Fortress Of Dwarka

By Ashok K. Banker

The Lord of Mathura unravels the secrets of space and time, founds an impregnable new city and finds his eternal mate in her earthly avatar in the thrilling sixth instalment of the Krishna Coriolis Series  Jarasandha's relentless attacks threaten Mathura's very existence. With the aid of a talented young architect, Krishna builds an invulnerable fortress-city where his people will be safe from all harm. But with the Magadhan army at the city's gates, Krishna must still find a way to whisk away his subjects in Mathura from under Jarasandha's nose. Even as he does that, a new challenge beckons: Krishna's eternal soulmate has taken birth on the mortal plane to be with him, and no sooner does he find her than he realizes that she is being used as bait in a deadly trap.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Feb 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9789350299937

Ashok K. Banker

ASHOK K. BANKER is the author of more than seventy books, including the internationally acclaimed Ramayana series. Their works have all been bestsellers in India and have sold around the world. They live in Southern California.

Book preview

one

‘

My lord,’ Daruka said as they sped away from Jarasandha. ‘You seem troubled. Is there anything I can do to alleviate your anxiety?’

Krishna blinked, looking at the city looming ahead. ‘Yes. Take me upwards. Directly upwards.’ He pointed at the sky.

Daruka obeyed. The celestial chariot swung upwards at a ninety-degree angle, flying straight up to the sky above. Yet Krishna and Daruka remained standing as they were, unaffected by the vertical trajectory.

Balarama slowed his own chariot and sent a mental query to Krishna: Bhraatr, where are you going?

Krishna replied, Go home to Mathura. Go through the motions of victory as usual. I shall return shortly. I need some time to think by myself. Then he added more genially: Flute time.

Balarama sent back the mental equivalent of a smile: :-) His chariot continued towards the city, the cheers and sounds of drums and celebrations exploding even before his vehicle began to descend.

Krishna’s vahan continued upwards to a height greater than Daruka had ever been to before. When the earth was far beneath them and its details were too minute for even the sarathi’s keen sight to discern, he asked his master hesitantly, ‘Higher, my lord?’

Krishna smiled. ‘Yes, Daruka. Do not worry. We shall be able to breathe as on earth. The Pushpaka will care for us. I need to get away from worldly matters for a while and recall the universe as I once knew it.’

Daruka nodded, spurring the chariot on faster, their speed now so great that the very stars seemed to blur past. ‘I understand, great one. If we stand too close to a tree trunk, all we see is the knot on the trunk. Sometimes one needs to see the whole forest.’

Krishna smiled again. ‘Or the sum total of every forest that was ever created.’

Daruka was silent for a while after that, trying to comprehend the concept of being able to view every forest ever created. It was too much for even his agile mind, and he eventually gave up and simply admired the sight of the stars blurring past, turning into streaks of light.

‘That is the point, good sarathi. To contemplate something so vast, one cannot understand it, merely accept its existence. Like viewing a star. Or a galaxy. Or all creation.’

Daruka marvelled at his lord’s wisdom. ‘I understand now, my lord.’

He breathed in deeply, wondering at the miracle of being able to breathe air in the vast emptiness. He knew there was no air beyond the reach of Mother Prithvi’s grasp because air itself was created by Mother Prithvi. The silence was deafening, the vastness overwhelming, yet he found a strange sense of calm descending upon them as they flew farther, until, glancing back over his shoulder, he could no longer even make out the green-and-blue orb that was his home.

After the bloody and brutal battle that had raged, and the strain of the encounter with Jarasandha, he understood why Krishna would find such a voyage soothing. He had barely been able to comprehend the scale of slaughter visited by Krishna and Balarama upon the armies of Jarasandha, but the brutality had been all too real and palpable. He had found his heart crying for the unfortunate beasts – the elephants and horses – that were compelled by their human masters to participate in that orgy of violence.

