The Sacred Vault

  Jump—

  The valley floor rolled past seventy feet below . . .

  Nina caught the very bottom step with her leading foot and threw herself forward. Her boot slipped on the snow. She fell, her cry abruptly cut off as she hit the unforgiving stone.

  She slid down the ancient stairway, feet sweeping a miniature avalanche over the edge—

  She clawed at the steps, finding snow, stone beneath - and a crack where a slab had been dislodged in the collapse. Nina stabbed her fingers into it. Her death-slide stopped, legs hanging over the void. She found a hold with her other hand and pulled herself up.

  The guardian was still running along the uppermost tier. He would make his own jump in seconds. Nina staggered up to the deep, broad ledge and headed for the doors. There was a circular indentation at the centre of the carvings.

  The same size as the replica key.

  She pulled it from her coat. Behind her came a thump as the guardian cleared the gap and landed on the stairs, bounding up them after her.

  Eddie reached Kit and grabbed the ropes. ‘Hang on!’

  ‘I’m hanging!’ Kit shouted back. ‘Eddie, they’re almost across the bridge!’

  The first of the guardians was only a few steps short of the ledge. Looking up, he spotted Nina running for the statue - with a robed man chasing her. ‘Shit!’ He pulled harder—

  One of the ropes, weakened by age and weather, snapped. Kit screamed, but jerked to a stop once more after falling only a foot, other lines entangling his ankle.

  The first guardian was off the bridge, drawing a savage-looking knife. The man behind him had a sword. More men ran down the stairs towards the two intruders. The only possible escape route was down the ropes to the tier below - but Eddie couldn’t do that until Kit was free. He kept lifting. ‘Grab the ledge!’ he said. Kit bent at the waist, struggling to reach the icy stone. ‘Come on, you’ve almost got it!’

  The other man’s fingers closed round a carved outcropping. Eddie let go of the ropes and grabbed his wrist, pulling him on to the ledge. He was safe.

  But Kit didn’t even have time to say thanks. The first guardian reached them, lunging with his dagger—

  Eddie jerked sideways, the blade slashing his padded sleeve. He whipped up one arm to knock the man’s hand away from him - and slammed his other fist into his face. The robed man fell on his back with a starburst of bright blood around his mouth.

  Kit freed his leg, raising his own fists as he faced the group running in from the other direction. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Climb down the rope,’ said Eddie.

  ‘We’ll never make it in time!’

  ‘Not if you keep yakking - go on! I’ll hold ’em off.’ He snatched up the downed man’s knife as Kit took hold of the rope and hopped over the edge, quickly shimmying down—

  And scrambling back up again, even faster. ‘Eddie, there’s a man with a sword underneath me!’

  Eddie held up the dagger - and another guardian mirrored his move, only with a blade about three times longer. More men approached from behind. ‘Well . . . arse.’

  Nina reached the doors. What she had thought to be carvings were actually separate objects set into the stone: five large wheels arranged in a circle around the ‘keyhole’, smaller wheels set around their edges with dozens of words in Sanskrit written upon each one. What it meant, she had no time to wonder - all she could do was jam the replica key into the lock and hope something happened.

  Nothing did.

  The key was a perfect fit, but there were no pins or levers or other mechanisms inside the hole. The horrified realisation hit her that the key was symbolic, not physical - the wheels had to be aligned with the faces of Shiva and the five goddesses in a particular way. It was a combination lock.

  And she didn’t know the combination.

  Key in hand, she spun to find the guardian right behind her, his sword raised. She screamed—

  The blow didn’t come. Instead, he held the blade to her throat and dragged her back to the top of the steps. She saw that Eddie and Kit had been captured as well, a dozen men surrounding them.

  Her captor was apparently the leader, bellowing a command in Hindi. The others responded by seizing their prisoners and forcing them to the edge of the ledge. Eddie struggled, but a guardian smashed the hilt of a knife against his head.

  Nina was thrust forward, wobbling on the brink. Eddie and Kit were shoved into similar precarious positions.

  One push would hurl them to their deaths.

  She heard her captor take in a breath to shout the order that would kill them.

