KRISHNA CORIOLIS#6: Fortress of Dwarka Page 12

  “Sage Narada,” replied the Prince of India, waving to his aides to leave him. They complied without question or curiosity, accustomed to his eccentricities and whims. Every ruler had his peculiarities. Some drank. Others used substances other than alcohol. Some had vices or appetites that could only be described as…excessive. The Yavana prince was relatively simple to understand: he craved only to conquer and expand his empire. Since their reputation and career advancement was reliant upon his success in achieving his goals, they were happy to comply with his minor whims. If he chose to address invisible Indian sages from time to time and ask them for guidance or advice, so be it. They had all known lieges who had indulged in far, far less tolerable eccentricities. On the list of intolerable eccentricities of kings, talking to non-existent sages was probably ranked among the lowest. They retired to a distance sufficient that they could still observe and protect their lord, yet could not hear his words.

  “Prince, I am pleased to welcome you to the land of power and plenty,” said the ancient sage, bowing gracefully with joined palms in the Indian manner. “We have a saying in our culture: Atithi Devo Bhavya. It means ‘A Guest Is As A God’.”

  The Yavana smiled. There was a sword edge in that smile. “If that is so, then you treat your Gods most strangely.”

  “My Lord,” the sage appeared puzzled. “Do I sense discontentment in your tone?”

  “You do,” said the Prince of India. “Thus far, I have seen nothing resembling your much-promised land of gold and treasure.” He gestured to the city in the distance. “All I see are common structures and a land attractive in some ways yet no more plentiful or treasure-strewn than the Grekos islands. Indeed, I have seen more treasure and exotic sights in lands much farther east. The great city of Babylon and her neighboring kingdoms are far richer in sights and spoils.”

  Narada inclined his head. “Do not be too hasty to judge my homeland, great prince. A wealthy man does not put his greatest treasures out on the street for all to see. Some lock their wealth behind steel coffers. Others disguise it in mundane garb.” He gestured to the same city in the distance. “Besides, Mathura itself is only a stepping stone to the true wealth that awaits you.”

  The Yavana drew his sword. The sound was keening and audible on the still morning air. Even his aides several dozen yards away heard the distinctive sound and caught the flash of early sunlight upon the tempered steel. They turned to glance curiously as their Prince pointed his weapon at a point in the air that might correspond to the height of a tall man’s throat—except that there was no man standing before their Prince. They quickly averted their eyes and pretended to be absorbed in some mundane conversation, not wishing to embarrass their lord by witnessing his self-delusion.

  To the Yavana’s eyes, the point of his sword lay precisely at the bobbing bulge on the sage’s throat. The point touched the skin delicately enough to prick it without drawing blood. He did not know if the apparition could be harmed by Grekos steel but it was more the gesture and attitude he wished to present than any actual threat.

  The sage’s face reflected his displeasure. “What means this insolence, Prince?”

  “I am not sure if you are to be trusted, sage,” said the Yavana. “I did not conquer so many great nations and overthrow so many powerful kings without learning much about human nature and the myriad ways in which human beings manipulate one another to achieve their own ends.”

  “I see,” replied the ghostly apparition, moving so that the sword point passed through his throat and emerged behind his spine without causing any apparent harm to his person. “As you can see, your mortal weapons cannot harm me. I speak to you from another plane through the use of a Vortal. Even your formidable army will not avail you here.”

  The Yavana kept the sword pointed a moment longer then lowered it reluctantly. “Perhaps. But why should I trust you any more? Why should I not turn my army around and march back home the way I came? Give me one good reason to stay?”

  Narada paused, observing the Greek’s face and judging his emotion state. “Here is your reason,” he said shortly. Then he raised a massive wildwood staff in his hand and gestured.

  The Yavana started. The air above and around him exploded. One moment he was standing on a rise overlooking a vast plain with only the dusty outline of Mathura city in the distance. The next moment, he was standing upon the rooftop of a great and wondrous palace, overlooking a city such as nothing he had ever beheld before even in his most fantastical dreams. He gasped and fell to his knees, overwhelmed.

  Narada lowered his staff, smiling grimly down at the Yavana. “Now do you understand why you are here? That is what lies in store for you if you do as I say.”

  “What place is that?” asked the Yavana, gulping in breath. “I saw…roofs of diamonds and emeralds! Paving stones of solid gold! Precious gems studded into walls, each the size of a fist! Flying chariots. Vast battlements. Surely it is a city of Gods?”

  Narada shook his head. “A city built by Gods, yes. But occupied by mere mortals. It can be your’s, alongwith all within its walls. You have only to do as I say.”

  The Yavana’s aides were glancing again in his direction, exchanging words as they saw him on his knees. They began moving in his direction, concerned. He rose slowly to his feet, head still reeling from the vision he had been shown. “What is the name of the city, great sage? Tell me what I must do to possess its spoils! I will do anything you say!”

