Secret of the Himalayan Treasure

by Divyansh Mundra

  ​ Rehann looked at Aarav again, his finger quivering around the trigger of the gun, just waiting for a nod from him to end her.

  ​ “Rehann”, Aarav shook his head. “Please don’t.”

  ​ “What are you going to do? You’re going to let her walk away from this?”

  ​ “Rehann…”

  ​ “I respect your feelings Aarav”, he raised his voice. “I do. I really do. I always have. It is about time that you respected mine.”

  ​ Aarav looked into Shayna’s moist eyes through the showers being sprayed on them by the waterfall. Her blue eyes dug into his brown ones, her emotions taking over her cold side, her love conquering her materialistic ambitions.

  ​ “She killed my sister. She killed Rehya, Aarav. You saw it with your own eyes. And you cannot expect me to not kill her when I have the opportunity.”

  ​ “She saved us Rehann.”

  ​ “After being the one who got us here in the first place”, he yelled.

  ​ “Rehann. Don’t. Please I beg you. You’re not thinking straight right now.”

  ​ “And you are? If you weren’t blinded by your love for her in the first place, you’d have seen who she really was.”

  ​ “Rehann look…”

  ​ “Don’t Aarav. You have a brother. Tell me what would have happened if she had shot him dead in the middle of a deserted road and walked about like nothing had happened? Would you think even for a second before pulling the trigger?”

  ​ Aarav grew quiet and looked at Shayna again, his emotions clouding his logical self. Aanya stood quietly in the back, unable to think of what to say to them. Shayna was down on her knees, crying to herself and staring at the waterfall. None of them spoke anything for some time, only the sound of the waterfall echoing across the icy terrain.

  ​ “Then let me do it”, Aarav said as he extended his hand and asked for the gun from Rehann. “Let me be the one who ends her life.”

  ​ Rehann looked back at Shayna and turned again to face Aarav. He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes as he looked above, before handing over the gun to Aarav and walking the narrow path back up to the surface.

  ​ “We can hand her over to the authorities, Aarav”, Aanya spoke. “You don’t have to do this.”

  ​ “And they’ll kill her anyway”, he had tears in his eyes. Aanya looked at him with concern as he started shivering. “Go”, he said. “Stay with him. I will have to do what is necessary.”

  ​ Aanya looked at Shayna for the last time before leaving.

  ​ Both Aarav and Shayna gazed at the waterfall falling from behind them, hearing its thundering sound, as its ice blue water sprayed on them, chilling them to their bones. But it wasn’t the cold that bothered them, it was her end that did. She had to go and they both knew it. Maybe they wanted to enjoy their last moments together, cherish the good memories that they shared no matter how little they were. Hence they both didn’t utter a word to each other but kept staring at the falls instead with tears rolling down their eyes.

  ​ “This waterfall was yet undiscovered”, she finally spoke. “I’d die in peace knowing that it was named after me, knowing that I would leave something behind when I’m gone.”

  ​ Aarav cried even harder.

  ​ “It is funny if you look at this Aarav. All these days, throughout our journey, we were just focused on the treasure. Whatever actions we took, whatever things we did, it was all just so that we could reach to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You chased it for your love of history and I did it for the unimaginable power it could give me, it was all black and white. But now that we are finally here, none of us cares about the treasure anymore.”

  ​ “It is the journey that matters Shayna. Not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  ​ He finally pointed his gun at her.

  ​ “You are the only woman in my life Shayna”, he continued. “Meeting you has changed me in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined. I remember how struck I was by your beauty when I saw you for the first time. And even though I was focused on the hunt, even though I was excited about the adventure; my mind had lost all thoughts when my eyes met yours. Your beauty captivated me, your demeanor made me lose my senses. And that night when we… when I…” he choked. “I have never said this to a woman before and I probably never will. Shayna Maheshwari, you completed me. You gave my life a purpose, a direction, something that my emotionless heart can feel and gladly get lost into. What you did was wrong, yes; but I really don’t care about it right now Shayna. I know I never went along with women but there was something about you that made me be who I really am.”

