The Moghul

Nataraj. Through my dance I will show all the many aspects of Shiva—as creator, as destroyer, as lord of the cosmic rhythms of life."
    Hawksworth watched in groggy fascination as she rose and, clasping her hands above her head, bowed toward a small bronze statue of the Dancing Shiva she had placed on a corner table. Then, as the drummer took up a steady cadence and the flute began a searching, high-pitched lament, she struck a statuesque pose of her own, feet crossed, arms above her head. Gradually her eyes began to dart seductively from side to side, growing in power until it seemed her entire body might explode. Abruptly she assumed a second pose, reminiscent of the statue. As the drummer's rhythms slowly increased, she began to follow them with her body, next with her feet, slapping heel, then ball, fiercely against the carpet. The drummer began to call out his bols, the strokes he was sounding on the drum, and as he did she matched his rhythms with the rows of tiny bells around her ankles.
    Hawksworth found himself being drawn into her dance. Her rhythms were not flamboyant like those of the Kathak style, but rather seemed to duplicate some deep natural cadence, as she returned again and again to the pose of the Dancing Shiva. It was pure dance, and he slowly began to feel the power of her controlled sensuality.
    Without warning she began a brief song to Shiva in a high- pitched, repetitive refrain. As she sang, her hands formed the signs for woman, for beauty, for desire, for dozens of other words and ideas Hawksworth could not decipher. Yet her expressive eyes exquisitely translated many of the hand signs, while her body left no mistaking the intensity of their emotion.
    When the song and its mime reached some climactic plateau, she suddenly resumed the pure dance, with the drummer once more reciting the bols as he sounded them. Again she matched his rhythms perfectly.
    After a time she began another verse of the song. By her mime Hawksworth concluded she was describing some aspect of Lord Shiva. When the song concluded, the drummer called out more bols and again she danced only his rhythms. Then she began yet another verse of the song, followed by still more rhythmic dance. The aspects of Shiva that she created all seemed different. Some wise, some fierce, some clearly of a beauty surpassing words.
    As Hawksworth watched, he began to sense some alien power growing around him, enveloping him and his despair, just as she had said. Kamala seemed to be gradually merging with an energy far beyond herself, almost as though she had invoked some primal rhythm of life into existence. And as he watched the growing intensity of her dance he began to experience a deep, almost primitive sense of fear, a stark knowledge of life and death beyond words.
    He found himself fighting to resist the force of some malevolent evil settling about the room, beginning to possess it and all it contained. He felt its power begin to draw out his own life, hungry and insistent, terrifying. And still she danced on, now only rhythms, her body dipping and whirling, her arms everywhere at once, her smile frozen in an ecstatic trance.
    Forcing himself at last to turn away, he looked toward the musicians. They seemed entranced by her as well, captured by the delirium of her dance. He finally caught the eye of the drummer and weakly signaled him to stop. But the man stared as though not comprehending, spellbound. Her dance had now grown to a frenzy, surpassing human limits.
    Summoning his last strength, he tried to pull himself up off the bolster, but he discovered his legs were no longer his own. The room had become a whirling pattern of color and sound, beyond all control.
    Uncertainly he turned and began to feel about the carpet for his boots. His grip closed about a sheath of soft leather and he probed inside. There, strapped and still loaded, was his remaining pocket pistol. Shakily he took it in his hand, checked the prime, and began trying to aim at the long drum resting between the musicians. Now the drum seemed to drift back and forth in his vision, while the players smiled at him with glazed eyes.
    He heard a hiss and felt his hand fly upward, as though unconnected to his body. Then the world around erupted in smoke and flying splinters of wood.
    The shot had been timed perfectly with the end of a rhythm cycle, as the drum exploded into fragments on the sum.
    The smoky room was suddenly gripped in silence. The musicians stared wildly