Bheem

by Jyotin Goel

  They didn’t need the faint glow from Nishi’s phone to see that the iron hatch at the end of the passageway was ajar. There was a two-inch gap between the edge of the hatch and its metal doorframe that let in a frail, wavering shaft of light. The rusted locking mechanism in the centre of the hatch resembled a shrunken yacht wheel, twisted out of shape. There were dents and furrows along the hatch’s rim and the jamb had buckled. Setting the scientist down, Bheem tested the hatch. It gave way with little resistance, swinging outwards.

  ‘Put that out,’ Bheem said.

  Nishi turned off her phone’s flashlight. The warrior leaned out through the open hatch and looked around. Light filtered in from the top of the silo, a hundred and fifty feet above. Not moonlight; it flickered, as if something were burning not very far away, and glanced off the smooth metal sides of the silo evenly, unobstructed.

  No shadows, thought Bheem. No elevators.

  ‘Smoke’s building up!’ called Aviva.

  The fire was breaking through. It would be there within minutes. Heading for another silo was not an option. And anyway, all elevators had probably been dismantled when the weapons were withdrawn from these shafts. Bheem’s eyes swept the silo’s walls—and stopped. Directly above and below the hatch, attached to the wall, were small metal hoops—rungs—climbing all the way to the top. And about twelve hands above, something was snagged on one of the rungs . . .

  The warrior suddenly vanished, leaping upwards out of the open hatchway without a word of warning. Aviva was bewildered. Did he expect them to follow? If there were handholds, perhaps she could attempt them, but that meant abandoning her disabled companions, an option Aviva refused to consider. But what if that was the choice the giant had made? Smoke was rapidly filling the passageway. They were wracked by coughs; the heat was unbearable. They had to do something—now. Desperately, Aviva stepped towards the open hatchway when, suddenly, Bheem dropped through it, startling her. He raised an enormous hand around which was coiled . . . a rope.

  ‘It made the journey through Sesha Nag,’ he said. ‘Though how it ended up out there . . .’

  The missing rope. ‘The same one?’ asked Aviva.

  ‘It still carries the stink of Saragha’s tail!’ Bheem grinned. ‘The vaanar may not have survived Sesha Nag, but his stench lives on.’ Quickly, Bheem curled the rope around Nishi and Vineet, alarming them, lashing them to himself. ‘We have very little time. I will carry these two. You will be on your own, Aviva-Fein.’ His lips twitched. ‘Cora-Pamela,’ he said, straight-faced, and hoisted himself and the others into the silo.

  Cora-Pamela? How had he—? But the question was foolish. Of course he would know. He knew everything about her. Irritated in spite of herself, she strode to the hatch and reached out for the nearest rung of the ladder.

  Don’t look down, don’t panic.

  Aviva gritted her teeth, attempting to keep down the sour terror that rose in her throat. She was alone in the dark silo. Bheem had swarmed up the ladder at astonishing speed and vanished over the lip of the shaft far above, carrying Nishi and Vineet to safety. But Aviva couldn’t go faster. Smoke billowed in through the open hatch thirty feet below, rising up the silo, causing the feeble light to gutter deceptively, shifting the rungs, moving the walls. She was soaked in sweat—her hands had slipped twice already, leaving her clutching desperately. The metal walls radiated heat, a constant reminder of the fire raging in the passageways that led to the pit, the blaze that was closing in on the VIE tank. The cataclysmic oxygen explosion was almost upon them—the blast would roar up these shafts, incinerating everything within. And then, through the smoky haze, she saw a shape loom above. Bheem. He was in the silo, heading down the ladder rapidly—she was saved. In a moment, Bheem was at her side, lifting her off the ladder as if plucking a stray feather from an arrow’s fletch.

  With one hand gripping a rung and the other holding on to Aviva, there was no way Bheem could tie her to himself as he had done with Nishi and Vineet. But he had twined the rope around his huge shoulders to provide a grip. Aviva caught on immediately, threaded her hand through and fastened the rope around her arm securely.

  ‘Ready, Aviva-Fein?’

  Aviva nodded. Bheem was off at once, speeding up the ladder with the assurance of a reptile racing along a wall. They were just forty feet from the lip of the silo when a rung came loose. Bheem fell. He grabbed at the rungs below but they were not built to withstand his giant free-falling weight and were wrenched from the wall.

