Asura

by R P L Johnson

  Marinucci's charges had certainly done their job. The blue-white barrier that had blocked the tunnel had been split right down the middle, and half of it had fallen into the cavern beyond leaving a gap four feet across through which sunlight streamed in solid golden bands.

  The fog that filled the cave was pouring from the gap, and now that she was closer Carver could feel a slight breeze blowing towards her, warm against the exposed skin of her face. What a stroke of luck, they had stumbled across some kind of hot spring. It was the only thing that could account for the waves of warm, moist air that flowed into the cave, condensing immediately into thick fog as it cooled.

  Marinucci and the Ghurkha were nowhere to be seen. They must have gone through to check out what lay beyond the barrier. Tentatively, she stepped through the opening, trailing vortices of mist as they flowed past her legs.

  ‘Holy Shit!’ she said.

  Marinucci leaned against the cavern wall beside her. ‘Now how did I know you were going to say that?’

  ◆◆◆

  Rose stood on top of one of the house-sized boulders of ice that surrounded the half-deflated Svenska shelter. The avalanche had shaken loose years' worth of snow and shattered the giant ice sheets of the frozen waterfall. The naked cliff loomed above him like the prow of a giant ship: a mighty ice-breaker, its black bow hoary with frost where small pockets of ice still clung.

  A few years ago he would have relished a challenge like that. The cliff was five hundred vertical feet of hard, technical climbing. Friable, ice-shattered cracks offered only the smallest opportunities for painful finger-jamming holds. Unpassable granite slabs, slick with verglas, blocked the easier routes forcing the climber wide onto deceptively deadly flutes. And then there was the ice. Any that remained after the avalanche should be solid enough, but the mixture of rock and ice techniques would make the climb exceptionally difficult.

  The only possible rest spot came three quarters of the way up: a shadow-cloaked ledge flanked by buttress outcrops. It looked deep enough to offer some decent shelter, but it was so well defended that it would be hardly worth the effort required to reach it.

  Down the slope the loose aggregate of ice extended as far as he could see. The whole face of the mountain had been changed beyond recognition by the massive avalanche.

  Muhammad Khamas emerged from the shelter. He still wore his torn, grey business suit with the trousers tucked into the tops of his socks. He clutched a red down-filled jacket around his shoulders. With his slim, scholarly frame and slight stoop he looked totally unprepared for the rigours of the Himalayan environment, but there was something different about him. His constant wracking cough had disappeared and his breath came easily as she clambered up the side of the ice boulder. Rose offered him his hand for the last few feet and Khamas’s grip was iron.

  He gazed up at the cliff face that towered above them. ‘It is so high!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. We’re lucky to be alive alright.’

  Khamas gave him a knowing look. ‘It was not luck, Captain. Mashallah! It was the will of Allah.’

  ‘Well, you thank him the next time you see him. You’re feeling better?’ He regretted his choice of words immediately. It was a hell of a question to ask a guy who had just lost his daughter, but Khamas took it in the spirit in which it was intended.

  ‘I am much better, thank you. Fit enough—I think—to begin the climb.’

  ‘Begin the what...?’

  Khamas looked up the cliff face. ‘My daughter is up there. My place is with her.’

  ‘Mister Khamas, I know this is difficult but you have to understand that your daughter is gone.’

  ‘You do not know that!’ Khamas snapped. ‘And until I see her, I cannot rest. You will not stop me in this, Captain.’

  ‘I don’t need to stop you. Five hundred feet of granite will do that all by itself. I’ve made my decision: we stay put.’

  ‘That is not a choice I can live with.’

  ‘I have a responsibility to keep you alive. Even if you can’t see that, it’s not something I can ignore. I can’t just let you kill yourself.’

  ‘Captain, my life is not yours to save any more than it is yours to take. You cannot guarantee my safety any more than Ms. McCarthy could guarantee that her plane would not crash. Events make liars of us all. Our own decisions: they are all we can control. I have made mine.’

