"Stone remembers. More than men. More than thrones."
Beneath the sandstone cliffs of the forgotten realm of Vatayana, where wind groaned like grieving widows and eagles flew in solemn spirals above broken palaces, there stood a cave. Not marked on any map, not spoken of in any court, it was older than kingdoms and deeper than sin. Inside, a man sculpted the faces of the dead.
He was known only as Ananthu — not by birth, but by function. In the language of the ancients, Ananthu meant he who records without name. He did not take coin, nor command. He appeared after death, when the last breath had cooled the lips of a monarch. When the kingdom whispered and fell into stillness, he arrived barefoot, carrying a chisel kissed by fire and time. No army guarded him, yet no blade dared touch his flesh.
He sculpted the final face — the Mukharasa, the death mask — of every ruler who had ever sat upon the throne of Vatayana.
It was said these masks were not likenesses, but revelations.
---
Ananthu lived alone, surrounded by thousands of visages.
Some wept.
Some roared.
Some smirked with cruel secrets carved into the lines of their marble brows.
In the flickering torchlight of his sanctuary, they hung from the cave walls like ghostly sentinels — kings, queens, warlords, and usurpers — all now silent, save in stone.
Each mask was a truth hewn from lies.
---
Once, a wandering pilgrim found the entrance by accident, and wandered too far in. The sculptor met him at the heart of the cavern.
"You seek a face?" Ananthu asked.
The pilgrim trembled. "I seek a god."
Ananthu touched the pilgrim's chest. "You carry too many gods on your back. Lay them down. Tell me — what did your king wear when he ruled?"
The pilgrim stammered. "He wore gold. A hundred rings. A sapphire on his turban."
"And beneath it?"
Silence.
Ananthu gestured to the masks. "Here are his rings," he said, pointing to a mask whose hollow eyes were wide with guilt, the lips pursed as if choking on excuses. "And his turban," he whispered, touching a crown carved to resemble thorns.
The pilgrim fled, but the masks remained.
---
In the royal palace of Vatayana, no one spoke of Ananthu aloud. But when a ruler grew ill, the servants would leave three white stones by the gate. If the stones were taken in the morning, it was known — Ananthu had accepted the summons. Soon, a death mask would be carved. And a legacy judged.
Some rulers feared him more than assassins.
---
But how did he know? How did his chisel expose treachery, or mercy, or lust, or cruelty?
The high priests believed he was guided by the Sharva, the oldest spirit of judgment, who lived in bone and silence. The philosophers claimed he read muscle memory — that every wrinkle and scar was a map. The poets said he did not sculpt the face the king had, but the one he deserved.
Ananthu never explained.
He simply carved. In solitude. In silence. In truth.
---
One autumn, when the leaves in Vatayana turned the color of dried blood, the old king died in his sleep.
His reign had been long and stable, if not kind. He had built temples, taxed heavily, and silenced dissent with golden coins and darker means. He had no children. No heir by blood. Only a nephew — Yuvan — young, eager, and hungering for the throne like a lion cub for its first kill.
Yuvan's coronation was swift, but his mind already plotted eternity.
"I do not want to be remembered after I die," Yuvan whispered to his Vizier, eyes alight with ambition. "I want my memory to live before death. Let them see the Face of Power — now. While I rule."
The Vizier, an old man with a bent spine and straight tongue, was wary. "But the sculptor comes only after death, Your Majesty. That is the law of the realm. The sacred order."
Yuvan smiled. "I am the order now. And I summon him."
---
That night, three white stones were placed at the palace gate.
The next morning, they were gone.
---
He arrived at dusk.
Ananthu did not ride. He walked, barefoot, the dust of the city clinging to his robes. The guards parted without command. The commoners watched from doorways, wide-eyed. No one had ever seen him enter a living city before.
Yuvan met him in the Hall of Reflections — a chamber of mirrors where kings once judged criminals, and now judged themselves.
The sculptor bowed. Not deeply. Not reverently. Only with recognition.
"You summon the carver of the dead," he said, "yet no grave has opened."
"I summon the shaper of legacies," Yuvan replied, reclining on a throne not yet worn. "I wish to see the face history will remember."
Ananthu studied him. "Then remove your crown."
The room fell silent.
Yuvan hesitated.
"Why?" he asked.
"Stone sees only what is naked," Ananthu said. "No mask can wear another."
The king removed his crown.
---
They retired to a private chamber. No attendants. No scribes.
Only sculptor and sovereign.
The chiseling began.
---
Each night, Yuvan sat before him. Still as a statue. Yet inside, he burned — with visions of glory, of statues built in his name, of bards reciting his deeds.
But as days passed, he noticed the sculptor's eyes darken. His fingers trembled as he worked. He spoke no words, but sweat beaded his brow. His dreams — when he dared sleep — were filled with whispers, screams, and laughter that wasn't his own.
Ananthu was seeing more than bone.
He was remembering what hadn't yet happened.
He saw blood on marble floors.
He saw servants beaten for silence.
He saw a queen cast from a tower.
He saw temples turned into prisons.
He saw Yuvan — older, crueler, lonelier — clinging to power like a dying man clings to warmth.
And so the mask twisted. Not into the noble visage the young king imagined — but into a truth neither he nor the realm was ready to see.
The jaw grew sharp, like a bird of prey.
The eyes narrowed, not in wisdom, but suspicion.
The mouth curled upward, but the smile was smug — the kind that hides daggers.
It was a face not of power — but of control.
---
On the seventh night, it was done.
Ananthu laid the mask in a velvet-lined box and offered it with both hands.
"Behold," he said. "The face that awaits you."
Yuvan opened it.
And froze.
---
"What... is this?" he whispered.
"A face without death," Ananthu said. "But not without consequence."
Yuvan's hands trembled. "This is not my face."
"It is," Ananthu said. "The one beneath the skin."
The king threw the mask across the chamber. It struck the wall and shattered into three perfect pieces — like prophecy.
"Lies!" Yuvan hissed. "You've cursed me! You've made me a villain in my own story!"
Ananthu looked at the shards. "I did not shape you. I only revealed what time will make."
The king called for guards. But when they entered, the sculptor was gone.
Only dust remained where he stood.
---
In the days that followed, the tale of the mask spread like wildfire. The pieces were hidden, then stolen, then secretly displayed in back rooms of scholars and rebels.
And slowly, the people began to murmur.
If this is the face of our king, what face do we wear when we bow?
---
And somewhere, far from the throne, in a cave among faceless cliffs, Ananthu carved again.
Not with pride.
Not with hatred.
But with burden.
The burden of one who sees too clearly what others refuse to face.
---
One man shapes the legacy of kings.
But truth… shapes all.