The Sacred Vault

‘This is incredible!’ she said as Shankarpa ascended the other ramp. ‘The ancient Hindus had actual, working flying machines before the Greeks even came up with the myth of Daedalus. And it took until the sixteenth century before Leonardo designed anything similar.’ The glider’s undercarriage was made from the same wood, a trapezoidal frame with ski-like metal runners attached. These weren’t as corroded as she would have expected; the cavern was dry as well as cold. The craft seemed designed to carry at least two people, lying prone on a slatted platform beneath the wing.

Girilal grinned up at her. ‘Well, it is often said that we Indians invented everything.’

‘Who says that?’ Eddie asked.

‘We Indians,’ Kit told him.

Nina directed her light along the ancient aircraft’s fuselage. At the end of the slender wooden body was a fan-shaped tail. There was something affixed beneath it, a long black cylinder protruding out past the end of the glider’s frame. At first she was puzzled as to what it might be . . . before a cord hanging from its end gave her a clue: a fuse. ‘Here’s something else you might have invented before anyone else,’ she said. ‘Rockets.’

‘You’re kidding!’ said Eddie. ‘I thought the Chinese invented them.’

‘I think they’ll be very annoyed when they find out someone beat them to it. They came up with gunpowder around the ninth century, but our friends here were using it thousands of years earlier. It must be how they got up enough speed to launch.’

Below, Girilal walked round the base of the ramp. ‘Look here,’ he called.

Nina aimed the flashlight down to find him prodding his stick at a stack of more black tubes. ‘Careful, don’t poke them! They’ve been here for who knows how long - they might be unstable.’

Eddie had a different opinion. ‘More likely they won’t work at all. Depends how they made the gunpowder - if they didn’t corn it properly, the different ingredients’ll probably have separated by now.’ He caught his wife’s surprised expression. ‘I did explosives training in the SAS - it’s handy to know this stuff if you’re going to blow things up.’

‘Well, either way, let’s not put any naked flames near them.’ She descended the ramp. By now, her eyes had become more accustomed to the low light. ‘Oh, wow. This isn’t the only glider - the place is more like a hangar.’ To one side were several more vimanas. Other mysterious objects lurked in the darkness. ‘This flashlight isn’t going to cut it,’ she said. ‘We need something bigger.’

‘This might do,’ proclaimed Girilal. The old yogi had wandered a little further into the cavern, and was standing by a metal brazier on a stone pedestal. Nina illuminated it - and discovered that a narrow groove had been cut into the floor behind it, leading deeper into the chamber. She followed it with the light until it split, and tracked one of the arms until it divided again, eventually reaching another brazier some distance away. There was a liquid at the bottom of the channel, but from Girilal’s excitement she knew it wasn’t water.

She went to him. ‘It’s oil,’ she said, stirring away the covering of dust with a fingertip and sniffing it. ‘A lighting system. Start one fire, and it spreads through the whole cave to light the other braziers.’

‘I thought we didn’t want to start any fires,’ said Eddie, looking at the pile of rockets.

‘We’ll be safe as long as nobody knocks this thing over. Let me get my stuff.’

She retrieved her pack from outside, finding a box of waterproof survival matches. ‘Shall we take a look?’ she asked Shankarpa.

‘Light it,’ he ordered.

She struck the match and touched it to the line of oil. It took a moment to ignite, but when it did the results made everyone flinch back. A line of fire raced away down the groove, splitting again and again at each branch as it spread through the cavern. Something hissed and fizzed inside each brazier in turn as the fire reached it - small packets of gunpowder catching light, the heat spreading to the tinder and coal above them. Flames began to rise.

