The freed prisoners blinked in the harsh mountain sunlight, shuffling out of the dark transport like men waking from a long, grim dream. They were a motley collection: a farmer whose crime was hoarding seeds, a poet who wrote an unlicensed rhyme, a young mother who had taught her child an old prayer. They were not criminals; they were custodians of memory, and the Null Order was erasing all archives but its own.
They stared at Kalki, this youth who had dismantled an elite patrol with a wooden sword and opened a magnetic lock with a touch. They saw the calm authority in his eyes and the effortless power in his stance. They looked at him with an awe so profound it bordered on terror.
One old man, the poet, took a hesitant step forward and fell to his knees. "Deva…" he whispered, his voice cracking with emotion. Godling…
"Stand up," Kalki said, his voice gentle but firm. It was not a request. He helped the old man to his feet. "Kneeling is for prayer, not for men. You are free. That is all."
He had fulfilled Parashurama's edict. He had cut away the lie of the Order's invincibility without taking a life. The conscious Order-keeper, the one he had pushed into the landslide, was beginning to stir, groaning. The one on his knees was still trembling, staring at the disassembled parts of his rifle as if it were a wicked serpent that had shed its skin.
"They will send others," the young mother said, her voice sharp with fear. She clutched the hand of her small son, who was peering at Kalki from behind her legs. "Stronger patrols. Drones. They will hunt us down."
"They will," Kalki agreed. "The landslide will buy you time. You cannot go down the mountain. You must go up."
He pointed toward the treacherous, snow-dusted peaks behind them, back in the direction he had come. "The paths are hidden, but they are there. They will lead you to a place of safety."
The farmer, a broad-shouldered man with hands like gnarled roots, shook his head. "There is nothing up there but ice and death. We'll freeze before we find any 'place of safety'."
Doubt began to seed itself in the group. Freedom was a terrifying, unknown country. The transport, for all its misery, had been a known quantity.
Kalki understood. He could not force their will. He could only offer a choice, and he had to make that choice real to them.
He turned and faced the landslide that blocked the road. It was a massive pile of rock, earth, and uprooted trees, fifty feet high and twice as wide. An impassable obstacle.
Kalki walked to its base. He placed both palms flat against the largest boulder, a rock the size of a hut. He closed his eyes, and his breath synced with the slow, ancient pulse of the mountain itself. He wasn't trying to move the rock with his power. He was reminding the mountain that it was whole. The landslide was a wound.
A deep groan shuddered through the earth. It wasn't the sound of stone grinding on stone. It was the sound of something vast and ancient shifting in its sleep.
Slowly, impossibly, a path began to form. Boulders withdrew into the cliff face as if being reclaimed. Earth settled. Uprooted pines lifted themselves, their roots finding new purchase. It was not a violent parting of the way; it was a gentle, organic healing of the road. A clear path opened, winding upwards into the high passes, a route that had not been there moments before.
The air around the newly formed trail shimmered, growing warm. Wildflowers, the hardy blue and yellow poppies of the high Himalayas, bloomed instantly along its edges, their color a stark, vibrant promise against the gray rock.
He had not violated his vow. He had not forced a plant to grow or a rock to move. He had simply revealed the path of rta—the inherent, cosmic order of the mountain—and let it express itself. He had revealed the path of least resistance for those seeking sanctuary.
He turned back to the stunned group. "The mountain will guide you. It will shelter you. There will be food and water. You have only to walk."
He then looked at the two Order-keepers. The conscious one had now picked himself up and was staring, speechless, at the impossible flowering path. The other was shaking his head, trying to clear the daze.
"You have a choice as well," Kalki said to them, his voice devoid of anger. "You can follow your orders and report what happened here. Or you can take a different path. The mountain makes no judgment on who walks its trails."
He gave them no more thought. He had offered the choice; the karma of their decision was their own to bear.
His work here was done. He shouldered his satchel and, without another look back, began walking down the mountain again, toward the smog and the sorrow, toward Kashi.
The young mother watched him go. Then she looked at the impossible, flower-lined path that led to an unseen sanctuary, and at the grim, polluted road that led back to subjugation. She squeezed her son's hand.
"Come," she said to the others, her voice ringing with newfound certainty. "We are going home."
One by one, the others followed, casting off the invisible chains of their despair. They started up the mountain path, their steps hesitant at first, then growing stronger with every yard. Even the poet was practically skipping.
The two Order-keepers watched them go. Then they looked at each other. They looked at their disassembled rifles. And then they looked down the road, where punishment and disgrace surely awaited them for their failure.
The one who had surrendered dropped to his knees and began trying to piece his rifle back together, his hands shaking. Duty. Order. Compliance.
The other, the one who had been thrown against the rockslide, watched his partner for a long moment. Then, with a quiet grunt, he unstrapped the gauntlet from his left arm—the one with the comms unit—and let it drop to the pavement. He turned his back on his partner and started walking, slowly but deliberately, up the flowering mountain path. A different choice.
Kalki, already far down the road, did not look back. But he felt it. A small but significant shift in the karmic ledger of the world. One free choice.
It was a start.