by K. T. Tomb
“I have to say, my friend; I have not heard this story. It is a good one, I understand it,” he said.
“I’m not sure I do,” said John. “I am not a king, or a god. I cannot slay demons, or build palaces or anything.”
“I think this is the problem with Christians,” Rajeev said. “You always take things so literally.”
John thought about these words, and thanked his crewmates—no, his friends, he realized. He still didn’t understand the story of Indra, but he felt that he might one day. He rolled over and tried to get some sleep, looking up at the stars, the beautiful, wondrous cosmos that Hindus said was the sea in which Vishnu slept, that the Christians and Muslims said was heaven, and what the scientific men said were stars like the sun, emotionless, burning elements in the void. As he drifted off to sleep, he was sure that the messages of the holy texts were slowly beginning to reveal themselves to him. Maybe he wasn’t being punished by a vengeful god at all, and it would be arrogant to think so. How could he be so important, a tiny man on a speck of dust in the impossibly huge heavens, that God himself should smite him? But if he was also like Indra, not a god, but a manifestation of the universe itself, slowly understanding itself, what should he do? Who would guide him now, if no one could tell him what to do to save his life, if not his soul?
The blackness of the universe enveloped him, and he slept.
Chapter Nine
Rama entered a long room filled with thousands of people. The bow was so heavy it took no less than five thousand exceptionally strong men to bring the bow and its casing into the room. Several princes who had tried to lift the bow looked on as Rama approached the weapon. Rama looked at Shiva’s bow. First he touched it. It was beautiful. Then with no effort whatsoever, he hoisted the bow from its casing and started to string it. As he did so, the bow snapped in two and fell to the palace floor. First there was disbelief, then everyone stood and chanted, “Rama, Rama.” —Ramayana
***
What Lies Ahead
Dawn broke under a thick cloud cover, moving at speed from the east.
Broiling clouds heavy with rain illuminated themselves with leaping arcs of electric fire, thunder rolling in its wake. The Nannie Dee rolled and pitched at sea, a helpless passenger on waves that crested high over the rocky outcrops near to which it was anchored. The crew hurried to pack up the camp—not that there was much of it to pack following the devastating dinosaur attack—and the weather reminded John of being out at sea, fleeing the Chinese pirates into the storm that had brought him here. Whether it was the vicissitudes of fate or the acts of malevolent gods that brought him here mattered little and less now. Captain Sykes clapped John on the shoulders jovially, which was a gesture that John met with a forced half smile. It seemed impossible that any man could possibly be happy under these circumstances, and then John realized that, of course, Captain Sykes must surely be the most downcast of them all, in his heart. He had lost half of his crew and there was limited chance that any of them at all would survive. It was a mark of his good captaincy that he did not let dismay well out of his gut and up his throat to take root on his lips and in his eyes; even when all knew the truth, he must be as a rock. Pikeham, in contrast to the stoic seafaring veteran, reminded John of a mouse encountering a cobra as he looked toward the trees and the mountain beyond which was their destination. The man visibly shook with fright, stress, exhaustion or a combination of all three. His clothes were now filthy, as all the crews’ were, covered in both dinosaur blood and human and general detritus, but the effect seemed worse on his fine suit as the doctor bundled his few remaining belongings in a knapsack.
“Looks like that fellow could use some o’ t’supplies, lad.” John turned in surprise. Captain Sykes was standing at his left shoulder and, like himself, had been regarding the woes of Dr. Pikeham.
“The supplies, Cap’n? I don’t understand what you mean,” John said.
“Supplies lad, from t’Nannie Dee. ‘member what’s in ‘er belly? Part o’t’reason you’re on the ship in t’first place is ‘cause of that stuff. I figured an ex-military man might be useful if there was… Well, if there was trouble amongst the crew over it,” Sykes said. John looked at him blankly for a moment, then he remembered the reason the ship was bound for China in the first place. He looked back out to sea, with the ship rocking queasily under the building waves.
“Don’t reckon we’ll ever get to China now, between thee and me. If we get out of this with our hides, we’re heading right back to Mangalore, full sails.” Sykes was looking out to his ship as well, stroking his mustache. Suddenly, John was hit by an idea. It was suicide, that much he knew, but if it worked...
“Cap’n, permission to row back to the ship,” he said.
“John, I thought better of ye, I need you with me—”
John waved his hand, disregarding protocol when talking to his betters and ignoring the surprised and stern look in his captain’s eyes.
