Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (18 page)

Then the pain slammed into me.

It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. It wasn’t localised. It was
everything
, every part of my body, from inner organs to muscle fibre, from bone marrow to skin.

My limbs convulsed. Uncontrollable shudders coursed through me. I could feel my flesh squirming, as though there were pythons inside, coiling and writhing. My nerves were red-hot filaments.

My temperature rose steeply. Perspiration broke out all over me, dripping into my eyes. My stomach cramped, and bile burned the back of my throat.

What came next was a long, gruelling continuum of racking spasms, relentless nausea, wave upon wave of pain, and intermittent stretches of blissful blackout.

At some point extractor fans came on and the tube was vented clear. A sluicing rain came down from above, reeking of chemical disinfectants. After that, I vaguely recall the orderlies, still in their hazmat suits, switching the table back to horizontal and transferring me onto the gurney, then trundling me from the Treatment Chamber to another room. I was still riding storm surges of pain.

The orderlies rolled me into a coffin-like machine. This, I had been informed beforehand, was an Induction Cocoon. Not much larger than an MRI scanner, it was a tunnel of inward-pointing flat panel display TVs. The screens surrounded me entirely and played clips on a constant loop.

Over and over, kaleidoscopically, I was exposed to footage from a range of sources. Kids’ cartoons, mobile uploads, movie sequences, blog videos, news reportage, documentary archive. All with one subject.

The hungry monkey leaps for the sun, mistaking it for a mango.

Hilltop temples in numerous locations, all believed to be the birthplace of a certain deva.

The deva, as a baby, accidentally dropped on a rock by his mother, the rock shattering, the baby unhurt.

The deva, as a child, mischievously swapping around yogis’ personal effects.

The deva in fire, immune to the flames.

The deva hurtling across water like an arrow in flight.

The deva escaping from a fish monster’s jaws.

The deva at Rama’s side, battling a ten-headed demon king.

The deva freeing a cloud spirit, who has been cursed to inhabit the form of a crocodile.

The monkey, red-faced, enormously agile.

The monkey deva.

This was who I was going to be.

Through the shakes, through the fever sweats, through the scrim of pain, I watched worshippers coat idols of the deva with vermilion powder, ring a bell and chant to him. I watched them offer him new-moon prayers along with gifts of betel leaves, flower garlands, fried lentil cakes and butter.

Their voices intoned his name, the name of a god, my name-to-be.

Hanuman.

Hanuman.

Hanuman, Hanuman, Hanuman.

¹
It’s
fuckhead
, if you must know.

21. THE LOTUS ON THE LAKE

I
DON’T KNOW
how long I was inside the Induction Cocoon, bathing in the radiance of charged plasma, marinating in the welter of Hanuman imagery. Time has no meaning when you’re in constant sickening agony and you’re in an enclosed space without clocks or windows.

My body kept doing these herky-jerky twists and wrenches, like it was being manipulated by a particularly sadistic chiropractor. I felt it didn’t belong to me any more. It was a runaway vehicle helter-skeltering down a hill, and I was strapped in, helpless, along for the ride and praying it wouldn’t come to a messy end. Everyone all right?

And from all sides there was Hanuman. Hanuman, in countless different guises and interpretations. Hanuman – trickster, deva, helper, strongman. Hanuman, agile and invulnerable, a true Hindu superhero.

I soon lost track of who I was. Who was I? Was I Zak? Was I Hanuman? Where did Hanuman end and Zak begin?

Had I been dropped on a rock as a baby?

Had I fought demon kings and liberated captive cloud spirits?

Had my life as Zachary Bramwell been nothing more than a dream? Had I imagined it all? Had I only thought I was a man with a semi-respectable career as a comics artists and a poor track record with women? Had I, deep down, really been someone else all along? Someone who could leap like lightning and whirl like a dervish? Someone brighter, faster, better?

Then came calm. A whiteness like a landscape after a blizzard, pure, silent, still. Uncertainties faded. Questions were quelled. I floated in a never-never of simple
being
. I was sure of nothing except that I was where I was, and where I was was where I was supposed to be. I can’t help but think that this is how a foetus in the womb must feel. That state of utter belonging, cushioned and cosseted. Nothing to think about, life reduced to sheer essence.

The lotus.

All at once it sprang into my mind’s eye.

A lotus flower on a lake, its stem reaching down through the brackish water, its root entrenched in the muddy bed.

Its petals, clenched at first, but gradually unfurling.

The lotus opening like an eye widening in comprehension.

The centre of all things.

The navel of creation.

The spirit of truth.

I gazed at the flower for a minute and a millennium. It was exquisitely white, its sevenfold layers of petal symmetrical and without blemish.

The lotus arose, enlarged, enfolded me. I was in the heart of it, adrift in soft nothingness. I wasn’t scared. I had never been more content. All was light. Brightness. Weightlessness.

