There was little overlap between the preferences of Kratos and the inhabitants of Kailasha. This fact had become expressly evident during Murugan's extended absence. The boy had been gone for what Kratos estimated to be over a month; time, after all, was a nonlinear construct in this realm. A single day here could span mere hours or stretch into weeks, even months, in Bhuloka - the mortal world. Kratos had verified this himself.
With nothing to do but wait, a familiar boredom began to fester. He felt himself slipping back into the rut he had occupied when first stranded in these lands. His hosts, however, were empathetic to his plight. Ganesh had opened a stable portal, which was a shimmering tear in reality, that allowed Kratos to descend into Bhuloka and return at will. It was a pathway he now utilised regularly. His morning routine became fixed: wake before the dawn, descend to the mortal realm, and explore the expansive mountain range at Kailasha's feet.
The Himalayas, as it was called, was a congregation of titans in stone and ice that rivalled the height of Olympus itself. Each peak was a jagged tooth that bit at the heavens, with a greater portion of its heft perpetually hidden beyond a shroud of clouds.
Kratos trekked these mountains with the head dangling from his hip. He observed the surprisingly diverse fauna and flora, though he cared little for the new sights. His forays did, however, have one welcome side effect: they tended to silence the head. Brahma would become lost in thought, cross-referencing his ancient knowledge of creation against the evolved forms of the creatures they encountered. This silence brought Kratos a much-needed, if not entirely peaceful, reprieve. Although his sleep remained free of nightmares, it was an eerie, hollow quiet. Still, he knew such silence was hard-won, and he was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Is it this one...? No! This?!... What was it called?"
A loud whine, followed by an anxious hoot and a stream of incoherent mumbling, shattered the ambient peace. It wasn't the first time Kratos had crossed paths with others here. The proximity to Kailasha made these slopes a common route for pilgrims. As a rule, he avoided them, and he had every intention of avoiding whatever this was.
But as he turned to leave, a forceful gust brushed past him. An object - a blur of white - shot by. Its speed nearly caused the Spartan to lose his footing. Ahead of him, now crouched and facing away, was a creature Kratos had never seen before. It had the powerful build of an ape and the face of a monkey, yet it stood upright on two legs like a man. A coat of brilliant white hair covered its body, and a long, frantic tail ending in a white tuft whipped back and forth behind it. Atop its head sat a golden helmet from which a bit of its hair jutted out in an elegant ponytail. The creature was bent over, searching frantically amidst the bushes, lamenting its inability to find what it sought.
Kratos watched for a moment while his hand rested tenuously on the axe, before he finally decided once more to depart.
"Is that a Vanara?" Brahma's voice, tinged with academic amusement, echoed from his waist.
At the sound, the creature snapped out of its daze. Its head whipped around, and its dark eyes gazed inquisitively first at Kratos, then down at the talking head. The creature's lower jaw was slightly askew, hanging a little slack on one side as if it had once been shattered and never healed properly. A beat passed, and then a spark of realisation bloomed on its simian face. It bounded over to them in three hurried leaps.
"Gree'ings, trav'lers," the creature said, joining its palms and bowing low. He spoke quickly, and his misaligned jaw caused a slight, wet clicking sound with certain words. "Forgive the disturbance. I'm looking for a particular herb... What was it called?... It's to treat an injury caused by a potent poison... What was it called? I was told it grows here... What was it called? I'm certain it started with a 'Sa' sound... What was it called? Time's of the essence! A dear friend o' mine is at death's door... What was it called?"
"If you could describe the poison's effect, we might be able to narrow it down for you," Brahma offered calmly, unable to take the creature's frantic explanation.
"Oh, I would be in your debt, O Knowledgeable Head!" the monkey exclaimed, prostrating himself fully on the ground before leaping back to his feet in a single, fluid movement. "Its effect was instantaneous! It completely necrotised the tissue where the arrow pierced my friend. Then it began to infect his blood, turning it a shade of the deepest, darkest red. The next symptoms were extreme weakness, hallucinations, a ragin' fever-"
"The herb you are looking for is the Sanjivani," Brahma interjected. "Only its essence is potent enough to counteract a poison such as you've described."
