Secret of the Himalayan Treasure

by Divyansh Mundra

  ​ “And you know the mountain?” Rehann asked.

  ​ “Of course. It’s Nanda Devi.”

  ​ “Nanda Devi?” they asked.

  ​ “Yes. Nanda Devi is the second highest mountain in India. It was actually considered the highest mountain in the world up until the nineteenth century and it lies right here in Uttarakhand. It’s a two peaked massif, one of the peaks considerably taller than the one adjoining it. It means that it has two heads. The taller one is called Nanda, while the shorter one adjoining it is called Sunanda. Both the goddesses Nanda and Sunanda are believed to be sisters, the elder one and the younger one according to the Hindu mythology. Hence the name. The little sister Sunanda, holding onto the elder one, Nanda. It is Nanda Devi.”

  ​ “Wow”, Rehann uttered. “But what about the treacherous waters and the three guards?”

  ​ “Shall cross the treacherous waters adorned by the dead ”, Aarav read the line again. “There is a lake near Nanda Devi Mountain called Roop Kund. I actually like its other name; the Skeleton Lake.”

  ​ “The Skeleton Lake?”

  ​ “Yes. The Skeleton Lake. To the hikers it is just another calm and serene glacial lake. It remains frozen for the better part of the year and actually appears quite beautiful barring the fact that hundreds of human skeletons and bones have been found in and around the lake.”

  ​ “What?”

  ​ “Yes. National Geographic even did a documentary on it. The lake is hardly two meters deep and as I said, it remains frozen, but once the ice melts, you can actually see human skeletons lying inside its blue waters. It was a curious mystery; kept the best of geneticists scratching their heads. The British originally thought that they were remains of a hidden Japanese force during World War 2, but the bones were far too old. Research indicated that the skeletons dated back to eighth or ninth century AD, but if this map marks its location as the treacherous waters adorned by the dead, it means that the skeletons were in existence even at the time when this treasure was moved here. That would push their date back to more than a thousand years than what is currently thought of. This is remarkable.”

  ​ “Are you sure that Roop Kund is the ‘treacherous water’ that the map talks about?” Rehya asked.

  ​ “Of course. The three guards prove this fact. Here. Look.” Aarav pulled up the map on his mobile and pointed to the location of Roop Kund. “That’s our skeleton lake. Now if I zoom out further, you’ll see that these three mountains almost stand in a straight line. That’s Mt. Nanda Ghunti, Mt. Trishul, and Mt. Mrigthuni. They all align in a straight line. The three guards of gods, who stand straight and proud. ”

  ​ Rehya and Rehann looked at each other in amazement, while Aanya kept on driving with an excited face.

  ​ “And if I zoom out further”, Aarav continued. “There you have the Nanda Devi peak; the two sisters.”

  ​ “Marvelous”, Rehya spoke.

  ​ “So we have to cross the treacherous lake, then cross the three mountains and then we will see the Nanda Devi peak?” Aanya added.

  ​ “And in between the three mountains and Nanda Devi, our ears will her the noise to the supreme treasure a man will see with his eyes ”, Rehya concluded.

  ​ “We are on the right path. We’ll just have to take a detour and align ourselves with this road here, and then we might cross the three mountains by tomorrow afternoon if we start our trek in the morning”, Aarav added. “Thank the gods that we bought those fur coats on our way from Nepal. Because things are about to get really cold.”

  ​ Suddenly, they heard loud screeching of tires behind them. The car carrying Rehya’s guards applied sudden brakes to prevent collision with a car which came from behind them and tried to overtake. But by then it was too late. The other car hammered head first into them with might, making them hit the railings on the other side and turn. Rehya and her three companions watched in horror as the other car broke the railings and rolled over to the side.

  ​ And then there was nothing.

  ​ The car which carried the guards fell down the chasm, crashing multiple times on the hard rocks on the way and still tumbling down with might, only to get lost in the darkness. The sound of an explosion was heard a few seconds later, waking up the quiet valley under the dusky sky. The other car which had pushed it off the cliff, reversed back and soon faced the car which Aanya was driving. That is when the four of them saw the faces of the driver and his companions.