  ‘You’ll be killed.’

  ‘If that is Allah’s plan for me, I shall accept it willingly. It would be a good death. But I do not think that this is my destiny. Yesterday every movement was a torment: every breath felt like a stab in the chest with a blade of ice. Look at me now. I am whole and strong; Allah does not bestow his gifts lightly or without reason. I have been given the strength to climb a mountain and that is what I intend to do.’

  Thunder rippled up the valley from the north. The clouds over the Diamir glacier had darkened to the colour of slate and the distant valley was blurred by a fast-approaching blizzard.

  Rose looked up at the cliff. ‘It doesn’t look like anyone’s going anywhere tonight.'

  ◆◆◆

  ‘Holy Shit!’ Carver said again.

  Tej watched her with a broad grin as she stared slack-jawed into the cavern beyond the glassy barrier.

  It was huge! After their confinement the sheer size of the space was stunning. They were standing on a narrow ledge half way up the side of an unfinished dome making Carver feel like she was a fly clinging to the wall of St. Pails Cathedral. The walls of the cavern curved upwards on either side of them but never met. At some time in the distant past, the roof of the great cave had collapsed leaving a natural skylight that allowed the dying rays of the sun to flood the chamber. The clean, clear light—pure as snowmelt—was dazzling after the torch lit cave and Carver had to shield her eyes as she turned her gaze upwards.

  The fragments of the ancient roof had been lost forever in the depths of a huge lake that dominated the floor of the cavern. It was this lake that was the source of the mysterious heat. Mist boiled from the lake's surface, blanketing the floor of the cavern in cotton wool so that the water was only visible in quicksilver glimpses through the swirling clouds.

  At the centre of the lake a conical spire of black granite thrust upwards from the water like the gnomon of a huge sundial. A miniature mountain almost as high as the roof itself and measuring hundreds of feet around its base where the waters lapped gently against it. The mist crawled up the steep flanks of the cone before falling back on itself in tumbling wisps as fine as fairy floss.

  ‘What the hell is this place?’ Carver breathed.

  ‘It is as we thought,’ Tej said, ‘...a temple, a place of pilgrimage.’

  ‘A temple? More like the eighth wonder of the bloody world.’

  ‘Indeed. A natural cathedral, a testament to the power of the gods. Who could look on this place without awe? Standing here it would be easy to believe that Gods walked the Earth.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you’re right. But why seal it up?’ She picked up a chunk of the shattered barrier and tossed it to Marinucci who hefted it thoughtfully.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, it's not glass,’ Marinucci replied, turning the tennis ball sized nugget of opaque material over in his hands. ‘It's way too light. It's almost like some kind of plastic.’

  ‘That's what I thought. See the way it broke under the explosion? Along the line of the charges it shattered like plate glass, but further away, where it's come away from the stone, it looks like it's been torn. You're the expert here. Have you got any ideas about what this stuff is?’

  ‘I never said I was an expert. When you hang around as many drilling rigs and mining operations as I do, you pick up a few things, that's all.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll find some answers down there,’ Tej said. He pointed towards the edge of the lake where a cluster of regular shapes followed the sweep of the water’s edge. ‘Looks like a town to me. Or what’s left o
f it anyway.’

  Tej was right. A series of small, single story dwellings were set out in a rough grid with narrow avenues between each unit. They looked as if they had been carved from the rock itself. Certainly the arrangement of buildings followed the pattern of the rocky outcrops behind the settlement. If they had been constructed rather than carved, the architect had gone to great lengths to ensure they harmonised with the natural wonder around them. At the water’s edge one row of buildings was submerged up to the lintels in the misty water as if the level of the lake had been much lower in the past. Even behind the submerged terrace, the buildings looked long-deserted.

  ‘Let’s check it out,’ Carver said. ‘This is all very picturesque. But we still need to find a way out of here, or do we just get to starve to death rather than freeze?’ She started the long climb down to the floor of the cavern, leaving Tej and Marinucci to catch up.