  24

  ‘Stop!’

  The command didn’t come from the man behind Nina. It boomed up from the valley floor, echoing off the stone walls. She looked through the snow - and saw a single figure at the foot of the ruined stairway, dressed in simple orange robes.

  Girilal.

  The leader hesitated, not delivering the fatal push . . . but not pulling her back to safety either. He shouted down to the old man in Hindi, sounding angry - yet also somehow respectful. Girilal replied in kind, his voice commanding without a hint of chattering faux-lunacy.

  Whatever he was saying, it worked. With a frustrated grunt, the leader stepped back, hauling Nina with him. Keeping his sword to her neck, he waved for the others to pull Eddie and Kit away from the edge.

  To her shock, his next words were in English. ‘Come with me,’ he growled.

  The prisoners were taken to one of the chambers cut into the mountainside. It was much deeper than the others Nina had seen, a passage leading from the archway into a large room with a sheet of animal skin hanging across the entrance to keep out the elements. Fires burned in alcoves carved in the walls, the smoke carried away through cracks above.

  She counted at least twenty of the guardians. All were men, ranging from middle age to their teens. They wore the same dark blue robes and their heads were shaved, monk-like. But they were clearly not passive seekers after spiritual perfection. They were warriors, defending the valley to the death.

  Another two men brought in Girilal, their attitudes a mix of contempt and deference. The yogi smiled at Nina, then began talking to the leader, his animation in stark contrast to the younger man’s stoic disapproval.

  ‘He knew about this lot all along,’ Eddie muttered. ‘And he didn’t bloody warn us.’

  ‘He did, though,’ said Nina. ‘He tried everything he could to put us off. But he couldn’t tell us about these people without confirming that the Vault of Shiva actually existed . . . which was exactly what he was trying to avoid.’

  ‘But who are they?’ Kit asked. ‘And what’s his connection to them?’

  Girilal glanced across. ‘I will answer your questions soon. But first I have to persuade them not to kill you, so please be patient!’

  ‘I think we can give him a little more time,’ said Nina, nervously regarding the hostile faces surrounding them.

  The two men conversed for several minutes before the leader, still clearly displeased by Girilal’s interference, stood before the trio. He was around thirty, tall, with a wiry muscularity. ‘I am Shankarpa,’ he said. ‘You say you are here to protect the Vault of Shiva?’ His English was halting, rusty.

  ‘Yes,’ Nina replied. ‘I’m Nina Wilde, the director of the United Nations’ International Heritage Agency.’ Shankarpa’s expression was one of incomprehension until Girilal provided an explanation in Hindi. ‘My job is to find important historical sites so they can be shown to the world - and protected from thieves.’

  ‘We protect the Vault from thieves,’ he told her firmly.

  ‘Yeah, we noticed,’ said Eddie. ‘You’re a bit more active than your average rentacops, though.’

  Nina shushed him. ‘We’re not the only people looking for the Vault. Another group wants to steal the Shiva-Vedas. They’ve already killed to find out where they are, and they’ll kill you too if you try to stop them.’

  The mention of the Vedas rais
ed a commotion. ‘How do you know of the Shiva-Vedas?’ Shankarpa demanded.

  ‘From a man called Talonor. He visited Kedarnath thousands of years ago - the priests told him about the Vault, and showed him the key.’ She indicated the replica amongst their confiscated possessions.

  He picked it up, holding the faces of the gods to the firelight. ‘Where did you find this?’ The question was accusing, as if it had been taken from him personally.

  Nina decided to simplify the explanation. ‘Talonor pressed the key into a sheet of gold - this is a copy made from it.’

  ‘A copy?’ He tapped the dense plastic. ‘It is not the real key?’

  ‘No, it - wait, you don’t have the real key?’

  ‘It was lost long ago,’ he said, glowering.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Eddie. ‘You mean you’re guarding the Vault of Shiva . . . but you can’t get into it yourselves?’ He laughed sarcastically. ‘How do you even know there’s anything in it?’

  ‘Nobody can enter the Vault without the key,’ Shankarpa said angrily. ‘The doors have been closed for over a thousand years - and no outsiders have ever lived to reach them. Until today.’

