Ten years after the first vow, the boy was gone, replaced by a youth who moved with the silent grace of a predator and the stillness of a mountain lake. Kalki stood on the highest training ground, a flat expanse of wind-scoured rock overlooking the valley. He was fifteen.
His opponent was a man who looked as old as the mountain itself. Parashurama. The sixth avatar of Vishnu, the eternal warrior-sage, had arrived in Shambhala a year after Kalki's birth to oversee his training personally.
Parashurama's lessons were brutal in their simplicity. Today, he stood motionless, a single leaf held between his thumb and forefinger. "Cut the leaf," he said, his voice the grinding of tectonic plates. "Do not move my hand."
Kalki held a plain, wooden practice sword. He breathed in, feeling the prana (life force) of the cold, thin air fill his lungs. He had learned that his innate power responded to his will, but his vow had taught him precision. He could no longer simply restore things to their ideal state; he had to act within the world of consequence, cut by cut, choice by choice.
He stepped forward. Not a lunge, but a flow of movement so fluid it seemed the world was moving around him. The wooden sword hissed through the air. A sharp thwack.
A sliver of wood flew from the tip of his own blade.
Parashurama's hand had not moved. The leaf remained untouched. "Again," the ancient warrior rumbled. "You saw the leaf. You aimed for the leaf. But your will struck with the force of an avalanche. You must strike with the focus of a needle. The smallest effective force. Always."
Kalki bowed his head in acceptance, his jaw tight. For ten years, this was his tapasya: the restraint of infinite power. His vow prevented him from overriding the will of a person; Parashurama was teaching him to avoid overriding the nature of reality itself. A misplaced surge of energy could crack the stone beneath his feet or alter the very air he passed through.
He centered himself, calmed the sea of power within him, and prepared to try again.
He never got the chance.
The sound of the summoning horn echoed up from the valley floor, a rare and urgent call that meant the perimeter had been breached by a supplicant. Not an enemy, but someone seeking refuge.
Parashurama lowered his hand, the leaf still intact. His gaze, which could measure the turn of stars, sharpened. "This is a different kind of lesson," he said. "Come."
They descended in moments, not by the winding path but by a near-vertical drop, their feet finding impossible holds in the rock face. They arrived at the Gate of Whispering Dharma just as the guards were helping a man stagger through.
He was a ghost. His robes were the color of the Kashi dust he was covered in, shredded and stained. A string of broken prayer beads was fused to his wrist by dried blood. His breath came in ragged, tearing sobs. He had the look of a man who had outrun the apocalypse and was terrified it was still right behind him.
Vishnuyasha and other elders rushed to the gate. Sumati followed, her hands clasped to her chest.
"He came through the Lion's Path," a guard reported, his voice tight with shock. "Alone. Twelve days over the frozen peaks." An impossible feat.
The man collapsed to his knees, his eyes wild with terror and exhaustion. He saw Kalki, standing beside the formidable shape of Parashurama, and a flicker of crazed hope lit his face. "You… they said you were a myth," he croaked. "A seed of a new age."
"Peace, brother," Vishnuyasha said, kneeling to offer him a cup of water. "You are safe in Shambhala. What news do you bring?"
The man drank, water spilling down his chin. He shook his head, pushing the cup away. His hands fumbled inside his robes, searching for something. "They are silencing the world," he gasped, his voice cracking. "City by city. They burn the temples. They outlaw the chants. The Null Order patrols the streets with acousti-dampeners. Any public display of faith… any ringing of a bell…"
His voice broke. Sumati knelt beside him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What happens when a bell is rung?" she asked softly.
The man's eyes met hers, and in their depths was a horror that no words could convey. "The Order-keepers come," he whispered. "And they take the bell-ringer. Then they take his family. Then they take the family of his neighbor who heard the bell and did nothing. Collective punishment for unlicensed hope."
He finally found what he was looking for and pulled out a heavy object wrapped in oilcloth. With trembling hands, he unwrapped it. It was a shard of bronze, jagged and blackened by fire. Its curved surface bore the carving of a single lotus petal.
"The great bell of the Kashi Vishwanath temple," he choked out, holding the piece as if it were his own heart. "For a thousand years, it has called the faithful to prayer. Last week, an old priest, a man with nothing left to lose, climbed the tower and rang it one last time. We heard it. Across the whole city, we heard it. It was the most beautiful and most terrible sound I have ever known."
He looked directly at Kalki, his eyes begging for understanding. "They melted it. In the public square. Melted the city's heartbeat into a block of silent, useless metal. This… this was all I could save."
He pressed the shard into Kalki's hands.
It was heavy. It was cold. It still smelled faintly of fire and ozone. Kalki held a piece of a murdered prayer. A shard of a dead god's voice. His vow kept him from changing a man's will, but what of the will of a tyrant to crush all hope?
The injustice of it burned in his veins, a cold fire that had nothing to do with the infinite power he held in check. This was the pure, righteous anger of a soul witnessing desecration.
He looked from the broken metal in his hands to the broken man at his feet, and then to his father and the elders. The world beyond their valley was no longer a distant abstraction. Its pain was here. It was heavy in his hand.
The age of hiding was over. The silence from Kashi was a call to arms.
"Father," Kalki said, his voice quiet, yet it cut through the shocked silence like a blade. "The council must be convened. The last bell has fallen."