “I’m just a prince among peasants.”
“They need a blessing of celestial musical talent,” said Menaka, talking over Rudy. “And I have sanctioned it.”
“A musical blessing?” repeated Tumburu. “Whatever for?”
Behind Tumburu, the now-muted televisions showed auditions for the Final Stage. A group of naginis in matching outfits and glittery eye makeup hissed and flared their cobra hoods at the indifferent judges before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. Tumburu followed Aru’s line of sight. He turned his head, looking at the monitors and then back at the Potatoes.
“You’re joking.”
Brynne’s lip curled. “Yeah, we’re trying to prevent the end-of-the-world war. Hilarious.”
“But what does that abomination of entertainment have to do with war?” asked Tumburu, watching the screens.
Just then, the cameras panned out from the auditions, revealing the crystalline Final Stage and the violet portal hanging above it. The portal that was all that stood between the Pandavas and any hope for a future. Aru’s heart sank. Maybe the Sleeper and Kara had already gotten hold of the nectar of immortality. Maybe this whole thing was a waste of time.
Understanding flickered in Tumburu’s eyes. “You wish to enter the labyrinth and make it a last battlefield,” he said in quiet awe. “But surely you can just go there directly? Aren’t there buzzing, deadly whatnoticals you might avail yourselves of?”
“You mean our godly weapons?” asked Brynne, touching her choker.
Gogo gave off a faint and, Aru thought, offended glow.
“Sure,” said Tumburu. “We of the heavens rarely bother to concern ourselves with human affairs. Though I have to admit that this”—he paused to look at the screens, which were now showing a pair of jugglers being forced off the audition platform with flamethrowers—“is concerning on many levels. First and foremost, do they really believe that, if the world is ending, a person wants to watch professional clowns before he shuffles off this mortal coil?”
Menaka coughed loudly.
“And secondly,” said Tumburu, removing his glasses to clean them with his scarf, “I’m simply not ready to bid farewell to existence. There’s far too much music still to experience. Too many rhythms begging to exist! Too much inspiration that I must guide into the universe!”
As he said this, he raised his arms dramatically in the air. Then he brandished his eyeglasses at them. “So, what’s the meaning of this?” asked Tumburu. “Why can’t you simply…flee to the labyrinth? As I understand it, the maze will certainly allow entrance to those with a godly mark of approval.”
Beside Aru, Mini looked crestfallen. Aru knew her sister was thinking about how they should’ve already been inside it by now…but it wasn’t only her fault. Aru felt the burden of guilt, too. All the wrong choices she’d made reflected back at her like a poisonous mirror. There were a thousand things she should’ve done differently.
“Our weapons were destroyed,” said Brynne before touching her wind mace. “Well, most of them.”
Tumburu gasped. “And so you find yourself cursed and forlorn? Cast out of all that was familiar?”
Aru’s ears turned hot. “This isn’t some kind of joke, okay?”
“Oh, my dear, I am not joking!” said Tumburu. “Trust me, I’ve been there. It was awful.”
He swept a hand in front of the televisions behind him, whickering sadly. Behind him, a creature took shape on the screens. It was huge—the size of ten oaks stacked atop one another. Its flesh was the color of expired yogurt, and yellow fangs curled out from underneath its flared nostrils. A mane of neon-orange hair fell down its back and arms, and it wore a loincloth of jaguar pelt.
“I mean, look at me,” said Tumburu. “Look at what I was forced to wear!”
“Wait a minute….That’s you?” asked Rudy.
“Well, was,” said Tumburu. “Lord Kubera cursed me to become a demon—it’s a long story, but he and I eventually made up eons ago. Rather unfortunately, I was cursed to be impervious to weapons. Then I ran into the god king Rama and his brother, Laxmana, and I had to do the whole Roar!-I-kill-you-now thing, even though I really did not want to.”
Mini raised her hand. “But if you couldn’t be killed by any weapons, how did you…uh…”
“Get liberated from my mortal existence as that Hell Muppet?” asked Tumburu.