Before a god can wield a sword, he must first learn the terrible weight of the scales.
Dawn broke over the high peaks, its light a razor of gold that slit the throat of night. Parashurama did not lead Kalki to a training ground or an archery range. He led him to a sheer cliff edge overlooking the entire, sleeping valley of Shambhala. The wind was a cold, clean thing, smelling of stone and distance.
Kalki stood beside him, his small form wrapped in a simple woolen shawl. The boy's face was composed, but Parashurama could feel the turmoil beneath—the aftershock of the previous night's events.
"The training of a king begins not with the sword, but with the question," Parashurama said, his voice the gravelly sound of the mountain itself. "Your power is absolute. Your wisdom is not. Until it is, your power is the greatest danger in this world."
He picked up a small, dark stone. "This is the refugee you saved. Let us call him Jayesh. A good man, a victim. To save him, you revealed your nature and made your home a target. The cost was acceptable. One soul for one sanctuary's secrecy. The math was simple."
He then gestured down at the village, a collection of peaceful, slumbering homes nestled in the green bowl of the valley. "Now, a new problem."
Parashurama's voice took on the cadence of a formal debate, painting a picture as vivid as the dawn.
"A plague comes to Shambhala, a sickness of the soul like the one Jayesh carried. It spreads through despair. You, and only you, have the cure. To administer it, you must absorb the despair of each person into yourself, hold it, and purify it. But you are still young. You can only hold the suffering of ten people at once. To take on an eleventh will overwhelm you, shattering your spirit and leaving Shambhala without a protector."
Kalki listened, his brow furrowed in concentration. The scenario felt chillingly real.
"There are two hundred souls in this village," Parashurama continued, his voice relentless. "The plague has infected eleven. They are gathered in the square: your father, your mother, Bhadra the farmer, Vimala the healer, and seven other villagers you have known your entire life."
Kalki's breath hitched. My mother? My father?
"You can cure ten," the sage said, his gaze locking onto Kalki's. "The one you do not choose will succumb to the plague, their soul extinguished forever. You have one minute to decide. Whom do you leave to the void?"
The wind seemed to fall silent. The rising sun lost its warmth. The question was not a riddle. It was an atrocity.
"That's… that's not a choice," Kalki whispered, his voice trembling. "I would find another way. I would expand my spirit. I would…"
"There is no other way," Parashurama's voice was like stone. "This is the law of the problem. Your capacity is ten. The number of the sick is eleven. This is the math of the Kaliyuga. Your intentions are irrelevant. The numbers are real. Choose."
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced Kalki's heart. His mind raced, seeking a loophole, a third path, a hidden miracle. There was none. It was a perfect, cruel trap. Leave his father? His mother? Vimala, who had brought half the village's children into the world? It was impossible. Each life was a universe. How could one choose between universes?
"I can't," Kalki said, a tear of frustration tracing a path down his cheek. "I would save them all, or perish with them."
"An honorable, but useless answer," Parashurama stated, his disappointment a palpable force. "By refusing to choose, you allow your own limit to become the weapon. In your hesitation, the plague spreads to a twelfth villager. Now you can save ten, but two will perish. Your refusal to accept a hard price has just doubled the cost."
He stared down at the boy, his expression stern but not without a flicker of deep, ancient sorrow. "You feel compassion for all eleven. But compassion without decision is just sentiment. A king cannot afford sentiment. Your duty is not to feel for your people. It is to act for them. Even when the act is monstrous. To preserve the whole, sometimes you must sacrifice a part. Your personal grief is not a factor in the equation."
He let the terrible words settle in the cold morning air.
"That is the first lesson," he concluded. "Dharma is not about choosing between good and evil. That is easy. Dharma is about choosing between one good and another, and bearing the grief of the good you were forced to abandon. Now, choose. Who is the one?"
Kalki walked back into the village alone. The cold logic of Parashurama's lesson was a shard of ice in his heart. He understood the principle—the grim necessity of command—but his soul rebelled against it. The world Parashurama described was a brutal, broken thing. He wanted to heal it, not learn its ugly math.
The village was awake now, and he saw immediately the change his miracle had wrought. Before, he was greeted with warm smiles and playful ruffles of his hair. Now, people stopped what they were doing and lowered their eyes. Some brought their palms together in reverence. No one met his gaze directly.
The wall of awe was invisible but absolute. He was no longer one of them.
He went to his home. His mother was preparing the morning meal. She turned as he entered, and for a fleeting moment, her face lit up with the simple, uncomplicated love he had always known. Then, the memory of the miracle flickered in her eyes. The light of awe replaced the warmth of affection. She offered him the first and best of the flatbreads, not as a mother giving to a hungry son, but as a devotee making an offering.
"Is my son well?" she asked, but her voice held the formality one uses for a revered guest.
"I am hungry, Mother," he said, his voice pleading for normalcy.
