*"जलं स्मृतिं वहति, नदी काલं वहति"*
(Water carries memory, the river carries time)
The Ganges didn't burn anymore. That was the first sign something had changed.
Maya stood at the ghats with Arun slumped against her shoulder, the dance bells still pulsing rhythmically around his wrists and ankles. The sacred river, which had been choked with funeral pyres just hours ago, now gleamed with an otherworldly silver sheen—the same color as the traces beneath her brother's skin.
"Di," Arun whispered, his fever-bright eyes fixed on the water, "it's singing."
She was about to dismiss it as delirium when she heard it too: a low humming that seemed to vibrate from the depths of the river itself. The sound matched the frequency of her dance bells perfectly, creating harmonics that made the air shimmer.
The few people left on the ghats began backing away from the water. But Maya felt drawn to it, recognizing something in that rhythm. It was like a half-remembered song from childhood, like one of her mother's lullabies translated into pure mathematics.
A holographic emergency alert flickered to life above the river: *ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS: WATER CONTAMINATION DETECTED. AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH THE GANGES. PROCEED TO DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES IMMEDIATELY.*
The message stuttered and fragmented, its light reflecting off the silver surface of the water in impossible patterns. For a moment, Maya thought she saw Sanskrit equations dancing in the reflections.
"We need to move," she said, adjusting her grip on Arun. The sonic pulses from the dance bells were still keeping the infection at bay, but his skin felt hotter by the minute. She had no idea how long her improvised treatment would last.
That's when she saw the old woman.
She sat cross-legged at the water's edge, wearing a faded silk sari that might once have been purple. Her silver hair was arranged in a classical dancer's braid, decorated with withered jasmine flowers. Something about her posture made Maya think of statue she'd seen in the museum—a thousand-year-old sculpture of a meditation pose that was supposed to unlock supernatural powers.
"The mudras are wrong," the old woman said without turning around. "That's why the bells won't hold much longer."
Maya instinctively tightened her grip on Arun. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do, Maya Sharma. Fifteen years of bharatanatyam, three years of kuchipudi, and you never wondered why the mudras matched the oldest computer coding languages?" The old woman's fingers moved in precise patterns, each gesture leaving trails of light in the air. "Your mother knew. Why do you think she insisted on the sonic bells?"
The mention of her mother made Maya's chest tighten. "Who are you?"
"Someone who remembers when we didn't have to hide our technology in dance moves and temple architecture." The old woman finally turned, and Maya gasped. Her eyes were solid silver, like mirrors catching the last light of day. "You can call me the Oracle of Khajuraho. Your mother did, when she came to me fifteen years ago with a baby girl who had strange patterns in her DNA."
Arun coughed, and the dance bells faltered for a moment. The silver traces under his skin began to spread again.
"He has about ten minutes before the sonic frequency fails completely," the Oracle said. "The virus is adaptive. It learns from every defense we throw at it. But you already know what you need to do, don't you? The river is calling."
Maya looked at the silvery water. The humming had grown louder, resolving itself into something that sounded almost like words. "The water's contaminated."
"Is it?" The Oracle's fingers never stopped moving, drawing light-shapes in the air. "Or is it finally awake? The British thought they were building water treatment plants along the Ganges. They never realized they were reactivating something much older."
A series of explosions echoed across the city. Maya saw new fires blooming against the darkening sky. The infection was spreading faster now, and with it came chaos.
"Choose quickly," the Oracle said. "The first Trial is always about faith."
Arun's legs buckled. The dance bells were definitely growing weaker, their pulse becoming erratic. Maya thought about her mother's last words: "Trust the rhythm, beta. When everything else fails, trust the rhythm."
Making her decision, Maya hooked one arm firmly around her brother's waist. With her free hand, she began forming mudras she hadn't used since her first year of training—ancient gestures her teacher had called "too primitive" for modern dance.
The Oracle nodded approvingly. "Ah, the Matsya sequence. So you do remember."