  ​ Shayna was crying.

  ​ “You know I had this dream, that somewhere down the line I’d be happily celebrating my wife’s hundredth birthday, in our home, where we would have seen our children and grandchildren grow up. We would be surrounded by our family and friends, my wife and I; and I would hold her hand as she would cut the cake and then look into her amazingly exquisite eyes as I would tell her that we made it. We made it through all the ups and downs of our lives, we had the best of times and we had a few hiccups. I knew deep in my heart that I would meet that person one day and spend the rest of my life with her.”

  ​ She continued crying.

  ​ “You were supposed to be the one Shayna.”

  ​ “I love you Aarav”, she controlled her tears as she stood back up and walked ahead to face his gun. “I wish I was the one who’d have accompanied you to fulfill your dream. I wish I’d have met you sooner before it all had started. Maybe I never would have done what I did. But we both know that you’d have to kill me now. So just do it.”

  ​ “I don’t want to”, he cried. “I don’t want to end this… to end us. I want to be with you Shayna. There is nothing left for me out there if you’re gone.”

  ​ “I’m glad to know that, I really am Aarav. But we both know that it cannot happen. They will never let me get away with my crimes. So promise me that once this is all over, you won’t do anything stupid. You’ll meet someone far beautiful than me. Someone who has the purest of heart like yourself. Someone you truly deserve. We were never meant to be together Aarav. After all that I did, it is only a surprise that we both still love each other.”

  ​ “I cannot kill you Shayna.”

  ​ “Then I’ll have to take the leap. Go down with that waterfall. It will be a poetic justice indeed if you end up naming it after me”, she smiled.

  ​ Aarav looked towards the falls, his mind filling with dread as he imagined what would happen to a person who would go down under its might.

  ​ “No”, he spoke, his hands shivering. “It has to be me.”

  ​ “Then do it Aarav Kohrrathi. Let’s end this once and for all.”

  ​ He took in a deep breath, his fingers wavering around the trigger of the gun, his body shaking, his eyes pouring out tears and his heart wanting his brain to not commit that act of horror.

  ​ “I love you”, he cried.

  ​ “I worship you”, she replied as she closed her eyes and waited for her end.

  As soon as Rehann and Aanya got back to the surface above and left the narrow path of the crevice, their eyes were instantly greeted by many men in black, hardly a few meters away from them. As soon as the men saw them both, they came rushing ahead, announcing on their radios that the two were alive and walking.

  ​ “Who’re you?” Rehann asked one of the men as they came to check if they were unhurt.

  ​ “We work for the Prime Minister’s Office. We tracked your location from the GPS that Ms. Rehya had placed. Are you okay sir?”

  ​ “My sister?”

  ​ “Yes sir. She had an unfortunate accident but she contacted us to find you.”

  ​ “She is alive?” Rehann’s expressions changed all of a sudden.

  ​ “Yes sir. She did lose quite some blood, but she was given the best of treatment. She is alive sir. She was airlifted back to New Delhi
late last night.”

  ​ Rehann looked at Aanya with a smile, and then towards the narrow path that led to the waterfalls with dread. “Aarav”, he spoke worriedly and rushed to head back down the crevice, but that is when he heard it.

  ​ A gunshot echoed around the place, low and subdued, but enough to make Rehann and Aanya look into each other’s eyes and know that it had happened.

  ​ Silence.

  ​ Aarav himself walked out through the narrow path some minutes later and knew what had transpired as soon as he saw the men. He turned his bloodshot eyes towards Rehann once and disgustingly looked up over the sun that was shining ahead of him. He didn’t speak, he didn’t cry. He just kept walking ahead slowly; the walk of a man who had just lost everything. The rest of the officers went down the path and started their yearlong job of retrieving the treasure out from the cave. Aanya held Rehann’s hand as he sat down there itself, only to watch his broken friend walk alone into the vast spread of snow, surrounded by the gloomy mountains and overlooked by a wretched sun. He walked as far his strength would allow him to on the ice beneath his feet and fell on his knees as he broke. He cried his heart out, closed his eyes and remembered seeing the blue ones of Shayna for the last time before he had pulled the trigger.