The monkey snapped its fingers as its eyes lit up. "That's it! Sanjivani! How could I forget?! Damn!" His shoulders slumped. "I have forgot'en what it looks like."
"It appears as a small clump of leaves that have grown into vines," Brahma described patiently. "You must ensure it is an olive-green shade, partially faded. Any other colour and it is not yet mature enough to create a potent antidote."
"I am truly in your debt, O Knowledgeable Head! If you ever require my aid, do not hesitate to call upon me!" the Vanara declared. And with another gust of wind, he was gone. The white blur disappeared around the mountain path and into the shrubbery.
Brahma was silent for a moment. "He did not give his name," he muttered. "How am I to call upon him if I do not know his name?"
"What was that creature?" Kratos asked.
"A Vanara," Brahma explained. "In my grand design, they were one step behind humans. I had pinned my hopes on one of the two races to go the distance. It appears humanity is winning that race."
"Why?" Kratos probed. "What is wrong with these monkeys?"
"They are far too innocent for this world," Brahma lamented.
Kratos gave a noncommittal grunt and turned to continue his walk, indulging once more in the mountain's peace. He had taken only two steps when the head shouted.
"Wait! Kratos, look!"
He halted and casually swivelled to instinctively follow Brahma's gaze. There, partially hidden beneath a thick bush not ten paces from where the Vanara had been searching, was a small clump of olive-green vines.
Kratos paused. His gaze lingered on the small clump. He had no investment in the creature's plight. It was not his concern. With another grunt, he turned to leave.
"Wait! Where are you going?" Brahma's voice was sharp with disbelief.
"What would you have me do?" Kratos retorted with a low growl.
"The herb!" Brahma reiterated with an incredulous tone. "We should get it to the Vanara."
"I do not know where the monkey has gone," Kratos declared as his patience wore thin. "Even if I did, there is no reason for me to involve myself. I will not be entangled in another person's mess."
"Come now! It is but a small detour. This mountain is not so large. We are bound to cross paths with him again," Brahma pleaded. "Do it for me."
"I am not obligated to do anything for you beyond what is stipulated in our verbal contract," Kratos said sternly. Despite his words, his feet carried him towards the bush where the Sanjivani grew. He knelt and reached out with his large hand to grasp the plant.
Just as his fingers were about to close around the stem, Brahma interjected with a horrified squawk. "Stop! Do not just yank it out, you barbarian! The moment its roots are exposed to the air, the plant will lose all potency within minutes. You must repot it!"
Kratos threw his hands up in exasperation, turning to glare at the head. "And do you see a pot here, anywhere?"
"No, but you can improvise," Brahma said as his tone shifted from panicked to instructive. "Use your axe. Carefully cut a wide circle in the earth around the plant, deep enough to get under the entire root ball. You must lift it out with all the surrounding soil intact."
With a deep sigh that conveyed his irritation, Kratos grabbed his axe. He followed the head's instructions and used the razor-sharp edge of the axe as a surprisingly delicate spade. He carved a neat circle in the soil and carefully pried the clump of earth free. Now, he held the entire plant with its roots and soil intact in his palm. It was a fragile and messy bundle.
His eyes scanned the immediate vicinity. He spotted a broad-leafed fern nearby. Tearing off several of the largest fronds, he laid them on the ground to form a makeshift wrapper. He placed the root ball in the centre and folded the leaves around it to create a secure pouch. And then, he stripped a few long, tough vines from a nearby tree to tie the entire package together. The result was a crude but effective carrier that kept the soil contained and the roots protected.
As he moved to attach the makeshift carrier to his belt, the world went dark. It was unlike the gradual dimming of twilight, and closer to a sudden and unnatural eclipse. It was as if a great hand had snuffed out the sun.
"What in the-" Kratos began, but his words were cut off by a tremor that seemed to shake the very bones of the earth. The vibration ran through his body like the beating of some impossibly large heart.
Kratos frowned, and his instincts screamed that something was wrong. He looked up, expecting to see storm clouds or some strange weather phenomenon. Instead, he found himself staring into a pair of familiar dark eyes - eyes the size of mountain lakes, set in a face that stretched across the entire sky. It was the monkey.
"What is he doing?" Kratos exclaimed involuntarily.