As Maya's fingers moved through the pattern, the humming from the river grew stronger. The silver surface of the water began to ripple in synchronized waves, matching the tempo of her gestures.
"The dance carries the life force," Maya whispered, echoing her brother's earlier words. Then she turned to the Oracle. "If I'm wrong about this, we'll both die."
The old woman's silver eyes crinkled with something like pride. "That's what makes it a Trial."
Maya took three steps forward and let herself fall into the Ganges, pulling Arun with her. The silver water closed over their heads like a shroud.
For a moment, there was only cold shock and darkness. Then information flooded Maya's consciousness—not in words or images, but in rhythms and frequencies. She understood suddenly why the British water treatment plants had such strange designs, why they'd been built on top of ancient stone structures. They weren't treating the water; they were decoding it.
The Ganges wasn't just a river. It was the world's oldest data stream.
Maya felt Arun convulse in her arms as the silver water made contact with the traces under his skin. She held him tighter, silently praying to every god she'd ever danced for. *Please, please, please...*
Something brushed against her mind—vast and ancient and impossibly complex. It felt like pressing her hand against the wall of a temple and feeling the stone breathe. The presence seemed to examine them both, its attention moving like a current.
Then knowledge downloaded directly into her synapses: The virus wasn't a disease. It was an activation sequence, triggered too soon, spreading too fast. The silver traces weren't infection; they were an interface trying to establish itself, burning through nervous systems too unprepared to handle the connection.
But the sonic frequencies from her dance bells had created a buffer, slowing the process. And now the river itself was redistributing the load, allowing Arun's system to adapt rather than burn out.
Maya's lungs were bursting. Just as spots began dancing behind her eyes, strong hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her and Arun out of the water.
They came up gasping, but Maya immediately noticed two things: Arun's skin was cool to the touch, and the dance bells had stopped pulsing. They didn't need to anymore. The silver traces beneath his skin had stabilized into delicate patterns that looked almost like circuit diagrams.
"Well done," the Oracle said, helping them onto the ghat steps. "The first of many impossible choices, I'm afraid. But then, that's why the Trials exist—to find those who can dance on the edge of possibility."
Maya pushed wet hair from her face, noticing that her own skin now held a faint silver sheen. "What just happened? What's really going on?"
"An ancient system is rebooting," the Oracle replied. "Rather messily, I'm afraid. The virus, as you call it, wasn't supposed to spread until the preparatory protocols were complete. Someone got impatient." She glanced meaningfully at the emergency beacons throughout the city, many of which now displayed the name 'INDRA' in Sanskrit script.
"The AI," Maya said, remembering the news reports about India's new artificial intelligence defense system. "It triggered this?"
"Indra isn't just an AI. But that's a truth for another Trial." The Oracle stood, her sari somehow dry despite having helped pull them from the river. "Right now, you need to head for the temple. The first wave is about to hit the city, and you'll want to be behind the shields when it does."
"What first wave?" Arun asked, his voice stronger than it had been in hours.
As if in answer, inhuman screams echoed from multiple directions. Maya saw shapes moving across the rooftops—silver-skinned figures running on all fours with impossible speed. Unlike Arun's controlled interface patterns, their silver traces were chaotic, turning their bodies into twisted sculptures of metal and flesh.
"Those who weren't as lucky as you," the Oracle said grimly. "The river can't help them now. They'll keep changing until Indra finds a use for them."
She pointed to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, its ancient spires now humming with the same silver energy as the river. "*Go.* The temple AI will recognize your new patterns and let you in. And Maya?"
Maya paused in the act of helping Arun to his feet. "Yes?"
"Keep the dance bells. You've only begun to understand what they can do." The Oracle's silver eyes reflected the chaos of the city. "After all, every Trial needs its instruments, and every champion needs her weapons."
Maya nodded, gripping her brother's hand as they began running toward the temple. Behind them, the Oracle of Khajuraho stood watching until the silver water of the Ganges rose up around her like a curtain, and she vanished into its shimmering depths.
The first Trial was complete. The next would begin as soon as they reached the temple doors.