Chapter 7

The Last Goddess

Turns out half of the Golden Path was still supportive of Sabal. Rumors that Amita had been murdered circulated the country like wildfire. In that Himalayan way, the rumors became more variant and wild as time went on. Some say the Indian government murdered her. Some said the obvious, that it was the Royal Army that managed to get lucky finding her walking on the side of the road and got a lucky shot. But they probably didn't know it. Some said it was Sabal. I hadn't heard anyone say it might have been me, but well, I'm not sure anyone would say that to me.

Right now, we had a mission, though. I told Sabal to get things ready. Try to stay away from the Royal Remnant, I said – there was a big cell collecting in the City of Pain. I… had a plan for them. A plan I wasn't sure was going to work, but I was at least going to try.

In the meantime, I had someone to go find.

I decided that I was going to follow Sabal into this vow of nonviolence. That was going to be a little difficult. I was the King after all, and I was sure that not all of the Royal Remnant – I needed to stop thinking of them like that, I was Royalty now, they were the Insurgents – would go quietly into the night. But I learned all these skills, I could keep learning new ones.

I solicited Hurk onto this mission. He thought I was crazy carrying only the auto-crossbow and my decked out composite bow.

The buzzers didn't get as high as Durgesh. But we weren't small timers any more. We fucking run this country. Hurk was all too happy to help me figure out the helicopter. Apparently he flew one back when he was on some Pacific conflict zone.

"Ah'ight. Let's do this, motha'fucka."

He flew us close, and I slid down a rope onto a ledge. The ledge led directly to a gate and a prison cell. It might've been mine, actually. I wave Hurk away. He shouldn't stray too far, I'd still prefer he picked us up instead of me needing to grapple down this mountain with Bhadra strapped to my back. Assuming she was actually here.

The rumors said she was. I know that wasn't much to go off of, but Sabal and I had made a prioritized list. She was likely here, and if not here, then we'd start checking fortresses, especially ones with deep mountain caves and Amita supporters. I was a bit surprised to find the Royal Guards had left Durgesh. Maybe they thought the UN was going to come storming in and whoever got caught at the Kyrati Gulag was going to get a one-way-ticket to the Hague.

There was some irony that now two blue-shirt Golden Path soldiers were now keeping a child political prisoner in Durgesh now. As far as I know, Pagan Min never kept a child here. Not that I would put it past him.

The cell doors were all opened. I could only assume that Pagan's men had opened them on their way out. Nice of them, at least. I threw a rock down a stony corridor and waited to hear where the guards were hiding.

"Did you hear something?"

"Nah."

I was pretty sure I recognized them. How they didn't hear the helicopter flying overhead got me. Maybe they just assumed it was something rather ordinary. Amita solidifying her rule over Chiyul, the Valley of Death.

"I'm going to go take a look." I heard the shuffle of some boots and the clicking of a weapon as it was picked up into the guard's arms.

I crouched down and hid in a cell. I held my auto-crossbow up, getting ready to bust out a man's kneecaps. Theoretically I was King of Kyrat. I'd be more than happy to explain that the man was helping keep a child political prisoner for a would-be drug lord. Drug lady?

He passed, looking into the cells. Not very well. He looked into the cell I was in, but didn't turn all the way around to check the blind spot in the cell I was hiding in. I stepped forward and grabbed the barrel of his AK through the bars, and pointed my auto-cross at his face. Dumb. I know. Even if he screamed, I wouldn't have opened up his skull with a crossbow bolt.

"Don't scream. Let go of the rifle." I very calmly said.

He let go and lifted his hands up, "Ajay?" he whispered.

"Turn around." I put the AK against the cell wall, keeping the auto-cross trained on his body. I walked out of the cell, tied his hands with zip-ties and then shoved his golden headband into his mouth, "Trust me. You'll like living the rest of your life with knee caps."

I started heading down the hall, the auto-cross up and aimed downwards. At the end of the hall of cells that led to the open mountain air, there was a larger chamber more sheltered from the wind. There in the chamber was a Golden Path soldier sitting at a table. I could see Bhadra lying on a surprisingly nice bed on the far wall. The room was lit primarily with candles and butterlamps. There was a bookshelf. A cabinet full of dried foodstuffs, a table with a rice-cooker, and a rats-nest worth of wires that shot off towards a room I could only assume was housing a generator of some kind.

I walked calmly towards the room with the Golden Path guard and her child prisoner. I kept the auto-cross out and trained on her body. Bhadra saw me first, gasping.

When the guard looked up, she made to reach for the pistol at her side, "Don't." I said.

"Ajay?" Bhadra said, putting the book down.

"Turn around." I instructed the guard.

