Paternus: Wrath of Gods (The Paternus Trilogy Book 2)

by Dyrk Ashton

“That’s horrible,” says Fi.

  “Echidna was horrible beast,” Mrs. Mirskaya responds.

  Zeke says, “Echidna? Like from Greek myth?”

  Edgar says, “Various myths refer to Echidna as being the ‘mother of all monsters, as I’m sure you know, including the Cerberus, and describe her as a water dragon of sorts, or a snake with the upper body and face of a woman. Of course, the myths also say the Cerberus was one big dog with three heads that guarded the gates of hell, instead of three Firstborn brothers who together stood sentinel at the entrance to the headquarters of the first Master of the Asura.

  “The Echidna described in mythology has a combination of characteristics taken from several female Firstborn, including not only the mother of the Cerberus but also The Prathamaja Nandana, believe it or not, and given the worst attributes of them all. Scandinavian legends describe her more properly, calling Grendel’s mother a grund-wyrgen, meaning ‘ground wolf’ or ‘warg of the depths,’ because she lived in deep caverns.”

  Fi says, “That fits the description of the thing we saw Cù Sìth turn into.”

  “Echidna was even more frightening, apparently. She slaughtered thousands in both Holocausts, and survived them as well. She was finally killed, not long ago in the greater scheme of things, not far from here, in Denmark. Slain with an Astra weapon by sheer luck, so the true story goes, by a young man from Geatland calling himself Beowulf.”

  Zeke gazes at the heads of Cù Sìth’s brothers, which still lie on the floor where they fell. “According to the fable of Beowulf, he killed Grendel’s mother in a cave after having severed Grendel’s arm at King Hrothgar’s mead hall. That one with the yellow eyes, Surma. He had one arm.”

  Edgar says, “Well done, lad.” He holds a hand to Cù’s gruesome trophies. “There, my boy, at our very feet, lies the head of Grendel, Hrothgar’s bane.”

  Zeke shakes his head, still having a hard time processing the truth of myths and legends he’s studied for so long.

  The group with Peter is breaking up, and to the surprise of Fi, Zeke, Edgar and Mrs. Mirskaya, Ganesh comes over to them, oddly graceful on his stumpy feet. Unlike most of the others, he’s made no attempt to cloak himself. His elephantine visage would be daunting, with his trunk and tusks and big floppy ears, if it weren’t for the wide smile and kind sparkle in his wise brown eyes.

  As he bows to them, palms together in front of him, Fi notices the tip of his left upper tusk is broken off.

  He greets Mrs. Mirskaya, “Sister Mokosh, so good to see you.”

  “Brother Ganesh, how have you been?”

  He pats his round belly. “Growing by the day.” He chuckles, a merry sound that brings grins to all. His eyes fall on Edgar. “You are Galahad. Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Your High Holiness.”

  “Oh, no,” Ganesh chuckles again, “I don’t need a bigger noggin than I already have, on top of my big belly.” He studies Edgar a moment. “You have a good heart, Galahad. Your reputation is well earned.” He holds a palm toward Edgar. Fleeting and nearly imperceptible, his smile fades, then returns. “Bless you, my son.”

  Edgar, Fi and Zeke notice it, but now Ganesh has moved to stand before the youngest two of the group. His gaze seems to rove around them, through them, and there’s something like glad wonder in his expression.

  He holds a palm toward each, his smile growing wider, then claps his hands together softly. “It is truly a delight to meet both of you, I must say.”

  There’s something odd and knowing in the glint of his eyes and creases at their edges, but a palpable sense of peace exudes from him. Fi can feel herself growing calmer simply from being in his presence. But there’s something else as well. Joy, and love. And it’s catching. She sees Zeke, Edgar, and even Mrs. Mirskaya are smiling wide.

  Ganesh bows to her and Zeke, palms together. “Bless you. Bless you both.” As he walks away, the peaceful feeling fades, the reality of their situation seeping back in. They all let out a sigh.

  “I’d like to spend more time with him,” says Zeke.

  To which Fi responds, “I think anyone would.” Then she asks, “How did his tusk get broken?”

