The Judas Strain - James Rollins [165]
Gray stopped him, pinching his elbow hard, too hard. Gray’s eyes flicked back to Nasser, then away again. “It was only a monkey.”
Kowalski shook free of Gray’s hand. “Yeah, well, I don’t like monkeys.” The large man glowered and stormed ahead. “Had a bad experience with ’em once before. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Vigor shook his head and led them around to the eastern entrance to the Bayon. The stone causeway here was a ruin of jumbled blocks, studded with giant date palms and more of the silk-cotton trees with their snaking tangles of roots. They crossed in a crooked line through the entrance to the first level, passing under the watchful gaze of more bodhisattva faces.
They entered an inner courtyard, framed in galleries. The walls were carved in intricate bas-reliefs, covered from top to bottom in strips of story. Vigor glanced at the nearest. They depicted everyday scenes: a fisherman casting nets, a farmer harvesting rice, two cocks fighting amid a crowd, a woman cooking skewers over a charcoal. The last reminded Vigor of the old woman with the fried tarantulas, demonstrating how the past and present were still entwined.
“Where do we begin?” Gray asked, daunted at the ten acres of temple grounds to search.
Vigor understood his consternation. Even from here, it was evident that the temple was a veritable three-dimensional maze of stooped passages, squared archways, dark galleries, steep steps, sunlit courtyards, and cavelike rooms. And all around, towers or gopuras rose in giant spears and cones, decorated with the ubiquitous faces.
It would be easy to get lost in there.
Even Nasser seemed to sense this. He waved a portion of his men into a tighter clutch around Gray’s group. He sent a few others running forward to take up key positions in the courtyard here, covering all the exits, setting another level of defense.
Vigor felt the noose around his neck, but there was only one way to go. He pointed ahead.
“From a map I studied, the next level from here is another square court, like this one. But I think we should continue directly to the third level. To where the central sanctuary lies. We can get to it by going this way.”
Still, as they made their way around the first level, Vigor paused by a spectacular bas-relief on the north wall, larger than all the rest, covering an entire section all by itself. His feet slowed as he passed it.
It depicted two forces—gods and demons, the same as the statues along the causeway. They were playing tug-of-war with a great snake as a rope. Between them, the snake was wrapped around a mountain seated on the back of a turtle.
“What is it?” Gray asked.
“One of the main Hindu creation myths. The Churning of the Ocean of Milk.” Vigor pointed out details. “On this side are the devas or gods…on the other are the demonic asuras. They are using the snake god Vasuki as a rope to turn the great magical mountain. Back and forth, back and forth. Stirring the cosmic ocean into a milky froth. It is from this froth that the elixir of immortality called amrita will be churned. The turtle underneath the mountain is an incarnation of the god Vishnu, who aids the gods and demons by holding up the mountain so it doesn’t sink.”
Vigor pointed to the central tower of the Bayon. “And supposedly there is that mountain. Or at least its representation here on Earth.”
Gray glanced to the fifteen-story tower, then back to the bas-relief. He trailed a finger along the carved mountain, his brow furrowed. “So what happened? Did the elixir get made?”
Vigor shook his head. “According to the story, there were some complications. The snake Vasuki got sick from all the tugging and vomited a great poison. It sickened both gods and demons, threatening to kill them all. Vishnu saved them by drinking up the poison himself, but in the process of detoxifying it, he turned blue, which is why he is always depicted with a blue throat. And with his help, the churning continued that produced not only the elixir of immortality but also the dancing celestial spirits called apsaras. So all ended well.”
Vigor tried