Chapter 35 - Gate of Ramna, the Daughter of Lanka.
Land of Winds. The border between east and west. Kazakhstan.
The terrain changed gradually as they rode. The desert fell away behind them and was replaced by massive mountains rising on all sides, their slopes covered in tall grass that moved in constant restless waves. No trees anywhere. The air itself felt different here, heavier somehow, carrying a pressure that had nothing to do with altitude. The wind came in surges, loud and fast enough in places that Dia had to move her horse directly behind Dhira to stay upright. Then it became too much even for the horses and they stopped.
They left the animals in a cave cut into the mountainside and continued on foot. Dhira looked up and saw the outline of something at the peak, a temple shape against the grey sky, stone stairs leading toward it in a long unbroken line. They started climbing. The stairs had no railing, nothing to hold, and the wind hit them continuously from the side like it was making a deliberate effort. Dia struggled with every step, her body catching the wind in a way Dhira's didn't. She almost went off the edge twice. The second time Dhira grabbed her without breaking stride and shifted her onto his back. She locked her arms around his shoulders and didn't argue. He climbed the rest of the way with her weight added to his and the wind finding no purchase against either of them.
At the top the wind stopped.
Completely. Without transition. One step and it was gone. Dia looked as surprised, but she has seen weirder things in the world, so it wasn't such a big surprise.
They stood before a massive gate made of black stone. Burnt candle wax marked the base of the wall on both sides, recent enough to suggest someone still came here regularly. The gate itself was covered in carvings of extraordinary detail. Animals at the edges, elephants, tigers, creatures Dhira didn't have names for. Moving inward the carving became figures, demons, Asuras, Naagas, Garudas, Maanvar, Vaanar, human kings, Amazons, Atlantians, giants, every race of the world arranged in a great circle. And at the center of that circle, rendered in finer detail than anything surrounding it, was the face of a woman. Long hair layered with what appeared to be gold worked into the stone itself. The expression was not kind or warm. It was something else. Something that made you aware of looking at it.
Dhira looked at it and something moved across his face that he didn't name.
Aatreya spoke from behind them. "Ramna. Daughter of Lanka. Protector of Gaia. Queen of all. Wind of the west. Fire of the north. The first and last of her kind. The one who exists in the form of power." A pause. "She is the one who united every race on this earth into one. A feat no one has done before or since." Dhira kept looking at the face in the carving. His expression was complicated in a way he wasn't trying to hide and wasn't trying to show. Aatreya continued. "People say there is no rival to her in this world. Not in hell. Not in heaven." He looked at the gate. "This is the only place her likeness exists. She destroyed the rest herself. The races built this temple as a reminder of her and dedicated it here, at the entrance to the west. Beyond this gate the Jambudweep ends. What lies ahead belongs to the Nordic and Greek gods. Giants. Cave trolls. Witches and magicians." He looked at Dhira.
Dhira understood. He set the wooden mace against the wall and placed both palms flat against the gate and pushed.
Nothing.
He frowned slightly and applied more force. The door moved. Just slightly. Just enough to know it could. He pushed harder. The stone beneath his feet started to crack. The door didn't move further. He pushed with everything, veins rising in his arms, the mountain beginning to shake around him, the ground fracturing outward from where he stood. The gate held. Dia watched from the side, genuinely surprised, the mountain shaking enough to make her lose her footing. Dhira let out a low grunt and the mountain shook harder and the door still didn't move. He stopped. Went to one knee. Breathing hard, his face and hands red from the sustained effort. The door, now barely cracked open, swung slowly back to closed on its own.
Dhira stayed on one knee with one arm braced against the door, looking up at the face carved into its center. Calm. Unaffected. Like it had been waiting a very long time and had no opinion about waiting longer. He didn't know what he was feeling. His strength had never failed him before today.
Not once.
Later in the cave the wind outside was still audible, a steady low sound moving through the mountain. Dhira sat near the campfire looking at nothing in particular. Dia watched him from across the fire. She couldn't tell if he was thinking or simply somewhere else. She placed a bowl of food beside him and nudged it toward him. He came back from wherever he was, looked at her, looked at the bowl, then went back to staring at nothing.
She started eating her own food. "Don't feel sad about the door. You can try again tomorrow."
Dhira looked at her. "You think I'm sad?"
She gestured at him with her spoon. "You look like someone stole your ice cream."
He frowned. "What's that?"
She paused, realizing, then said, "A frozen dessert. Goat's milk and fruit. Very good. You'd like it." She kept moving before he could respond. "The point is you look completely different from normal. You're always moving, always doing something. Now this." She gestured at him generally.
"What happened?"
"Nothing. I'm tired."
She considered this. "Maybe the door was jammed. Or locked from the other side. You could go over the wall and open it from there."
A trace of something sharp appeared in his eyes. "You're doubting my strength."
"No, no." Both hands came up immediately. "I'm just saying it might be magic. Some kind of binding. That's common enough."
"So what. My hands can't break a few spells?"
She looked at him for a moment. "Maybe." She said it simply. "Or maybe what you need is someone who grew up around witches and knows spellwork from childhood." She looked at him. He looked back at her. "Where would you even find someone like that," she said, still holding his gaze. Then she appeared to realize something. "Oh wait. That's me."
Dhira stood up to leave. Dia grabbed his arm. "It's maintenance spells. Cleaning, structural endurance, minor warding against things that shouldn't be in there. Basic preservation work, except whoever did it was either a god or someone extraordinarily skilled. It's not just spells layered on the surface, it's more like a law written into the material itself." Dhira sat back down slowly. "Then why is it so hard to push?"
"There was something written on the door. I couldn't read all of it but part of it was in Sanskrit. Something about strength and equality. I didn't catch the full line." She looked at him. "You should ask Aatreya. Or anyone who reads Sanskrit."
Dhira looked at her for a moment. Then he stood and walked out into the wind without another word.