“I’m not a coward, sir. I think the opium in the stores of the ship may be the difference between life and death, and I know just how to use it, if you give me leave to retrieve some. We won’t need much but I am sure our very survival depends on it.”
Sykes granted the request and, to his credit in John’s eyes, placed enough trust in him not to question him further. John ran back down the beach and recruited Mandeep and Rajeev to his temporary crew, and the three shipmates fought the storm waves in the smaller of the rowboats brought ashore by the crew. The waves made for slow going, like climbing hills using only their hands, but soon enough, Mandeep was leading them on board the Nannie Dee. John was nearly overcome with the urge to stay aboard forever, refuse all counsel to return to land and wait for death by starvation. Anything would surely be better than braving the teeth from hell itself on land. He took a grip of himself and followed Mandeep below decks where there were dozens of crates, and not a little water from the storm brewing outside. Rats scurried from their path as the three men used iron crows and a light shovel to pry one of the crates open. Rajeev pulled several bricks of the black gold free from the packing straw and put them in a sack. When there was enough, around ten pounds by John’s ken, he slung the roped sack on his shoulder. The men staggered and stumbled as the boat pitched, finding their way back to the rope ladder to the rowboat and this time, were aided by the quick moving waves, flying as fast as a horse over the sea.
John was still unsure if his plan would work as the three of them used knives to further butcher the carcass of the giant dinosaur that had attacked them the night before. Cutting inch-thick pieces of meat free, John and Rajeev wrapped the fist-sized chunks of opium Mandeep was breaking off from the larger bricks. The meat was still moist and bloody, so the gory packages sealed themselves together quite well and soon, there were two dozen wrapped packages of opium about the size of a small cannon ball each lying on the sand.
“Alright John, that’s all of the opium, apart from a few crumbs. What do we do with these things now?” Rajeev was washing the blood from his hands in the sea as he spoke.
“Now, we climb a mountain, find a way off this island, and hope we don’t have to use these things at all. Help me tie these up with some stems of that bracken over there, and let’s find an oilskin to put them in. We need to keep them as fresh and appetizing as possible,” John said.
“Appetizing?” Mandeep said. “John, opium is not edible, definitely not in these quantities, and it would surely render us unable to climb into a bed, let alone that mountain. When we cook them, the fumes will lay us all low, and no mistake.”
“Mandeep my friend, these treats are not for the crew, nor any man. We are undoubtedly going to have guests for dinner when we move, and I would certainly rather that we were not served up like bully beef and biscuits,” John said with a hard smile through his beard. Rajeev returned, stripping leaves from the pliable bracken stems and they quickly secured the meat parcels to prevent them from opening as the meat dried. Once stowed safely in the oilskin, J
ohn led them back to Captain Sykes, who now had seemingly given in to his temptation to inquire about John’s idea. With a diagram drawn in the sand showing the tree line, the plain and the mountain sketched crudely, John explained his plan.
“Preposterous! You’ll get us all killed, you bally fool!” Pikeham’s eyes were wild, the reasoned demeanor of his scientific nature having evidently deserted him. “You don’t know what these creatures will behave like to make assumptions like this. Captain Sykes, I implore you to ignore this man, and let us just cast off. Surely we can just sail west until we reach India?” Pikeham looked imploringly at Sykes, but his quivering lip brought him no favor.
“Without an idea of where we are, Pikeham, we will be sailing blind. We have no stars to take measurements, and the compass will be bloody useless if we have no bearing. We need to know if this is an island or land mass, and perchance, we can see something I recognize from up there. I’ve sailed these seas since before you got your pen and ink. That being said, you do have a point. John, how do you know what these creatures will do when they smell this meat? What’s to stop them from having us for an appetizer?” Pikeham said.
John shook his head. “Remember when we went searching,” his mouth became dry at the thought for the men they had lost and he cleared his throat, “for the men who didn’t make it back. We saw the three-horned beast, and it was hunted by the two legged ones? They were not a pistol shot away from us, and we are surely an easier meal. Did you ever see an eagle take a goat in the field? I have seen this. The eagle flies high above, and makes a choice. A young or old goat will be easier to take, but the goats in their prime are better; they have the best meat, and an already dead goat is best of all. It’s not a case of what is easy to kill if you have a family to feed. It’s about what will get you the most food. These creatures aren’t so different from birds, I think. The two legged ones at least.”
Pikeham snorted. “Did you ever see an eagle that ran, and was eight feet tall with a mouth full of teeth? I know about biology, boy. This is folly.” He turned from the group and walked away, but only a few paces. He was still under instructions from Sykes to climb a mountain, after all.