  The hatch. The one they had used to access the silo. They had left it open, protruding like a carbuncle from the smooth walls. It was the only projection that could take his weight, the one chance of breaking his fall. But the open metal door was completely obscured by the dense smoke pouring out. Bheem’s warrior brain calculated angles even as he fell, gauging the position of the hatch within its swaddle of smoke. His hand shot out at the precise moment and latched on to the door. Metal hinges groaned, cracked—held. Bheem’s huge body swung inward and crashed into the wall.

  ‘Aagh!’

  The impact was massive, bone-jarring, and instantly dislocated Aviva’s shoulder. Her hand went numb, lost its grip and slid out of the braided rope. Bheem felt her slip, snatched at her—failed.

  ‘No!’ she yelled, as she plunged into the pit and disappeared in its dark, smoke-shrouded depths.

  Flailing blindly as she fell, Aviva stretched her unhurt hand, desperately trying to grab at rungs that blurred past in the haze just out of reach. Out of nowhere, a thick rope coiled around her and tightened, halting her fall with a jolt that knocked the wind out of her. The mind-numbing terror that had seized her vanished; suddenly, she was at peace. The rope swung her gently to the wall, adjacent to the rungs, and stopped. Aviva took a breath, her hand grabbed hold of a metal hoop, her feet scrabbled for support on the rungs below. The rope uncoiled and swung away, brushing past Aviva’s hands and face. Aviva didn’t recoil. It wasn’t coarse, not like a rope at all. It had felt as if it were covered with silken hair . . . Fur?

  The rungs she held vibrated; she heard the sound of metallic footfalls approaching from the murk above.

  ‘I’m here!’ Aviva called out. ‘I’m all right!’

  The sound paused and immediately resumed. An immense arm gripped her, hoisted her off the rungs. She looked into the warrior’s face. He was smiling—with relief, of course, but there was respect there too, a glimmer of fellowship that she hadn’t seen earlier. Aviva smiled back uncertainly. The warrior held her gaze for a moment, his expression changing to puzzlement.

  . . . that I’m still alive? wondered Aviva.

  But he had obviously decided that questions could wait. Holding her fast, Bheem turned and sped up the corroding metal ladder.

  In the firelight of the building burning half a kilometre away, the smoking tops of the silos looked like a forest of squat chimneys. It was just minutes earlier that Bheem had brought Nishi and Vineet out. He had left them on the open ground away from the huge funnels before hurrying back and plunging into the silo again. Nishi lowered herself to the ground gingerly, the ankle a mass of pain. She needed to sit; she had to examine the tube stowed in her pocket and couldn’t afford to overbalance. Everything depended on the contents of that container. She extricated the vacuum tube and carefully unscrewed it, sliding out the vial. It was intact, the precious blood within black in the firelight, silhouetted against the churning fumes spewing from the mouth of the silo. She gazed at the smoke anxiously, willing it aside, hoping to see the warrior emerge with Aviva.

  ‘They’re taking too long,’ she muttered.

  ‘What?’

  Nishi shifted painfully, slid the vial into the tube and looked at Vineet. ‘The fire,’ she said, ‘it could reach the tank any moment. If they’re caught in that shaft when it blows—’

  All at once Bheem appeared on the lip of the silo, carrying Aviva, the smoke veiling and revealing them as it shifted in the breeze.

  ‘They’re safe!’ Vineet
shouted.

  They were not. Bheem realized that the instant he leapt to the ground. He had sensed it earlier in the passageway leading to the hatch, but it had been unrecognizable then, obscured by the smoke. Now, in the open air, the smell was obvious: Vaanarspoor! And it wasn’t the thin, second-hand odour emanating from the rope. The stink was overpowering and its source was here, alive and on the move.

  Saragha.