  “There are a number of explanations in Hindu mythology. That he broke it off himself to use as a pen when asked to help write the Mahabharata, or that he once was human and his head was replaced with that of an elephant with a broken tusk.”

  Mrs. Mirskaya says, “He has never told, but probably happened in Great Wars.”

  “He’s a fighter?” Fi asks, finding that hard to believe.

  Mrs. Mirskaya laughs. “Da, he is fighter.”

  “From what I’ve been told,” says Edgar, “Ganesh normally adheres to the Hindu and Buddhist principle of compassion and non-violence known as Ahimsa, but in spite of his spiritual nature, or perhaps because of it, he is one of the greatest Deva warriors who ever lived.”

  * * *

  Peter, Freyja and Pratha have taken their seats at the head table, and Mrs. Mirskaya, Fi, Zeke and Edgar sit once again at the table to their right. To their left, Anubis, Sekhmet and Thoth have made room at their table for Akhu. The rest of the Deva move to their places at the tables below, except for Kabir and Cù Sìth, who stand near where Naga has coiled himself into a tiered hill of green scales off to the side. Léon has said no more about it, but glares occasionally at Cù Sìth, who has so far succeeded in ignoring him. Tanuki has returned and sits quietly near Asterion.

  Fintán has taken a different seat, one from which he can keep a wary eye on Naga. Now he rises. “I would speak for the record.”

  “What’s on your mind, Horus?” Freyja asks. “My guess is it has something to do with The Snake. Would you like to challenge him to trial by combat?”

  “Accepted,” comes Naga’s calm ocean of a voice from the back.

  A small smile crosses Fintán’s lips. “The Snake and I have had our differences, and we have each suffered greatly at the hands of the other. But prior to that he fought for the Deva in both Holocausts, bravely and with loyalty. Now another war is brewing. I am willing to put our differences aside, if he is.

  “That’s very kind of you, little bird.”

  “Snake!” Freyja shouts.

  Naga’s laugh is a deep tremolo, but he says, “Agreed.”

  “I would merely suggest caution, for the record,” says Fintán.

  Naga says, “Also agreed.”

  Freyja looks to Thoth, whose quill is scratching away. “Duly noted.” She looks over the room. “Anyone else? We could just do this until the devil comes knocking, if you wish?” The group remains silent. “Good. Father?”

  “Thank you Freyja,” Peter says, then finishes off his glass of wine and gets to his feet. He looks over the room, his green eyes deep with thought. Fi senses a change of tone, very different from the festive mood, or even the tension of combat, of only a short time ago.

  The group feels it too. A hush washes over them, out to the farthest tables. Those still standing take their seats, until all eyes are on their father. Thoth’s quill hovers above his ledger.

  Peter gazes at the floor, palms pressed to the tabletop. He’s so still, Fi can’t tell if he’s breathing, and it’s as if everyone holds their breath along with him. Finally his eye twitches and he takes a deep breath. “There is something I must tell you. A number of things, actually.” Only now does he look up, his expression grim. “The Hindu cosmic calendar is real, and the Kali yuga is coming to a close.”

  There’s a rustling as Deva shift in their seats. Glances are traded and a murmur of conversation rises.

  Fi notices Zeke and Edgar wear similar expressions. Eyes narrowed, blinking slowly in contemplation, corners of their mouths turned down. She leans close. “What’s a Kali yuga?” she asks quietly.

  Zeke’s about to answer, but Edgar says, “More important is what it portends.”

  “And what’s that?” she asks.

  Zeke says softly, “The end of the world.”<
br />
  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  NORWAY

  MAHA YUGA

  Sekhmet and Anubis whisper close, then Anubis says, “Of course we are aware of the cosmic calendar, Father, but we’ve always believed it to be true as well.”

  Peter frowns. “Why would you believe that?”

  “You told us, long ago,” says Sekhmet. “Not in so many words, but enough to confirm what we already suspected. The early mtoto seers of the Indus Valley were quite adept. We’ve no reason to doubt them.”

  Myrddin pipes up, “And Ganesh told us.” Many accusing eyes fall on him. “Well, he did.”

  Ganesh chortles in his chair.

