The Hunt for Shambhala

28

Rakesh Madan worked hard to contain his excitement as Kaleka carefully set the C4 charges on the cave wall. He turned to the small group of nervous acolytes standing in the entrance to the cave and said, “To think this is exactly where Arthur Stanhope found the essence! What we are about to find will have the power to annihilate more than half the world!”

This was one of the most remote locations in the world. It was inhospitable and almost impossible to reach, but thanks to the hard work of Selena Moore and her friends he had the journal, the coordinates and Diana Silva’s helpful translation.

He was filled with a sense of pride and accomplishment he rarely felt. He had done it — he’d finally located Stanhope’s cave, and now they stood waiting in anxious silence as Kaleka padded back to his leader and handed him the detonator. His destiny was about to unfurl right in front of him.

Just as he so richly deserved.

“Our labours are nearly over, Kaleka,” he said as he took the small device from the man towering over him. “These symbols tell us that this is the eastern gateway to the Kingdom. Soon we will be in Shambhala…”

As Madan turned to face the wall, Kaleka gave his leader an uncertain look but stayed at his side. Taking one last look at the original carved symbols the British geologist had drawn over a century earlier, the Indian entrepreneur crouched below a large boulder for cover and detonated the C4 plastic explosive.

“Now it is time to grasp my destiny,” Madan said, flicking his Maglite on. “Move forward!”

They walked through the smoke and dust and after moving along a narrow tunnel they reached another canyon, similar the one they had just flown above in the helicopters, only this one was totally underground and pitch-black. Everyone gasped as they took in the scale of the place.

The beams of their flashlights crawled along the walls until they could reach no further. “This place must be enormous,” Madan purred. “These flashlights have a range of nearly four hundred metres!”

They were at the bottom of the canyon, walking beside the same river bed that Arthur Stanhope had seen glowing a century ago, but even here, deeper into the mountain it was still dry.

Shining his beam ahead of him, Rakesh Madan saw two ornately carved statues standing in eerie silence either side of the dried-up river. He gasped when he saw them and dropped his flashlight. “Kaleka — my Maglite!”

Kaleka stooped to retrieve the flashlight for his boss and then raised his own beam. “What is it?”

“They are gods… but none I recognize from the scriptures.”

Kaleka traced his flashlight beam all over the statues and behind them they heard several low rumblings of fear from the men. “Good God,” he said, stepping closer to the enormous statues. They were perfectly hewn out of the same rock as the mountain, and totally without damage or any kind of blemish. “They could have been carved yesterday — and their swords are made of some kind of metal.”

Madan was transfixed. “And yet we know they are countless thousands of years old, Kaleka! We are the first people to see them since the final days of Shambhala.”

Kaleka gave a brief nod of his head. “I never doubted.”

“We truly are on the path to Shambhala, my loyal servant. Make a note of these statues — I want them on the Jambudvipa by the end of the week. We don’t want them damaged by the main event.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shining their flashlights along the old river bed, they passed the statues and continued on their way deeper into the underground canyon. With each step into the dusty darkness, Rakesh Madan’s mind bubbled over with insane thoughts of the awesome discovery he was about to make. The incredible power he would soon be able to harness for the good of humankind was only moments away.

A gust of icy wind rushed them from ahead. Madan shivered and turned to Kaleka. “Did you feel that?”

Kaleka nodded, but was too occupied searching the canyon with his flashlight to make a reply. His face was etched with a strange blend of excitement and fear.

“That was wind — icy wind! There must be another way into this place. We must be almost upon the kingdom!”

Kaleka turned and shouted at the men to hurry up, but Madan was moving forward alone now, mumbling to himself. “Shambhala must be close now… I feel the breath of the gods on my face.”

They continued forward until they reached a large archway covered in carved symbols identical to those that had been back on the eastern gate. Madan frowned when he saw them, and flicked through the pages in Stanhope’s journal until he found the section where Diana had made her translation.

Waves of anxiety flooded through him as his eyes crawled over the Portuguese academic’s work. He was certain he understood the symbols now, and began to translate those carved into the stone archway. He didn’t come all this way to be stopped by a few simple carvings.

He was the Destroyer of Filth.

He was the Tenth Avatar.

Wasn’t he?

His destiny stretched out before him on the other side of this archway, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way.

“What does it mean?” Kaleka said.

Madan replied in icy tones, and never took his eyes off the symbols above their heads. “It says we must pass the Guardian of Shambhala if we wish to enter the kingdom.”

Kaleka frowned as he peered through the archway into an empty tunnel. “What guardian?”

“I don’t know.”

“The men are already scared.”

“The men have more to fear from me than anything in this cave system, Kaleka.”

“Yes,” Kaleka said quietly, but he wondered if this time Madan’s terror had met its match. He shone his torch above the archway and saw a recess had been carved into the cave. It formed a stone balcony that stretched almost all the way around the cave, and there were several more arches carved into the rock wall behind it. Above each arch were yet more of the mysterious symbols.

“This place is like a labyrinth!” Madan said, following Kaleka’s flashlight beam.

“What do you think is up there?” Kaleka said.

Madan closed his eyes and was silent for a long time before finally speaking. “I have consulted with the gods, and they have told me where I must go.”

Kaleka gave Madan a sideways glance of doubt, but was careful not to let his boss see it. “And what did they say?”

“They said you are to follow me,” Madan said.

With fear on their faces, Kaleka and the rest of the men reluctantly followed Rakesh Madan as he mumbled to himself, eyes wide with expectation.

The Destroyer of Filth was nearly ready to fulfil his destiny.