“Just admiring the scenery,” she returned blandly.“But isn’t this a Shiva stone?”
“Of course, it is!”Neil exclaimed, scholarly fervor kicking into gear.“It’s a lingam, one of Shiva’s sacred symbols.Shiva is known as the Supreme Lord and Destroyer—but also Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance.Join the Lord of the Dance!”
Neil punctuated the remarks with eager jabs at the smooth, polished pillar—and then caught himself at Subhas’s dry look.“But you must have already known that.”
“Where are we supposed to go next?”Subhas asked.
“Let his shadow lead you to the ruins of the most loyal kingdom,”Constance recited.
Subhas’s haughty expression flickered with uncomfortable emotion—and he glanced to the south.
Neil followed the look to where a pale stone needle pierced the canopy.It emerged from the trees like a finger of bone, hugged by the ridge that circled the cupped hand of a broad, forested depression.
His blood thrummed with rising excitement.“That pillar must be at least forty feet tall to break through the canopy.Carved from a single piece of stone, I should expect, or it wouldn’t have remained intact without regular maintenance.”He whirled back to face Constance and Subhas.“Don’t you realize what this means?A monument like that wouldn’t be isolated in the middle of the wilderness.There would need to be access to quarries.Engineers.Laborers.Ritual or civic centers that justified an immense architectural undertaking.”
“It’s a city,” Subhas returned flatly.
The words sparked an overwhelming sense of wonder.
An entire city hidden in the deep forest, untouched for centuries.It would be rife with knowledge about India’s past, just waiting to be painstakingly uncovered.
Neil was unable to keep the eagerness from his voice.“You’ve been to it?”
Subhas’s expression hardened.“No.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t go down there.”
The assertion was so surprising, Neil found it hard to absorb.“But don’t you want to know what’s there?”
Subhas’s voice snapped with anger.“And what good do you think that would do us?Should the Adrija submit a paper on it to the Royal Geographical Society?”
His voice dripped with sarcasm.Neil’s billowing excitement about the promise of the pillar abruptly popped, leaving behind an unexpected uncertainty.
“I…” Neil started.“That’s not what I was…”
“Do you know what Iwant?”
Subhas stepped closer to him.They were roughly even in height, but Neil felt smaller in the face of Subhas’s ferocity.
“I want to know that my village isn’t going to be labeled ‘criminal’ and forced from our homes on some Englishman’s whim.I want to know that we won’t be shut out of the forest that feeds our children.”Subhas waved a hand over the dark, secret sprawl of the wilderness around them.“That all this isn’t going to be torn up for some mining contract granted by men who’ve never so much as seen it.Do you know what I’ve learned about the law after three years at university?I’ve learned that it exists to protect your interests over ours.”
“Mine?”Neil echoed, thrown.
“The English.”Subhas bit out the word like a curse.“And it is not enough to steal our present and our future.You steal our past, too.”He jabbed an accusing finger at the pale tower that tantalizingly pierced the canopy below.“What do you think would happen if word about this got back to Madras?How quickly do you think some English expedition would be out here to cut it all down and carry it away to one of your museums—forsafe-keeping?”
The words whipped with sarcasm, cutting like blades.
Shame burned through Neil as Sayyid’s voice echoed in his memory.
No matter that it is our history the world is digging up.Our language on the walls.Our ancestors in the sarcophagi.I could only—ever—be the help.
Neil’s chest ached with guilt.“You’re right.Of course, you’re right.”
“I don’t even care,” Subhas retorted.“It’s not the ruins that concern me.It’s that your people would happily eradicate my own if you thought we were in the way of claiming them.”
His eyes were like embers, flaring with a terrible and bitter heat.“Tell me I’m wrong.”
