'Hang on, there's a sign here.' Vijay craned his neck to read the minute inscription on a three-foot-high sandstone plaque planted alongside the road.

'Department of Tourism.' Vijay read out. 'According to this, the Bijak-ki-pahari is four kilometres from here.'

Radha grinned mischievously. 'I could have saved you the trouble.' She indicated another sign mounted on a wooden post and shaped like an arrow. Upon the sign, crudely written in white paint, were the words Bijak-ki-pahari. The sign pointed down a mud track that branched off to their right.

Vijay looked doubtful. 'Are you sure that sign is right? That doesn't look like a road leading to a historical site.'

But Radha was already pulling onto the track. It was a narrow path, just enough to accommodate a single car, and walled in on either side by thorny plants with sharp, spiked leaves, that rose to a height of around 20 feet.

Radha negotiated the track cautiously. It was potholed and rutted by years of use by camel-drawn carts. The track wound right and left, and they occasionally, saw a small child standing in a break in the foliage, looking curiously at the car as it bounced along the path.

After being jolted around for a while, they came to a small clearing to the right of the path in which stood a small mud hut with whitewashed walls. A man was standing next to the hut.

Radha poked her head out of the window and hailed him in Hindi. 'Where is the Bijak-ki-pahari?'

He approached them and pointed down the track. 'I'll show you the way if you want,' he offered.

He introduced himself as Chunnilal and asked them to drive on while he joined them on foot.

The path changed from a mud track to a concrete road which had seen a lot of wear over the years. Eventually, , the road opened up into a large clearing paved with smooth stones. A small pillared structure occupied one corner of the clearing. All around them, small, misshapen rocky hills rose to a height of two to three hundred feet.

Chunnilal came up as they got out of the car and stretched their legs.

Groups of small monkeys with little black faces frolicked on the roof of the pillared building as they followed Chunnilal up the nearest hill, along a path, paved with stones and thorny bushes. The stone paved track soon gave way to a mud path and then to a well-paved stone path, that led to broad stone stairs that ascended the hill.

'The government constructed this stairway recently,' the well-informed Chunnilal told them.

The stone stairway skirted boulders that towered ten feet above them and passed under rocky overhangs; turning at sharp angles as it wound up the hill. The hillsides were strewn with rocks and immense boulders inclined at almost impossible angles. Stunted trees with spiny leaves and dry, thorny plants were the only signs of vegetation, as far as the eye could see.

Vijay and Colin bounded along ahead of the others. Shukla was helped along by Radha.

The stairway finally ended, opening up into a natural terrace dotted with huge rocks. To the left of the stairway stood a stone wall around five feet in height; it was evidently a recent reconstruction. Clinging to this were the remains of an ancient brick structure, not more than a couple of feet in height. The bricks had blackened with age and appeared to form a stairway leading to the terrace which lay behind the stone wall and was not visible to them from where they now stood.

'That's probably where the chaitya is,' Vijay whispered to Colin, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

Chunnilal gestured to follow him as he walked away from the stone wall and, to their right, a long, oblong-shaped rock leaned at an angle of 25 degrees upon a smaller rock. Its raised tip had a large indentation in it, giving it the appearance of a rather angry looking giant slug that gazed out over the hills around.

As Radha, supporting her father, reached the terrace, she looked around but there was no one in sight. She yelled out for Vijay and he appeared from behind the slug-shaped rock.

'Come here,' he gestured to them. 'You've got to see this.'

They followed him and came upon a cemented platform constructed outside a natural cave beneath the slug-shaped rock. Colin was sitting crosslegged on the platform, looking distinctly uncomfortable, and before him sat Chunnilal and another man, dishevelled, his hair unkempt and his beard straggly. Both men were smoking bidis.

'The old man is the baba who looks after the temple within the cave,' Vijay explained quietly. 'He's completely blind and lives on donations from the villagers and tourists who come by.'

Colin grinned at Radha as they joined him. 'This is amazing,' he remarked. 'Apparently this cave has a 5,000-year-old history. It's connected with the characters from the Mahabharata, which you told me about. Awesome, isn't it, how we've been talking about the Gita and the clues and now we come across a site connected to the Nine and Asoka the Great, which also has a legend about the Mahabharata? Apparently the five brothers had come here; what was their name?'

'The Pandavas,' Shukla prompted and asked, 'There is a legend about the Pandavas?'

'Yes. The legend says they had come here with Lord Krishna during their exile. They were requested to stay overnight for a wedding. But Krishna was carrying a lot of gold and jewellery and there was no safe place to leave them. So, he placed them in this cave which was later converted into a temple. He never returned for the valuables, though, and, according to the locals, the treasure is still buried here. Some say that you can see the treasure within the cave but when you enter it the vision disappears.'

