An Oblique Approach

by David Drake

  I believe he is Kalkin. The tenth avatara who was promised, sent to bind the asura and slay the asura's minions.

  Or, at the least, teach us to dance the deed.

  Raghunath Rao cast the papyrus into the flames and watched until it was totally consumed. Then he drew the dagger. The dagger, too, he would sacrifice.

  Truly, an excellent dagger. But the time for daggers was past.

  But, just as he prepared to place it in the flames, an impulse came upon him. An irresistible impulse; and, he thought, most fitting.

  Aching pain and joyful wonder merged in his soul, and Raghunath Rao leapt to his feet.

  Yes! He would dance!

  And so he danced, by the seashore, on the golden rim of the Erythrean Sea. He was a great dancer, was Raghunath Rao. And now, by the edge of nature's molten treasure, in the golden sunlight of bursting hope, he danced the dance. The great dance, the terrible dance, the never-forgotten dance. The dance of creation. The dance of destruction. The wheeling, whirling, dervish dance of time.

  And as he danced, and whirled the turns of time, he thought never once of his enemies and his hatreds. For those were, in the end, nothing. He thought only of those he loved, and those he would come to love, and was astonished to see their number.

  He danced to his empress in her greatness, and his people in their splendor. He danced to the Erythrean Sea, and to the triumph which would arise from its waves. He danced to the friends of the past and the comrades of the future. And, most of all, he danced to the future itself.

  Finally, feeling his strength begin to fade, Raghunath Rao held up the dagger. Admired it again, and hurled the precious gift into the waves. He could think of no better place for its beauty than the rising tide of the Erythrean Sea.

  He made a last swirling, capering leap. Oh, so high was that leap! So high that he had time, before he plunged into the water, to cry out a great peal of laughter.

  Oh, great Belisarius! Can you not see that you are the dancer, and Kalkin but the soul of your dance?