‘What...was...that?’ whispered Shishupal, his feet rooted to the ground. He heard Eklavvya turn to leave. ‘Where are you going! Do you know what that was!’

‘Eklavvya’s eyes have had their fill of watching rainbow fires. He is leaving,’ he walked off, shaking his head, still muttering under his breath. ‘First blue, then green...is this a joke? No, World, do not answer!’

KRISHNA turned back to see the jade flames lick out in every direction, chasing them like a living hair of a Goddess bent on devouring them. Krishna was tired. It felt like he had run for miles through a burning furnace. Felt like red-hot needles were piercing his lungs. But he did not stop running. He could not. Fear and desperation lent his legs strength.

‘Yes, there’s the door!’ gasped Satyaki. Molten cracks spread like veins across the stone walls on either side of the door. Satyaki froze, but Krishna yanked the door open. A wave of heat hit Krishna in the back like a mighty punch. There was the sound of a landslide as flames erupted in a loud breath through the open door, bursting out in an explosion. They were both thrown into the air. The two guards running behind them were incinerated. Krishna crashed against a wall on the opposite side of the street, and then dropped in a flaccid heap, all his meticulous plans flung away with his sword. That’s the trouble with plans. They rarely survive being chased through a tunnel by a resurrected Elemental.

SHAKUNI walked alone over the bloodied earth into the Iron Curfew. After what they had seen of the jade pillar, most of the Hastina soldiers had refused to enter the First District till a Namin priest had sanctified the place.

Shakuni cared nothing for such superstitions, but he was saddened by the fall of Mathura. It was not an ancient civilization like Ayodhya or Hastinapur, or a large city like Rajgrih. But Mathura had been the leader of a brave new world in Aryavrat; a trader city, in contrast to the military cities of the past. It was said Mathura had ushered in a change, an industrial and moral revolution. It was a city of commerce and industry, where Men decided their own fates, not caste. Shakuni felt no sympathy for the Mathurans, but seeing the hope of an entire Age crumble into the dust did little to lift his spirits.

Signs of war were everywhere. Burning ox-carts, broken chariot wheels, ransacked houses, remnants of horses, mules, airavats, men, women and children lay scattered like seeds in a field at the start of the sowing season. Flies danced clumsily over the bodies. Some trampled, some slain, most burnt. Here and there, clusters of bodies in blue lay in mounds, evidencing the brave and desperate last stand by the Mathuran soldiers.

Sahadev rode up alongside Shakuni. ‘What do you think of all this, My Lord?’