  The vaanar raced across the open ground. He had escaped the coils of Sesha Nag and it hadn’t marked him the way it had Vineet-Sinha. This wasn’t the wounded Saragha, momentarily freed from the snare of maya. This Saragha was insane, with blood in his eye, killing on his mind. And he was making straight for the unsuspecting journalist and scientist. Bheem hurled himself at Nishi and Vineet, knocking them flat. An eye-blink later, the vaanar swept overhead in a spring that would have decapitated them had they remained upright. The vaanar landed, spun around. Something glinted on the ground a few metres away, catching his eyes. Bheem leapt to his feet, confronting the vaanar, but the unhinged creature moved in a completely unexpected direction, away from the warrior. Mystified, Bheem saw him grab a metallic tube and bound away, heading for the nearest of the smoking silos.

  ‘Stop him!’ Nishi shouted. The immensity of the disaster was apparent to her immediately. ‘The blood! The Nambiar blood sample! It’s the only one left!’

  Saragha stood on the lip of the silo, five metres above the ground, smoke swirling around him. He brandished his acquisition like a hard-won trophy, snarling victoriously, beyond thought, beyond reason. Bheem looked at the roaring creature, holding the salvation of the human race in his clenched paw. This was not the warrior’s fight, these were not his people, he had no reason to intervene.

  His purpose was revenge and he had already squandered too much time on the irrelevant while his enemy escaped. But he continued to gaze at the vaanar, assessing angles, determining distance, preparing to attack. He did not know why. In the very next second, it ceased to matter. A roar from the depths of the earth ripped through the smoke-laden air. The ground rose and fell like a river in spate. Saragha rocked, leapt backwards. Bheem saw him for a split second, poised superbly, hanging in the air high above the shaft’s mouth. And then a fountain of red flame erupted from the shaft, swallowing the vaanar. The shockwave of the detonation flung Bheem to the ground. When he looked up again, there was no trace of Saragha. Pillars of fire rose from the silos all around, setting the sky ablaze. Could the vaanar have survived the blast? Bheem did not know. But what had been destroyed beyond all doubt, though, was the fragile vial containing Valsamma-Nambiar’s blood.

  Part 3

  SAVIOUR

  1

  The Pir Panjal Mountains

  Thirty Centuries Earlier

  The wolf pack halted. Snouts rose to sniff the air; thick fur bristled, dislodging the snow that lay heavily on the backs of the six wolves. The night wind sweeping down the mountain face carried the unmistakable smell of blood. There was death nearby, but there was life too: warm, fresh meat. Intriguingly, the wind also carried a sound, a high-pitched mewling that was distinctly human. The wolves hesitated—they had learnt to be wary of man. They shuffled forward guardedly, snow-covered, ghostly shapes, almost invisible against the white hill. Their prey came into view: two bodies, a woman and a leopard, still warm, still streaming blood. And four squalling infants, wriggling, helpless. The wolves weren’t hungry, having feasted recently on a warthog, but this kill was too easy to resist. They made up their minds, and loped forward.

  ‘Yaahh!’

  A firebrand whirred through the air and landed in their midst. They yelped and turned to face the intruder. Human, standing just ten yards away, holding another flaming torch, bearded face grim, eyes gleaming in the light. He had caught them unawares, creeping up on them downwind, soundless in the snow. The wolf pack gazed at the steady eyes and the dancing flame. This was no mewling newborn. An attack would have consequences. Anyway, they had just eaten and could afford to let it go. Ears flattened, tails dropped; the pack slunk away.

  From untruth lead us to truth.

  From darkness lead us to light.

  From death lead us to immortality.

  Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

  The bearded man completed the prayer and stood still for a moment watching the urn containing Yajika’s ashes drift away on the water, heading for the bend in the river. This was the only section in the mountain stream where the flow was gentle; the river picked up pace after the bend, plunging and darting to the plains.

  ‘Peace be on you, daughter,’ he said, and turned towards the mule cart.

  At a distance he looked like any other holy man—saffron robes and beads around his neck. A closer look, however, was oddly disconcerting. The white beard did nothing to conceal the fact that the dark face was extraordinarily ugly. But there was an inner glow to that face, a radiance that instantly asserted that this was no ordinary sadhu. He had referred to Yajika as ‘daughter’; given his age, ‘granddaughter’ or even ‘great-granddaughter’ would have been more appropriate. Perhaps ‘daughter’ was just a generic term the holy man used for women—or not. The holy man lifted the flap of the straw canopy covering the cart and smiled benignly at the four infants that lay quietly within. Then mounting the wooden seat in front, he tapped the mule with a switch. The cart lurched forward, heading down the winding mountain track, beginning a journey to the far south, where the green land ended and the ocean began.

