The walls of the honeycomb-shaped compartment were slightly warped, as though they had been crushed from above. A forced-air device attached to some kind of humidity controller was malfunctioning, and it gave off a rattling, threatening sound. The muggy air blowing in through the duct carried sand inside, creating a brownish yellow pattern on the walls of the corridor. Metal containers had been stacked along all the walls—most of them were corroded, their doors hanging open, the equipment inside covered with thick red rust. Dozens of pipes and electrical lines ran along the high ceiling, and all were coated in a thick layer of dust.
“There is an express lift up ahead. The one with the lit orange sign goes to the control area.”
They moved into the corridor. Its floor was layered with a thin carpet of grayish sand, or perhaps dust, and it sucked at Siddhārtha’s feet as he walked. Several lifts were visible, but only two appeared to be operational. The shutter door covering one of them had buckled and ripped like old paper, parts of it falling away to reveal the cavernous depths beyond. Siddhārtha heard the echoing sound of a compressor working somewhere off in the distance.
“Why is no one here?” he asked, peering up and down the long corridor.
“Once, this place and every level above it was filled with citizens. It was a lively city. Clothing, food, shelter—everything was meticulously managed and planned. People here lived to be five hundred years of age on average, and they lived rich lives.”
“What happened?”
“I do not know. When we first came to this land, Tovatsue, at least, showed no signs of decay. This was truly the kingdom of the gods that the Brahmin said it was—and many were the men who saw the city in her glory.”
“Men? Humans?”
Like a shadow, Asura glided down the corridor. Perhaps she was weightless, for where she stepped she left no marks in the dust.
“In those days, there was a close connection between this place and the world of men. Some of those who came here built the city-states of Sumer and Mohenjo-Daro. The aqueducts and sewers, the paved roads, the centrally controlled lighting, the moving stairs . . . all were built with knowledge obtained here.”
“I did not know that any men had traveled to places such as this.”
“Have you ever heard of the towers in Egypt they call the pyramids?”
“The stupas?”
“You could call them that.”
“I heard stories of them from merchants who came from the west. They said they were as large as the hills and mountains.”
“The technology used to construct the pyramids was obtained here,” Asura said. “They were built using a variety of gravity field generation.”
The prince continued on down the corridor, his mind empty, his gaze drifting aimlessly ahead. He could not begin to imagine how Tuṣita was connected to the world of men, but he could understand how, if men came here, it would have a profound influence on their world.
“Get in.”
Asura had paused before a lift. Siddhārtha turned and stepped inside the square metal box that served to carry its passengers.
There was a slight vibration and the lift began to move, yet though he knew they were in motion, the prince had no idea whether they were going up or down.
A sudden fear struck his chest, becoming a physical constriction in his throat.
Perhaps I will be stuck in this tiny space for an eternity?
“Asura!” he cried, half choking. His own voice in his ears sounded deadened, like a voice at the bottom of the ocean. “Asura!”
“Yes, my prince?”
Siddhārtha heard a soft, familiar voice behind him.
“You are here!”
Asura stood, back to the metal wall, legs slightly crossed. Her large eyes glimmered mischievously.
“Might we say that man prefers the company of evil to the ache of loneliness?”
The prince hung his head. Sweat mingled with the chagrined tears that ran down his cheeks.
Asura laughed gently. “No worries, my prince. I do not judge you. That is just what Maudgalyayana and that lot would say; pay it no mind.”
The lift continued its downward progress. As the two descended through the many levels of Tovatsue, the signs of devastation grew steadily worse. Abandoned compartments stood like dark caves behind countless rusting doors. Though parts of some walls still emitted a greenish luminescence, many sections had gone dark entirely. Others were split by enormous cracks, their tiles askew, fallen to the floor or smashed to dust. Sections of the corridor walls were severely warped and discolored to a sickly yellow hue by what appeared to be fire damage; in some places the damaged walls bulged out into the middle of the passageways, nearly cutting off all travel. Clearly some form of intense heat had hit the corridors from the outside. Perhaps Asura’s attacks penetrated this far.
Only one section of the ruined city still bustled with activity—a corridor that ran alongside the power lines that stretched up from the nuclear reactor at the bottom of the city, crossing the metropolis at its center. The prince could see a well-illuminated area where it seemed workers had once been housed. He could also hear sounds from within the undamaged corridor—people talking, some kind of work going on. Whoever they were, they seemed strangely separated from the rest of the city down here, like miners stranded deep in a mine.
Siddhārtha wondered if they even knew what was going on outside their walls. And he wondered if human misery was an eternal constant. Were men fated to live their lives knowing nothing, understanding nothing?
“Just how large are your armies, Asura?”
Asura lifted an eyebrow at Siddhārtha. “Some say they number sixty million, some say six hundred billion. Whenever one falls it will rise again as two. When two fall, they rise again as four—and we have been fighting Śakra’s troops for a very long time, so I’ve completely lost track of their numbers. Śakra’s troops are well trained, well equipped, and eager to provide me with reinforcements in this manner.”
The prince thought gloomily about the soldiers’ future, wondering how many of them knew their own origin or the meaning or purpose for which they fought, or how long the war would last.
“We are here,” Asura announced a moment later. She stopped the lift and pointed toward a large set of doors. There were cracks in the luminescent material that covered the doors, and a pale, silvery metal was visible beneath.
“Here?”
“This leads to the level where Maitreya may be found.”
Gingerly, the prince put his hand upon the doors and pushed. They opened inward without a sound. A waterfall of pale blue light spilled down from the high ceiling above. Siddhārtha’s shadow stretched across the room. He looked down at the floor and his eyes widened. “Asura! You have no shadow.”
“Shadow?”
“Look upon the floor! Only my shadow can be seen.”
“My prince, this is because I’m not actually here. I remain upon the battlefield where we first met. From where I stand, I can see the sky above Tovatsue and the blue-ringed explosions of the lithium bombs. The sky-shell over Tovatsue is such that even with the incredible heat generated by the bombs and the radiation, we’re having trouble breaking through. It’ll take another several thousand, perhaps a million, years before we see real progress. If this is what those monks meant by ‘former karma,’ they may have been more accurate than I thought.” Asura’s voice came drifting into the prince’s mind like a gentle breeze over a great distance.
He glared at her. “Asura!”
“We’d best continue on, my prince,” she said, pointing down the corridor with her chin. “Go see what Maitreya is, and then return to your world at once. You must not forget what you find here—what the faith of your world rests upon.”
Then the prince walked for what seemed to be an impossibly long time—hours, days. He grew greatly fatigued.
At last he heard Asura’s voice again. “There, through those doors. Maitreya is there.”
The corridor ended at a giant pair of doors. They were flat, made of silvery metal without ornamentation, and were several dozen meters in height and width. They closed off the entire end of the enormous corridor.
“How can I possibly open such large doors?” The prince craned his neck to look up at them.
“Do not stop, my prince. Keep walking,” Asura said from behind him. His legs carried him forward of their own volition. A numbness crept over his mind, dulling all thought and emotion except the nightmarish fear that began to rise within him.
“Straight ahead! Go!”
The doors were directly in front of him now, filling his sight. He walked steadily, propelled by a mysterious strength, striding directly into the flat metal surface.
For a moment he lost all sensation. For the first time, the prince felt that his own death was near.