The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [133]
‘Death,’ said Eddie immediately.
‘You’re just saying that because of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’
‘No, he is right,’ Shankarpa said. ‘Kali is the goddess of death, the destroyer of evil.’
‘The destroyer of ego,’ Girilal corrected. ‘She is like the mother who sees when her children have bad in them - and drives it out. If you face Kali and you are not pure, if you fear her because you know you have done something that deserves punishment . . . she will destroy you.’
‘Glad my mum wasn’t that strict,’ Eddie said.
‘So, the word representing Kali is “death”,’ said Nina. ‘Okay, we have to get the segment with the word “death” on it around to the wheel next to Kali, and then line it up with her. Let’s see . . .’
She turned the appropriate large wheel, bringing the smaller disc to the position where it was shared with an adjoining wheel. A half-turn of the little disc switched the eye section on to the new carrier; two turns anticlockwise brought it to a third large wheel, and a final anticlockwise move placed it next to the key. Nina rotated the small wheel to align the word with the goddess. There was a moment of almost comical silence as the onlookers all held their breath, but nothing happened.
‘I suppose it was too much to hope that we’d hear a big click,’ she said. ‘What are the other words?’
Several minutes of debate produced - more or less - a consensus. Parvati was represented by the word ‘love’. While Uma prompted some argument over whether she, Parvati or Shakti best fit the term, she was eventually agreed to embody ‘motherhood’. Shakti herself was attributed with ‘femininity’ - though as Girilal pointed out with a smile, the word could also be interpreted as ‘sexuality’. Finally, Durga, the fearless warrior, was ‘invincible’.
With Kali’s part of the combination already in place, the task now was to bring the other pieces to where they belonged. Nina took a step back, puzzling out the sequence of turns needed to bring everything into the right place. There was a certain Rubik’s Cube quality to the task, as without careful planning, moving one word into position at the centre could carry another away.
But she was sure she could do it.
Snow was rubbed into the chosen words to mark them, so all Nina had to do was switch them from wheel to wheel to bring them into the correct positions, then rotate the smaller discs to line up the precise word with each goddess. In an odd way, she realised as she worked, she was almost enjoying herself. Shankarpa and the other guardians didn’t seem any better disposed to her, and there was the looming threat that helicopters laden with armed men could thunder overhead at any moment, but the immediate challenge was a purely intellectual one.
After five minutes, one more turn brought the last wheel into alignment. ‘Okay, almost done!’ she said. Now that all five were in position, she could turn them to line up the individual words. Kali was already paired with the word ‘death’, and one by one she turned the others. Shakti, Uma, Durga . . . and finally Parvati.
Another breathless silence . . .
And again, nothing happened.
‘Buggeration and fuckery,’ she muttered.
Eddie gave her a surprised look, then drew back to check the rest of the door, aware that the guardians were now watching him more mistrustfully than ever. ‘There’s not a handle we’re supposed to turn?’
‘This is all there is,’ said Shankarpa.
‘Try another combination,’ Kit suggested, urgency entering his voice as he nervously regarded the men surrounding them. ‘Shakti might be “motherhood”, not Uma.’
‘I don’t think it’ll make any difference,’ said Nina. They had overlooked something. But what?
Shankarpa interrupted her thoughts, pushing her back from the door. ‘You have failed.’
‘Wait a minute, mate,’ Eddie said, moving towards him - only to have several sharp blades raised to his