Of course, she had good reason to give such matters more thought now that she’d spent the last two months tripping over powerful mythical artifacts.
She also found herself at a loss to explain how else a sixteenth-century poet could have written in a language that no one had been able to decipher for over a millennium.
“Let me get this straight,” Adam began.“What you’re saying is that a sixteenth-century poet reincarnated from a two-thousand-year-old saint used a lost script to record a secret message at the end of his book?”
“That more or less sums it up,” Vijay agreed.“All we know of the contents so far is a single word that one of the priests at the temple was able to share with us.”
“Brahmastra,” Padma filled in with dark significance.
Ellie’s pulse hitched at this mention of the mysterious arcanum that had brought them all to India.
The Brahmastra featured prominently in many of India’s epic stories, including the Ramayana.It was one of several astras—supernatural weapons granted by the gods to those deemed worthy.Astras weren’t singular objects like a mythical sword or spear.Rather, each one was a mantra—a set of secret ritual words that, when chanted, infused enormous destructive power into any object one chose.
Like a magic spell,as Constance had described it.
Ellie had tried to counter that abbreviated description with an explanation of the more sacred religious meanings of the astras—and then given up.
The Brahmastra was the particular weapon of Lord Brahma, one of India’s supreme deities, who was meant to have helped create the universe itself.In the Ramayana, Rama called the Brahmastra into a humble arrow, which he then used to defeat the unstoppable demon king Ravana.
They stopped moving as the crowd thickened, packing up against an unseen barrier at the end of the road.The largest of Vijay’s servants barked out commands with an air of habitual authority, forging them a path forward.
“The manuscript—the Ramacharitamanas—is kept in a secure vault under the temple sanctum,” Vijay explained as they pressed through the close-packed bodies.“Except on a single occasion each year.”
“What occasion?”Constance pressed.
“To accompany Lord Jagannath on his pilgrimage, of course!”
“Who’s Lord Jagannath?”Adam asked.“Some local ruler?”
Kalb pressed closer to his legs, nose enthusiastically searching the air as the scents of food mingled with wet pavement, rich earth, and a great number of people.
“Don’t be silly.”Constance gave Adam’s substantial bicep a playful whack.“He’s not a ruler.He’s a god.”
“And he’s right over there,” Vijay added, clearly enjoying himself.
They pushed through another line of people to spill into a broad thoroughfare—and the noise Ellie had been hearing since she arrived in Puri rose into a roar.
The street was packed with shouting, singing, dancing, and chatting people of every age and background, from matrons decked in jewels to mendicant sadhus draped with mala beads.Flutes sang and drums pounded.Flower petals rained down from the balconies and rooftops of the buildings that lined the way.
In the midst of it all sailed a massive, brilliantly colored mountain.It took the shape of a tall, tapered pyramid, not unlike the distinct tops of the temple buildings that rose up behind the busy lines of shops and hotels.The structure was built from scaffolding covered in red and gold curtains, soaring forty feet overhead—which made it easily larger than Ellie’s entire semidetached house back in Canonbury.
The silk-draped tower was set on a wooden platform with enormous wheels, which turned with ponderous grace as the entire contraption was hauled up the road by dozens of sweating, chanting worshipers clinging to thick golden ropes.Within the curtains, Ellie glimpsed a painted wooden god richly decked with jewels and flowers.
Another shower of petals rained down from above as a roar of approval rose from the seemingly endless crowd of celebrants.
“Jai Sri Jagannath!”
Constance squealed, jumping with delight.“It’s the Chariot Festival!We’re here for the Chariot Festival!”
“What’s the Chariot Festival?”Ellie’s question was a bit numb, as she was still reeling from the sheer scale and wonder of the display.
“Only the most important festival in all of Odisha!”Constance grabbed her arm, clinging to it with excitement.“Every year, Lord Jagannath undertakes a pilgrimage to the Gundicha Temple as part of a holy vow, traveling with his sister and brother.They’re all loaded onto these chariots and pulled up the road.”
She pointed back along the street, where two more of the massive towers trundled along, accompanied by the music and cheering of the crowd.
“And the Ramacharitamanas goes with them!”Vijay shouted to be heard as they plunged into the seething mass of humanity packing the thoroughfare.“Only not today—because the book went missing just before the start of the procession.It must have been stolen shortly after it was removed from the vault.”
Neil squeezed past a group of silver-haired widows in white saris as he struggled to keep up with them.“Are you saying we need to find a single sixteenth-century manuscript in the middle of all this?”He waved a frantic hand, taking in the glorious chaos of the enormous festival.
