Constance waved a hand at Ellie.“See?”
“And what do you know about the astras?”Mr.Chowdhury pressed with a note of mild exasperation at the digression.
Neil answered from where he hovered by the bookshelves.“Divine weapons.They were gifted by the gods to those they deemed worthy.”
“But the astras aren’t physical objects,” Ellie clarified.“They’reinvocations.Once someone has been granted the sacred mantra by the gods, they can summon the power of the astra into any vessel they choose.A spear, a stone, a blade of grass…”
“Or an arrow, obviously,” Constance piped in.“Lord Rama was an archer.”
“Each invocation of the weapon can be used precisely once,” Ellie noted.“After which the astra must be summoned into a new object to be wielded again.”
“And the Brahmastra?”Vijay prompted with uncharacteristic solemnity.
Neil shifted uncomfortably.“I was left with the impression that the Brahmastra could kill anyone that it was directed at.”
“It can do a great deal more than that,” Padma corrected him.“When Sri Rama invoked it against the god of the sea and was then deterred from killing him, he shot his arrow into the wilderness instead and created the Thar Desert.”
Neil adjusted his spectacles.“How big is the Thar Desert?”
Mr.Chowdhury met his gaze from across the room.“It covers a significant portion of Rajasthan.”
Adam had always had a knack for geography, which meant he had a pretty good sense of the scale of destruction they were talking about—a wave of power that leveled entire forests and scorched hundreds of miles of grassland.Lakes dried up like pots left too long on the stove.
Anyone unfortunate enough to be there burned to ash.
Part of him wanted to shield himself from the notion by mustering up a comfortable skepticism—but he couldn’t.He’d seen too damned much of what other arcana could do to doubt the stories about this one.
Then Mr.Chowdhury made it worse.“There are also indications that the astra could potentially be directed at a more…dispersedtarget.”
Adam crossed his arms.Kalb sensed the tension in the movement, glancing up at him curiously.“What’s that mean, exactly?”
Ellie stiffened.“You’re talking about Lakshmana and Indrajit.”
“Who?”Constance frowned with confusion.
Vijay replied from his throne-like seat.“Miss Mallory refers to a lesser known incident from the Ramayana narrative.Indrajit was the eldest son of the demon king Ravana.Rama’s brother Lakshmana became so enraged with Indrajit that he called the Brahmastra not just to kill Ravana’s son, but with the intention of slaying every demon on the earth.”
“Only Rama stopped him, because not all the demons were part of Ravana’s army,” Ellie elaborated uneasily.
Neil stepped forward.“Hold on—are you saying that this weapon is capable of wiping out an entire category of people?All of them, regardless of where in the world they happened to be?Just like that?”
Padma answered him in a voice as dry as gravel.“That is our understanding.”
“Hell,” Adam muttered feelingly.
Padma set down her tea.“And now perhaps you see why we have reason for concern.”
Concern.The word was a gross understatement when talking about a weapon that could wipe out an entire people.
Grim determination settled over Adam.“I can’t say I’m fond of the notion of a weapon like that falling into the hands of a guy like Borthwick.”
“An object infused with the power of the astra cannot be banished or undone,” Vijay elaborated.“It may only be destroyed by being used.We believe that Tulsidas’s text refers to an instance of the Brahmastra that was created but never launched against a target.”
Ellie’s fingers tapped thoughtfully against the arm of the sofa, her mind working.“Like the one Lakshmana summoned against Indrajit and the rakshasas.”
“But that means if even Borthwick found it, he could only use it once,” Neil deduced hopefully.
“I’m not sure it needs to be more than that to be a real bad idea,” Adam pointed out.