  Tej lingered for a moment, staring at the huge spire of black rock and turning the blue, barrier material over in his hands. It was an awe-inspiring sight. Its physical beauty, its almost perfect symmetry as if the slender rocky cone had been turned on a lathe, was not what had transfixed him. There was more to this place than just natural beauty. There was power here: a power that the ancient people of the Indus valley had recognised and worshipped. And power was never relinquished without reason. Carefully, reverently he placed the blue chunk back where Carver had found it and followed the others down the steep cavern wall.

  The town was completely deserted. Nothing moved in the still atmosphere inside the cavern. Only the weak convection currents from the lake stirred the mist around them. The stony ground around the buildings was as barren as the surface of the moon. Not a single plant remained to overgrow the remains of the town although the almost tropical warmth and humidity near the lake fed a thick, algal slime that coated the sides of the buildings up to their rafters.

  As they drew closer they could see that the buildings were not carved from the bedrock as they had first suspected. Rather they were fashioned from masonry blocks quarried from the cavern walls. The shore of the underground lake had been ripped apart and reassembled to suit the grand design of some ancient architect.

  They followed what appeared to be the main street: a broad boulevard paved with flagstones of a lighter hue than the rest of the town. The buildings were grander and more ornate than those of the outskirts although none of them rose above a single high-ceilinged storey. Their facades were intricately carved with geometric patterns, variations on s theme of concentric squares. There was no sign of the pictograms or bas-relief friezes that had adorned the cave outside.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ Tej said. ‘Just think, we may be the first people to walk these streets in hundreds of years.’

  ‘It’s downright creepy,’ Marinucci replied. ‘This place is a bloody ghost town.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ Carver asked, ‘...a hoard of spear-wielding savages?’

  ‘Whoever these people were, they were not savages,’ said Tej.

  He stopped in front of one of the buildings where a trail of debris led out onto the street. Shards of pottery lay scattered where earthenware vessels had broken on the flagstones. Tej picked up a fragment. It was fired with some kind of glaze on one side. The curved shard was so smooth it must have been turned on a wheel.

  ‘I wonder why they left their homes,’ he said.

  ‘And why did they seal this place up?’ Carver added. ‘And how, for that matter. There’s nothing here that looks like the blue glass at the cave entrance-not even in the windows of the buildings.’

  ‘They lived inside a cavern: no rain, no wind. Why would they need windows?’

  ‘Security. Every society needs to separate its haves from its have-nots.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Marinucci. ‘How can something like this have gone undiscovered for so long? If everybody left, where did they go? If they were so advanced, how come they never passed that on? How come we’ve never heard of these guys? Surely they’d have made it into the history books somewhere.’

  ‘Maybe they did,’ Tej replied.

  He tossed the piece of pottery to Marinucci. The pattern was just visible under the decaying glaze: a conical shape piercing a smooth lake with figures arranged on each side, just like the frieze outside.

  ‘According to legend, gods and demons waged wars on the shores of a lake such as this. Their battle was so fierce, its tale had been told and re-told for over three thousand years. Demons were vanquished, and gods regained eternal life and their rightful place in the heavens as a result of their deeds on this battlefield. This is the home of the Asuras.’

  ◆◆◆

  He stalked the corridors of his prison kingdom. His brothers still slept and the lifeless host of their subjects had yet to be quickened. He was alone.

  The flesh-slave had not returned and yet the spark remained. Although His capacity to follow events outside his self-imposed captivity was much diminished, He was sure that His emissary had failed. There was no taste of it anywhere on the surface: no vibration of its slave soul on the æther.

  The spark was moving; He could feel it. Its presence lanced through Him. It had to be retrieved. Awake for the first time in a millennium, He could not return to that dead slumber now. Not when escape was so close.

  His choice was clear. He started to quicken his host. Where the scout had failed, He would send an army!

  CHAPTER 16

  The icy fingers of the Himalayan dawn crept over the mountains to the east. With the light came a fluttering that quickly grew to a deafening roar as a helicopter swooped into the valley.

