KRISHNA CORIOLIS#6: Fortress of Dwarka Read Online Free PDF Page A

through a boon granted in eons past. As a result, he is able to travel through a Vortal each day precisely at dawn, and take us also through the same Vortal at the same instant.”

    Balarama’s other eyebrow rose up this time. “I thought Vortals had to be physically stepped through at the same time? Like going through a doorway. Hence the word Vortal, similar to Portal.”

    Krishna nodded. “Usually, yes. But asura maya can alter those qualities. Vortals can be opened and closed, entered and exited through other means as well, if one knows how to manipulate them. And Jarasandha being a powerful asura sorcerer, has mastered the art of manipulating Vortals.”

    Balarama shrugged again. “So somehow he’s able to push us through the same Vortal he goes through each night, thereby transferring us into an alternate Earth, with an alternate Mathura, and hey presto, in this alternate reality, his army is still intact, it’s still Tuesday and we have to fight the same battle all over again.”

    “Exactly,” Krishna said. “And the reason he’s doing this is to conceal the real plan he has devised to destroy us.”

    “Can he do that?” Balarama asked. “Destroy us, I mean?” He gestured at the 23 akshohini arrayed below them. “All that couldn’t do it. Since he hasn’t dared to fight us yet, presumably he can’t do it either. All those asura assassin and his son-in-law Kamsa, enhanced with potions or whatnot, couldn’t do it either. So what other move could he possibly have left to deploy in this game of chaukat?”

    Krishna pursed his lips and looked out at the horizon. “The reason he doesn’t engage us himself, I suspect, is because we would then be entitled to kill him, as it would constitute a fair champion’s duel in battle. By avoiding confronting or challenging us personally, he makes it impossible for us to kill him by the rules of kshatriya dharma.” He turned and looked at Balarama. “What I’m saying is, I think he’s saving his own skills and strengths for a future time, holding them in abeyance in case even this plan fails for whatever reason. Like Kamsa, he knows that using himself as a weapon is the last challenge he can issue: once he throws himself at us, there’s no turning back.”

    “It’s either win or lose, kill or be killed,” Balarama said, nodding thoughtfully. “I see that. Besides, if he wants this other plan to work, he needs to stay alive long enough to keep us moving through this endless succession of Vortals to relive Tuesday over and over again on alternate Earths, fighting the same battle over and over again.”

    “And that’s why we need to cut his plan short. Hence the early rising, before we are switched through the Vortal yet again. So we can steal a glimpse of his real plan.”

    Balarama nodded. “I see it now. All right. Let’s do it then. I’m tired of reliving the same damn day as it is. Anything will be a welcome change.”

    Krishna reached out and touched Daruka’s shoulder. “Daruka, brace yourself.”  

    Then he gestured, voicing mantras too quietly to be heard by even the charioteer, and with a blinding flash, they were transported.  

7

    THERE was only a flash of light and Balarama felt a slight disorientation. He also smelled an odd odor, something he could not immediately place, and then he realized that they were still in the exact same spot, standing in their respective celestial chariots, hovering some seven hundred yards above ground, Daruka at the helm of Krishna’s vehicle, looking out at Jarasandha’s army. He glanced around.  

    “Everything looks just the same, bhraatr,” he said. He couldn’t see a single detail that differed. He glanced down at himself—his anga-vastra was still missing. Apparently, once again the knots had beaten him. Two Tuesdays to the knots, then.  

    Krishna was looking about too. “That it does. Daruka, take us around in a large circle. Around the flanks of the Magadhan force.”

    Daruka