  ​ He uncovered the secret of the Himalayan Treasure. And just when he found the biggest secret that the world has ever seen, he lost his everything.

  Epilogue: A Secret Lost

  259 BCE

  Somewhere in the Himalayas

  Fifty men stood stout as they braved a furious blizzard somewhere in the Himalayas. The multiple dark woolen sheets that they fancied barely managed to stop the cold from reaching to their bones. It was only a miracle that they were somehow able to stand on their feet. They had marched almost a year ago on the command of their king, and after scouting the forests, the lowlands, river banks and cold deserts, they had finally managed to find the perfect place which matched his orders. “It should be a place where the gods shall lie, and they should lie undisturbed till the end of time” , he had spoken to them. After conveying the location to his minister, they were surprised to learn that the king himself was to visit the place and they waited for almost a month when the day finally arrived.

  They saw a few dark figures walking up the treacherous path leading up to the place. They were barely able to keep their eyes open as the cold wind hurried to burn them. Yet the caravan seemed to progress rather quickly along the gentle maneuvers. In a few moments they came close and the fifty men soon saw a party of some twenty others before them. They recognized the commander of their royal army at once. His burly body unmoved by the blizzard while his proud moustache stood frozen to look at its very best. Two more guards came behind him followed by the king himself, his minister and a few of the most prominent men of their kingdom. The workhands coming after them carried a huge palanquin on their shoulders, one of the grandest that the fifty men had seen in their entire lives, yet they wondered who could possibly be in it, since the king was himself walking alongside his ministers. The king seemed to whisper something to his commander, who nodded at once and dragged himself to guide the palanquin bearers inside the place that was discovered by those fifty men. The king on the other hand came to stand face to face before them, his short stature masking his fighting prowess, his calm face hiding years of bloodshed.

  “It is an honor to stand before you fifty gentlemen”, he spoke as his wide eyes rolled all around, examining the white expanse, an area where no other man has been before. “I trusted this party to search for a place so magnificent that my eyes shall cry upon seeing its beauty. Yet so deep that no other man could ever walk into it. And I am proud to admit that you, all my fine men, have done a great service for your king. I am pleased with the result that I see before my eyes and I most certainly will honor this hard work of yours”, he spoke as he stared into each of their eyes. His face glowed with a different aura altogether. His composure was unbothered by the frigid conditions around him. He was dead calm. Not showing any sign of uneasiness or shivering. He was at as much ease as he was three years ago, when he had fought the greatest battle in the history of mankind. The battle had changed him in ways he couldn’t have imagined. It had also cemented his position as the greatest of the emperors.

  The commander soon came out of the entrance of the cave and nodded upon seeing the king, who smiled subliminally and slowly proceeded to move forwards. His entourage and the fifty men soon followed, relieved that the battering cold winds would trouble them no more. The cave was vast and profound, almost as if nature had carved it intricately and preserved it especially for the king’s purpose. Proceeding through the narrow doorways carved by the fifty men and continuing through a couple of bends, their eyes were again stuck at the great palanquin, which sat comfortably in the center of a massive ice chamber big enough to accommodate a few thousand men with ease.

  “Ecstatic”, the king smiled upon seeing the sight. The palanquin bearers were already on their knees and prayed before it with their eyes closed. The fifty men wondered who could possibly be in that magnificent litter and the king sensed it just by the look on their faces. “This great palanquin bears a treasure blessed by the gods themselves. Kneel before it, pray with your heart and the most impossible of your wishes will come true”, he uttered coldly and moved back a little to let the fifty men come ahead and cherish the blessings by the treasure of the gods. Soon they were all on their knees, their eyes closed and their prayers raising- from wishing for hot summers to castles atop the hills. They all wanted the freezing misery to end and return back to their homes to the comfort of their family and friends. Luckily for them, their misery was indeed about to conclude as they had succeeded in accomplishing their mission.

