Chapter 39 - This is my Karm
Later that day Dhira ate like a man recovering from a long Fasting, which he was in a way. Both Dia and the little monkey watched him with similar expressions of quiet disbelief. The monkey rubbed his eyes at one point as though recalibrating. When Dhira finished he lay down without ceremony and went to sleep in the bright day light . Dia asked if he shouldn't be working on the door. He said he would, but not now, he was tired, and fell asleep before she could respond. He didn't wake until the following morning.
He was up before the sun. He grabbed the mace and started moving through the stretches without thinking about them, loosening his hands and joints one by one, the familiar sounds of his body returning to itself. Then he swung the mace straight. He felt it. Right to left. He felt that too. The movements were clean, nothing wasted, each arc completing itself properly before the next began. He started moving forward through the grass while the mace kept going, the sequence continuous, his feet and the weapon finding the same rhythm.
Dia came out of the cave rubbing her eyes with the little monkey doing the same thing on her shoulder. She walked through the grass and sat nearby and watched him for a while as the sun came up behind him. Then she asked, "Why are you doing all this?"
"Stretching muscles I haven't used properly in a while."
"Not that." She looked at him steadily.
"Why do you want to fight gods? You're cured. Stronger than before. You could go back to your kingdom and they'd take you back with honor. You have a family somewhere. Why fight beings who have existed longer than the earth itself?"
Dhira kept swinging. "What do you think is the most important thing for a man?"
She thought about it. "Honor. Love, maybe." And Dhira shook his head and said calmly.
"Honor is for martyrs. Love is for children."
She frowned. "Then respect."
"Respect is for women, Dia."
She looked more frustrated. "Family then. Purpose.Why are all men so cryptic?"
"Family is for society. Purpose is for kings." He paused in his swing and looked at her directly for a moment. "For a man, all that exists is Karm and Action. From the day we are born to the day we die, only Karm belongs to us."
"You mean Karma right?" she said. "The thing that comes back to you."
"No." He resumed swinging. "You're confusing Karm with Karma. Karm is the action itself. Karma is the result of that action. They are not the same thing."
She hummed in a way that suggested she had understood the words without quite catching what lived underneath them. "But why fight gods specifically?"
"It's my Karm," he said. He paused briefly. "And their Karma." He added after a moment, almost as an afterthought, "Aatreya's money also counts."
Sometime later they climbed the mountain stairs. Dhira climbed. Dia complained about the stairs, the wind, the location choices of everyone involved in this journey, and whatever other injustice came to mind. The little monkey on her shoulder mimicked her gestures with solemn precision despite not having climbed a single stair under his own power.
At the top Dhira stood before the gate and looked at the carved face of Ramna. The monkeys arrived shortly after, arranging themselves in a row beside Dia with the settled patience of a regular audience. Dia looked at Dhira's hands instead of the door. "Are you sure this is just about strength? Maybe it's a test of something else. Character. Intention. Maybe you need something more than force. A blessing maybe. Or an artifact."
Dhira laughed once, short and directed mostly at himself. Then he placed both palms flat against the gate and breathed in slowly.
He pushed.
The mountain shook. Not trembled. Shook. The door opened a tiny crack and Dia who had been watching with deliberate casualness, sat up straight. And when he couldn't push it further, she began to relax again. Then the mountain shook harder and the door moved another fraction and she leaned forward. His veins were standing out across his arms and neck, his face darkening with the sustained effort, his palms pressing so hard against the stone that blood was beginning to appear at the edges.
Then Dhira said it. Quietly at first. Then with everything he had left and shouted.
"Har Har Mahadev."
The world answered.
The mountain shook with the force of something that had no interest in being contained. Several peaks in the range came apart simultaneously, landslides releasing in multiple directions at once. Dia clutched the little monkey against her chest and pressed herself against the nearest solid thing she could reach as the monkey family scattered in every direction and dust rose in a wall that swallowed everything. The shaking continued for a long time. Then it slowed. Then it stopped.
The dust settled gradually.
Dia opened her eyes.
The broken pieces of the gate were on the ground. Not cracked open. Not partially moved. Destroyed, broken into large pieces, the archway behind it standing open and clear. Dhira stood in front of what remained, his body trembling visibly from the sustained effort, his hands shaking, his breath coming in heavy uneven pulls. He was looking at the broken door and at the cracked face of Ramna lying in the rubble at his feet.