Who was I?

Zak Bramwell?

Hanuman?

It didn’t matter. What was the difference?

22. BEING HANUMAN

T
HE FACE IN
the mirror was definitely mine, only not. There had been changes.

The skin was redder, for one thing. My complexion was naturally pasty.
¹
I’d developed a bit of a tan since arriving at Mount Meru, or at least turned a few shades less pale. Now, though, I boasted an earthy ochre hue, not unlike a Native American.

My cheekbones had filled out, too, and my brow was more pronounced, a deep overhanging ridge.

I was still me but, well... simian. Not like something out of
Planet Of The Apes
. In fact, there was a touch of the Hollywood actor Ben Stiller about my features now. Handsome, but in a monkeyish way.

“Hanuman,” I said to myself, trying the name out for size. “Hanuman is what I am called. I am Hanuman.”

“You are,” said Korolev, who was studying me studying myself. “It can be disorientating, seeing reflection for first time after theogenesis. But the mind adjusts. As with plastic surgery patient, acceptance soon comes. Self is what self appears to be.”

“Well, I am a bit weirded out,” I admitted. “But it’s not as freaky as it could have been. I mean, look at Matsya. All scaly and fishy. How long did it take him to come to terms with that?”

“Not so long at all. No time. Funny thing. He loves it. As Klaus Gottlieb, aquanaut and oceanographer, sea creatures were his life. He admired them – their grace, their variety, their ability to swim underwater unaided, not like him with clunky scuba gear. I think he liked them more than people. Antisocial, that was him. Always being called ‘cold fish.’ As Matsya, he has become all that he wanted to be. So, not much problem getting used to new look. He is more comfortable in his body than he ever was.”

“And
my
body...” I took a step back from the mirror to bring my torso into view.

I was lithe. Lithe in a way that I hadn’t been since my teens, before I was old enough to drink beer, before I settled into a sedentary profession, day after day sitting on my arse at the drawing board. I had a serious six-pack, where for many years there had been a doughnut of middle-aged flab. I had chiselled pectoral muscles. My arms were no longer stringy tubes of macaroni. They had what the gym bunnies all crave, definition.

I was a whole lot hairier than I used to be. There was that. A mat of the stuff covered my chest. My forearms had tufts starting a centimetre long at the wrist and rising to several inches at the elbow. My eyebrows were shaggier, too.

But it seemed a small price to pay for the overall improvement in my physique. I looked as I might have done had I been careful about my diet and exercised intensively for a year – and all I’d had to do was stand in a tube of blue mist for a while.
²

I turned round to inspect the rear view. No tail. Thank fuck. I’d have had real problems with having a tail. That would have been a body modification too far.

“How do you feel, generally?” Korolev asked.

“Pretty damn good, all things considered. Energised. Like a kid again. Like I could do anything.”

“Shall we put it to test?”

“How do you mean?”

“You are Hanuman. Do you know what Hanuman can do?”

“Sort of. Not exactly. No. I think I do, but then I also think I can play guitar and I only know four chords.”

“Then how else you find out? You practise. You test.”

“Okay. What do you have in mind?”

Half an hour later, we were outdoors with three of the Avatars: Rama, Parashurama and Vamana.

Parashurama and Vamana were guarded and sceptical.

“They’re letting just anyone sign up?” said the Warrior.

“A week ago this bloke was fiddling about with drawings,” said the Dwarf. “Now he thinks he’s a deva?”

The Archer was somewhat more welcoming. “Let’s give him a chance,” Rama said. “I like the look of him.”

“You would,” said Parashurama. “He is your sidekick, after all.”

Sidekick? Yes. Rama and I did have a history of partnership. I’d seen it in the Induction Cocoon. No, more than that, I knew it. Deep down I
knew
. I knew that Hanuman had helped Rama conquer the ten-headed demon king Ravana. I knew that Hanuman had gone in search of Sita, Rama’s wife, whom Ravana had abducted and was holding prisoner on his island kingdom Lanka. I knew that Hanuman had been chased off the island by Ravana and his demon horde, who set fire to Hanuman’s tail. I knew that Hanuman, immune to burning, had swished his tail back and forth, setting all the buildings on the island alight. I knew that Hanuman had mobilised an army of monkeys to build a bridge from India to Lanka which Rama crossed with his troops. I knew that Hanuman had fought side by side with Rama during the final pitched battle against Ravana, which resulted in victory for Rama and the rescue of Sita.

I hadn’t been there, I hadn’t done any of these things... and yet I had. Hanuman had, and I was Hanuman. And the fight with Ravana was just one of the many adventures I had shared with Rama as his loyal companion. As, yes, his sidekick.

So that was me, then. Robin the Boy Wonder to Rama’s Batman. Bucky to his Captain America. Bullwinkle to his Rocky.