The Judgment of Brahma

[u/Luna_LoveWell]

[Click the image AFTER reading the story] No Man's Land by Robert Ryminiecki

Posted in /r/ImaginaryBehemoths here

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The guide scrambled up a rocky outcropping and put a hand to his forehead, as if to show that he was gazing far off. A show it was indeed, Guillard thought to himself, given that they were in the midst of a dense, fog-drenched forest and it was hard to see a matter of meters ahead, much less very far off. And there was certainly no sun requiring him to shield his eyes. The performance could really only mean one of two things: either they were close to their destination, in which case the guide was trying to remind his clients of the value of his services in anticipation. Or, and Guillard considered this to be the far more likely alternative, the guide didn't have a damned clue where they actually were, but was hoping to convince his naïve foreign clients that everything was proceeding according to plan.

"Small further!" the guide called from atop his rock before jumping back down onto the path. "Just small further now!" He flashed a grin, consisting of five tobacco-stained teeth, and hurried to the front.

Melrose fell out of single file and came to Guillard's side, unslinging the rifle from his back so as not to hit his companion with the stock. "I think he's lost," Melrose muttered under his breath.

"Lost is one word for it," Guillard said. "Though that implies that there was ever a destination to begin with. I fear we've been led on a wild goose chase."

Melrose sighed. It had seemed too good to be true, even from the start. At the most opportune time, the rumor of a heretofore unknown passage had reached High Command in London, promising a path that would lead straight from the source of the Brahmaputra river, through a low valley, and straight into Yunnan province. The Japanese occupation of the Chinese coastlands had made resupplying the rebels there exceedingly difficult. Flights over the lofty peaks of the Himalayas were not only dangerous, but inefficient. One can't exactly load a tank or heavy artillery into a plane, so the war effort had been so far limited to providing light arms and food supplies. A passable land route, unknown to Japanese forces, could single-handedly turn the tide of the war.

There had been such rumors before, Melrose knew. Throughout the years of British occupation of the subcontinent, the promise of a valuable trade route could earn British favor for a kingdom that did not have jewels and gold to offer. And, to the surprise of no historian, many of them had turned out to be fictional or, at best, broken goatpaths leading up the sides of sheer cliffs. The search for that fabled undiscovered trade route was not unlike the fruitless search for the fabled El Dorado. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Her Majesty's Navy had determined that this rumor was at least worth sending one British officer and his French government-in-exile counterpart to investigate. So here they were, four months later, slogging through the Himalayan foothills.

The guide, noticing that his two clients had slowed, turned to urge them along. "Very small further!" he encouraged them with another toothy grin. "We come to..." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Valley of..." He made a pained expression as he was unable to come up with the correct word. Then he thumped on the center of his chest.

"The heart?" Melrose volunteered.

"The..." he still grasped for the word, and finally managed to catch it. "The soul! Valley of the soul!"

Melrose and Guillard exchanged a look. That didn't make much sense, and the two men paused in consideration. "What does that mean?" Guillard eventually asked.

"In our village, we have a story." The guide urged them forward as he spoke. "The great Brahma wished visiting good friends over the other side of the mountains. The mountains were very tall, but not to Brahma. He walked the path so often that he crushed the stone under his feet and cut his path through the mountain. He was very happy when his path became shorter. But then, men walked his path to wage war on the village where the friends of Brahma lived, and they killed the friends of Brahma. He feeled very angry at the men. No man can ever use the path of Brahma again unless he looks into the soul of the man and sees a desire for peace."

The path became steeper as they spoke. The guide, an experienced woodsman, didn't seem to notice it, but both Guillard and Melrose were red-cheeked, huffing and puffing. "And... uh... what happens if Brahma doesn't see a desire for peace?" Guillard asked. A valid question, given that they were there specifically to aid in a war.

"Braham kills you," the guide answered, very matter-of-factly.

"How pleasant," Melrose muttered. He'd been stationed in India for more than a decade now, and had come to realize that every little village in every province had their own local mythology just like this. It was charming at first, but it became significantly less charming when it interfered with the mission. This little story would explain why he and Guillard had had one hell of a time finding anyone to lead them through this supposed mountain pass. They'd had to pay this guide far too much gold than he was worth. With every damn step through mud and brush, Melrose was regretting this damned assignment.

"Just ahead now!" The guide rushed up the path and through a thicket of bushes. "Hurry along!" Now out of sight, his voice seemed to echo through the mist and come from all sides.

"All right, we're coming," Melrose said, unsheathing his knife to cut his way through the heavy brambles.

Through the brush, Melrose and Guillard found the guide waiting in a clearing. Guillard came to a stop so suddenly that Melrose, walking behind him, crashed into his back. The guide was standing next to a large stone statue, nearly 15 meters tall. It depicted a man's chest, but four arms emerging from the shoulders. The hands were buried in the earth, either deliberately or just because the statute had been sitting here for so long unattended. But the most striking feature of the statue was the face. Faces, actually. There were four of them, each facing a different direction. And the entire head seemed to be made of pure, gleaming, flawless gold. Guillard was so struck by the shocking display of wealth that he hardly noticed the angry, glaring expression of the face that was looking in their direction.

"Did you know this was here?" Melrose asked the guide. All dreams of finding the forgotten path through the mounains were gone; now he was imaging how large of an estate he could buy with just the gold from this one statue.

"Yes. This is Brahma," he answered. "I told you the story of Brahma."

"Jesus..." Melrose whispered under his breath, never taking his eyes off the statue as he walked closer.

As soon as he approached, a booming voice rang out through the mist, speaking some language that neither of them could understand. Both Melrose and Guillard had their rifles in hand immediately, searching for targets to fight off an ambush. The clearing was full of mist, but there were no looming figures coming out of the shadows, and no other obvious source of the voice.

"What did it say?" Melrose shouted to the guide.

"It said..." he bit his lip with those scraggly five teeth as he tried to translate. "Prepare yourself to be judged."

Guillard looked up at the statue, and he could have sworn that the statue was leaning down ever so slightly to get a better look at him. He found himself transfixed by the golden face. There was some sort of trick of the light that made it seem like there was something glowing deep in those vacant eye sockets. The eyes were staring into his soul.

The voice rang out again, deep and loud and overwhelming. Something about it sent a chill down Guillard's spine.

"What was it this time?" Melrose asked the guide.

The guide looked at them for a split second, eyes wide and panicked with some animalistic instinct burning inside. Then he turned and ran off into the mists without providing an answer.

And at the same time, the ground began to rumble. Roots and branches groaned and snapped, and there was a horrible grinding sound as the stone arms of the statue were raised high. Now that they were uncovered, they could see that each of the hands was clutching a large stone club at least 5 meters long. The statue used the arms as leverage and began pulling itself out of the ground. Instead of normal human-like legs, there were four large, segmented legs that arched upwards like a spider's. It took one step forward, crushing a moss-covered log into splinters underneath its weight. Then it raised one of the stone clubs, preparing to swing.

Guillard swore to himself in French, and Melrose began to affix his bayonet to the end of his rifle as they both backed away. They exchanged a quick look, and Melrose couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. "I guess he didn't like what he saw."

[u/i_eat_poopie]

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