The gods retreated from the field to review their options. Mere mortals petitioned them not to abandon the earth to the less than tender mercies of Mahishasura. A grim decision was made. The will of all the gods was bent to dark purpose. From Durga's forehead leaped a goddess more demon than divine. She was power incarnate, violence personified, unfettered even by the bonds of time which held other gods and mere men in check. She strode the heavens wrapped in darkness deeper than night, casting fear into the hearts of even the deities who had brought her forth.

She was called to battle. She accepted the call. But before opposing Mahishasura and the rampaging legions of demons, she demanded her sacrifice. And it was a terrible one. From every town and village on the young earth, men and women, children and elders, virgins and depraved were brought before the hungry goddess. Das's marginal note, only just decipherable, read: Bhavabhuti Malatimadhava.

That would have been enough for one night, but the next line kept me in my chair. I blinked and read on.

And then, without transition, the style reverted to the fifth-century sambhava.

All this was mere prelude as the poem unfolded like some dark flower. Das's strong poetic voice would appear occasionally, only to fade and be replaced by a classic Veda or a piece of news raised from archives or the banal tones of journalism. But the song was the same.

For ages beyond time, the gods conspired to contain this black power they had created. It was circumscribed, propitiated, and hidden in the pantheon, but its essential nature could not be denied. It alone — she alone — grew in strength as other divinities faded from mortal memory, for she alone embodied the dark underside of an essentially benign universe — a universe whose reality had been forged through the millennia by the consciousness of gods and men alike.

But she was not the product of consciousness. She was the focus and residue of all the atavistic urges and actions which ten thousand years of conscious strivings had hoped to put behind.

The poem unfolded through countless small stories, anecdotes, and folk tales. All had the indefinable taste of truth to them. Each story reflected a rip in the sense-deafening fabric of reality, a rip through which the Song of Kali could be faintly heard. People, places, and points in time became conduits, holes through which powerful energies poured.

In this century the Song of Kali had become a chorus. The smoke of sacrifice rose to the clouded dwelling place of Kali, and the goddess awoke to hear her song.

Page after page. Sometimes entire lines were gibberish, as if typed out by someone using fists on the keys. Other times, whole pages of scribbled English were indecipherable. Fragments of Sanskrit and Bengali interrupted clear passages and crawled up the margins. But random images remained.

— A whore on Sudder Street murdered her lover and greedily devoured his body in the name of love. The Age of Kali has begun.

— Screams are torn from the dead bellies of the slaughtered millions of our modern age; a chorus of outrage from the mass graves which fertilize our century. The Song of Kali now is sung.

— The silhouettes of children playing etched permanently on a shattered wall when the bomb flash instantaneously scorched the concrete black. The Age of Kali has begun.

— The father waited patiently for the last of his four daughters to come home from school. Gently he placed the revolver to her temple, fired twice, and placed her warm body next to those of her mother and sisters. The police find him crooning a soft lullaby to the silent forms. The Song of Kali now is sung.

I quit with only another hundred pages left to read. My eyes had been shutting of their own accord, and twice I'd awakened to find my chin on my chest. I clumsily stuffed the manuscript in the briefcase and checked my watch on the dresser.

It was 3:45 A.M.. In a few minutes the alarm would go off and we would have to get ready for the ride to the airport. The flight home, counting the London layover, would be a 28-hour marathon.

I groaned with exhaustion and crawled into bed next to Amrita. For the first time, the room seemed pleasantly cool. I pulled up the sheet and closed my eyes for just a few minutes. A few minutes to doze before the alarm went off and we had to get dressed.

Just a few minutes.

I awake elsewhere. Someone has carried me here. It is dark but I have no trouble knowing where I am.

It is the Kali Temple.

The goddess stands before me. Her foot is raised over empty air. All four of her hands are empty. I cannot see her face because I am lying on the floor to one side of the idol.