As a charioteer, Daruka respected animals greatly, particularly the children of the Ashwins, the great sky twins from whom all horsekind had descended. They were magnificent, loyal and enduring beasts. It was sheer tragedy to see them slaughtered in a conflict that did not directly concern them. It had made him ponder on the nature of enslavement: for what else was the use of horses and elephants, uksan and cows, if not slavery, in a sense?

At least with cows and sheep, if one was as loving as the govindas of Gokuldham, then one could claim that the animals were as well tended as the humans they served. But horses, elephants and uksan were nothing more than slaves forced to carry the burden of their human masters, or the loads they made them carry or drag, and more often than not, those masters were nothing like the gentle govindas of Gokul. And when it came to participation in war or conflict, their use was worse than slavery. They were merely fodder for the cruel reaping of warlords. And yet, if man did all that he did to fellow humans, what were poor beautiful dumb animals? With what tongue could they protest?

In a way, Daruka was grateful that he drove a chariot without horses for Krishna. Though, if he had been given charge of actual horses, he would have cared for them as if they were his own children. Yet this was better. A chariot that needed no brute force to pull it, no fear of the animals tiring or weakening, or falling ill, or breaking a leg, or being wounded in battle … it was all much more humane.

He realized that the emptiness of space served him a purpose as well. He would never have thought such a thing through upon earth, busy with his daily routine and work. Least of all during the trauma of battle. Yet, here it seemed so clear, so obvious. Perhaps that was the problem. Human beings, busy with their daily lives, forced to live minute by minute, day by day, struggling constantly, could hardly afford the luxury of thinking of the wants of animals. They had their own needs and welfare to think of, and by the time they were done seeing to those, the day was done and it was time to lay their heads down for some much-needed rest. Perhaps some day when the human race had progressed beyond having to tend to its needs on a daily or immediate basis, there would be an opportunity to realize such ideals. To free animals from slavery. To learn to fend for themselves and get their work done, by using machines such as the Pushpaka, or some equivalents. He prayed for such a day.

‘We may return now, sarathi,’ Krishna said from behind him. His voice sounded calmer, more at ease.

‘At once, sire,’ Daruka said, willing the chariot to turn around. He then willed it to find its way back to earth on its own, for he could not tell which of the countless gleaming orbs in the endless night sky was Mother Earth, certainly not at this blinding speed.

‘Did this respite help cool your thoughts?’ Krishna’s voice asked him.

Daruka smiled. ‘Indeed, my lord. It did.’

He sensed Krishna smile at him. ‘It helped me as well. It always does. Though this was the first time I have brought a mortal along.’

Daruka bowed his head without turning back, for a sarathi’s dharma required him never to leave his post or let his attention stray, horses or no horses. ‘I thank you for the privilege, great one.’

Krishna’s laughter rang in his mind. It is I who should thank you, good sarathi. You see, all I did was listen to you thinking. And it helped me resolve my own problem! And he continued laughing. Daruka joined in as well, although he did not entirely understand what Krishna meant. Then again, even if others expressed reservations about the idea or wondered, he knew beyond doubt that Krishna was God Incarnate. And God was entitled to his mysterious ways. Or, as those who loved and believed in Krishna termed it, his lila.

two

Dawn was still some hours away when Krishna strode through the corridors of the palace. The whole complex was deserted except for the usual sentries. The day’s victory had been celebrated by the populace until the wee hours, and the feasting and dancing and celebrating had wound down only a short while earlier. He had returned with Daruka only moments ago, and had told the charioteer to freshen up and get some nourishment before they left again.

Daruka had been surprised by the hour. He had assumed that they had been travelling for just a short while and could not understand how so many hours had passed so quickly. Krishna did not have the time to explain that time itself passed more quickly away from Mother Prithvi’s realm, and that the speed of their passage had affected the passing of time as well. Daruka accepted the anomaly as he would learn to accept so much else concerning his lord. It was one of the reasons why Krishna had chosen him right away: a man who excelled in his profession and could accept the impossible without being shocked or impaired was very rare.