  Sekhmet says, “We were to keep that to ourselves, Madman.”

  “Oh dear,” says Myrddin. “Forget I said anything. It wasn’t Ganesh. Please proceed. Thoth, my friend, scratch that, if you would.”

  Without looking up, Thoth says, “No,” and continues writing. Myrddin pouts.

  Peter says, “If anyone would know, it would be Ganesh, and I can’t fault him for repeating it. But if you’re all aware of this, then you know the end is coming.”

  “Yes, of course,” says Léon, leaning back in his chair. “In four hundred and twenty-seven thousand years, give or take.”

  Peter’s shoulders slouch. “That’s what I was afraid of. I can only blame myself for hiding the truth.”

  “And what truth might that be, Father?” Ochosi asks.

  Peter considers how to proceed, then looks to Zeke. “What do you know of Hindu cosmology and eschatology, Zeke?”

  Uncomfortable at being put on the spot, Zeke concentrates on not mumbling or letting his voice crack. “I know it has to do with cycles of the universe, and our world, being created and destroyed, again and again, taking place over incredible spans of time.”

  When Peter says nothing, Zeke leans forward, nervously intertwines his fingers on the table, and continues. “It’s kind of hard to say, really. The old Vedic scriptures talk about the universe coming into existence, like in a Big bang, and expanding until it just kind of dissipates into nothing, but they also have passages claiming it expands, then collapses on itself, until it expands again, over and over.”

  He looks to Peter, who nods for him to go on. “The later Puranic scriptures have a lot more detail. Complicated stuff, dealing in actual time frames—which are super hard for me to understand because they deal in measurements of time calculated by the lifetime of Brahma, the creator. Each lifetime of the world, though, has four stages, and is called a Maha yuga.”

  Zeke dares to look out over the Deva. To his relief, they’re listening intently, their expressions free of criticism or judgment.

  “Brygun, Trejgun,” Peter says, pointing behind him, “if you would?” The two of them, who have been standing off to the side of the head table, retrieve a large slate on a stand and set it behind him. Peter apparently knew he would have to broach this subject and has made prior arrangements. Trejgun hands Peter a large piece of chalk, and Peter says, “Go on, Zeke.”

  “I don’t remember how long each of the four stages last, but it’s pretty staggering. I do know the stages, though. The first is the Sata yuga, like spring, called the Golden Age.” Peter writes it out on the chalkboard. “The second is the Treta yuga, associated with summer. The third is the Duapara yuga, akin to fall. And the last, and supposedly the one we’re in now, is the Kali yuga, the winter of the world, described as being a time of ignorance and darkness.” Peter has written them all down, one below the other.

  “There’s a lot written about each one, but essentially the world goes through these four stages and is destroyed at the end of the Kali yuga, then remade to go through the whole process again. I think altogether they add up to something like 4,000,000 years?”

  “4,320,000,” says Peter, and writes that on the board as well.

  “What amazes me,” says Zeke, “is when most everybody in Western civilization was still convinced the world was flat and measured the age of the earth and beginnings of human life in thousands of years, the Hindus had already, for thousands of years, been thinking about the world and the universe in terms of millions, billions, even trillions of years. And there are scientists now who see a lot of truth to what they wrote down.”

  “More than any of them know, Zeke,” says Peter. “Were you aware that Sanskrit, the Hindi writing system, lends itself to logic and mathematics better than any written language in the world? The Hindu Puranas in particular have passages that are extraordinarily elaborate and mathematically complex. Quite a bit of what was recorded is speculation, steeped in mysticism, but there was a time when human beings had a closer relationship to natural phenomena and clearer understanding of the true nature of the cosmos. Some of them had access to World Memory, even Cosmic or Universal Memory.”

  His eyes go to Fi. “Clairvoyants, they’d be called today—which is how they knew any of this in the first place. But they were also brilliant mathematicians and astronomers, and came up with much of it by extrapolating on what they had learned from their visions. I know this not only because I was there, but also because I never told them any of it.”