I could see her think about pulling out the gun. Funny. I killed a bunch of Royal Army guys next to her, listening to her scream joyously, Pagan's reign is over! Now I was holding a crossbow aimed at her face.

"Don't do it." I said, "I will shoot you."

She lifted her hands and turned around slowly. I walked up to her, keeping the auto-cross trained at the back of her knee until I had her wrist in my hand. I zip-tied her hands together, tossed her knife on the other side of the room and pushed her back into her seat.

"Amita ordered us here."

"Tell it to Nuremberg." I said, not sure if she would even understand, "Besides, she's dead."

"Amita… is dead?"

"She's dead?" Bhadra asked.

I put the auto-cross on the table and said, "Yes. She is. It's over."

"Who… who rules Kyrat?"

"Right now?" I sat down in a chair next to the bed where Bhadra's legs hung carefree over the sides, "Me."

"You?" Bhadra asked.

"You?" the guard asked.

"That's right. I met Sabal..."

"Sabal is dead," she spat from her zip-tied imprisonment, "You killed him, too."

"No. I lied." I said, "I let Sabal go."

"Amita ordered you to kill Sabal, so instead you let him live and killed her?" I could tell she was ready to call me a traitor. I suppose from a certain perspective I was.

"If you let me finish: I met Sabal. He was at Jalendu Temple, rebuilding it by hand. He uncovered the Tarun Matara records and it turns out my mother was a descendant of the Royal family. And with the Royal family being all dead..."

"… that makes you the King of Kyrat." Bhadra said, her eyes going wide, "Ajay! King Ajay!" she said excitedly, "I… I knew there was something special about you!"

"Bullshit." The guard said, "You're making shit up."

"My first order as King will be to have the documents authenticated," I said, "but thanks for the concern. Believe me, I'd love to leave this country to the wolves. But Pagan's dead. Amita's dead. Unless you want to let Sabal have his way, or some other Triad who hasn't managed to escape to Hong Kong yet to take control, it's me."

"King Ajay." Bhadra said, her lips curling into a smile. I realized that the name sounded stupid. I would have to pick a different one for a regnal title.

"Let's talk about you," I said, "Amita put you here because she didn't want you to be a rallying point for Sabal's followers. Or Sabal himself, I should say."

"Yes… I know." Bhadra said, "I mean… I know she needed me out of the way. It's terrible. She was like a big sister to me for so long."

"I'm sorry about that." I certainly knew how the war turned family members into monsters, "But I guess my question to you for the future is: do you want to be Tarun Matara?"

She looked off into space, and then over at the guard, and then to me, "I guess." She laughed nervously, "I never really thought of it as being something I wanted. It's just what is."

"Well, if you don't want to be Tarun Matara… we can change that. Together. We're the Two Pillars of Kyrati Tradition according to Sabal. But I'm going to do my best to make being King a force for good, and for making Kyrat a modern country."

"But how do I do that for Tarun Matara?"

"Well, I've asked a couple people. And they said that Tarun Matara's get a little lost after the goddess leaves them," a euphemism I was pretty uncomfortable with, "That Kyrati society isn't very kind to them. So I had a thought: I'll set up a Royal Scholarship for Tarun Matara's to have an opportunity to travel abroad, maybe to India or America..."

"Or Britain?"

"Or maybe Britain, and you can have some space and time, and get an education that you wouldn't get as Tarun Matara."

"But we do get educated. We have sadhus, and monks, and some nuns to teach us."

"Is that what you want?"

She put her finger to her chin, "I want to learn about animals. I'm really interested in science. I want to see the ocean. I don't know, there's a big world out there. Living in the Temple walls learning nothing but puja and mantra isn't how I want to spend my life."

"You're Tarun Matara. You won't spend your life doing it. Just until you're, what thirteen or something." The guard helpfully pointed out, "Then they throw you out like trash."

"Well not any more. Not any future Tarun Matara's either. I don't know if I can promise Britain. I'll need a couple accountants to tell me how much money is in the budget, but at the very least, we can send you to India, or Bhutan, or something. And future Tarun Matara's can have that opportunity, too."

"I think the ceremony should change, too." Bhadra said.

"What do you mean?"

"When Tarun Matara is enthroned, Hindu Sadhus and Buddhist Monks preside over the ceremony. I think it shouldn't be men."

"Who should it be?" I wasn't aware there were female sadhus.

"Sannyasini and Anis." She said, my Kyrati good enough that I could infer she meant Hindu priestesses and Buddhist nuns, "It's enthroning the goddess. The women should be in charge."

I found it hard to deny her logic. Even if I wanted to, which I didn't. It was certainly a way to push Kyrat into the future.

"Huh..." the guard said, not moving as vigorously against her restraints as before, "Maybe you have some ideas, after all."