  Jagdalpur, Chhatisgarh

  27 October 2017

  If Alexander Nimbalkar had wanted official attention, he had it now—in quantities that staggered and dismayed him. Repeatedly, he peered through a chink in the bedraggled curtains at the police legions guarding the circuit house.

  What does it all mean?

  The madness had begun two days earlier when the Royce Expedition massacre had been discovered. Alex had rushed to Jagdalpur, the decrepit district capital to which the remains of the victims had been taken. He had failed to find Aviva’s body among the dead. She was missing—Alex had clutched at that hope. And then, just nine hours earlier, a message from an unknown number had reached his phone:

  ‘Ahuvi, I’m ok. Battery running out so can’t talk. Don’t worry about me. Can’t explain what’s happening but will call as soon as I can. Ani ohevet otcha. Very much.’

  Aviva! No one else called him ‘ahuvi’. He tried calling the number, only to be met each time with cool, electronic rejection: ‘The number you are trying to reach is temporarily unavailable.’ Could it be a hoax? He had to know. The phone company could trace the unknown number, but that was an action only the police could initiate. Sharing the message with them, therefore, was simply logical, the reasonable thing to do. But within hours, logic and reason collapsed like the straw men they were.

  ‘The phone belongs to Dr Nishi Agarwal.’

  ‘That’s great!’ said Alex, excited. ‘Does she live here? In Jagdalpur?’

  The man lit a cigarette. He was dressed in smartly creased trousers and shirt, looking cool despite the humidity in the police station. He wasn’t police, obviously, though the local officers had deferred nervously to him. ‘Talwar,’ he had said. ‘Counter Intelligence Group.’ CIG, CBI, RAW, ED—all part of the central government’s alphabet soup. But what had brought this mandarin from Delhi to dusty Jagdalpur within hours of Alex reporting Aviva’s message to the local police?

  Why is he looking at me like that? Alex thought.

  ‘Nishi Agarwal is dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Killed in a huge explosion in Himachal Pradesh. Twelve hours ago. No survivors.’

  ‘But—but then how—?’

  ‘Yes. How? How?’ Talwar dragged casually on his cigarette, his eyes never leaving Alex’s. ‘How did Dr Agarwal’s phone survive after its owner died in the explosion? How did it come into the possession of Aviva Fein, supposedly an Israeli archaeologist, last seen in Bastar with a team that also had been wiped ou
t? Again, no survivors.’

  ‘But, can’t—can’t we . . . the phone . . .’ Alex stammered. ‘Can’t it be traced?’

  ‘The phone is unreachable. No possibility of finding its location.’

  That was all Alex could get from him. No answers to the questions he knew the investigation had to pursue: What connected the two grisly incidents? What linked the two dead women? Was this terrorism? Something else? Alex was grilled, yanked out of his hotel, stashed in a government safe house.

  ‘You’ll be where we need you,’ Talwar had said, smiling nastily. ‘Protected by professionals.’

  ‘And that’s how it’s done!’ muttered Alex, twitching the frayed curtain across, shutting out the disturbing view of passers-by hurrying past the circuit house, nervously steering clear of the men in khaki gathered outside.

  There was no escaping the turmoil within, however, as Alex’s febrile mind spiralled back to those obsessive, insistent questions:

  What could it all mean? Is she involved in the deaths? Why didn’t Aviva say more? Where is she?

  ~

  Rohtang

  Twelve Hours Earlier

  The warrior had run into a blank wall. The liquid-oxygen explosion had converted the base into a charnel house, killing every inhabitant, wiping out the results of their work. And the enemy had vanished.

  They travelled through the vortex eight days ago. Where are they? Where are they?

  Bheem probed Samay repeatedly, hoping to uncover a path that would lead to Ashvatthama and Kritavarma. He had touched them, grappled with them before the firestorm. Their lives until the moment they emerged should have been an open book to him but he could discover no record of their passage though Samay. A protective mantra from Shukra’s Mrityu Gyaan? Bheem did not know. He gave his thoughts free rein. And his clenched jaw relaxed into a smile.