His father entered from the courtyard. "Kalki," Vishnuyasha said, and the name itself sounded different. Weighted. "The man you… helped. He is awake. He asks for you."
Jayesh, the refugee, was sitting up, his back against a pillar in the communal hall. His fever was gone, his eyes lucid. When he saw Kalki approach, he scrambled to his knees, pressing his forehead to the floor in a gesture of absolute prostration.
"My lord," the man wept, his voice choked with emotion. "You cast the shadow from me. You gave me back my name. My life is yours. Command me."
Kalki stood frozen. This was the result of his mercy. This adoration, this surrender of will. It felt like a violation of the man's dignity.
"Get up," Kalki said, his voice soft but firm. "Please, get up."
"I cannot," Jayesh cried. "To stand as an equal before the one who remade my soul? It would be a sin."
Kalki felt the walls closing in. He looked to his father for help, but Vishnuyasha just stood there, his face a complex mask of pride and sorrow. This was the new reality. The man whose life he had saved could no longer look him in the eye. The mother whose love was his anchor now saw a deity before she saw her son. The shadow of divinity was a cage, and its bars were made of his people's awe.
Parashurama's lesson echoed in his mind. Your personal grief is not a factor. He was grieving the loss of his childhood, of his simple, human connections. And perhaps, that was the first sacrifice the world required of him.
The intrusion came near midday. It was not an army or a monster. It was the rhythmic clatter of cart wheels and the jingle of harness bells—sounds utterly foreign to Shambhala.
A small caravan of three ox-carts had found its way to their valley. The men driving them were lean and hard-eyed, their clothes practical but finer than anything worn in the village. Their leader, a man with a shrewd face and a quick, assessing smile, dismounted and bowed deeply to the assembled villagers.
"Forgive our trespass, good people," he said, his voice smooth and practiced. "We are merchants. A landslide blocked the southern pass, and we were forced to seek a new way through these hills. We are lost, and our water is low."
Vishnuyasha, as the village head, stepped forward. "You are welcome to rest and take water from our stream. This is Shambhala. All who come in peace are welcome."
The merchant's eyes flickered, a subtle spark of recognition at the name. "Shambhala! The legendary village. So the stories are true." His gaze swept the crowd, moving from face to face. It was not the simple gaze of a lost traveler; it was the calculating scan of a prospector searching for gold.
The villagers, true to their Dharma, brought the merchants water and fresh fruit. Kalki watched from the steps of the communal hall, Parashurama a silent statue a few paces behind him. Kalki felt a subtle dissonance from these men. Their minds were a tangle of numbers, of profit and loss, of what could be gained from this encounter. It was the energy of the outer world, a complex and hungry thing.
The merchant leader, whose name was Dhanan, saw the deference the villagers paid to Kalki. He saw Jayesh, who now followed the boy at a respectful distance like a shadow, his eyes full of fanatical devotion. Dhanan's shrewd smile widened. He had found what he was looking for.
After his men had quenched their thirst, he approached Vishnuyasha, but his eyes were on Kalki.
"You have been most kind," Dhanan said. "We have little to offer in return for such generosity. But we carry silks from the east, and steel tools from the north that can make your harvests easier." He gestured to his carts. "Please, accept these as a gift."
The villagers murmured. Steel tools were a true marvel. The offer was tempting.
But Kalki felt the hook within the gift. It was a transaction. It introduced a debt. It began a cycle of want for things they had never needed.
Parashurama's presence was a silent command: Handle this. This is your test.
Kalki stepped forward. "We thank you for your offer, merchant," the boy said, his voice clear and preternaturally calm. "But our tools are sufficient for our needs, and our joy is not found in silks. Please, take the water and the fruit as a gift of welcome, not as a purchase."
Dhanan's smile did not falter, but his eyes narrowed. He was being tested by a child. He decided to change tactics, to go straight to the heart of the matter.
He turned his full attention to Kalki, his voice dropping to a confidential, conspiratorial tone. "A 'gift,' then. I understand. But gifts can flow both ways. The roads are dangerous. Raiders, corrupt toll-men… but a caravan that travels under a divine 'blessing'… one known to be protected by a power like the one that healed this man…" He nodded toward Jayesh. "Such a blessing would be beyond price. It would ensure our safe passage."
He leaned closer. "Protect us, boy-saint. Give us your 'blessing.' In return, a tenth of all my profits will be laid at this village's feet. Your people will never want for anything again. They will be rich beyond their wildest dreams. What say you?"
The offer hung in the air, a serpent of pure gold. Leverage divinity for wealth. Use a sacred gift for material gain. It was the very essence of the Kaliyuga's corruption, gift-wrapped and presented with a smile, right at the heart of Shambhala.
The enemy's first attack is not a sword, but a contract. Can a boy who has just been taught the grim math of sacrifice resist an offer that promises to eliminate suffering, but at the cost of his soul?