The great chamber filled with a flickering amber light. Objects gradually took on form, incredible treasures; golden statues of gods and men and animals; elaborate carved friezes decorated with jewels and precious metals; beautifully painted frescos and gorgeous embroidered silks showing scenes from the lives of Shiva and his wives. Amongst the artworks were strange machines, as mystifying in the glow from the braziers as they had been as shadows. A giant wheel with dozens of leather pouches hanging from its rim; a great wooden framework, hundreds of glinting metal arrowheads protruding from it; a massive stone roller studded with long, thick iron bars. Not far from the ramp was what resembled a miniature palace, cupolas picked out in gold. Connected to a circular ring around its top was an enormous fabric bag, which stretched away, deflated and flaccid, almost to the Vault’s side wall.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Eddie. ‘Shiva’s got a big garage.’

‘This is amazing,’ Nina whispered. ‘What are all these things?’ She went to the little palace. It had a gate in one wall; she gingerly pushed it open to reveal another brazier inside, as well as several straight-bladed swords in a rack on one wall. ‘It’s like a dollhouse.’

‘Mayayantras,’ said Girilal. ‘“Magic machines”. The Vedas and the epic texts tell of them being used in battles.’

Shankarpa was more specific. ‘This is a sarvato-bhadra,’ he said, going to the great wheel. It was supported on each side by wooden beams. He held up a pouch, which had something heavy, about the size of a human head, inside. The leather had been cut into a shape strongly resembling a slingshot. ‘It throws stones, hundreds at a time.’

‘Everybody must get stoned!’ Eddie cried nasally and tunelessly. All eyes turned to him. ‘You know, Bob Dylan? Okay, you probably don’t know. Forget it.’

‘How did they get them in here?’ asked Kit. ‘None of them would fit through that cave into the valley.’

‘They must have been assembled in here,’ said Nina. ‘They’re exhibits - just as much Shiva’s treasures as any of these statues.’ She joined Shankarpa. ‘These things are all mentioned in the epics?’

‘Yes, and in the carvings in the valley,’ he said. He pointed to the grid of arrowheads. ‘That is a sara-yantra - it fires a hundred arrows at once. An udghatima’ - the stone roller - ‘to break down castle walls.’

Nina looked more closely at the ancient war machines. Stone and metal weights were suspended from chains running through pulleys to their axles. She had seen - and almost been the victim of - similar simple but effective gravity-powered mechanisms before; they were still primed even after the endless centuries. ‘Impressive. Just don’t touch them - they might go off.’ She indicated the ‘dollhouse’. ‘What about this?’

Father and son exchanged looks. ‘A flying palace,’ said Shankarpa.

‘From what was written in the Ramayana, I thought it would be a lot bigger.’ Girilal sounded almost disappointed.

Eddie and Kit, meanwhile, had been examining the interior. ‘You know what this is?’ said the Yorkshireman. ‘A hot-air balloon.’ He rapped the brazier. ‘Here’s your fire, and you’ve got the bottom of the balloon up there.’

Nina regarded the great mound of fabric in wonder. ‘It’s incredible. First the Chinese lose gunpowder to India, and now the French have to give up balloons. There’ll be some very angry historians once word about this place gets out.’

‘If it gets out,’ said Shankarpa, a warning tone returning to his voice. ‘All these are just toys compared to the power of the words of Lord Shiva. We must find the Shiva-Vedas - and then I shall decide what to do with you.’

‘Where would they be?’ asked Kit.

‘In the deepest part of the Vault,’ Nina suggested. ‘Come on.’ She led the way into the cavern, following the flickering trail of oil. They passed numerous other siege machines - some resembling ballistas and catapults, others battering rams shaped to look like elephants and goats, as well as more examples of those near the ramp - before approaching the rear wall.

It was immediately obvious where the Shiva-Vedas were kept. A figure guarded a narrow passageway cut into the rock, a statue twenty feet tall.

‘You know what?’ said Eddie. ‘Looks like Spielberg was right all along.’

Shankarpa was awed by the sight. ‘Kali . . .’ he whispered.

The jet-black goddess was almost something from a nightmare, mouth twisted in fury. Her eyes and protruding tongue were painted blood-red, her naked body adorned with a garland round her neck - not of flowers, but of human skulls. But the most prominent feature was her arms: all ten of them. Most of them clutched