  Unluckily for them, the end wasn’t what they would have possibly thought of.

  Soon the sounds of swords being dragged out of their scabbards echoed through the chamber of ice as the kneeling men opened up their eyes abruptly. But it was all too late by the time they realized what had happened. The few men of the King’s royal army swiftly went to business as the cries of those praying resounded off the walls of ice. The sword bearers were as cold and ruthless as their surroundings. And the men in the back were the first ones to face their fury. Most of them had their entire heads cleanly swiped off. The sword bearers moved ahead and took to the ones who desperately tried to protect themselves next. Their limbs soon fell down on the cold uneven floor before their hearts were pierced, guts ripped out and lungs punctured by the iron swords of the attackers. The occasional ones who managed to run past them and plead before the king for their lives were met by the mighty warhammer of the commander himself, its single swing enough to bash in their heads, cave in their skulls and scramble their brains. By the time the army men were done, the calm ice chamber which had stood the same way for thousands of years was marred by blood and gore. Bones and dead bodies were spread all around the floor. Blood and flesh colored its walls red and the voices of the dead still echoed across it, haunting and cursing the wretched place for all of eternity before it got lost into nothingness again.

  The king took in a deep breath and closed his eyes as he himself prayed before the palanquin to forgive him for his heinous act. He had craved blood and death throughout his youth, so much so that he had murdered many of his half-brothers to get to the throne, built the greatest torture house for his enemies and fought the supreme of battles, killing almost two hundred thousand men to find the treasure of the gods. Yet after having everything at his disposal and being the greatest emperor of his time, he had lost his appetite for blood.

  “Build monuments in the name of these great men”, he narrated to his prime minister. “Celebrate them as war heroes. Shower their families with so much gold that it could last for ten generations. And have their remains submerged in the nearest water body where they will be blessed by the gods themselves. Have the rest of the treasure moved here as soon as you all can, seal this place and initiat
e the proposal we spoke of. Let no man here speak of this place ever again”, he uttered as he walked out leaving the other esteemed men darting their eyes around the gore one more time before nine of them followed the king and walked out.

  “This event marks the end of violence under Emperor Ashoka’s reign. A new era of peace is about to begin. Let it be known that this place hides the greatest of treasures in the history of mankind. A treasure greater than entire kingdoms, a treasure blessed by the gods themselves, a treasure hidden so deep that the one who finds it could be the most powerful man in the world”, the minister spoke to an inexpressive commander as they both looked at the great palanquin one last time before exiting the place.

  ---The End---

  A Little Mystery for the Readers

  Let th i s mystery conclude the journey you've been on. Let th i s end mark an end to the Secret of the Himalayan Treasur e . The author hopes that yo u ' ve enjoyed the codes, the chases, the thrills, and the riddle s . Howe v er, he has something else in store for you. In th i s boo k , the author has kept a secret code, a puzzl e , to ignite the Aarav Kohrrathi in you. Are you willing to find it?

  Hidden among the words it lies, lost among the sentences it rests,

  The greatest secret of the story, the true puzzle that may bring one glory;

  Could be found, could be said.

  The author is the laziest of the highest order, for naming characters he dislikes,

  But he had you fear the horns, he had you fear their lies.

  They came for the twins the first time, came for the sand the next;

  And when they showed up before the frigid waters,

  The code was laid at the author’s behest.

  Has the reader been observant, has he been awake all this while?

  The true question will be answered hence, or it’ll make him rile.

  The author hopes that the r eader would be able to solve th i s little m y stery . H e / she would find a three-word messa g e if h e / she has been o b serving the story closely .