  ‘But now you have the replica, can you open it?’ asked Nina.

  Now his dark expression had a hint of shame. ‘That secret . . . is lost too.’

  ‘Well, that’s one way to keep the place safe,’ Eddie said mockingly. ‘But if the bad guys find it, they’ll just blow the doors open.’

  ‘We will protect the Vault,’ Shankarpa insisted. ‘We have watched over it since Lord Shiva placed his sacred possessions here.’

  ‘How can you have been here all this time?’ asked Kit. ‘There are no plants to eat, no animals.’

  ‘No women,’ Eddie added. ‘You’d have to be pretty bloody dedicated to spend your lives up here.’

  ‘They are,’ said Girilal, leaning on his stick. ‘The guardians come from the villages around the mountain - it is our great secret.’ Shankarpa said something in Hindi, a clear order for him to shut up, but the old man shook his head. ‘Not everybody knows, only a trusted few. We - they watch the children of their village for those worthy of the honour of protecting the Vault of Shiva. If they are willing, they are trained by the other guardians, and spend the rest of their lives here.’

  ‘You said we,’ Eddie noted. ‘You’re one of them?’

  ‘I was. No more.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Nina.

  ‘I made a mistake. I thought I was doing the right thing, but . . .’ He sighed, shaking his head sadly. ‘I hurt someone I loved, took away the thing that was most important to her. I have tried to seek forgiveness, but do not think I can ever find it. So I wander between Kedarnath and Gaurikund as a mad old man, ignored . . . or insulted.’

  ‘Your own penance,’ Nina realised. ‘But for what?’

  Girilal turned to Shankarpa, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘For him, Dr Wilde. Shankarpa’s real name is Janardan. Janardan Mitra. He is my son.’

  Night fell outside, the rumble of the storm fading. In the underground chamber, Girilal had persuaded Shankarpa that the three visitors should be allowed to live.

  For the moment. The guardians’ constant looks of suspicion as they ate told them they were still only one barked order away from death.

  ‘Where do they get the food?’ Nina asked Girilal. ‘We saw some ground on the way up that looked as if it might once have been cultivated, but it can’t have been used for hundreds of years.’

  ‘The villages provide it,’ the yogi explained. ‘A few times each year, some of the guardians come to Kedarnath, dressed as pilgrims, to collect it.’

  ‘It’s not exactly a feast,’ said Eddie, looking at the meagre bowls of vegetables and rice. ‘What do you do if you run out of food and the weather’s too bad to get down the mountain?’

  ‘Lord Shiva gives us the strength we need to survive,’ rumbled Shankarpa.

  ‘Maybe, but I’d take a can of beans over faith any day.’

  ‘Eddie,’ Nina warned. The last thing they needed was to antagonise their captors. ‘Girilal, you said you hurt someone you loved. I’m guessing you meant Shankarpa’s mother.’

  He nodded. ‘It was my own fault. I thought it was right to tell my wife about the Vault, and that she could be trusted to keep the secret. She could - she is a better person than me. But my mistake . . .’ He looked at Shankarpa. ‘My mistake was also telling our son. Our only child. He was young, he was headstrong, and he thought a lifetime of serving Lord Shiva as a warrior would be better than living in a poor village.’

  ‘And it is,’ said Shankarpa firmly. His English had already become less stiff, the mere act of speaking it unlocking old memories. ‘Would you rather I carried tourists up the mountain on my back for a few rupees?’

  ‘There is no shame in serving others,’ his father told him, before addressing Nina again. ‘He had made up his mind. When he was old enough, I agreed that he could join the guardians. He gave up everything to serve Shiva, and I was happy for him. But there was someone who was not.’

  ‘His mother,’ said Nina.

  Girilal lowered his head. ‘Yes. I did not discuss it with her until the decision was already made. I thought she would feel like me, that she would be honoured to have Janardan chosen for such a great task. I was wrong.’

  ‘She was losing her son.’