  ​ They wore the bull masks.

  ​ A terrifying jolt gripped the four of them. Aanya stomped her foot hard on the accelerator and the car gained momentum. She drove hard, maneuvering through the narrow roads of the cliffs like a professional while moving at a great pace. The other car followed them hurriedly, trying to bridge the gap between as soon as possible.

  ​ “How is it possible? I thought you killed everyone”, Aarav yelled.

  ​ “We did terminate everyone who were there in the building”, Rehya defended herself.

  ​ “K had left with two of his men soon after you went to the hotel”, Rehann came to the aid of her sister.

  ​ “And you are telling this to me now?” Aarav barked at the top of his voice before he had to jump down as a bullet hit the hind glass of the car, cracking it magnificently. “Duck”, he shrieked as he pulled Rehya down alongside him in time, as another bullet hit glass and it gave away, shattering into a million pieces.

  ​ “Move. Faster. Now”, Rehann yelled as he ducked too.

  ​ “I’m trying”, Aanya replied as she pumped up the speed of the car further, driving dangerously close to the end of the cliff. A volley of bullets was being showered upon them, breaking the remaining glasses and bouncing off of the metal body of the car, endangering their lives with each passing second.

  ​ “Keep driving. This path will lead us to the main road above”, Aarav said as a bullet bounced just past his neck. “Faster”, he yelled before pulling out his own gun and firing it at the car which trailed them, only to be unsuccessful.

  ​ The bombardment of bullets however only seemed to increase with time. Soon, a bullet found its way on one of the rear tyres of the car that Aanya was driving, and that is when she lost control. The tyre burst with a loud bang and the car tilted towards its left, the four of them could feel their bodies lifting up in the air because of the momentum when the car almost turned. It hit the railing overlooking the cliff and slid on it for some time, creating sparks and an unholy screeching sound along with it. Aanya pulled the brakes and turned the steering hard towards her right, their car managing to get back on the road on all its fours and not falling down the chasm somehow. The car trotted further ahead, its speed slowing down tremendously due to the burst tyre. And by the time Aanya made it abandon the narrow path and join on the intersecting main road above, the Bulls had covered the distance. They ran their car parallel to Aanya’s and soon bashed into them, making her pull the hand brake and crashing into a tree to the side. The Bulls pulled up their car too and K, who had abandoned his mask rushed out with fury along with another Bull. He hurried towards Aanya first, who had a cut on her head as her face had slammed into the steering wheel when the car crashed. He opened the gates with his unbroken hand, grabbed her neck and pulled her out furiously, throwing her on the ground. He then went towards Aarav and did the same to him, throwing him down on the ground and starting to hit him with his legs as his man pulled out the other two.

  ​ “I will kill you”, he yelled as he kept on digging his shoes hard into Aarav’s abdomen. “I will rip your guts out and feed them to the dogs.”

  ​ “Stop”, a female voice spoke as another car pulled up next to them and she got out.

  ​ “I will kill him right now”, K yelled as he pulled out his gun and placed it on Aarav’s head.

  ​ “I said stop”, she spoke with a firm voice.

  ​ “He killed my boys”, K cried. “He betrayed you”, he said as he landed a powerful blow to Aarav’s face. “He mad
e me suffer.” K lost it. He punched Aarav again and again on his face, opening the scar on his cheek again.

  ​ “I said that it’s enough”, she stared hard into K’s eyes, finally making him stop.

  ​ Aarav rolled on the ground, his body aching in agony, while the two other Bulls brought out the other three passengers and made them sit on their knees with their hands held to their backs. Aarav finally gazed at her, his heart still surprisingly skipping a beat. She looked radiant as ever, her deep blue eyes standing out in the twilight sky behind her. Yet there was something serious about her appearance. Aarav knew that whatever she had felt for him was gone the very moment he had betrayed her.

  ​ “Pick him up”, she ordered K as he obliged frustratingly, making Aarav sit on his knees like everyone else. The roads around were unusually calm, hardly any vehicle passing by. And it gave her enough time to get what she wanted. She pulled out a gun and placed it on the temple of Aarav’s head, slowly sliding it down as she gazed hard into his brown eyes, only to stop at his bleeding lips.

