Ten short tales. Ten riddles. One long night.

A Steward rides home through the dark, and something climbs onto his back that will not be shaken off — a spirit with ten stories to tell, and a question at the end of each that the Steward is forbidden to leave unanswered.

The tales are of a republic that never existed. A hall of mirrors where only agreement is ever heard. A dealer who sells the same sky twice. A treasury kept in two sets of books. A bench quietly bought. A bell muffled — not by force, but by teaching the people to hate the sound of it.

Told in the manner of the Panchatantra and the Vikram–Betal cycle, and drawing its maxims from Chanakya, Cicero, Confucius, Tacitus and Montesquieu, this is an old kind of book about a permanent kind of problem: what power does to those who hold it, and what citizens owe to the truth.

Each tale closes with a riddle, and each riddle with a Bhavarth — a plain reflection on what the story is actually asking of the reader.

No names. No party. No century. Only the pattern — and the question at the end of it.

Illustrated throughout. This is the Indian edition. A Hindi edition is available separately (ISBN 979-8-9982424-0-3).