Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (25 page)

And that, folks, was the Battle of Siachen Glacier. A minor altercation in light of what was going on further down the Line of Control, but a decisive win for India, and there would be few enough of those in the coming days, on either side. There would be only stalemates and mutual massacres and then the ultimate Pyrrhic victory of a nuclear strike.

¹
I’m not even going to get into a debate over whether it was the Fifth or Fourth, since the Kargil conflict in 1999 was never an officially declared war but is still counted as an Indo-Pakistan fracas.

²
Chinese-manufactured AK-47 ripoffs.

³
Secret Origin:
His real name was Katsuo Arakari, born in Okinawa but raised in California, where he founded a riding school that taught the arts of bushido swordplay in conjunction with equestrianism. His Samurai Ranch in Sacramento attracted patronage from wealthy people the world over who were looking to get in touch with their inner horse-borne warrior. He even wrote a bestseller about it,
Kyuba No Michi – The Ancient Japanese Knight In The Modern World
, a mix of philosophical tract and self-help book.

28. COLONEL ZEHRI

C
OLONEL
Z
EHRI WAS
the name of the captive soldiers’ commanding officer. He was the one who had put his hands up and surrendered, demanding that he and his men be accorded their full rights of protection as prisoners of war under the terms of the Third Geneva Convention.

At the Indians’ camp, Zehri secured a promise from Captain Sawhney that his troops would be looked after, fed, and escorted off the glacier at the earliest opportunity. The sun was setting, and he realised little could be done to move them anywhere else now. However, they could not be expected to spend more than one night out in the open, exposed to the elements. That would be inhuman treatment.

Sawhney radioed base and arranged for a pair of Mi-17 helicopters to come up the next morning to airlift the Pakistanis out.

“You lucky devils,” he told Zehri. “Wherever you end up, it can only be warmer and more pleasant than here.”

Zehri then asked to be introduced formally to the Dashavatara. He wanted to pay his respects to the victors, he said.

And so Sawhney led him over to the
Garuda
, where the Avatars and I were thawing out and shovelling food into our faces. We needed to replenish our reserves after the heavy physical drain of siddhi usage, so we were ploughing through our stocks of high-caloric energy bars and protein smoothies, specially devised by a nutritionist at Mount Meru. Disgusting stuff, tasted like sweetened sawdust and chocolatey clay, but we hoovered it up like crack addicts. There were supplies of amrita on board as well, but we had been advised against using that except in cases of emergency. Eating was the less drastic, old-school method of re-energising yourself. Shooting up with Korolev’s salamander juice got instant results but the serum grew less effective with repetition, the body becoming increasingly desensitised to it with every dose.

Zehri stamped snow from his boots before entering.

“So, these are the ones they call gods,” he said, looking round the cabin. “But from what I see, you’re nothing more than men with an overinflated opinion of yourselves.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Vamana. “You what? You reckon you can just walk in here and start slagging us off? I think you’re forgetting, matey, we just made mincemeat out of your lot.”

“Give me one good reason why I should not gut you where you stand,” Narasimha growled, taloned fingers outstretched.

Credit to Zehri, he barely flinched. “I mean no insult. I speak my mind, that is all. I accept that you defeated us soundly. What I do not, will not, cannot accept is that you are gods, no matter what the newspapers and the television networks insist.”

“Because Allah decrees that there are no other gods but him?” said Parashurama.

“No. I am as secular as a Muslim can be. I am little concerned with what Allah says or wills. But you see, I know what you are. Pakistan’s intelligence services are better informed about you than you might think. We are aware that the Trinity Syndicate has been engaged in experiments. Theogenesis, is that the term? You may have most of the world believing you are Hindu devas reincarnated. We know better. You’re genetically modified organisms, one step up from tomatoes that don’t rot and mice that glow in the dark.”

“Oh, this just gets better and better,” fumed Vamana. “Next he’ll be calling us Frankenstein monsters.”

“You are, in a way.”

“Who’s this ‘we’?” Kalkin asked.

“The upper tiers of government and military,” said Zehri. “Why else do you think we have been harassing you at Mount Meru? What were those drone strikes for? To show you that we aren’t fooled. We aren’t intimidated. We know the truth, even if no one else does.”

“What are you saying?” said Parashurama. “That we were your targets at Meru? That your fight is with us, not India?”

“With you
and
with India. There isn’t much difference as far as we’re concerned. We anticipated that you and our beloved neighbour would join forces eventually. It was inevitable. Your shared interests are too great. A decision was made in Islamabad to force the issue. If India were ever to utilise the Dashavatara in combat, Pakistan would most likely be on the receiving end. So Pakistan made it happen sooner rather than later. We wanted it to be when we were fully ready for it and best able to retaliate. The timing would be ours, not anyone else’s, certainly not India’s. We have been planning for this for months. The drone strikes were the final catalyst. The Pearl Harbor moment. All those Indian dignitaries visiting you on your island – it was the ideal opportunity. We couldn’t resist.”

“Playing into their hands,” said Buddha. “Did I not tell you?”

“Buddha, make yourself useful,” said Parashurama. “Is he telling the truth? If not, force him to.”