Now, he nodded at the sentries posted at the entrance to his and Balarama’s chambers and neared his brother’s large and luxuriant bed, upon which Balarama lay sprawled. From the remains of the feast on the table nearby, Krishna deduced that his brother had indulged his legendary appetite with great gusto and was now sleeping off the day’s work. What amused him was the sight of the little wooden plough that lay on the silken cushion beside Balarama’s head. His brother still clung to that childhood relic, battered and worn though it was after all these years. He clasped it now in sleep, like a child his favourite comforter.

Krishna bent over his brother’s prone form. ‘Rise and shine, Bhraatr,’ he said in his brother’s ear.

Balarama did not so much as stir.

It took several more urgings, each higher in volume and intensity from the previous one, coupled with some firm shaking, for Balarama to finally be roused from his deep slumber.

‘Are you sure you weren’t Karna of the Kumbhas in your last life?’ Krishna asked as Balarama sat up, looking around with one warily open eye, rubbing the other one as he stretched his limbs.

‘Who?’ Balarama asked sleepily.

‘Never mind,’ Krishna said, throwing off the covers so Balarama could get out of bed. ‘Come on. I think I’ve understood what Jarasandha’s game is, and if I’m right, we need to get a move on before daybreak.’

Balarama muttered sleepily as he re-tied his dhoti. ‘So what did you find out?’

‘I’m not sure yet. That’s why I want to go see for myself. Come.’

Balarama struggled with his dhoti but managed to get it around himself somehow. He was still surly from being woken up early. ‘Why didn’t you just go and see for yourself and then come and wake me?’

Krishna looked at him balefully. ‘For the same reason that we were both placed upon this earth during the same lifetime instead of me coming down alone.’

Balarama frowned, trying to work out the mental equation while attempting to knot the dhoti. ‘Because you can’t do anything without me?’

Krishna made a sound of amusement. ‘Because sometimes two can do what one cannot. Hurry up now.’

Balarama picked up his anga-vastra and stared at it doubtfully. It was terribly tangled.

‘Leave it,’ Krishna said wearily.

But his brother tilted his head, looking at one knot on the anga-vastra as if he was on the verge of figuring out how to unravel it.

‘Leave it,’ Krishna repeated. Firmly.

Balarama sighed and tossed the anga-vastra aside, stepping into his slippers. ‘It’s warm outside anyhow. Don’t really need an anga-vastra.’ He added after a moment. ‘I could have untied that knot in a second, but it’s so much nicer being bare-chested.’

‘Keep telling yourself that, Bhraatr,’ Krishna replied. ‘Some day you will begin believing it.’

Balarama punched his brother in the back. Krishna barely missed a step. Balarama shook his fist, wincing.

It was still quiet when they emerged from the palace. Daruka had kept both their chariots ready. Each brother got into his own chariot, and they took off, the sentries on duty and a few early risers – or late sleepers – tilting their heads to gaze skywards as the gleaming golden celestial chariots flashed away like flaring diamonds against the deep blue velvet sky.

They hovered several hundred yards above ground, about a yojana from Mathura. Up here, they had a panoramic view of the flat lands around the city for several dozen yojanas. The battlefield lay as it had the night before, strewn with the debris of the previous day’s epic battle. Jarasandha’s demolished army lay scattered in bloody ruin, entire swathes of carnage forming morbid patterns.

Balarama grunted. He was standing in his chariot, only a yard from Krishna’s vehicle. Daruka was managing both vahans at once, and doing an excellent job of it.

‘Same old, same old,’ Balarama said. ‘So is this what you wanted to show me, Bhraatr? It is business as usual.’

‘No,’ Krishna responded. ‘What I wish to show you requires going through vortals.’

Balarama raised an eyebrow. ‘Vortals? Plural? Isn’t it treacherous enough going through a vortal, let alone more than one?’

