The Sacred Vault

one.

After five minutes, one more turn brought the last wheel into alignment. ‘Okay, almost done!’ she said. Now that all five were in position, she could turn them to line up the individual words. Kali was already paired with the word ‘death’, and one by one she turned the others. Shakti, Uma, Durga . . . and finally Parvati.

Another breathless silence . . .

And again, nothing happened.

‘Buggeration and fuckery,’ she muttered.

Eddie gave her a surprised look, then drew back to check the rest of the door, aware that the guardians were now watching him more mistrustfully than ever. ‘There’s not a handle we’re supposed to turn?’

‘This is all there is,’ said Shankarpa.

‘Try another combination,’ Kit suggested, urgency entering his voice as he nervously regarded the men surrounding them. ‘Shakti might be “motherhood”, not Uma.’

‘I don’t think it’ll make any difference,’ said Nina. They had overlooked something. But what?

Shankarpa interrupted her thoughts, pushing her back from the door. ‘You have failed.’

‘Wait a minute, mate,’ Eddie said, moving towards him - only to have several sharp blades raised to his neck. ‘She’s good at this stuff, but even she doesn’t always get it first time. I once nearly fell into a pit full of spikes ’cause she couldn’t tell her left from her right.’

‘Way to make me look competent to the impatient guys with swords, Eddie,’ Nina muttered.

Other guardians threatened Kit with their weapons. At Shankarpa’s command, they forced the three visitors towards the edge of the ledge. Girilal protested, but his son angrily dismissed him.

‘If you kill us, you’ll be fucked when Khoil’s people turn up,’ growled Eddie.

‘We will deal with them as we will deal with you,’ Shankarpa promised. ‘Shiva will protect us.’

‘Shiva,’ Nina whispered. That was the clue! Something about Shiva had been literally staring her in the face the whole time she worked on the lock. ‘It’s Shiva! I know how to open the door!’

Shankarpa’s condescension was clear. ‘And perhaps you also know how to fly off this ledge. It is the only thing that will save you now.’

‘No, no, look!’ She pointed at the statue towering over them. ‘Look at Shiva! Look at his head!’

The certainty in her voice made him hesitate. Holding up a hand to signal the others to stop, he glanced at the colossal stone figure. ‘What about it?’

‘Don’t you see?’ Nina said desperately. ‘It’s tilted to one side!’

‘So?’

‘So the key’s in the wrong position! I put it in with Shiva’s head aligned vertically because . . . because that’s what you automatically do. But you’re meant to line it up with the statue.’ She demonstrated, turning an imaginary object in her hands. ‘The words are in the right order, but the wrong places. If you turn the key so Shiva’s head matches the statue, then all the goddesses move round by one position. That’s what we have to line them up with!’

Shankarpa looked between her and the statue. ‘Do you really believe this? Or are you just trying to save your life?’

‘Well, both! But I do think I’m right - I know I’m right. If I’m wrong, then you can throw us off the ledge.’

Eddie raised a finger. ‘Nina, love? Remember how now we’re married, we’re supposed to make big decisions together?’

‘I would also like to distance myself from that remark,’ Kit said hurriedly.

‘I’m right,’ she insisted. ‘Shankarpa, at least let me try. You might have to wait five minutes longer to kill us - but on the other hand, five minutes from now you could be walking into the Vault of Shiva!’

‘You should let her,’ added Girilal. ‘It is the right thing to do.’

Shankarpa shot his father an irritated glare, but acquiesced. ‘Do not fail,’ he told Nina curtly.

‘Yeah, really,’ Eddie added as the guardians, swords still raised, escorted them back to the door.

‘I won’t,’ Nina assured him. She removed the replica key from the central hole, then re-inserted it . . . rotated by one-fifth of a turn. She looked up at the statue. Shiva’s blank stone eyes gazed back at her, the faint smile on the tilted head encouraging her to continue.

Turning the wheels to match the new positions of the goddesses was now a purely mechanical task, taking just a few minutes. She rotated each smaller disc to what she thought - prayed - was the correct alignment. Love, motherhood, invincibility, femininity . . .

Death.

The last word was in place. Silence . . .

Click.

Something moved behind the wheels, a restraint finally released after countless centuries. More clicking, louder, then the rattling clank of chains—

With a swirl of escaping dust, the doors swung inwards.

The guardians let out exclamations of awe, some dropping to their knees to offer thanks to Shiva. Shankarpa was wide-eyed with surprise. Fully opened, the doors stopped with a crunch of stone.

‘So, my son,’ said Girilal quietly, ‘are you going to apologise to Dr Wilde?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘We will see what is inside first - what we are sworn to protect.’ He hesitated before reluctantly saying, ‘Come with me, Dr Wilde.’

Awestruck, Nina followed him into the darkness of the Vault of Shiva.

25

The space behind the doors was huge, on a scale to match the statue guarding it. The echo of Nina’s and Shankarpa’s footsteps as they moved through the entrance quickly disappeared, lost in a vast cavern.

There was something inside the doors. As Nina’s vision adjusted to the darkness, it revealed what she at first took to be two stone blocks, about five feet high and three feet apart, before realising they were merely the ends of larger constructs. Together, they formed the two halves of a steeply sloping ramp that rose a good thirty feet at the far end, dropping almost to floor level before rising back up; the comparison that leapt instantly to her mind was a ski-jump.

There was no snow inside the chamber, though. So what was it for?

An answer came as she and Shankarpa moved further into the cave, the others following. Something was perched at the top of the ramp, slender parts extending out to each side like wings . . .

Not like wings. They were wings.

‘It’s a glider!’ Nina cried, completely forgetting the threat of the guardians as she ran for a better look. ‘Khoil told me about the stories in the ancient Indian epics where the gods had flying machines. I thought they were just legends - but they were true!’

‘The vimanas,’ said Girilal. He laughed. ‘My father told me those stories when I was a boy - and I told them to my own son. Do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ said Shankarpa, amazed.

Nina started to climb the ramp, eager to see the craft at the top. ‘What Talonor said in the Codex all makes sense now. This is why it took the priests one day to get up here, and only an hour to get back - they flew! They released the glider, it slid down the ramp, then hit the ski-jump at the end and flew out down the valley.’ She examined the stone slide; it was smoothly polished, with a small lip at the outer edge to guide a runner on the glider itself.

Eddie looked back through the doors, seeing the cliff at the far end of the canyon. ‘They’d have to pull up pretty sharpish when they took off. Cock things up, and you’d smack into that wall.’

Nina shone her flashlight at the glider. It had an organic appearance, the wings formed from gracefully curved wooden spars. The wood itself was dark and glossy, given some kind of treatment to strengthen and preserve it. Between the spars, the fabric of the wings was still stretched taut. It appeared to be a fine, lightweight silk, covered in dust and yellowed with age.