Chapter 13: The Spine of God

B.S. 2082 Baisakh 6 – Gorkha Foothills

The Trishula did not walk. It unfolded.

Its new form—a jagged spine fused with Gorakhnath's petrified ribs—dragged itself across the hills, each vertebrae grinding against the earth like a saw. Villages evaporated in its wake, reduced to fractal patterns etched into the soil. The air reeked of burnt thyme and delirium.

Jay tracked its path by the madness left behind: cows lactating molten gold, children reciting backward mantras, old men carving their skin into mandalas.

"It's rewriting reality," Anika said, her fireflies now a seething storm of blue-white rage. Rani Lakshmi's face flickered in the swarm, her lips moving in silent curses. "The longer it roams, the more the sapling absorbs Gorakhnath's insanity."

Meera crouched in the mud, her fingers sketching Malla-era battle plans only she could see. "Jayasthiti says to flank it through the river. Drown the bones."

Jay hauled her upright. "Jayasthiti's dead. You're alive. Focus."

Her eyes flashed with the king's defiance. "You think mortality grants clarity? Fools die clearer-eyed."

A child's laugh cut through the tension.

The Puri-marked boy perched on a boulder, swinging his legs. His golden thread had multiplied, weaving a cocoon around him.

"You left me in the dark," he said, voice layered with Alessandro's timbre. "Now I'm the weaver."

Jay lunged, but the boy dissolved, his threads snaking around Anika's throat.

"Trade the sapling," he whispered through her lips. "Or watch her strangle on vows."

Anika's fireflies reacted. They devoured the threads, their light turning acidic. The boy screeched, vanishing into a cloud of moths.

"The swarm's changing me," Anika rasped, touching her charred throat. "Rani's not just in the fireflies—she's in here." She tapped her temple. "And she's pissed."

They ambushed the Trishula at dusk.

It had lodged itself in the Kali Gandaki's heart, the river now flowing backward, its waters thick with screaming fish. Gorakhnath's voice boomed from the Spine:

"The sapling is mine! You cannot prune a god's dreams!"

Jay waded into the current, Shankha mark blazing. "You're no god. You're a corpse."

The Spine lashed. A rib speared Jay's shoulder, pinning him to the riverbed. Visions flooded his mind:

The sapling's roots burrowing into the core of the earth, veins pumping madness into the mantle.

Alessandro, clad in Dashnami robes, watering the Kalpavriksha with Amrita.

The child-acolyte, grown into a tyrant, burning timelines like old scrolls.

"See now?" Gorakhnath crooned. "Your crusade is my germination."

Anika's swarm dive-bombed the Spine, Rani Lakshmi's fireflies eating at its joints. Meera stood ashore, eyes closed, chanting Jayasthiti's siege hymns.

The river shifted.

The Kali Gandaki's waters solidified into spears of glass—Jayasthiti's ancient tactic against elephant cavalry. Meera roared, her voice harmonizing with the dead king's:

"Strike its third vertebrae! The fault line!"

Jay yanked free, blood mixing with amber ichor. The Trishula's hum spiked in panic.

"Traitor!" Gorakhnath screamed through Meera. "You wield my spine against me?"

Jay climbed the Spine, fingers slipping on ossified sinew. The third vertebrae pulsed, a tumorous growth throbbing with trapped Amrita.

The child-acolyte materialized, his threads binding Jay's ankles. "Don't you want to save me?"

Jay hesitated.

Anika's swarm blazed. "Do it!"

He plunged his Shankha mark into the tumor.

The Spine exploded.

Shards of Gorakhnath's madness rained down, each fragment birthing ephemeral horrors: spiders with human faces, rivers that flowed uphill, trees that sang funeral dirges. The sapling's cry echoed through the earth—a sound like glaciers weeping.

Anika collapsed, her fireflies reduced to embers. Meera convulsed, Jayasthiti's voice finally silent.

The child-acolyte knelt in the glass-littered mud, his Puri sigils fading. "It's cold here," he whispered before dissolving.

Jay pried the Trishula's core from the wreckage—a single, untainted Amrita droplet.

At dawn, they returned to the gorge. The sapling had grown overnight, its trunk now scarred with Gorakhnath's mad scribbles. But one branch bore a silver leaf, its surface reflecting not the present, but a possible future:

The Kalpavriksha, whole and towering, its roots cradling the Fourteen Worlds.

Meera traced the leaf. "Jayasthiti… he's gone. Truly gone."

Anika's remaining fireflies settled on the sapling, their light gentle. "Rani's still here. Says the tree needs a gardener."

Jay pocketed the Amrita droplet. Somewhere, Alessandro laughed.