‘That it is, but it’s the only way we can find out what Jarasandha’s real game is, without living through as many Tuesdays as it might take until the event itself is sprung upon us unexpectedly.’

Balarama looked at him with one raised eyebrow and a half-closed eye. ‘You do know that it’s very early, I haven’t had my full quota of sleep, and I can get a little cranky if I’ve not eaten my first meal of the day, don’t you?’

‘You’re cranky when you go an hour without eating a full meal,’ Krishna laughed. ‘Do you need me to break the explanation down into parts?’

Balarama groaned and rubbed his face. ‘Just a brief explanation, please. No need to make it a full lecture.’

‘Jarasandha has some power over Lord Kala, most likely because of a boon granted sometime in the aeons past. As a result, he is able to travel through a vortal each day precisely at dawn, and take us through the same vortal at the same instant as well.’

Balarama’s other eyebrow rose up this time. ‘I thought vortals had to be physically stepped through at the same time? Like going through a doorway.’

Krishna nodded. ‘Usually, yes. But asura maya can alter those qualities. Vortals can be opened and closed, entered and exited through other means as well, if one knows how to manipulate them. And Jarasandha, being a powerful asura sorcerer, has mastered the art of manipulating them.’

Balarama shrugged again. ‘So somehow he’s able to push us through the same vortal he goes through each night, thereby transferring us into an alternate earth, with an alternate Mathura, and hey presto, in this alternate reality, his army is still intact, it’s still Tuesday, and we have to fight the same battle all over again.’

‘Exactly,’ Krishna said. ‘And the reason he’s doing this is to conceal the real plan he has devised to destroy us.’

‘Can he do that?’ Balarama asked. ‘Destroy us, I mean? All those asura assassins and his son-in-law Kamsa, enhanced with potions and what not, couldn’t do it either. He hasn’t dared to fight us personally yet. Presumably he can’t do it either. So what other move could he possibly have left to deploy in this game of chaupar?’

Krishna pursed his lips and looked out at the horizon. ‘The reason he doesn’t engage us himself, I suspect, is because we would then be entitled to kill him, as it would constitute a fair duel. By avoiding confronting or challenging us personally, he makes it impossible for us to kill him by the rules of Kshatriya dharma.’ He turned and looked at Balarama. ‘What I’m saying is, I think he’s saving his own skills and strength for a future time, holding them in abeyance in case even this plan fails for whatever reason. Like Kamsa, he knows that using himself as a weapon is the last challenge he can issue: once he throws himself at us, there’s no turning back.’

‘It’s either win or lose, kill or be killed.’ Balarama nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. Besides, if he wants this other plan to work, he needs to stay alive long enough to keep us moving through this endless succession of vortals to relive Tuesday over and over again on alternate earths, fighting the same battle over and over again till he can strike us a lethal blow and take us by surprise.’

‘And that’s why we need to cut his plan short. Hence the early rising, before we are switched through the vortal yet again. So we can steal a glimpse of his real plan.’

Balarama nodded. ‘I see it now. All right. Let’s do it, then. I’m tired of reliving the same damn day as it is. Anything will be a welcome change.’

Krishna reached out and touched Daruka’s shoulder. ‘Daruka, brace yourself.’

Then he gestured, voicing mantras too quietly to be heard by even the charioteer, and with a blinding flash, they were transported.

three

There was a flash of light and Balarama felt a slight disorientation. He also smelled an odd odour, something he could not immediately place, and then he realized that they were still in the same spot, standing in their respective celestial chariots, hovering some seven hundred yards above ground, Daruka at the helm of Krishna’s vehicle. He glanced around.

‘It seems to be as we feared, Bhraatr,’ he said. He glanced down at himself – his anga-vastra was still missing. Once again, the knots had beaten him. Two Tuesdays to the knots, then.

Krishna was looking about too. ‘That it does. Daruka, take us around in a large circle. Around the flanks of the Magadhan force.’