'An ancient story about a buried treasure.'Shukla looked thoughtful, 'Many ancient legends were born out of a need to protect something. What if the story referred to the secret that the Nine hid here? The legend and the temple would have been great ways of ensuring that no one would ever try and look for a treasure that was inaccessible.'

'Shouldn't we move on and look at what we came to see?' Vijay was growing impatient. He nodded to Chunnilal and bowed to the baba, handing him some money. Together with Chunnilal, they walked along a dirt path that led up a slope studded with small rocks and flanked by a stone wall. Where the incline ended, a short flight of stairs led to a second level, where another wall enclosed the remains of the chaitya. A mud path bordered by stones led to a brick platform. Where the bricks hadn't been cemented over during preservation work, their age was evident. Most of the bricks used here seemed to have been the original ones.

On the brick platform stood a circular wall, with an opening to the east. While the inside wall of this circle had a cement face, the exterior was exposed brick.

But what they didn't expect to see was the structure that lay within the circular wall. It was shaped like a gear wheel and had a gap between the teeth that perfectly aligned with the opening in the surrounding circular wall. The cog wheel was completely cemented all around, with not one brick visible.

Chunnilal, in the meanwhile, had wandered off to one side, gazing into the distance as they took in the sight.

Above them loomed a second terrace, over 50 feet higher, built on the summit of the hill and enclosed by a stone wall. A flight of stone stairs led to this.

'What's in there?' Colin wondered.

'Let's check.' Vijay started for the staircase.

He sprinted up the stairs, and reached a small landing that lay ten feet below the upper terrace. The stone wall that enclosed the ruins on the upper terrace rose from this level. To his right, adjoining the wall, was a stone platform built entirely of brick. Before him rose the stairway with the final stretch of nine stairs. Vijay quickly dashed to the top and surveyed the ruins that lay before him. There was nothing left of the structures that must have stood here centuries ago. All that remained now were the foundations; brick walls that stood six inches above the ground.

Colin and Radha joined Vijay and gazed at the ruins.

'Was this the monastery?' Colin asked, looking around.

Radha nodded. 'Probably.'

To their right, a series of square brick platforms, two feet high, lined the terrace, their purpose a mystery.

'There's nothing here.' Vijay turned back and began descending the staircase, followed by Colin and Radha.

As they reached the foot of the staircase and arrived at the lower level, Chunnilal shared another legend with them.

'This chakra,' he indicated the cog wheel, 'dates from the time of the Pandavas.'

'What do you mean?' Shukla asked, interested.

'The design of the chakra,' Chunnilal explained, 'is based on a game of dice that they played in ancient times. This structure was built for the Pandavas to play dice.'

'And why would they play dice on top of a hill?' Colin wanted to know.

'Because this hill has special powers,' Chunnilal replied. 'According to legend, this hill has the ability to imbue people with immense knowledge and learning; so they would be able to play well.'

Colin couldn't understand how knowledge and learning helped in a game of dice which was based on chance. He opened his mouth to remonstrate but Shukla interrupted him, his eyes gleaming with excitement. 'I'll explain later, Colin.' He turned to Vijay. 'This is the place. There is no doubt about it.'

'But where do we look?' Vijay gestured around him. 'Everything is cemented over. If there were any signs left by the Nine, they would have been obliterated aeons ago or covered up by the restoration.'

'I don't think so,' Radha said slowly. While they had been talking, she had been walking among the ruins, lost in thought. 'I think they left us a sign; a very obvious one. Let's go back to the hotel and I'll tell you.'

16.

Day 6 Gurgaon 'They went to Bairat?' Farooq's face twisted into a frown as he contemplated this piece of news. 'And you tell me this now?' There was anger in his voice, but he controlled it. It wouldn't do to lose his temper now. Not, at least, with the man who was on the other end of the line.

'How does that matter?' The voice was curt and seemed to have sensed Farooq's mood. The point is why did they go to Bairat? They are on the trail of something.'

'What's there at Bairat?' Farooq looked at Imtiaz, who had been typing at his laptop ever since he had heard the word Bairat. He had googled the word and come across the same information that Vijay and his friends had.

'If there are ruins from the time of Asoka at Bairat then there must be a link to the Nine.'

Farooq shook his head. 'It doesn't make sense. The topography is all wrong.'

'What do you mean?'

'Remember the description of the cavern? It was in a hill surrounded by forest. Bairat is in Rajasthan. It's a desert out there. No evidence of a forest even 2,000 years ago. And the text spoke of a single hill with a cave at its foot that led to the cavern where they found the secret. Bairat is surrounded by hills.'