  ​ “Shayna… please don’t…” Aarav managed to speak before being greeted by her slap.

  ​ “You have done enough talking. You have pulled enough antics. You won’t say a word unless I ask you to. You won’t drink a single drop unless I tell you to. You so much as try to do anything stupid this time and I swear to god, I will shoot all your friends myself before throwing you off a cliff.”

  ​ He stared at her face intensely, wondering if he should have revealed her identity to the Prime Minister when he still had time.

  ​ “You don’t know what you have done. You will face the highest level of punishment for your acts”, Rehya uttered.

  ​ “Who is this one now?” Shayna spoke asserting her power with calmness.

  ​ “She works for the Prime Minister”, K provided the input.

  ​ “Oh! I don’t need her then”, she pointed her gun towards Rehya.

  ​ “Hey! Shayna! Don’t do this. Please, I beg you”, Rehann defended her.

  ​ Shayna made an irritated face. “Don’t tell me that you have fallen for a woman older than you too? I thought your friend and I had something special?”

  ​ “She is not my…” Rehann continued. “She is my sister.”

  ​ “Oh! Then her death will hurt you even more I bet.”

  ​ “Shayna please. It is over”, Aarav added looking at her with his unapologetic eyes. “The Prime Minister knows about the treasure. It is the government’s property now. No one needs to die for it.”

  ​ She looked at him patiently while one of her men found all the books and other treasure related paraphernalia in the trunk of the car.

  ​ “You can still save yourself”, Aarav continued. “There is still time.”

  ​ She thought for a moment. “I know that you’d have found the map now that you have all the seven books. But you won’t lead me to the treasure until I force it on you. I’ll kill them all if that is what it takes now Aarav. You’re a clever man and I’ve learned it the hard way to not trust you. I don’t intend to be fooled again or go easier on you.”

  ​ “Shayna I did what I had to do because I was right.”

  ​ “You lied to me”, she yelled all of a sudden, shocking everyone else who stood around. “You broke my trust. You broke my love. You… you broke my heart.” She had tears welling up in her eyes. “I learned it hard to never trust a man the first time and I faced it all again with you. You all betray in the end.”

  ​ Aarav didn’t know what to say.

  ​ “I loved you Aarav Kohrrathi. I even dreamt that we would be together when I would have the treasure in my hands and all of this was over. I chose to forgive you, I chose to not kill you and your friends and I chose to trust you. But you proved it in the end. When the chips are down, love is always murdered.” She pointed her gun hard towards Rehann. “This time it won’t be the only thing.”

  ​ “No!” Aanya and Rehya yelled together. Rehann was left with his mouth open and just waited for the bullet to strike him at any moment before everything turned dark. Shayna had tears in her eyes as her hands almost shivered, waiting to see something in Aarav’s eyes before she would pull the trigger.

  ​ “Fine!” Aarav finally said as he looked trustingly into her eyes. “You win. I will tell you everything. I will tell you where the treasure is. But know it for sure that I wasn’t the one who betrayed you.”

  ​ Shayna removed her finger from the trigger of the gun.

  ​ “You betrayed yourself Shayna. You are the reason your own fall.”

  ​ He then told her everything. Everything about translating the inscriptions from the seven books, to finding the way to the treasure beneath the floor of a small monastery in Nepal, to decoding the final problem in the treasure map, to pointing out the location of the treasure, somewhere after crossing the Skeleton Lake and the three mountains and before Nanda Devi.

  ​ She closed her eyes and hid the turmoil she was going through in her head; torn between her love and her ambitions. She looked again at all their faces. The face of an angry Aanya, who considered Shayna to be her friend, only to find out that she was responsible for her father’s death. The face of a shocked Rehya, who was surprised by the fact that Shayna Maheshwari was the evil master all along. The face of a scared Rehann, who was imagining the worse of what she would do to them now that Aarav had told her everything. And the face of her love, himself upset for what she had become, and still trusting her with everything that he had, hoping that she would understand. The emotional turmoil was proving to be too much for Shayna. For a better part of her life she had suppressed her emotions and became the ruthless and charming business tycoon that she was. And then all her emotions and all the feelings that she had suppressed for years suddenly came rushing back, making her powerless.

