The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [105]
‘Might be worth me having a swig,’ said Eddie.
Mac cocked his head. ‘Just the one?’
‘Mount Kailash is north of them,’ Kit continued. ‘Lord Shiva supposedly meditates at the summit.’
‘Waiting to end the world, according to Khoil,’ said Nina.
‘And begin it again,’ he reminded her.
‘Maybe so, but for all its faults, I’d kinda like to keep the one we have now.’
‘Exactly what did Khoil tell you about this plan of his?’ Mac asked.
‘Not enough,’ she sighed. ‘Although I think he may have given away more than he intended when he was showing off how he’s rigged the Qexia search engine. He used India and Pakistan as an example of two countries that would only need the right spark to go to war - maybe that’s already part of what the Khoils are planning.’
Mac nodded. ‘Both countries have nuclear weapons. If they started throwing them about, things would escalate beyond just the two of them very quickly.’
‘But what would the Khoils gain from that?’ asked Kit.
‘Global collapse,’ said Nina. ‘Pramesh wants to force the world into the next stage of the cycle of existence - end the Kali Yuga, and start a new Satya Yuga. A new golden age,’ she added for the benefit of the two puzzled British men.
‘That’s rather arrogant of him,’ said Kit thoughtfully. ‘The Kali Yuga is supposed to last over four hundred thousand years, and Shiva is the one who will end it. Not a man.’
She smiled darkly. ‘Arrogance is about his only personality trait, unless you count nerdiness. But he said he has to have the Vedas from the Vault of Shiva for his plan to work. Without Shiva’s teachings to inspire them, people will just stay in the gutter.’
‘So what if he doesn’t get these Vedas?’ Eddie asked.
‘I don’t know. If he believes in them that much, maybe he won’t carry out his plan at all.’
‘Well, then. We get them before he does. Problem solved!’
‘Easier said than done. We don’t know where the Vault is.’ Nina looked at the map more closely, brow furrowing as she trawled through her memory of everything she had learned from the Talonor Codex. Some clue was tantalisingly close to revealing itself, but without access to the translation she couldn’t pin it down. ‘And . . . I’m not entirely sure that the Khoils do, either. Something isn’t right. Do you remember what I was telling you about Talonor - when you realised that what he was writing was a tactical report?’
‘Some of it. What about it?’
She tapped a finger on the map. ‘Something about Talonor’s journey. He visited a temple where he met the Hindu priests - who showed him the key to the Vault of Shiva.’ She lifted the replica, tilting it so light picked out the reliefs of Shiva and the five goddesses. ‘He said the Vault was one day away from the temple. Or rather, one day to get there, and one hour to get back.’
‘How’s that possible?’ Mac wondered.
‘Khoil thought they might have come back by river,’ said Nina. The Himalayas were riddled with blue lines running down from glaciers, so that didn’t narrow the possibilities. ‘But Talonor said he went away from the river to reach the temple. And then . . .’ She snapped her fingers. ‘From there, he carried on northeast until he discovered the Golden Peak.’
‘The Golden Peak?’ asked Kit.
‘The site of an Atlantean settlement.’
He was surprised. ‘There was an Atlantean settlement in Tibet? I’ve never heard that.’
Nina realised she’d made a gaffe. ‘Oh . . . yeah. It’s something we kept out of the public record for security reasons, because it contained the . . .’ She tailed off and glared at her husband, who was making