  The MI-28 ‘Havoc’ was built for speed and firepower. The two-seater combat chopper bristled with weaponry: its two stubby wings sported additional fuel tanks as well as launchers for its air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles. Under its nose a 30mm cannon panned back and forth, automatically following the movements of the gunner’s head in the angular cockpit above.

  It swept past the ruined shelter raising a storm of ice crystals and buffeting the shelter with its downdraft.

  The 30mm cannon whined as it swung round on its target. A barrage of fire exploded from the muzzle, ripping through the flimsy shelter and deep into the blue ice beyond. The Kevlar shredded under the onslaught, flapping in tatters around the few remaining pneumatic ribs. Around the shelter the ice boulders creaked and shattered as they were pounded by the heavy anti-materiél rounds.

  Finally the attack stopped. The Havoc hung in the air as the gunner surveyed his handiwork before banking around and dropping down into the valley to begin its search pattern.

  Jon Rose peered out from behind the boulder where he had been hiding.

  ‘Okay, they’ve gone,’ he said.

  Yvonne looked down at the shredded shelter. Their sanctuary had been reduced to a stand of tattered flags flapping limply in the early morning breeze.

  ‘How did you know?’ Yvonne asked.

  ‘I didn’t. Not for sure,’ Rose replied. ‘But it’s what I would have done.’

  ‘It would appear they are not interested in taking prisoners,’ said Khamas.

  ‘They’re taking too great a risk already. I caught a glimpse of the markings on that thing. It’s definitely Indian. If they’re caught this side of the line of control it would be seen as an act of war. They can’t afford to leave any witnesses.’

  ‘So what now?’ McCarthy asked.

  Rose looked up at the cliff and the sheltered ledge about three hundred feet above them.

  ‘Well we can’t stay here, that’s for sure,’ he said.

  McCarthy followed his gaze. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’

  ‘It’s sheltered and safe from any search party,’ Rose replied. ‘It’s our only choice.’

  ‘You can really get us up there?’

  Rose looked up at the cliff. His expression was as cold and impassive as the stone they had to climb.

  ‘Yes. I can get all of us up.’
/>   ‘Then what?’

  Rose shrugged. ‘That depends on what we find.’

  McCarthy reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the automatic pistol that Yvonne had taken from the chopper pilot.

  ‘I don’t know who’s going to be waiting for us when we get to the top. But I think you’d better have this.’

  Rose took the pistol and checked the magazine, popping one round out of the breech and making the weapon safe.

  ‘If it comes to a shootout, we won’t have much of a chance.’

  ‘And what exactly were the chances of riding out an avalanche inside a glorified beach ball?’

  Rose didn’t answer. He just zipped the pistol into his pocket.

  ‘Let’s get going.’

  ◆◆◆

  Major Parindra Naik squeezed his bulk through the tent’s small opening and into the biting cold of the early morning. Although the glacial bowl was still in shadow, the peaks that ringed it glowed with the first rays of the sun: a crown of glittering icicles surrounding the battlefield.

  Although he was usually wary of camping in such open ground, they had had little option but to stay near the crash site. The triangular white pyramids of the SSB soldiers’ tents huddled close together behind a large berm of packed snow that acted as a windbreak to the cold air drifting down the mountainside. This effect was reinforced by several tents pitched upwind of the main group that contained the relatively robust radio equipment and stores that the helicopter had brought in. His men had prepared their camp well.

  The Major had spent much of the past seven years fighting in the mountains and if he had learned one thing in all that time, it was that staying alive in that harsh environment was half the battle. He often joked that his men like cobras: sluggish when cold, but deadly when warmed up.

  At the centre of the camp another mound of snow revealed the fruits of the night’s labours. His men had worked around the clock, taking thirty minute shifts in the freezing conditions to find the buried airliner. A hole ten feet wide and fifteen deep had been dug down to the cargo hatch behind the plane’s crumpled nose.