"Oh no..." Brahma's voice was barely a whisper, filled with dawning horror. "I suggest we hold on to something... very, very tightly!"
The words had barely left his mouth when it all lurched sideways. Kratos felt his stomach drop as the ground beneath his feet suddenly began to rise with a purposeful, directed force.
Trees groaned and leaned at impossible angles and their roots strained against the sudden shift in gravity. Rocks ground against each other with sounds like thunder, and waterfalls that had cascaded down cliff faces now flowed sideways through the air, their mist catching the strange light. A crushing weight pressed down on Kratos's shoulders, forcing him to one knee as the forces of their ascent grew stronger.
The mountain climbed higher, faster, until the air itself seemed to thin and disappear. Kratos's ears popped with the sudden drop in air pressure, and his breathing grew shallower. Below them, the world shrank to a distant patchwork of green and brown, clouds drifting past like lost sheep.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the upward motion stopped. For one impossible moment, Kratos felt completely weightless. Pebbles and dust floated around him in lazy spirals, following graceful arcs through the air.
The moment of respite was shattered as gravity reasserted itself with doubled fury. But now there was something else - a wind like nothing Kratos had ever experienced, pressing down from above with the force of a falling sky. The mountain wasn't just being carried.
It was flying.
As he endured the pressure, a memory crawled up from the depths of his mind. It was of Sisyphus. The man condemned to push his boulder up an endless hill, watching it tumble back down again and again for all eternity. Kratos felt a bitter recognition stir in his chest. This feeling - being swept along by forces beyond his control, carried like cargo by beings whose size made him feel like an insect - wasn't new. Back in Greece, titans and gods had tossed him around like a child's toy. It was a recurring absurdity he had long grown tired of. Yet this just made him realise that there were some such indignities that you just couldn't outrun, no matter how much you try to distance yourself from them.
His fingers wrapped around the trunk of a coniferous tree that bent and swayed like a reed in a hurricane. The wind clawed at his face with icy talons, trying to tear him loose and send him spinning into the cushion of clouds below. The sound was overwhelming. Like a constant, harrowing roar that drowned out everything else, even his own thoughts. He had no idea where the monkey was taking them, but he was certain he wanted no part of it.
Then, a thought cut through the chaos. He had no reason to cling to this branch for dear life. With the axe tethered to his soul, his life was a transient state. Death was merely an inconvenience. He would revive almost immediately.
With a grunt that was equal parts frustration and self-mockery, he released his grip and let the wind take him.
His action was futile. Instead of a long fall, he was airborne for a mere second before the mountain's trajectory slammed him into a sheer cliffside. The impact was jarring. It was a full-body shock that drove the air from his lungs and sent a spiderweb of cracks through the rock around him. He was embedded - wedged into the stone formation like a thrown dart.
He was stuck.
One good thing, however, did come of it. The wind, which had been a deafening roar, was now muffled by the rock surrounding him, reduced to a distant howl.
"Ow..." Brahma's voice was a monotonous, muffled complaint from behind him. "You have got to hang me in a better spot," Kratos grunted, reaching back with one arm to awkwardly reposition the head and the precious pouch containing the herb.
"For the record," Brahma added with a clearer voice, "Vanaras are not known to grow to the size of mountains."
Kratos' grumbled reply was silenced by a thundering boom that vibrated through the very cliff he was trapped in, rattling his teeth.
"What was that?!" Brahma exclaimed.
"I am stuck in here alongside you, head," Kratos retorted. He ignored the head's question and planted his feet against the rock. His muscles strained as he began to exert force, attempting to push himself out of the cliff's embrace.
The booming sound repeated - once, twice, three more times in rapid succession. Each impact sent fresh tremors through the mountain, and Kratos could feel loose stones raining down around them. Then, after a long, tense pause, just as Kratos finally wrenched himself free from the crevice, a blinding flash erupted directly in front of his face. The blast wave picked him up and hurled him backwards, slamming him into the rock wall with enough force to drive him even deeper into the crevice he'd been trying to escape.
"Someone's firing at us!" Brahma's voice was a furious squawk, laced with indignation.
"Not at us," Kratos corrected grimly, spitting out rock dust and tasting blood on his tongue. "At the mountain itself." He pushed himself upright again, ignoring the fresh aches blooming across his body.
