The tale of the brothers who outwitted the demon queen - Malay Bera

The Kingdom of Achinpur was on the precipice of demonic takeover. A mysterious woman beguiled the king and infiltrated the royal family. But she wasn't human. She was the daughter of the matriarch of all Rakoshes. A dreadful class of demons. And under her beautiful facade lurked an insatiable appetite for flesh. The king's human queen bore him a son, as did the demon queen, passing her powers on to him. The two princes came to be known as Nilkomol and Lalkomol. Their bewitched father was distant, and their mothers couldn't have been more different. But they were inseparable. Nilkomol fiercely protected Lalkomol. As the brothers grew, the Rakoshi queen secretly devoured the palace's elephants and horses and drained Lalkomol's mother of her life. But it was only when Nilkomol found his brother in a demon's clutches one night, the king paralyzed nearby, that he realized his mother's true nature, just before she managed to devour the brothers. But soon, she regurgitated a pair of metal eggs and hid them in the remote bamboo grove of a distant kingdom. She didn't realize that Nilkomol and Lalkomol had evaded death, encapsulated in the eggs. With Achintur under her full control, Rakoshes hunted humans freely. Finally, one day, the princes burst from the eggs, determined to defeat the Rakoshi queen and end the scourge of demons. First, they came upon a land terrorized by lesser monsters called Kokoshes and staked out an area they frequented, Lalkomol standing guard as Nilkomol slept. That night, Kokoshes approached and asked who was within. As the brothers had agreed, the first word Lalkomol uttered was Nilkomol's name. It made the monsters quake with fear, for they knew Nilkomol was the son of a powerful Rakoshi. To make the ruse more convincing, Lalkomol stuck the tip of Nilkomol's crown through a small crack and said it was his fingernail, sprayed scalding oil from a lamp and called it Nilkomol's spit, and presented a sword he said was Nilkomol's tongue. Pricked by the crown, burned by the oil, and cut by the sword, the Kokoshes retreated. But when they returned and again asked who was inside, Lalkomol, half asleep, accidentally uttered his name first. The Kokoshes burst in, waking Nilkomol whose sword soon slayed them all. The Rakoshi queen heard the news and sent an anonymous message to the kingdom of the prince's victory. It said Achinpur king was ill, and the only cure was oil from a Rakoshi's head. In order to destroy the demon's source of life and save their fathers, the princes sharpened their swords and journeyed to Rakosherdesh, the Rakoshi homeland. When they arrived, they weren't slaughtered as the Rakoshi queen had hoped. Instead, they remained inconspicuous as Nilkomol called for his grandmother, the monster matriarch. She asked them to prove they were her grandchildren by eating iron peas, which Nilkomol did effortlessly as Lalkomol munched on secretly substituted chickpeas. Successfully fooled, the Rakoshi matriarch welcomed the brothers. They feigned fear that the Rakoshes would eat them if she went away, but she reassured them that nothing would happen to her, for at the bottom of a deep well was a box holding two hornets, one containing her daughter, the Rakoshi queen's life, the other containing all remaining Rakoshi life force. Once the Rakoshes went hunting, the brothers took the opportunity to find the well, and Nilkomol plunged in to retrieve the box. The Rakoshes sensed danger as soon as the hornets touched open air, but they couldn't reach the princes before Nilkomol killed the first hornet, and the Rakoshes fell, lifeless. The princes finally returned to Achinpur on the backs of divine birds. Following the message's instructions, they carried a Rakoshi head with them, the matriarch's. When she saw, the Rakoshi queen nearly fainted in shock, and Nilkomol swiftly killed the second hornet. At last, Achinpur's king resurfaced from the demon's spell, and the kingdom was free of invading evils.