  ​ That is when she broke.

  ​ She looked away and averted her gaze from meeting Aarav’s. She had given him much more of herself than she was ready to acknowledge. Aarav himself took in a deep breath as he saw tears dripping down her eyes, knowing that the Shayna he had fallen for, the Shayna he had seen on the serene beach in Sri Lanka, was still there. She slowly wiped away her tears, her emotions making her cry profusely. Nobody was speaking a thing. Nobody was able to comprehend the kind of upheaval she was going through. Nobody… but Aarav. He stood up slowly and gained his balance as he darted his warm eyes into her grieving ones, assuring himself that she would understand now that he had told her everything.

  ​ “What have you done to me?” Shayna cried.

  ​ “I have loved you”, he replied affectionately.

  ​ “No. No you haven’t”, she denied. “You have just used me. You have just used my affection for you as a means to achieve your wishes.”

  ​ “You know that it’s not true.”

  ​ “Really? I have lost my pride, I have lost my goals, I have been embarrassed and I have been used. I failed to protect the secret I swore to and I failed to give my heart to you. What have you lost, Aarav Kohrrathi? You are on your way towards the greatest treasure in the history of mankind without having any claim to it. You are indeed the shrewdest man I have met after all. Your love for me was just a trick, an elaborate ruse to weaken my strengths and tricking me when you had the time. Who knows that if it wasn’t for you, I’d have claimed the treasure by now?”

  ​ “So then kill me”, he barked. “If this is all just a ruse, then save us the drama and kill me, like you have murdered all those people.”

  ​ “I just might”, she pulled up her gun and again placed it on Aarav’s head. All the men present around stood shocked, even the Bulls.

  ​ “Do it”, Aarav had tears in his eyes too. “You were the most powerful women I have met in my life and now look at you, crying like a teenage girl because her crush didn’t like her back. Do it. Look what I have made you. A pathetic woman who is so deep in turmoil just because she developed feelings for someone like me.” He walked a st
ep closer and touched his head to the barrel of the gun. “Do it Shayna Maheshwari. End all your pains, all your sufferings once and for all and just kill me. You don’t need me for the treasure hunt anymore. You know where it is.”

  ​ “Stop it”, she begged him, trying to control her tears.

  ​ “I caused you pain. I am the reason for all your sufferings. It was my idea that ruined your glorious plan. It was me all along who had gained your trust and made you weak, so that one day, I’ll be staring down a gun that you’d be holding in your hand and know that you won’t even have the courage to pull the trigger.”

  ​ “Don’t make me”, she begged him, her finger playing near the trigger.

  ​ Aarav looked straight into her eyes with his moist and disappointed ones as he finally spoke again. “Do it.”

  ​ But she did something else.

  ​ She pulled her gun down and held onto Aarav’s face as she bit his bleeding lips hard, all her emotions, all her anger brought out as she kissed him like she never had before.

  ​ And then she pulled back, lifted up her gun and pulled the trigger.

  ​ The bullet entered Rehya’s stomach in the blink of an eye. None of the men around were able to bring their minds to what had transpired. Rehya looked into her brother’s eyes for a second before her body fell back. Her head smashed onto the cold ground as darkness started welling up around her eyes and she submitted to the shock.

  ​ “NO!” Rehann and Aanya yelled together as they went for her. The Bulls stood stunned around, themselves coming to terms with what had happened. While Aarav and Shayna kept staring into each other’s eyes, his losing faith on himself and hers finding her power back.

  ​ “What have you done?” Rehann shrieked at the top of his voice. “Call an ambulance.”

  ​ Shayna continued looking hard at Aarav for a few more seconds. “Tie them and put them in your car”, she ordered the Bulls. “Tie him and put him in mine. Let her bleed, the dogs will soon find her body.” She walked back slowly towards her car, wiping away her tears and rooting instead for the treasure ahead.