In that split second before the blast hit, he'd caught a glimpse of something in the distance - a gleam of gold cutting through the sky. A flying chariot pulled by horses so white they seemed to burn against the blue, and the telltale streak of an arrow leaving its occupant's bow. An arrow that then detonated with the force of captured lightning.
"They are firing randomly," Kratos explained. "If they were targeting us, the arrows would have struck the same location every time."
"Are they trying to destroy the mountain?" Brahma hypothesised with an incredulous tone.
"This is why I did not want to get involved," Kratos snarled. "The monkey is in some conflict with this attacker. And now we are drawn into it."
Right on queue, a series of explosions detonated all around them. It was as if the attacker had seeded the entire mountain with delayed charges and triggered them all at once. And almost instantaneously, the world around him exploded like a firework of dirt.
The deep groan of tearing rock filled the air as the ground beneath Kratos' feet began to vibrate and crumble. The section of cliff he was on broke away from the main body of the mountain with a deafening crack. The next thing he knew, he was in freefall, tumbling through the air amidst a shower of dirt, splintered trees, and cascading waterfalls.
He fell through the thick, damp cushion of the clouds and emerged below them. The ground rushed up to meet him with terrifying speed.
He felt the impact for a fraction of a millisecond before his life was snuffed out in an instant.
___
Kratos awoke again amidst the sounds of simian whines and shrieks.
"What have I done?! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!" a familiar voice wailed thick with despair. It was the monkey.
"Relax," came the head's calm, disembodied response. "He will be awake soon."
With a frantic screech, he spoke sincerely, "You do not understand, O Knowledgeable Head! Perhaps it is because you do not have hands, but he has no pulse!"
"Check again," the head sighed with a sound oozing with weary exasperation.
Kratos felt a pair of cold, rough fingers press against the side of his neck. He flinched on instinct, and the twitch of his muscle sent the fingers recoiling as if they had touched fire.
"WHAT?!" the monkey shrieked with equal parts terror and astonishment. "Y-you are alive?! But how?"
"Long story," Brahma answered on Kratos' behalf. Meanwhile, Kratos pushed himself into a sitting position. He blinked rapidly to flush the dirt and stone fragments out of his eyes. His body ached with the faint memory of the impact, but it was already dull and fading.
"Though I do not think you have the liberty of time to hear it all," Brahma reminded the monkey pointedly.
The monkey's face crumpled into despair from shocked relief like a grape left out in the sun for too long. "What am I going to do?!" he whined while wringing his hands. "The mountain is gone! The herb... it must have been d'stroyed in the fall."
"Not quite," the head interjected. A smirk seemed to form on his mouth. He opened his jaws wide. Wider still. So wide that his head seemed to split cleanly in half at the hinge of his jaw. From the impossible depths of his throat, he regurgitated the makeshift, leaf-wrapped pouch Kratos had created. It landed on the ground with a soft, damp thud.
The monkey stared at the regurgitated bundle. An expression of profound disgust splattered across his face, though his hand was hovering suspiciously above the pouch still wet with saliva. Ultimately, his curiosity won out. He knelt and slowly and hesitantly unwrapped the fern leaves. The moment he saw the olive-green vines nestled safely within their clod of earth, his eyes widened. The shock quickly melted into a wave of overwhelming gratitude so potent that his eyes began to bubble with tears.
"I am in your debt, Traveller and O Knowledgeable Head. If there is need of anythin'-"
The monkey's pledge died on his lips. His ears twitched. His head snapped sideways. In a blur of white, his tail lashed out like a whip. Another concussive boom shook the air - closer this time - and Kratos braced himself.
But the impact never came.
He opened his eyes to a shield of tightly coiled white fur. He was surprised to see that the monkey's tail intercepted the blow just a few inches away from his face. The monkey had formed an impromptu shield by coiling his tail into a tight spiral.
"Well, well," a baritone voice dripping with disdain resounded from above.