  ‘Yes. And she hated me for it. I took away what was most precious to her, without even thinking. After that, she . . . she did not want to speak to me again. She left me.’ He looked up; Nina saw that his eyes were glistening with tears. ‘I hurt her more than I could have imagined. That is why I became what I am - I gave everything I owned to her. But it was not enough. Nothing I could give her could ever replace her child. I sought forgiveness . . . but I will never get it. I do not deserve it.’

  Shankarpa was unmoved. ‘She never understood what it means to serve Shiva. She was weak.’

  ‘Do not speak of her like that!’ Girilal snapped. The other guardians reacted with surprise at the challenge to their leader, and even Shankarpa was taken aback by the anger in the old man’s voice. The yogi took a breath, then continued more quietly. ‘I am sorry. I did not mean to shout. You made your decision, as I made mine. The difference is . . . you did not regret it.’

  ‘No, I did not.’ His dark eyes flicked across to Nina, Eddie and Kit. ‘What do we do with you, hmm? My father thinks you can be trusted. But why should I?’

  ‘Protecting secrets is part of what we do,’ said Nina. ‘We stopped a catastrophe that would have killed billions of people, and kept it a secret to prevent global panic.’

  ‘And this guy Khoil and his wife,’ added Eddie, ‘they’ve got a catastrophe of their own in mind, and they’re dead set on getting hold of what’s behind that statue up there before they kick it off.’

  ‘If the Khoils can’t get the Shiva-Vedas, they might not go ahead with whatever they’re planning.’

  ‘If it is Shiva’s will,’ said Shakarpa, ‘who are we to stop it?’

  ‘But it isn’t Shiva’s will,’ Nina replied. ‘It’s the Khoils’ will - and they’re very definitely not gods. They don’t want to destroy the world so it can be reborn. They just want money and power for themselves. I doubt Shiva would approve.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘If you are telling the truth about these people, what can we do to stop them?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Eddie. ‘If they find this place, first thing they’ll do will be airlift in mercenaries. Lots of ’em. With lots of guns.’

  Shankarpa sat back, mulling their words over before speaking in Hindi to his companions. The discussion went on for some time, varying degrees of disagreement emerging.

  ‘What’re they saying?’ Nina asked Kit.

  ‘They’re deciding whether they can trust us, and, if we’re telling the truth about the Khoils, what they can do to stop them.’ He listened to the conversation for a few moments, unsettled. ‘They are also still arguing about whether or
not they should kill us. Some of them have very strong feelings about it.’

  Nina noticed the man she had hit with the rifle glaring at her, an ugly purple bruise on his throat. ‘Yeah, I figured that. Good thing we didn’t actually kill any of them.’

  Girilal leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘I think he will let you live.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘He is my son. I have to believe that he will do what is right.’ Eddie watched the debate. None of the factions appeared particularly pro-mercy. ‘Just hope you were a better dad than you give yourself credit for . . .’

  It was several minutes before Shankarpa reached a decision, shouting down the more vocal objectors. ‘If we let you live,’ he said to Nina, ‘what will you do for us in return?’

  ‘The first thing will be to tell the Indian government and the United Nations about this place. It will still be a secret,’ she pressed on, seeing he already had very strong reservations. ‘We won’t go public. But if the UN knows about the Vault, we can protect it.’

  Shankarpa didn’t seem convinced. ‘And what else?’

  ‘If you’ll let us, we can try to open the Vault.’ She indicated the replica key.

  He laughed in disbelief. ‘You want the guardians of the Vault of Shiva to help you open its door?’

  ‘All the Khoils want are the Shiva-Vedas. We can take them someplace secure. If they’re not here - and they know that - they’ll have no reason to come. Whatever other treasures are in the Vault will be safe.’

  ‘And why should you be trusted with the sacred words of Lord Shiva over this man Khoil?’

  ‘Because the Khoils want to use them to gain power. But I want to show them to the entire world,’ she said defiantly. ‘Everyone will be able to read the teachings of Shiva. Isn’t that what he would want?’

  ‘She is telling the truth,’ Girilal added. ‘She is very famous for this. Even in Kedarnath!’

  ‘I can help you,’ Nina insisted. ‘If you let me.’