Chapter 29

"I see no one but you."

A night without stars veiled the plain of Kurukshetra. The cloud which covered the sky, obscuring all height and distance, was no chariot of Indra, no rain-bearing collection of vapors poised to cleanse the ragged Earth. It was a cloud made from the smoke of funeral pyres.

All over the vast flat plain, from horizon to horizon, great pyres blazed. Stacks of wood layered with corpses and drenched with oil, roaring white hot and sending up dense columns of smoke, nimbused with heat so fierce no living person could approach them. The low blanket of their smoke cast their light back to Earth, covering the world with a red and yellow haze.

When the wind picked up the flame-towers flung themselves out parallel to the ground and the soldiers feared for their tents. The smell of charred flesh drove the horses wild with fear. Their eyes rolled white and their mouths frothed. Their flanks were lathered with sweat and their high terrified whinnies rang in the men’s ears. Though this was a night in the depths of the cold season the pyres heated the wind; the men sweated in their tents as they struggled for a little sleep. They knew that morning would again bring the call of the conch shell, the summoning to arms, the plunge into the turbulent ocean of war.

Three figures moved steadily across the plain, threading the veins of tolerable temperature between the roaring pyres. They wore light woolen blankets wrapped around their bodies and faces; no one who saw them pass knew them for who they were.

After a time they left the funeral field and entered the relative darkness of the Kaurava camp. Here torches guttered atop iron posts and sleepless soldiers huddled close around the embers of their cookfires. The night visitors slipped past like a breath of wind and none marked them.

As the three approached the command tent of Bhishma the guards on duty felt unease creeping up their backs. They peered out into the torchlit night, but even their sharp eyes caught no sight of the intruders until they were almost passing between them. Like men awakened suddenly from a deep dream the guards drew breath sharply and crossed their spears to halt the strangers in their tracks.

“Step back,” said one, trying to make out the faces shrouded beneath their blankets. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“We seek an audience with Bhishma,” said the foremost figure. His voice was silky soft, gentle as the night herself.

“Your names,” said the second guard, “and your allegiance?”

“Let them in,” said a voice of stern command from inside the tent.

The guards both turned their heads and saw Bhishma, the supreme commander, holding the tent’s door flap open. As one they retracted their spears and bowed.

“Come,” said Bhishma. “Enter.”

The three strangers passed the guards and entered Bhishma’s tent.

Once the door flap had closed behind them they revealed their faces and greeted Bhishma with palms pressed together. The Kuru patriarch regarded his guests with narrow eyes, his face impassive. Arjuna and Yudhisthira both looked as though they had aged nine years, not nine days, since the war began. Krishna seemed, however, as youthful as ever, and his dark eyes still glimmered with their irrepressible wonder.

“Welcome,” said Bhishma. “Be seated.”

He poured water from a copper ewer while his guests sat cross-legged on the floor. A brazier of embers stood in the center of the tent, sending up a fume of fragrant resin-smoke. Three oil lamps served for illumination. The floor was spread with woven rugs and deerskins. When he had given each of his guests water to drink, Bhishma sat before them. His ancient body was as lithe as that of a man in the bloom of youth. Between his feet he clasped a sharpening stone, and as they spoke he whetted his arrows.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked. “Three generals of the enemy army have come to me seeking counsel. What shall I say? I love you still, despite all the arrows that have flown between us. If I can do aught to bring you joy, tell me, and I will do it.”

Yudhisthira bowed his head for a moment, then looked up and met Bhishma’s piercing gaze.

“Grandfather,” he said, “we want to know how to kill you.”

Bhishma smiled.

“For nine days we have fought,” Yudhisthira continued, “and for nine days you have massacred our armies. Our men perish before your chariot like dry grass in a wildfire. Every day the blood of my soldiers turns the dirt of Kurukshetra into mud, and when we retire at sunset we are no closer to victory. We cannot defeat you, Bhishma. Yet we ourselves are undefeatable, so long as we have Arjuna’s bow and Krishna’s guidance. If our two armies continue to clash we will incinerate the Earth. Grandfather, I see no way to save the creatures of the world, unless I surrender my claim or you are eliminated.”

“What you say is true,” said Bhishma. He tested the blade of one of his arrows with his thumb. “As long as I am alive you cannot win victory. Once I am vanquished, however, victory will quickly be yours.”

“But you are invincible,” said Arjuna. “You swat away even my arrows as if they were nothing more than mosquitoes. Your horses trample our men and your chariot wheels crush them. There is no chink in your defense.”

“As long as I hold my weapons,” said Bhishma, “you cannot defeat me. If I put down my weapons you will be able to strike me.”

“But how can you be induced to put down your weapons?” asked Yudhisthira.

“There is one warrior in your army before whom I would put down my weapons,” said Bhishma. “If Shikhandi of House Panchala approaches me I will not strike. I will let go of my bow.”

“Shikhandi?” Yudhisthira and Arjuna spoke the name in unison. “Why him?”

“Shikhandi is a great warrior,” said Krishna, his voice a soft murmur. “He is valiant and worthy. Yet he is not the strongest, nor the least. There is a secret at the heart of this.”