The cavern opened into a vast hall — vast enough to swallow a man's voice. Statues stood in rigid rows as if schoolchildren waiting for roll call, their stone faces tilted toward the dim ceiling. The air smelled faintly of smoke and old incense; torches hissed along the walls, throwing the carvings into a slow, living dance of shadow.
Not long after we arrived, Gaudish's general appeared. A tall, cruel man with a face like a weathered mask, he summoned several soldiers and barked orders. "Go to the nearby village. Bring me ten people," he said. "Ten souls for ten thousand — cheap, but enough. If the King learns of this, he will burn us all to ash. Hurry, and do it without a mistake. One error and we are finished. Once the Maharaj completes his penance, we will expand our rule — first the neighboring villages, then the entire realm. We will be rulers of the land; no one will stand against us."
We listened, hidden between the stone figures. Even then we could not see the general's features clearly; he was a shadow among shadows. Curiosity pricked at me. I wanted to know what he looked like. When he walked slowly past the statues, my eyes finally caught him in the torchlight: a hulking body, a face so fierce it might have belonged to a god of death — a demon's lieutenant, perhaps. A chill ran through me, but I stood my ground.
Rishabha and I exchanged silent signals with our inner powers. A tremor of intuition — Rishabha's signal — told me that high above, carved into the cavern's roof, were two beautiful statues of princesses. They were so exquisitely made that any mortal who saw them would be captivated. I sent the signal to Rishabha: "Take those two statues and get out. No one must notice." Rishabha moved to obey.
But fate is a gambler. A soldier saw him among the statues and shouted. Trapped, Rishabha was seized and bound, dragged away as if he were one of the offerings. In the morning, he sent me a message in despair: "They have captured me. I have failed you. Forgive me." I answered quickly, steadying him with words. "It's alright, friend. You've done much. Don't worry. We will get you out."
We waited until the soldiers left the inner chamber. When the guards were gone, Rishabha and I slipped out, careful as shadows. Outside, the sentries stood as they always did — vigilant, but human. We dragged them inside, struck them senseless, and made sure they would not raise the alarm. We wore their clothes and masks. No one recognized us; we were ghosts in borrowed skins.
We agreed that Gaudish's dark rite could not be performed without a priest. So we hatched a plan: one of us would pose as an outside watcher, another would find the death-priest, kill him, and take his place to halt the demonic ceremony. We moved carefully through the cavern, searching the rooms where, by all accounts, the priest might be preparing.
Soon the general returned and announced that the priest should be fetched at once; the Maharaj would arrive to witness the sacrifice. We were to call the priest and tell him the time had come. Fingers trembling, I questioned a nearby soldier. "Have you seen the priest? Where is he?"
"Yes," he said. "He left the cavern a short while ago. He went to fetch some herbs from outside. He'll be back soon. We're waiting."
Minutes later, the gatekeeper came running: "The priest is returning!" Word spread like wildfire: the men who had been sent to fetch captives from the surrounding villages were bringing them in. The time for the sacrifice had nearly arrived. Men hurried to their places. The priest was led to his chamber and set about his preparations.
Shivam, who had adopted the guise of a ritualist, pretended to perform rites. He spoke the wrong mantras on purpose and made exaggerated movements to create confusion. "Cover your eyes," he instructed those present. "Close them tightly." With a swift, surgically practiced motion, I struck the Maharaj down — a single, clean blow. Chaos erupted. Soldiers cried out, and for a moment everything teetered on the brink of disaster.
I moved like a shadow through the uproar, doing what needed to be done. Shivam feigned shock and collapsed theatrically. In that same instant, I struck down the general. Shivam rose as if from sleep and, with a single sweeping motion, ended the lives of the soldiers gathered there. The hall fell silent once more, filled now with a different kind of stillness.
But before that, there had been a skirmish deep within the priest's chamber. I had, with the speed of light, found four soldiers and dispatched them in one motion so deft that none of them ever knew what hit them. Then I freed Rishabha, strapped the two princess statues to his back, and ordered him to go to the place where we had first met — and not to move until I returned. I sealed the upper passage to the cavern so that no one could follow, and I created a decoy route for Rishabha to escape. Outside, I placed two statues resembling the princesses to mislead any pursuers.
Back among the priests and soldiers, the mock-ceremony had begun in earnest. Shivam, playing his role to perfection, chanted a twisted mantra — "Om Namo Saitamay Namah" — and led the gathered men in blind obedience. The moment came when we had to act. I rose quietly, walked to the Maharaj, and with the resolve of someone who had waited too long, removed his head. The sound that followed was the startled cry of those who had thought themselves untouchable.
Pandemonium. People screamed and blamed one another. Shivam acted his part, pretending bewilderment and sleep; then, with lethal precision, he killed the general. In a single, coordinated sweep, we finished the soldiers. The ritual that was meant to spill ten thousand lives ended in the dust of the hall, broken before it had even been born.
When the last flame guttered and the torchlight steadied into real day, we stood among ruins of a plot nearly realized and statues that watched us with their eternal, stone eyes. We had acted blindly, dangerously, and with a ferocity born of necessity. The kingdom was safe for now — but only for now. Battles had been fought in the shadows; the war for the realm had only just begun.