Daruka did as his master bade him do. The night wind was cool to begin with, but because of the speed at which the celestial vehicles flew, covering several hundred yojanas in moments, it became bracing, chilling. Due to the size of the Magadhan army, the circle they circumscribed was a very large one.

Balarama was relieved when they drew to a halt on Krishna’s orders. He gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering, and flexed his muscles to try and warm himself up.

Krishna was looking out at the distance. ‘I see nothing amiss. Do you, Bhaiya?’

Balarama’s teeth almost clattered as he opened his mouth to reply. ‘N … no, Bhraatr.’

Krishna nodded and uttered the mantras of transport again. Once again, the flash of blinding light, the brief moment of disorientation and that same strange odour, pungent and oddly familiar.

Balarama shook his head to clear it, then realized that yet again, he didn’t have his anga-vastra on. Damnation.

‘All looks the same,’ Krishna said. ‘What say, Bhaiya?’

‘True, Bhraatr,’ Balarama said, almost losing his control on the second word. ‘Do you think we need to do another flyabout?’

‘Another, Bhaiya?’ Krishna raised his eyebrow. ‘We haven’t done so yet. Not in this world, not on this particular Tuesday, remember?’

‘Ah,’ Balarama said. ‘Right.’

By the time they had finished circumscribing the extent of Jarasandha’s forces this time, his teeth were chattering and there was nothing he could do to stop them. He hugged his bare chest, unable to control himself. It didn’t help much.

Krishna seemed not to notice Balarama’s discomfort. And Balarama would be damned if he admitted his weakness to his younger brother.

‘Nothing apparent here again,’ Krishna said, then shrugged. He uttered the mantras again. Again, the flash. Disorientation. Odour.

‘Daruka,’ Krishna said again.

This time, when they finished flying around the Magadhan army, Balarama was almost in tears. His teeth were chattering, his lips felt frozen, glued to each other, and he could barely breathe or speak.

‘Should … have … brought … damn … anga-vastra,’ he managed to say aloud.

‘Did you say anga-vastra, Bhaiya?’ Krishna asked from his chariot.

To Balarama’s surprise, Krishna tossed him his anga-vastra, duly unknotted and perfectly usable. Balarama’s frozen arms flailed at it and for a moment he was afraid the night wind would whip it away. But he managed to snag it with a finger and somehow wrapped it around his bare torso. He immediately felt better, though it was just a long strip of linen. It was the placebo effect, he realized.

‘I forgot to mention during the previous jump,’ Krishna said casually, ‘I found your anga-vastra in my chariot. I probably brought it along on that particular Tuesday and unknotted it for you. In any case, you have it now. Were you feeling somewhat chilly?’

‘Chilly?’ Balarama thundered. ‘I was damn near freezing to death. What are you smiling at?’ He stopped short. Even Daruka was grinning. Balarama put his hand on the side of the chariot. ‘Don’t make me jump into your vahan, Bhraatr. What’s the joke?’

Krishna grinned. ‘The celestial chariots respond to our thoughts. You could have warmed your chariot anytime you wished. You didn’t need that anga-vastra at all!’

Balarama gaped. Krishna was right, of course. ‘But what about Daruka?’ Balarama said indignantly. ‘He was the one driving both chariots. Why didn’t he keep mine warm?’

Daruka bowed his head respectfully to his master’s brother. ‘Lord Krishna bade me not to, sire. Forgive me. He said you preferred to adjust yours to suit your own needs.’

Balarama glared at Krishna who was waggling his eyebrows provocatively.

Balarama shook a fist at his brother. ‘Some day, I’ll prove that I’m smarter than you.’

Krishna burst out laughing.

Balarama shook his fist again, threateningly.

Krishna stifled his laughter.

‘Come on, now,’ Balarama said sulkily, gripping the side of the chariot and looking down. ‘This is serious business. No time to fool around.’

Krishna’s laughter ebbed. Daruka shook his head one last time as well. Krishna took