Nina gasped, about to run to help him. ‘No!’ he growled through the pain. ‘Stay back! It’s stopped!’ The arm holding the chakram had been stopped by the mechanism restricting its movement - but Eddie had been just far enough out of position for it to catch him.
He leaned away, grunting as the metal pulled clear of his flesh. The chakram clunked back to its original position, a thin line of blood glistening on it. He peeled back the torn fabric of his sleeve to examine the injury. He had been much luckier than Kit; the cut would only need one or two stitches.
But that would have to wait. Forcing back his fear, Eddie slowly walked the rest of the way down the passage. Three more weapons struck at him - and each stopped just before impact. Kali was indeed protecting him.
But there was still one more obstacle. ‘Okay, now what?’ he called as he reached the raised foot. The gap beneath it was a little higher than the duct he had crawled through at the United Nations; he would fit, but it would be a tight squeeze.
‘Any ideas?’ Nina asked the men around her.
‘He must be like Shiva on the battlefield,’ said Girilal. ‘He must pretend to be dead and shame Kali into ending her rampage.’
Considering the legend, it seemed to fit, but she still wasn’t keen on the idea - and nor was Eddie when she relayed it to him. ‘I won’t be pretending to be dead if you’re wrong. Can’t I just wedge it with something?’
‘I’m sure whoever built it thought of that,’ she said. The floor beneath the foot was a mosaic of smaller tiles; she guessed that they were intended to give way if too much pressure was put on them, pressing any props into the ground as the foot descended. ‘But I think Girilal’s right. You have to slide under it and play dead - if you try to get out while it’s coming down, it’ll drop and finish you off. The whole trap is about trusting Kali not to kill you, however scary it looks.’
‘I’m not scared,’ he said, starting to wriggle under the statue. ‘I just don’t want my obituary to say that I died by being squashed by a giant foot like something out of Monty bloody Python. It’d be embarrassing.’
Despite her tension, the joke made Nina smile. ‘Your obituary isn’t going to be written for a long, long time, Eddie. Nobody would dare.’
‘Well, let’s hope you’re right.’ He was now fully beneath the foot—
A tile gave slightly, his weight tripping another trigger. With a nerve-scraping grinding, the foot started to descend.
His instinctual response was to get clear - but he suppressed it, summoning every ounce of self-control to hold still as the foot pressed down on him. He tried to stay calm as the pressure increased, controlling his breathing - but the weight began to force the air from his lungs. ‘Shit!’ he tried to say, but the word was choked short in his throat.
The rasp of stone continued, flesh and bone not slowing the statue’s relentless descent in the slightest. Pain coursed through Eddie’s ribcage as it was squashed against the floor. He struggled to writhe free - but was pinned in place.
Kali was going to crush him!
He turned his head to give Nina a last anguished look, seeing her staring back at him in horror, realising too late that she had been wrong—
The noise stopped.
The pressure suddenly eased, the foot rising slowly back to its original position. Gasping, he drew in several long breaths of cold, dusty air before crawling through the hole. ‘I’m in,’ he croaked.
‘Thank God,’ Nina said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I feel like toothpaste, but I’ll be all right.’
‘What can you see?’
He glanced round; the new chamber was almost completely dark. ‘Nowt - a torch’d be handy. Roll one down to me.’
Nina drew back her arm as if throwing a bowling bowl and sent her torch skittering down the passage. Eddie caught it and switched it on. The new room was small, the walls engraved with images of Shiva, the paint on the ancient carvings still surprisingly colourful, and line upon line of Vedic Sanskrit. But the object that caught his attention was against one wall.
It was an ornate chest, standing upon gilded legs shaped like an elephant’s and decorated with pearls and small gemstones. Like the walls, it was painted: Shiva, seated in the lotus position, gazed serenely back at him.
‘Can you see anything?’ Nina called.
‘Yeah, there’s a fancy box, and . . .’ He panned the light round. Part of the statue’s mechanism was revealed: several large cogs. ‘I need something to jam up the works. A stone, or a metal bar, something like that.’
A quick search by Shankarpa’s men produced a thick iron rod from one of the siege machines. It was tossed down the passage with a clang. Eddie jammed it between the teeth of the cogs, then experimentally put his weight on the floor beneath the foot. There was another clang as the bar was slammed between the cogs when they tried to turn, but it held firm. After a few moments, the mechanism reset.
He leaned under the foot and waved. ‘Okay. Who wants a look?’
Shankarpa was first, cautiously advancing down the passage. The statue’s arms jerked, but again the metal rod held everything in check. Nina followed.
‘Check it out,’ said Eddie as they crawled through the entrance. He illuminated the chest. ‘You think Shiva’s diary’s inside?’
Shankarpa was too overawed to respond to Eddie’s lack of respect. He went to the chest, hands hovering just above the lid as if afraid to touch it, then looked back at Nina. For the first time, he seemed unsure of himself. ‘What should I do?’
‘Open it,’ Nina told him. ‘If the Shiva-Vedas are inside, we need to know - so we can decide how to protect them.’
He nodded, about to raise the lid - but again couldn’t bring himself to touch the box. ‘I . . . I can’t do it,’ he said. ‘I do not know if I am worthy—’
‘Oh, give it ’ere,’ Eddie snapped, flipping the chest open.
Shankarpa flinched back, and Nina glared at her husband. ‘Eddie!’
‘What? You said we needed to get a move on. Now, what’s inside?’ He held up the torch.
At first glance, the contents seemed almost unworthy of the effort and danger endured to find them. The interior was like a rack, metal dividers separating and supporting a row of stone tablets, each the size of a large hardback book, about half an inch thick. There were perhaps forty in all.
But Nina knew that they represented an incredible archaeological find, the ancient wonders in the cavern outside nothing more than baubles compared to the intellectual treasure in the box. While she didn’t personally believe they had been written by an actual god, the tablets were an account of a civilisation every bit as ancient as that of the Atlanteans - and one of the foundations of a religion that, unlike that of the long-lost race, was still alive and well today.
Delicately, she lifted out a tablet, finding text inscribed on both sides: Vedic Sanskrit, a language with which she had only a passing familiarity. She turned one face towards Shankarpa. ‘Can you read it?’
Awe returned to his face. ‘Yes. Yes! It . . . it is the word of Lord Shiva - about the great cycle of existence!’
Nina carefully returned the tablet to its place. Shankarpa eagerly gestured for her to remove another, but she shook her head. ‘We need to decide what to do with them. Pramesh and Vanita Khoil know where the lost valley is - so they’ll be coming. No matter what happens, we have to keep them from getting hold of the Vedas. Is there anywhere else you could hide them?’
‘There are some caves to the northeast. But I don’t know how safe they would be - they are not deep. If a storm hit . . .’
She put a hand on his arm; Shankarpa reacted to the touch with surprise. ‘Look, I know you still don’t exactly trust me, and I can understand that. But if you let me, I can take the Vedas somewhere completely safe - the Khoils won’t be able to steal them. It’s what I do, it’s the IHA’s mission: to find ancient treasures, and to protect them for the benefit of all humanity. Your father believes in me. Will you?’