“Alright lad,” said the captain. “If you’re right about this, we’re probably as dead as if you’re wrong. You do what you need to do when we’re underway.” Sykes shouted final instructions to the crew working on the new mast a dozen yards away. “You lads have that done by morning, storm or no, and the devil take you if you don’t. Let’s get this done and get home. If we’re not back by midday tomorrow, you sail alone! God be with us all!”
With that, the party of explorers with the sulking Pikeham in tow made once more into the trees, beyond which lay horrors and their only salvation.
Chapter Ten
The king rose to his feet and declared, “Sita has found her spouse! Send a messenger to Ayodhya informing them of the wedding of Rama to my daughter, Sita.” The wedding ceremony was held in the palace. As part of this ceremony, the worship of the sacred fire began. The holiest sages recited mantras, prayers. —Ramayana
***
Hell
As the party set out for the mountain and pushed further inland, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the weather seemed to become far more clement.
The already warm temperature began to soar as soon as they had entered the tree line and became tropical in a matter of minutes. Whereas the beach had been rain swept, no liquid fell from the canopy of tall trees onto their heads, although the air was thick with moisture, making it hard for John to draw breath, lugging an oil skin with a weight of meat on his back as he was.
“What do you make of this, Dr. Pikeham?” John said, gesturing with his free hand to indicate the sweating jungle.
“This is peculiar, granted,” said the doctor, “but not surprising when one considers that we have seen a great many strange things on this island. I would imagine that when these creatures lived, the climate of the Earth would have been much different to ours. As to why the rain has stopped when we saw the storm not a dozen leagues from the island, I could not say.” They trudged on, Sykes and Mandeep at the fore of the group hacking down vegetation. After an hour, they had to halt. Blocking their path was the largest dinosaur they had yet encountered, bigger than the three-horned herbivore, bigger than the giant predator that had attacked them at the beach. The beast was as large as the Nannie Dee herself. The brush was so thick, they had gotten within fifty yards of the beast. The gigantic torso was supported by four legs as thick as trees, a long tail held out for balance fifty feet in length. It held it aloft through some feat of strength or sheer good design, like a bridge of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
“See how it moves the tail,” Pikeham said in a whisper, although it was unlikely the great animal would have heard him. He sounded almost reverential. “If I ever make it back alive to report to Mr. Darwin, I will surely be able to tell him that his ideas on evolution are completely incorrect! As I have told him many a time— ” His words were cut off by Sykes placing his hand over the doctor’s mouth. No one spoke, the only noises were coming from the great dinosaur, whose neck stretched up into the tree line to where its head was hidden from view. Leaves rained down in a shower from the treetops as it fed on the deciduous trees. Sykes’ eyes were darting around at ground level.
“What is it Cap’n?” Mandeep said in a hushed voice. Sykes waved him away, and pointed at John, and then at the bag he was carrying. John understood the silent instruction and dropped to one knee, opening the sack and withdrawing three wrapped balls of meat. He gave one each to Rajeev and Mandeep who, as seamen, had developed strong arms that would be good for tossing the packages a far distance. John looked at Sykes, who had released Pikeham and now pointed over to a gap between two trees in the dense forest. John at first did not see what he was supposed to be looking at, but then he cottoned on. There was some animal there, hidden in the main by the trees, but moving toward the giant dinosaur which was now to their port-side, as they were looking. John made ready to throw, and lined up with Mandeep and Rajeev. He gave his instructions in Hindi so both could understand.
“When it sees us, we will have one chance. Ready?” They nodded, and primed their arms like catapults so that the arcs of their meaty projectiles would be high and far. The hidden dinosaur moved, and John hissed the order to make ready. They were just about to launch when Pikeham yelled. “No!” he shouted, startling them and all the human eyes turned to the doctor. Rajeev nearly dropped his meat and fumbled to catch it.
“Look!” Pikeham said, and the crewmen turned back. From out of the parted glade tramped three of the long-necked dinosaurs, like the behemoth that was feeding, but in miniature. Babies, John thought. No more than fifty feet in length, but with a body the size of a rhinoceros supporting their long necks and impossibly small heads, they bobbed toward the giant, which was evidently their mother. Slate gray skin rippled as their powerful legs moved through the brush, and they made odd squeaking grunts that sounded to John’s ear like excitement. For the first time in what felt like an eternity he actually smiled, despite the adrenaline that pumped through him at the thought of testing his plan to drug the dinosaurs out on a predator. His smile faded as he heard a new noise, one coming from behind them, between the position where the exploratory party stood and the route they had beaten through the trees from the beach. All of the men turned slowly, seeing yellow orbs of eyes, four—no, six pairs of them set into feathered muzzles bristling with teeth, powerful necks and muscled torsos out of which protruded wicked clawed forearms. They were a pack of the bipedal predators that had taken the three-horned dinosaur down on the plain, possibly the same ones, although it mattered not now.
