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

your’s to suit your own needs.”

    Balarama glared at Krishna who was waggling his eyebrows provocatively.  

    Balarama shook a fist at his brother. “Someday, I’ll prove that I’m smarter than you.”

    Krishna burst out laughing.  

    Balarama shook his fist again, threateningly.  

    Krishna stifled his laughter.  

    “Come on, now,” Balarama said sulkily, gripping the side of the chariot well and looking down. “This is serious business. No time to be fooling around.”

    Krishna’s laughter ebbed. Daruka shook his head one last time as well.

    Krishna took them through the Vortal once more. And again. And again.  

    “How many times is it by now?” Balarama asked. “I’m getting hungry,” he added, then thought of something, “It’s been days since I last ate!”  

    Krishna chuckled at the time-travel joke. “Indeed it has. We lived through 6 Tuesdays in real-time. And we’ve now flashed forward through the Vortal 5 more times. That’s 11 times in all.”

    “So how many more times do we intend to do this? It could be hundreds of times, thousands even, before we finally find out what Jarasandha’s game is. Maybe even then, we won’t know for sure.”

    Krishna shook his head. “No, I don’t think even Jarasandha has the patience to relive the same day’s events indefinitely. There’s a limit to how many times you can watch your forces being defeated in battle over and over again. But yes, it could be a few dozen or even a hundred or more times.”

    Balarama groaned and rubbed his belly. “I don’t think I can take a hundred times more. As it is, these trips are fragmenting my brain.”

    “That’s all right, bhai,” Krishna said calmly, “there’s not much there to fragment.”

    Balarama glared at him. “Okay, then let’s keep going and get it over with.”

    They went through again. And again. And again.  

    On the eighteenth try, they finally found what they were seeking.  

8

    “ I don’t see anything, bhai,” Balarama said. “It all looks the same to me.” He gestured. Jarasandha’s armies lay arrayed before them as on the previous 17 times, looking much the same.  

    Krishna sighed. His brother was a wonderful person but he could try Krishna’s patience at times. “Not here. I meant before we arrived here. As we were passing through the Vortal.”

    Balarama frowned. “As we were passing through…? You mean during the moment when the blinding light flashes and that strange smell hits us?”

    Krishna nodded patiently. “Yes.”

    Balarama grinned endearingly. “I close my eyes at that moment. The flashing light started to give me a headache, and the smell…” he made a face, wrinkling his nose and twisting his mouth. “Ugh!”

    Krishna sighed. “Keep them open this time.”

    He uttered a mantra, reversing their passage. Again, they flashed through the Vortal, but this time headed backwards. There was no literal forward or backward movement, but the air around them changed as they ‘went through’ the Vortal. “There. Do you see it now?”

    Balarama blinked. “I kept my eyes open, wide. But nothing really. Just the usual flash and stench. What is that stench anyway?”  

    Krishna repeated the process, going forward now, this time slowing the passage through the Vortal until they were flashing forward in increments of barely a tiny fraction of a second each. Daruka, being mortal, was affected by it, and his movements were reduced to tiny increments—at this rate, it would take him hours to move his hand or bat an eye lash. But Krishna and Balarama, being amsas, were unaffected.  

    “There!” Krishna said, forced to point this time. “Do you see it now?”

    Balarama turned and stared. His neck stiffened. “Yes. I see it.”

    In a tiny fraction of a millisecond, between the 17 th Tuesday and the 18 th Tuesday, there was an anomaly. To Krishna it had been evident the first time he glimpsed it. Now, with time all but slowed to a crawl, even