'They wouldn't waste their time going there if there wasn't something there.'

'I'm not saying there's nothing there. All I'm saying is that this isn't where we'll find it. It's not the hiding place.'

'In any case, you'd better go and see what there is to be found at Bairat.' There was a click and the caller hung up.

Farooq stared angrily at the telephone receiver in his hand. With a visible effort he recovered his composure and looked at Imtiaz. 'Get the men and equipment ready. We leave in 10 minutes.'

Devious Clues!

Radha stood facing the rest of the group. They were gathered in Vijay's room at their hotel in Jaipur.

'It occurred to me when I walked around the cog wheel,' she began, picking up the metal disk with the verse inscribed on it. 'Look at this disk. And then try and recall what you saw at Bairat.' She held up the disk with its inscribed face turned towards them, so they could see the inscriptions.

It struck them immediately.

'It's the structure at Bairat.' Colin slapped his forehead.

Vijay groaned. 'What idiots we are!'

Radha grinned. 'While you guys were going on about the Mahabharata, I counted the number of teeth on the cog wheel at Bairat. There were twenty-seven in number; exactly the number of teeth in the cog wheel on this disk.'

'So this cog wheel has a link to that gear like structure that Chunnilal claimed was used by the Pandavas to play dice.' Colin summarised and threw up his hands. 'Devious clues!'

'I think there's more,' Radha continued. 'Both the cog wheel and the outer circle on this disk have gaps corresponding to the gaps in the structure we saw at Bairat. However, when we align the inscriptions to get the verse the gaps in the outer circle and the cog wheel are not aligned. What happens if we align the two gaps?'

'But the key locks the disks in place,' Colin pointed out. 'The only way to get the circles to move is to take the key out.'

Radha removed the key and rotated the cog wheel, so the gap in the wheel aligned with the gap in the outer circle.

There was a soft click.

'What happened?' Colin squinted at the disk.

But nothing seemed to have changed. Radha frowned. She picked up the disk from the table to study it closely and gasped.

The metal slab had split into two parts; the slab that contained the outer circle and the first and last lines of the verse had separated from the slab that had been affixed below it and which contained the cogwheel and the hollow for the key.

'Amazing,' Shukla murmured in wonder. 'I did not see the joint between the two slabs. Whoever created this slab possessed amazing workmanship; or amazing technology.'

'More likely workmanship,' Vijay remarked. 'Technology over 2,000 years ago? Kind of like the story of the nine books written by the Nine.'

Radha carefully separated the upper portion of the slab from the lower one and placed the part with the gear wheel on the table.

Inscribed on the slab, enclosing the gearwheel, was a circle with a gap at its lower end, aligning perfectly with the gap in the teeth of the cog wheel. Around this outer circle were randomly scattered circles, squares and rectangles etched into the dark metal.

Colin saw it first. 'It's a map of Bairat.'

'And the squares and circles around the gearwheel are the locations of the ruins on that terrace,' Radha finished.

'What's that there?' Vijay pointed to a small hollow in the shape of a parallelogram that lay directly above the gear wheel. 'All the other shapes are etched as outlines. Why is this three dimensional?'

Almost before he had finished speaking, the answer came to him. 'It's a trapdoor.'

'But where is it located?' Colin scratched his head. 'We looked everywhere.'

'It's in a spot that is on the opposite side of the gaps,' Radha pointed out.

There was silence for a few moments as everyone thought hard. Then, Colin spoke up. 'I think I know where,' he beamed. 'Let's go back there and I'll show you.'

17.

Day 6 Bairat Vijay stood and gazed upon the hill that was now shrouded in darkness. There was a half moon in the sky that cast a pale glow upon the trees, rocks and shrubs around.

'Let's go.' Vijay strode purposefully towards the hill. He pulled out a portable lamp from his bag. A powerful beam of light swept up the hillside, cutting through the darkness and illuminating the cobbled path.

He beckoned to the others, 'Let's see what the Nine hid out here.'

They climbed up to where they had seen the cog wheel earlier in the day. 'Okay, so where's the trapdoor?' Vijay looked at Colin.

Colin produced the metal slab with the gearwheel. 'Okay, this is how I see it. This is the only shape that isn't a circle, square or rectangle. It is a parallelogram. Why? All the structures here with straight lines as edges have only right angles. No parallelograms. The only thing I can think of that would justify the parallelogram is that the trapdoor is located at a different elevation than the cog wheel.'

Understanding dawned on Vijay. He swung the beam of light to illuminate the raised platform on the small landing that lay between the two larger terraces.