“Run!” was all that John could shout, futilely. The other four human beings were in full flight, and John dropped the opium that he was carrying in his hands and sprinted after them. There was a blood curdling scream of primal anger from the predators as they fled, and John dared not look back, knowing that
any second he would be torn asunder and eaten. Sykes veered to his left at the head of the party as they ran, and led them closer and closer to the great herbivore and its young, ducking a low branch with the ease and skill of one who has ducked the boom of a mast a thousand times every year for his entire life. John could hear the feet of the raptors tearing through the undergrowth in pursuit. It was hopeless. He was going to die, and there was no time to make reparations with any of the gods for his sins. Either he was going to hell, or he was trapped in the cycle of reincarnation, or worse, oblivion.
Several things then happened at once. The great dinosaur’s head came into view, still with a bushel of leaves in its teeth. Its young also sensed the danger, and turned ponderously away from it. John looked over his shoulder, straight into the gaping maw of a nightmare. He was going to die. He saw the predator leap forward, hind legs first aimed to pin him down with evil knives, and then, impossibly, it was gone. A sound like thunder rent the air, and John was knocked flat by the shock-wave created by the bullwhip crack of the giant’s tail as it slammed into the face of the raptor that was about to remove John from this earth. The giant bellowed a trumpeting, honking note that rumbled with notes that were too low for the human ear to hear but kicked John in the kidneys with bass. He fell heavy on the ground, but found himself cushioned by the oilskin sack he carried. Strong arms lifted him up, and he saw the predators warily spread out in a semi-circle as his savior whipped at them again. The beast that had been laid low by the great tail lay on the ground, completely stunned, if not fatally injured. Any man who had been struck by that mighty weapon would have been instantly killed. On his feet now, he saw it was Rajeev who had helped him to his feet. He was shouting into his face, but John was deafened, ears ringing. Rajeev yanked his arm, and to his surprise, John’s legs followed the instructions his ears could not hear. Rajeev ran like the wind and ducked under the cathedral-sized chest of the massive dinosaur, although the clearance of the beast’s legs was such that John could have ridden through on Rajeev’s shoulders with his hands in the air and still not have touched its belly. As they reached the temporary cover of the far side of the animal, and their arrival seemingly heralded by another huge roar, John saw the impossible. Pikeham was clambering up after Mandeep onto the back of one of the juvenile dinosaurs. Sykes already on the back of a second unlikely steed. Without thinking, John vaulted onto the third, and as his buttocks landed he could feel his own terror echoed through the dinosaur’s tough hide. He saw Captain Sykes drop his forearm to assist Rajeev up behind him, and then there was seemingly a moment of perfect stillness. There was a feeling of foolishness as John sat atop a strange beast that was surely too stupid to respond to any cajoling. John had never even ridden a horse. He threw a panicked look over his shoulder and the raptors were circling as true birds of prey might back in the real world. The giant raised up on its hind legs, taller than a church and came crashing down, producing an earthquake that shook trees and sent branches tumbling. It seemed to be the signal the hatchlings were waiting for, oblivious as they were to their tiny parasitic passengers. As one, they ran in a straight line away from danger, their mother still honking and bellowing behind them in musical as well as physical battle with the high-pitched screams and hisses all around her. John spared a look to his crewmates who were, as he was; gripping on for dear life. The young dinosaurs were surprisingly swift when they had the motivation to, and soon, they burst out of the forest and onto the plain, where hundreds of grazing dinosaurs raised their heads from their vegetation meals to look at the commotion. All were giants, all were bizarrely shaped. In addition to the three-horned variety John had seen before, there were great spine encrusted dinosaurs with spiked tails, low squat monsters covered in armor, and, circling overhead, huge bat-winged creatures, all sharp-billed. John saw Pikeham pointing at the skies and screaming into Sykes’ ear, and the captain was nodding furiously and sweating as he gripped onto his mount’s neck. John followed the doctor’s pointed finger, and gazed into the abyss that was opening in the air.