  Narada raised his staff and gestured in the direction the Yavana had been gazing moments earlier. “A person is attempting to flee the city of Mathura. Follow that person and slay him. Once you do that, I will take you to the city.” He paused. “The city named Dwarka.”

  And with that he vanished in a swirl of morning mist through which the Yavana’s aides walked unsuspectingly as they approached their lord and master with expressions of concern.

  He shook off their queries. “Fetch my horse,” he said. “We shall ride after the courier.”

  4

  In the scented dimness of his imperial tent, Jarasandha descended into the Vortal. He wished to observe the Yavanas sacking Mathura, crushing the Yadava capital to dust and bone fragments, reaving and pillaging, wreaking their legendary havoc on the city and people that had eluded him for so long. No city, no kingdom, no power had ever resisted him successfully. Many had tried. Some had held out for a great length of time. But eventually, by one means or another, he had invaded. Intruded. Triumphed. Prevailed.

  After witnessing Krishna’s rout of his erstwhile son-in-law, he had believed it would take his own imperial army to bring the son of Vasudeva to his pretty knees. Yet after seventeen days of warfare--or rather, the same day repeated seventeen times--he had definitive evidence that mere mortal forces could not easily defeat the Slayer of Kamsa. It would take more, much more.

  The Yavana had been his solution. Even Krishna could not resist the world’s greatest army as well as protect his people at once. Either one would be crushed today. It hardly mattered which. To crush Krishna’s people was to crush Krishna himself. Jarasandha would settle for seeing Krishna’s spirit broken and to see him brought to his knees emotionally, if not physically. Today, he expected to witness that glorious sight, either in fact or in essence.

  The miasma of the Vortal exuded a strange energy today. The initial odors one smelled while passing through the interdimensional passageway were the same, but immediately after, on coming through, he sensed a significant change. Something was different. What?

  He found his answer momentarily.

  The passage opened like a ballooning tunnel suspended in mid air, some hundreds of yards above ground. The location was less than a kilometer from Mathura. A solitary figure was heading away from the city. Several dozen others were giving pursuit, some kilometers behind yet gaining fast.

  The texture of the Vortal passageway was not unlike a billowing satin sheet, one thin and transparent enough that one felt as if a fingernail could tear a rent and rip i
t open, spilling Jarasandha down from this fatal height. Yet he knew this was not so: the Vortal was as solid as time itself; as relentless as the mind’s energy. Just because it happened to be invisible and almost inexplicable, just like those other two concepts, did not make it insubstantial or unreal. Merely daunting.

  He used his mind’s energy to drive the Vortal forward, enabling him to continue observing the pursuit of the escapee from Mathura. Who was it? Why was a single person fleeing the city? And why was the Yavana prince and his army giving pursuit instead of doing what they had come all the way from the distant land to do: sack Mathura?

  Something was amiss here and Jarasandha intended to find out what it was. He drove the Vortal downwards, like a snake undulating to wriggle lower to the earth, descending in curving steps until he was low enough and close enough to recognize individual figures and identifying characteristics, moving faster than a running man yet not quite as fast as a galloping horse.

  There was something familiar about that solitary figure leading the chase. Clad from head to foot in yellow garments that shone and reflected the light of the rising sun, he moved with a familiar feminine grace. Jarasandha had watched that same grace on the battlefield too many times over the past seventeen days not to recognize it at once.

  “Krishna!” he breathed, furious at once. That solitary figure running away from Mathura was Krishna. Which meant that some new game was afoot here. Quite literally, since Krishna was on foot. He punched the energy of the Vortal hard, tilting his head forward, eyes gleaming angrily as he drove the passageway forward, like a giant worm moving through the air, suspended by unseen forces.

  The Yavana Prince was pursuing Krishna, accompanied by his aides and men at war. And in their wake came the rest of the army, lumbering prodigiously as befitted a behemoth of that gargantuan size. Seen from this vantage point, it was like watching a giant snake undulating in the early morning sunlight, snaking forward slowly, its cold blood warming and energizing it into sluggish movement.

  Jarasandha punched the Vortal harder, driving it downwards and forward at a faster rate. His goal was the lone figure running with lithe, agile steps ahead of the galloping Yavana forces. Jarasandha raced to catch up with Krishna and to try to get low enough to see Neither he nor his sorcerous passageway could be seen by anyone on the ground he knew, yet as he approached he slowed the progress of the Vortal worm…just in case. When he was low enough and close enough to see the racing figure clearly, he drew in breath sharply.

  It was Krishna, no doubt about it.

  Yet he had never seen Krishna like this before.