“Colonel,” said Buddha to Zehri, “a lie harms the liar more than the one who is lied to. Come clean. Keep no deceit in your heart, lest it taint your soul.”

“I am not lying and have no reason to lie.” Nothing about Zehri had changed as a response to Buddha’s verbal handjob; he must be on the level. “I am telling you exactly what I know, freely and of my own will.”

“He is,” said Buddha. “Whether it’s the genuine truth or not, he believes it to be.”

Zehri seemed relieved, as though a matter of honour had been settled, his probity no longer in question. “You could consider this me delivering a message from my superiors. The order has come down that whoever meets you in battle should, if the opportunity presents itself, be frank with you about Pakistan’s motivations for inciting war.”

“Why?” said Rama. “To undermine our resolve?”

Zehri shrugged. “That may be one outcome, although I doubt it will work. But you do appreciate, don’t you, that you have become little better than weapons? Whereas before you were ridding the world of demons, now you are being turned against human beings, like living artillery. What does that tell you? Who are the demons now? And ask yourselves this. Where did those asuras spring from? And where have they gone to? They used to crop up on an almost daily basis. Now, all at once, there aren’t any anymore. The wellspring seems to have dried up. Why? Why do they stop appearing just when you’re needed elsewhere, when battle opens up on a different front?”

“We don’t need to listen to this bollocks,” said Vamana. “Get this twat out of here before I zoom up to full size and drop-kick him over a mountaintop.”

“Think back,” Zehri went on, undeterred. “Is it not rather convenient that asuras started crawling out of the woodwork when they did? The moment you Avatars were on hand to deal with them, there they were.”

“Karmic balance,” said Matsya. “With the good comes the bad.”

“Ah yes, ‘karmic balance.’ Very neat and tidy. Or was it more than that? Was it because the Trinity needed a handy way of introducing the Dashavatara to the public and demonstrating their skills?”

Vamana fronted up to Zehri, making himself just tall enough that he could look down on the Pakistani. “You, pal, are getting seriously on my wick. Think you can psych us out with all this misinformation propaganda tosh? Think again.”

“Hurt me if you will,” said the colonel. “All I’m saying is that you should take a good, long, hard look at yourselves. Are you proud at using your godlike gifts to slaughter enlisted men? Would true gods do that? Why are you even here in Kashmir? Do you belong in a human war?”

Vamana drew back a fist.

Parashurama grabbed his wrist, restraining him.

“No. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Hit him, and he’s won. He’s got to you.”

Slowly, reluctantly, the Dwarf nodded and lowered his arm.

“Colonel,” Parashurama said, “you’ve made your point. We’ve heard you out. Now, please leave the
Garuda
.”

“With pleasure. Thank you for your patience.” Zehri exited down the steps.

He was twenty paces from the aircraft when Parashurama’s battleaxe came spiralling out of the doorway. Zehri didn’t see it coming. Perhaps, in the last split second of his life, he heard its whirling whirr behind him. Perhaps, albeit briefly, he understood what that sound meant.

The axe passed straight through his torso, cleaving him in two from shoulderblades to hips and embedding itself in the ground several yards ahead of him. Zehri keeled over, his chest split open at the front, ribs clawing outwards. A massive pool of blood spread out beneath his body, staining the snow crimson.

“What the – ?” Vamana spluttered. “You tell me not to thump him, then you cut the bastard in half?”

Parashurama didn’t reply. He went to retrieve his weapon, shaking the blood off the blade as he came back.

He looked grim, grimmer than I’d ever seen him – and the Warrior was not known for being a bundle of laughs.

“That was uncalled for,” said Buddha as Parashurama re-entered the cabin.

“Shows how much you know, Peacemaker,” said Parashurama. “Man had to die. I just didn’t want him knowing he was about to. Killing him the way I did, that was a mark of respect. He had balls, coming to us and saying his piece like that. I wanted him to go back thinking he’d discharged his duty and got away with it. But I couldn’t let him live. Couldn’t have him sharing what he knows with anyone else around here. Definitely couldn’t have him reporting back to his superiors that he’d rattled us.”

“Has he rattled us?” said Kurma.

Parashurama didn’t reply.

“What he said,” said Varaha, “is there some truth in it?”

Parashurama hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m afraid I think there is.”

29. DEMONS AS SUPERVILLAINS

T
HERE WAS SILENCE
in the
Garuda
’s cabin.

“The truth?” said Kalkin. He had a very idiosyncratic manner of speech, pronouncing each word precisely. “That we aren’t gods? We know that already. It’s a useful fiction that keeps public opinion on our side. It’s harmless. A white lie. Besides, who’s to say that we don’t have the genuine spark of divinity in us? We receive power from worship. Isn’t that the practical definition of a god? We’re superior to ordinary people. Again, that’s what a god is. Ask me who I am, and I’m likely to tell you Kalkin the Horseman. Katsuo Arakari is a set of clothes I once wore. My life as him feels like a dream I had, and I’m awake now. Science may have transformed me into Kalkin, but the net result is I’m still Kalkin.”