Mark Hodder - Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

He looks at the black diamond. His eyes fixate upon it. He feels himself pulled into its depths, the essence of his individuality breaking apart, distributing itself among the planes and lines and points and angles of the great stone.

Kaundinya remains passive as thousands upon thousands of other minds touch his. He loses his sense of independence and becomes enmeshed, soaking into a vast multiple consciousness.

He wills his identity farther and farther into the diamond. He fills it; exists in every part of it; becomes an ingredient in its very existence.

He is one with the Naga.

He exists with them in the Eternal Now.

All but one tiny part of him.

Kaundinya is no ordinary man. Through rigorous education, meditation, and ritual, he has attained the absolute pinnacle of intellectual order and emotional discipline. Here, at the dawn of human history, his self-control is unmatched; and it will remain so until the end of that history.

The Naga have been surreptitiously probing his mind from the moment he started to live among them. They have found only good intentions, only a desire for peace between the human race and their own.

Kaundinya's true purpose has never been exposed.

Now, the moment has arrived.

He flexes the one small knot of awareness that has not melted into the Joined and turns it inward, probing deep into the physical matter of his own brain.

He locates a major blood vessel and he wrenches at it.

A massive haemorrhage kills him in an instant, and at the moment his consciousness is destroyed, it sends an inexorable shockwave through the structure of the diamond.

The stone fractures and explodes into seven fragments.

The Joined are ripped apart.

Millions of Naga drop dead.

The retorts of the shattering gem echo through the temple like rifle fire. The pieces fall from the plinth to the floor, their facets glinting like stars.

Rifle fire and stars.

Rifle fire. Stars.

Rifle fire. Stars.

Sir Richard Francis Burton opened his eyes.

It was night.

Stars filled the sky.

Rifle fire echoed across the desert.

A man screamed.

A camel brayed.

Voices argued in one of the languages of the Arabian Peninsula.

His eyelids scraped shut, time overbalanced and dropped away, and he opened them again and saw the dawn.

A figure climbed into view and stood looking down at him. A breeze tugged at her robes-for it was undoubtedly a woman, Burton could tell that from the curve of her hip, against which she rested the butt of her rifle.

“No,” she said, in English. “It cannot possibly be you.”

Her voice was deep and warm but filled with shock.

He tried to speak but his tongue wouldn't move. His skin was afire, yet the core of him, having suffered the night, was as cold as ice. He could feel nothing but pain.

The woman slipped and slithered down the sand then strode to his side and knelt, laying her weapon to one side. Her face was concealed by a keffiyeh and remained in shadow-silhouetted against the deep-orange sky. She unhooked a flask from her belt, unscrewed its top, and dribbled water onto his lips. It trickled into his mouth, through his teeth, over his tongue, and was so good that he passed out from the sheer relief of it.

When awareness returned, he was inside a tent and sunlight was beating against its roof. Sister Raghavendra smiled down at him.

“Lie still, Sir Richard,” she said. “I have to apply more ointment to your skin.”

“Give him warm water mixed with a spoonful of honey, please, Sadhvi.”

The voice was the same melodious one he'd heard before. Impossibly familiar.

He tried to look but a stab of pain prevented him from turning his head.

Sister Raghavendra drizzled sweet liquid into his mouth.

“We were rescued,” she said.

Consciousness escaped him yet again, only to be summoned back by the tinkle of camel bells and the flapping of the tent's canvas as it was battered by the simoon -the strong hot desert wind.

He'd been propped up into a semi-reclining position, with his back and head supported by soft pillows. Sadhvi Raghavendra was sitting to his left, Algernon Swinburne to his right. The owner of the deep female voice was standing at his feet, with her face still concealed by her Arabian headdress.

She was a tall woman, slender but curvaceous, and she radiated confidence and power. Her large clear eyes, above the scarf, were of a scintillating blue.

She reached up, pulled the material aside, smiled prettily, and said, “Are you compos mentis? You've been ranting about reptiles and temples and diamonds.”

He tested his voice. “I think-” and found that it worked, albeit harshly. “I think my mind is in better order, though my body is burned to a crisp. Hello, Isabel.”

“Hello, Dick.”

Isabel Arundell, who'd once been his fiancee, was wearing a long white cotton shirt, white pantaloons, and an abba -a short-sleeved cloak of dark green woven from the finest of wools. A sword, a dagger, and a flintlock pistol were held in place by a multicoloured sash circling her slender waist. She manoeuvred them out of the way as she lowered herself onto a cushion and sat with her legs tucked to one side.

Burton rasped, “I thought you were running around with Jane Digby in Damascus.”

Sadhvi handed him a canteen. He drank from it sparingly, knowing from experience that gulps would cause excruciating stomach cramps.

“We parted ways,” Isabel replied. “I found her morals to be wanting.”

“My hat, Richard!” Swinburne piped up. “We've experienced a miraculous intervention! Miss Arundell is leading a merry band of Amazonian warriors. They came galloping to our rescue on the most beautiful horses you've ever seen and gave the Disciples of Ramman a proper thrashing!”

Burton looked from his assistant back to Isabel, a question in his eyes.

She smiled again and said, “I seem to have acquired the habit of collecting about me women who've suffered at the hands of their husbands. When I opened a refuge in Damascus, there were objections from those same men. The continued existence of the place soon became untenable, so my companions and I left the city to live as Bedouins. We travelled south, through Syria, collecting more women on the way, until we arrived in Arabia, where we've survived by raiding the bandits who plunder the caravans.”

“Extraordinary!” Burton wheezed. “How many of you are there?”

“A little over two hundred.”

“Great heavens!”

“We saw a plume of steam, went to investigate, and discovered your downed ship. It was abandoned and a lot of supplies had been left behind. Don't worry-we have them with us. Then we followed your trail and happened upon the brigands.”

“The women are armed to the teeth!” Swinburne enthused. “And they revere Miss Arundell as if she were the goddess herself! Guess what they call her!”

“Please, Algernon!” Isabel protested.

“What?” Burton asked.

“Al-Manat!”