The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (150 page)

People milled around me, smoke blew in my eyes, the downdraft of airdrones and hover cams buffeted me. I had only moments before the army would catch me and move me away with the rest of the panicked crowd. Or worse. I saw bodies on the ground and flames were coming up from a line of plastic shacks by the

“Sarasvati!”

And there she was. Oh, there she was, plunging whip-thin in combat pants and a silk blouse, but filled her wonderful energy and determination out of the pile of collapsing housing. She dragged a child in each hand, smudge-faced and tearful. Tiny mites. In this place, she had slipped from my nuptial elephant to caper with the revellers in her ridiculous man’s costume and exuberant false moustache.

“Sarasvati!”

“You’ve got a car?”

“It’s how I got here, yes.”

The children were on the verge of bawling. Sarasvati thrust them at me.

“Take these two to it.”

“Come with me.”

“There are kids still in there.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s a special needs group. They get left when the sky opens. Everyone else runs and leaves the kids. Take these two to your car.”

“What are you doing?”

“There are more in there.”

“You can’t go.”

“Just get them to the car, then come back here.”

“The army.”

She was gone, ducking under the billowing smoke fall. She disappeared into the warren of lanes and galis. The children pulled at my hands. Yes yes, they had to get out. The car, the car wasn’t far. I turned to try and find an easy way with two children through the wheeling mass of refugees. Then I felt a wave of heat across the back of my neck. I turned to see the blossom of flame blow across the top of the gali, whirling up rags of blazing plastic. I cried something without words or point and then the whole district collapsed in on itself with a roar and explosion of sparks.

The Age of Kali. I have little patience with that tendency in many Indians to assume that because we are a very old culture, we invented everything. Astronomy? Made in India. Zero? Made in India. The indeterminate, probabilistic nature of reality as revealed through quantum theory? Indian. You don’t believe me? The Vedas say that the Four Great Ages of the Universe correspond to the four possible outcomes of our game of dice. The Krita Yuga, the Age of Perfection, is the highest possible score. The Kali Yuga, the Age of strife, darkness, corruption and disintegration, is the lowest possible score. It is all a roll of the divine dice. Probability. Indian!

Kali, Paraskati, Dark Lady, Mistress of Death and Drinker of Blood, Terrible ten-armed one with the necklace of skulls, She Who is Seated upon the Throne of Five Corpses. The Ender. Yet Kali is also Mistress of Regeneration. Ruler of All Worlds, Root of the Tree of the Universe. Everything is a cycle and beyond the Age of Kali we roll again into the Age of Gold. And that which cannot be reasoned with must then be worshipped.

I believe I was mad for some time after Sarasvati’s death. I know I have never been sane as you would consider me sane. We are Brahmins. We are different. But even for a Brahmin, I was crazy. It is a precious and rare thing, to take time out from sanity. Usually we allow it to the very very young and the very very old. It scares us, we have no place for it. But Kali understands it. Kali welcomes it, Kali gives it. So I was mad for a time, but you could as easily say I was divine.

How I reached the temple in the little, drought-wracked town by the sewer of Mata Ganga, I have chosen to forget. How I came by the offering of blood to the priest, that too I’ve put where I put the dis-remembered. How long I stayed there, what I did, does any of this matter? It was time out from the world. It is a powerful thing, to subject yourself to another time and another rhythm of life. I was a thing of blood and ashes, hiding in the dark sanctum, saying nothing but offering my daily puja to the tiny, garland-bedecked goddess in her vulva-like garbigraha. I could have vanished forever. Sarasvati, the brightest and best of us, was dead. I lolled on foot-polished marble. I disappeared. I could have stayed Kali’s devotee for the rest of my long and unnatural life.

I was lolling on the wet, foot-polished marble when the women devotee, shuffling forward through the long, snaking line of cattle-fences toward the goddess, suddenly looked up. Stopped. Looked around as if seeing everything for the first time. Looked again and saw me. Then she unhooked the galvanised railing and pushed trough the switch-back line of devotees to come to me. She knelt down in front of me and namasteed. Above her the single vertical line of her Shakta-tilak she wore the red Eye of Shiva.

“Vish.”

I recoiled so abruptly I banged the back of my head off a pillar,

“Ooh,” the woman said. “Ooh, cho chweet, that’s going to smart. Vish, it’s me, Lakhsmi.”

Lakshmi? My former wife, player of games? She saw my confusion and touched my face.

“I’m temporarily downloaded into this dear woman’s brain. It’s rather hard to explain if you’re not connected. Oh, it’s all right, it’s entirely consensual. And I’ll give her herself back as soon as I’m done. I wouldn’t normally do it – it’s very bad manners – but these are slightly exceptional circumstances.”

“Lakshmi? Where are you? Are you here?”

“Oh, you have had a bit of a nasty bang. Where am I? That’s hard to explain. I am entirely bodhisoft now. I’m inside the Jyotirlinga, Vish. It’s a portal as you know, they’re all portals.” After the initial twelve, the pillars of light had arrived all over earth, hundreds, then thousands. “It is a wonderful place Vish. It can be whatever you want it to be, as real as you like. We spend quite a lot of time debating that; the meaning of real. And the games, the number games; well, you know me. That’s why I’ve taken this step for you Vish. It can’t go on. It’s destructive, the most destructive thing we’ve ever done. We’ll burn through this world because we have another one. We have heaven, so we can do what we like here. Life is just a rehearsal. But you’ve seen that Vish, you’ve seen what that’s done.”