  Dressed all in yellow silk which contrasted starkly with his jet-black skin. A curl of hair upon his bared chest. Srivatsa, it is called, that lock of hair curled upon his chest, Jarasandha thought then wondered at how he could know such a thing or how a lock of hair upon a man’s chest could possibly have a name! Upon Krishna’s neck was a glittering gem that caught every ray of light from the risen sun and refracted it across the landscape, fracturing the world into glassine fragments. Kausubha, the jewel at his throat is named.

  Krishna’s arms were longer than they had seemed before, during the seventeen days of battle. Long enough that they reached his knees. But that was impossible surely? Impossible or not, it was so. His cheeks glowed ruddily like the heart of a fresh lotus. The smile on his face was infectious, illuminating the world, glowing brighter than Surya himself. His face itself was a lotus resplendent. Dangling from his ears were enormous earrings shaped like…crocodiles? Yes.

  Krishna turned to gaze up at Jarasandha.

  A blade stabbed Jara’s heart.

  Krishna was looking directly back at him as he ran, over his shoulder. There was nothing else in that quadrant of his view: he would hardly be gazing back the open sky.

  He grinned brightly at Jarasandha, then winked.

  Jarasandha balked.

  Manipulating the Vortal like the reins of a horse team, he yanked himself back, back, back, with such incredible force, the worming passageway of energy spun back over its own length, turned over and struck ground, burrowing deep within the earth, then tunneling back with incredible speed.

  Mere moments later, he burst free from the Vortal, into the scented dimness of his own imperial tent. A pair of Mohinis on guard at the entrance of the tent reacted to the exhalation he gave out: panicked and hoarse. The Emperor of Magadha was not wont to issue hoarse panicked outburts of that sort. Yet his subsequent words left no doubt it was he and they settled for glancing uneasily at one another but remained at their post. Ensuring their Lord’s safety was important; interrupting his privacy at an unguarded moment could well cost them their own lives.

  5

  The chase was long and fierce. The Yavanas were on horseback and chariot and carriage--the frontriders at least, themselves a sizable army--and Krishna was just a man on foot with barely a few kilometers lead. Yet each time the Yavana Prince felt certain he would catch up with Krishna at any minute, Krishna eluded him again. It was impossible, he knew. One moment he would spy Krishna merely a few hundred yards ahead, walking at a brisk pace--not even running, mind you--and he would spur his own horse forward, closing the distance in moments. But somehow just as he came within shouting distance, close enough to fling a javelin or loose an arrow on the go, Krishna appeared to be the same distance ahead that he had been earlier. The Yavana would ride faster, enraged, and still Krishna would remain ahead. At times, Krishna would even glance back, his white teeth flashing in his dark face, grinning at his pursuers: this would cause the Prince to goad his horse and army even more. Yet it was to no avail. No matter how hard they rode or how fast they covered ground, Krishna always remained just out of reach, eluding them by a mere few hundred yards.

  “This is Indian sorcery,” his aides told him as the morning wore on to noon and their horses began to tire, then grow dangerously exhausted. The army had traveled nonstop from their homelands, driven by the promise of Indian spoils. This new pursuit was ill-advised. And because the Prince was so certain he was on the right track, he had instructed the entire army to follow. Already, their forces were stretched out for many dozen yojanas behind them, extending not only to the city of Mathura but far beyond. Even though it might take them days before they fully left Mathura behind, the fact was they were leaving their destination without having achieved their purpose. It did not take a brilliant military mind to realize that they were departing from all logic and common sense to pursue a phantom instead of a real goal.

  “Even if we catch this Indian prince,” they said to one another, brows knit in concern, “what will we have achieved? He cannot even be worth a ransom or else he would not be traveling on foot, fleeing his own city unescorted? We have left the richest city in the Indus to pursue a ghost runner.”

  And the term was apt for as the hours stretched into a day and the day turned into a second day, it became evident that their quarry was no ordinary man on foot. There was something at work here that was more than human. No mortal man could keep running for a full day and night without being caught by the fastest horses in Grekos. What was more: he was not even running! He was merely walking briskly, his skirts--they did not know that the Indian garment was called a dhoti--swirling as he went. Even more disconcerting was the manner in which he frequently turned and grinned at them, as if luring them on.

  “And if this is Krishna, as your Lord says he is,” they murmured uneasily, “he is fabled to be a god among Indians. A great warrior and lover. This could all be part of a deception on his part. He could be leading us into a trap or an ambush.”

  Yet the Prince’s supporters--for he had some--pointed out that action was better than inaction. That the so-called “richest city in the world” as it had been claimed to be, had turned out to be disappointing in the extreme. At least this way they might find their way to some more desirable prize. As for riding into a trap or ambush, what did the greatest army in the world have to fear? What ambush could waylay a force o
f their size? What trap could contain such a great juggernaut of war? Bring it on! They had come here to fight and chasing was better than standing still and holding siege for long wearying months.