As the tail retracted, a golden chariot crunched into the earth fifty paces away. Its sparkling white steeds stamped and snorted. The warrior who leapt from it was clad in a decadent black and gold armour. The opulence of his gold-plated chariot, his beautiful horses, and his radiant armour was juxtaposed by his mottled skin that was a dirty mixture of unnatural grey and black. Even at a distance, his eyes glowed with a reptilian red coldness. And a pair of sharp canines gave his silent snarl a permanent cruelty.
"What's a little tree-dweller doing so far from home?" he mocked.
The monkey answered with a snarl and bared his own fangs as an act of primal intimidation. The armoured man gave a theatrical shiver as a cruel smile twisted his lips. He casually nocked an arrow and fired.
The monkey's tail was a flash, whipping up again to block the explosive shot.
But it was a feint.
In a blur of black and gold, the attacker vanished from his spot and reappeared behind them in the span of a heartbeat.
The second arrow was already loosed.
There was no time to block, and even less time to dodge. The monkey could only twist, curling his body around the precious herb clutched to his chest. The arrow struck his back with a sickening thud. A muffled shriek escaped from his lips, but when his head snapped up, his eyes burned with unabated rage.
The man let out a bellowing laugh that bordered on inhuman in its timbre - sounding close to a cackle - as he repeated his tactic. Kratos noticed that the man was consistently positioning himself in the monkey's blind spot. Every time the arrow flew, it was not aimed at the monkey's heart or head. It was aimed at the pouch.
The attacker was clearly not intending to kill. It was evident that the plant was his target. This was a guerrilla confrontation aimed solely at decapitating a crucial resource delivery. Classic. And thus extremely obvious. But it had nothing to do with him.
With a grunt of dismissal, Kratos turned his back on the skirmish. He had been drawn into this mess against his will, and he would not be drawn in further. He began to walk away as the sounds of explosions and snarls faded behind him.
"Where are you going?" the head asked, his voice cutting through the noise.
"This is not my fight," Kratos stated without breaking his stride. He had cleared the immediate crossfire now.
He reached down, grabbed the head and held it up to face him. "And you are being excessively nosy."
But Brahma was not looking at him. His eyes were turned towards the distant battle, and his expression was unreadable. His gaze was fixed on the white-furred monkey, who was now bleeding from several wounds but still desperately protecting the small pouch.
"I actually made them first," Brahma confessed. "The Vanaras. Well, I prototyped their concept first. They appeared on the mortal realm almost at the same time as Humans, but they were the first living creations of my mind. They exemplify everything I wished the world to be." He paused and said in a voice tinged with a deep sadness. "So in a way, they embody my naivete."
"I could already see it," he continued in a voice that was barely a whisper. "A world dominated by them would truly be a beautiful and wonderful one to live in. Alas, that was just a pipe dream. It became evident that there was little space for innocence in this world."
He looked at Kratos now. His face was warped with an uncharacteristic pleading expression. "Please, Kratos. Do me this favour. Go help that Vanara. I know you can defeat that man. Think about it this way. The sooner you defeat him, the quicker you can return to Kailasha. After all, that Vanara can fly. He could carry you back after he finishes his quest."
Kratos considered the head's words. It was true that he had no reason to indulge in this farce. But it was also true that interfering was a zero-sum prospect. He had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. The head was right about one thing, though. It would make the return trip more convenient.
But this was a blatant rationalisation towards an act of selflessness.
With a reproachful groan that rumbled deep in his chest, Kratos turned and walked back to the fight.
As he walked, he pondered his own decision. He never considered himself a good person. He never did anything that did not ultimately benefit him in some way. But this was not because he did not want to be good or selfless. His entire life had been a struggle. To move forward, he always had to step over someone else. Mutual growth was a concept he had never been taught.
There were many times Kratos had wanted to offer help unbidden. Even now, a part of him had wanted to step in and assist the monkey from the start. But his core character held him back. It was a belief forged in betrayal and hardship: no one would do the same for him if he were in such a situation. So why should he go out of his way for them?
'But that was the irony of being a good person', he thought with a grim sense of clarity. You just had to be content with giving. You could not expect anything in return.
Even though he was stepping in to help the monkey. Kratos did not consider his actions to be valiant. The only reason he was doing this was that he didn't have anything to lose. He couldn't die. And even if he did, it would be a reprieve. Even now, his action to help was superseded by the possible benefits it could offer him in return.