  Peter gazes out over the Deva, all still listening, the only sounds the lifting and setting down of glasses and the scratching of Thoth’s quill. He turns back to the chalkboard. “While there are discrepancies and contradictions in different passages of the Puranas, the more commonly held belief is that the first stage lasts for 1,728,000 years, the second 1,296,000 years, the third 864,000, and the fourth, 432,000 years. Note that each stage decreases in duration by 432,000, until the last is exactly that length.

  “This is one Maha yuga, or one life-cycle of the earth, which repeats itself many times throughout the life of the universe, and the Puranas say the universe endures for 4,320,000,000 years. At the end of that time, the entire universe is ended and renewed.”

  Peter continues writing as he speaks, leaving the chalkboard looking like this:

  “All of you know of these writings, I am fully aware, and I’m sure you’ve seen the pattern—variations on the numbers four-three-two, in different factors of a thousand.”

  Fi’s following along pretty well so far, she thinks. She’s also pretty sure Peter is laying it out like this mostly for her benefit.

  “My first points of departure from the information contained in the Puranas are the following,” Peter continues.

  “One, the destruction and renewal of which we speak does not happen only at the end of one full Maha yuga cycle and beginning of the next. It happens between each stage.

  “Two, the length of one Maha yuga is off by a factor of a thousand, meaning it’s not a mere 4,320,000 years, but 4,320,000,000 years—what the authors of the calendar thought was the life of the universe.”

  The Deva listen more intently, calculating in their own minds.

  “These are entirely forgivable mistakes considering the instruments being used at the time, but also because they were working with a number system their mystics had divined, based not on our years, but on the days and nights of the life of Brahma—something that could only be learned through access to Universal Memory. As we know, Memory is perfect—but the human mind’s access to it is not, especially memories that must be older than anyone can possibly fathom. Even so, the mystics were off by just that factor of a thousand. What they accomplished was truly astounding.

  “Putting that aside for the moment, the greatest mystery to the writers of the Puranas was when the current Maha yuga cycle had begun. Even in the Puranic scriptures it is not stated clearly. Hence, there was no way to predict when it would end.

  “Then, thousands of years after the Puranas were written, five hundred years before the birth of The Christ, a brilliant astronomer and mathematician named Aryabhata came along, who I believe had some sensitivity as a seer as well.

  “After much study and re-calculation, he determined the beginning of the Kali yuga, the final stage, to be 3102 B.C. Based on that assumptio
n, he realigned the cosmic calendar and came up with an end-times prediction of approximately 427,000 years from now, which is what Léon was referring to. This is the most commonly held understanding of the cosmic calendar in Hinduism today, and from what I am hearing, what many of you believe as well.”

  Seated in his chair, fingers steepled before his lips, Asterion says, “But you are going to tell us that is not the case.”

  “I am,” Peter replies, then takes a breath. “Though remarkably close to what scientists today believe to be the life of the earth itself, the 4,320,000,000 years I mentioned earlier is actually the span of my lifetime. The entire cosmic calendar is not tied to the life of the universe, or that of the earth, but to mine. The Maha yuga began on the day I came into consciousness, at the very moment of my first memory, nearly 4,320,000,000 years ago today.”

  Sharp creaks of chairs, intakes of breath, and soft exclamations punctuate the atmosphere in the great hall.

  “‘Nearly,’ you say,” Léon says, “How nearly?”

  “Due to the possibility of having missed some days when I slept for long periods of time, I could be off by as much a week, but by my calculations, the Kali yuga will end at noon on October the thirty-first.”

  “Of this year?” Léon asks. “Of this month, only a few weeks away?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you like this, but yes.”

  Fi’s mouth hangs open. “That’s Halloween,” she says, then turns to Zeke and Edgar. “The world’s going to end on my eighteenth birthday.”

  * * *

  “Not necessarily,” Peter says, his voice projecting over the rising hubbub.

  “What do you mean?” says Freyja, her expression more dour than frightened or surprised.

  Peter says, “I know the truth of all this because I was there, present to witness the cataclysmic events that took place at the end of each of the previous yuga stages. The only others old enough to have been alive when the last took place and the Kali yuga began would be Yggdrasil and Cetus, though there is some doubt Cetus still lives.”