“What is it Lakshmi?” Was it memory and fond hope, the mild marble concussion, the strange nanotech possession, but was this stranger starting to look like Lakshmi?

“We have to bring this age to an end. Restart the cycle. Close the Jyotirlingas.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s all mathematics. The mathematics that govern this universe are different from the ones that govern yours; that’s why I’m able to exist as a pattern of information imprinted on space-time. Because the logic here allows that. It doesn’t where I come from. Two different logics. But if we could slide between the two a third logic, alien to either, that neither of them could recognize nor operate, then we would effectively lock the gates between the universes.”

“You have that key.”

“We have a lot of time for games here. Social games, language games, imagination games, mathematical and logical games. I can turn the lock from this side.”

“But you need someone to turn the key on my side. You need me.”

“Yes Vish.”

“I would be shut out forever. From you, from Mum, from Dad.”

“And Shiv. He’s here too. He was one of the first to upload his bodhisoft through the Varanasi Jyotirlinga. You’d be shut out from everyone. Everyone but Sarasvati.”

“Sarasvati’s dead!” I roared. Devotees looked up. The sadhus calmed them. “And would this be the final answer? Would this bring around the Age of Gold again?”

“That would be up to you, Vish.”

I thought of the villages that had so welcomed and amazed and blessed and watered me on my saddhu wandering, I thought of the simple pleasures I had taken from my business ventures: honest plans and work and satisfactions. India – the old India, the undying India – was its villages. Sarasvati had seen that truth though it had killed her.

“It sounds better than sprawling in this dusty old temple.” Kali, Mistress of Regeneration, had licked me with her red tongue. Maybe I could be the hero of my own life. Vishnu, the Preserver. His tenth and final incarnation was Kalki, the White Horse, who at the end of the Kali Yuga would fight the final battle. Kali, Kalki.

“I can give you the maths. A man of your intelligence should be able to hold it. But you will need one of these.”

The woman lifted her hand and seized a fistful of air. She threw it into my face and the air coalesced into a spray of red powder. In mid-air the cloud moiled and boiled and thickened and settled into a red circle, a tilak, on my forehead.

“Whatever you do, don’t connect it to the deva net,” Lakshmi said. “I’m going to have to go now. I don’t want to outstay my welcome in someone else’s body. Goodbye Vish, we won’t ever meet again, in any of the worlds. But we were well and truly wed, for a while.” For a moment I thought the woman might kiss me, then she gave a little twitch and straightened her neck just so as if shaking out a crick and I knew Lakshmi was gone. The woman namasteed again.

“Little Lord Vishnu,” she whispered. “Preserve us.”

I picked myself up from the marble. I dusted off the ash of the dark goddess. I walked to the edge of the temple, blinking up into the light of the real sun. I had an idea where to go to do what I had to do. Varanasi, the City of Siva, the seat of the great Jyotirlinga. How might I support myself, with nothing but the dhoti around my loins? Then I caught a sudden movement: on a window ledge on the first floor of one of the many shops that leaned in close to the temple, a cat was edging out along a waterpipe in pursuit of a bird. And I had an idea that filled me with laughter.

So here it is, here it is: at long last. The great trick, the grand Finale of the Magnificent Vishnu’s Celestial Cat Circus. The wire walk. You will never, ever have seen anything like this before, unless of course you’ve been to a certain Kali Temple . . . See, here are the two wires. And here is our star performer. Yes, white Kalki gets his chance to shine at last. Up he goes on to the podium and . . . drum roll. Well, you’ll have to provide the drum roll yourself.

Kalki! Kalki, beautiful white Kalki: do your trick!

And there he goes, carefully sliding one paw, then another out across the two wires, tail moving to keep him in balance, the whole trembling to his muscular control. Go on Kalki . . . Walking the wire. What a cat! And the final jump on to the further podium and I scoop him up to my chest and shout applause! Applause for my lovely cats! I let Kalki down and the rest of the cats run to join him, running their endless circle of fur and tails around the rope ring. Matsya, Kurma, Narasimha and Varaha; Varana, Pashurama and Rama; Krishna, Buddha and last but not least, Kalki.

I turn in the rising dawn light to savour the applause of my audience. And my cats, save your biggest cheer for Matsya, Kurma, Narasimha, Varaha, Varana, Pashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki who have performed for your pleasure? And me? Just an impresario, a ringmaster: a storyteller. The light is up now and I will detain you no longer for you have your work and I have a place to go and I think now you know where that is and what I must do there. I may not succeed. I may die. I cannot see Shiv giving up without a fight. So please, will you do one thing for me? My cats. Would you look after them for me? You don’t have to feed them or anything like that, just take them. Let them go, they can look after themselves. It’s where I got them from in the first place. They’ll be happy on a farm, in the country. Lots to hunt and kill. You might even be able to make a bit of money from them. I mean, performing cats, who ever heard of a thing like that? It’s actually much easier than you think. Meat does it, every time. There, I’ve given away the trick. Be good to them. Well, I’ll be off then.

I push the boat out into the river, run into the dawn-bright water and hop in. It rocks gently. It is a glorious morning; the Jyotirlinga ahead can hold no comparison to the sun. I touch my fingers to my forehead, to the tilak Lakshmi put there in a small salutation to the sun. Then I put my back to the narrow oars and head out into the stream.

Daniel Abraham, “Belfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance,”
Postscripts
19.

_____, “The Best Monkey,”
Solaris Book of SF 3.

_____, “The Curandero and the Swede,”
F&SF
, March.

_____, “The Pretender’s Tourney,”
Eclipse Three.