Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava Quartet #1)(76)

“Do you think it’s the same for Lord Indra?” asked Mini.

Aru eyed Vajra, who was happily bouncing beside her in a way that reminded Aru of someone excitedly nodding. If her mom could care from a distance, why not her dad?

“I hope so,” said Aru after a moment’s pause. “My mom told me it was Indra who taught Arjuna how to use all the celestial weapons. He even tried to sabotage Arjuna’s nemesis.”

That reminded Aru of the mom at school who’d gotten banned from the library after tearing out certain pages in books just so her kid’s rival classmate couldn’t do his research. (The librarian had screamed, Book murder! And now all the parents were scared of her.) Indra probably would have approved of that kind of sabotage.

“And he gave you his famous lightning bolt,” added Mini. “He must care.”

The thought made Aru smile.

Once they were away from the Chamber of Pools, they turned the corner toward the violent sounds of machinery. A large archway was emblazoned with the sign:

REMAKE, REBUILD, RELIVE!

REINCARNATION MANUFACTURING SERVICES



This, Aru guessed, must be where souls were fitted for new bodies and new lives.

A spiderlike creature made of clockwork and gears scuttled by. It took one look at them and started screaming.

“BODIES!” it shouted. “Out-of-commission bodies running rampant!”

Another creature, this one shaped a bit like a small dragon with fuzzy wings that trailed on the ground, bustled past. It wasn’t made out of clock parts; it was furred…brindled like those dogs that stood watch outside of the Kingdom of Death, and its eyes were a warm shade of gold and slitted at the pupil like a cat’s.

“How’d you get in?” asked the furred thing. “Rogue souls are—”

“Rogue souls?” repeated Aru, delighted in spite of the weirdness surrounding them. “That’s a great name for a band.”

“Band?” said the clockwork creature. “Did you hear that, Wish? They’re banding together! We’re going to be overrun. Forced into that awful samsara cycle of lives! As punishment! This is what we get for thinking that scaly orange skin and fake hair could keep that former demon out of elected office. It’s all your fault—”

“We’re not banding together,” said Mini. “We’re just trying to exit. But, um, we want to stay in these bodies. Please?”

“Who are you?”

Aru grinned. This was the moment she had been waiting for all her life. In school, the teachers always asked instead: What’s your name? Now, finally, she could say her dream response to Who are you?

“Your worst nightmare,” she said in a deep Batman voice.

At the same exact time, Mini said, “We’re the Pandavas,” before adding, “Well, we’ve got their souls, at least. In us.”

“Mini, you keep making it sound like we ate them—”

“Pandavas?” interrupted Wish.

The dragonlike creature and its companion reeled back in shock. Wish circled them, snuffling.

“That makes sense,” said the clockwork creature. “Heroines usually are the Kingdom of Death’s worst nightmares. They’re always barging in, waving scraps of metal around, and demanding things. No manners whatsoever.”

“Excuse you!” said Aru. “What about heroes? I bet they’re just as bad as heroines.”

“It’s a compliment! Heroes rarely have the guts to demand things. Usually they just sulk until a magical sidekick feels bad for them and does all the work while they get all the credit.”

“So this is how reincarnation works?” asked Mini. “With machines and stuff?”

“No words in any language can pin down exactly how life and death function. The closest we can come is by explaining samsara. Are you familiar with the concept?” asked Wish.

“Kinda. It’s like the life-and-death cycle,” said Aru.

“It’s far more complicated than that,” said Wish. “As you live, your good deeds and bad deeds are extracted from karma. Along the way, the body is subjected to the wear and tear of time. But the soul sheds bodies, just as the body sheds clothes. There is a goal, of course, to leave all that behind, but sometimes it takes people many, many lifetimes.”

“And who, exactly, are you?” asked Mini.

“Ah, we are the things that make a body what it is!” said Wish. “I am unspent wishes.”

“Is that why you’re covered in”—Mini peered more closely—“eyelashes?”

“Ah, yes! Sometimes, when people find a tiny lash on their cheek, they hold it tight, make a wish, and then blow it away. Those unspoken yearnings of the heart always find their way to me. They make my hand soft when I’m pouring a soul into a new form.”

“And I am Time,” said the clockwork creature, sinking into a graceful bow on its insect legs. “Like any part of Time, I am hard and unyielding, the heavy hand that shapes the vessel.”

“You’re Time?” asked Aru. “Like the Time?”

“We’re supposed to be trying to save you!” said Mini. “You should probably go into hiding or something.”

“What a quaint notion, child,” said Time. “But I am just one part of Time. I am Past Time. You see, there are all kinds of Time running around. Future Time, who is invisible, and Present Time, who can’t hold any one shape. Pacific Standard Time is currently swimming around near Malibu. And I think Eastern Standard Time is annoying stockbrokers on Wall Street. We’re all quite wibbly-wobbly. If what you say is true, I am merely one part of what you must save.”