The mango was glowing again.
Nikāma tried to ignore it.
He tightened the cloth sack and muttered, "If you start chanting Vedic verses, I swear I'm eating you."
The mango pulsed in reply.
Kaśyapī cocked her head. "It's resonating with Dvayakṣara frequency. That mango isn't ordinary."
"No kidding," Nikāma groaned. "It buzzes when I lie. Yesterday it sang when I tripped."
The goat, still adjusting the miniature saddlebag slung across his back, didn't even turn. "That mango is likely a Jñāna-Bīja, a Seed of Cognition. Last recorded sighting was in Yuga 49. It's basically an ancient knowledge storage device in fruit form. Very experimental. Mostly banned. And occasionally sentient."
"I knew it!" Nikāma shouted. "I ate half of it! What if it's growing inside me?!"
Kaśyapī gave him a sideways look. "Congratulations. You may give birth to an idea."
Somewhere beyond causality…
A desk floated in a swirling nebula of rules and regrets.
Atop the desk sat a quill made from phoenix sarcasm, scribbling on its own.
A clerk of the Akṣara Mandala Department of Unexplained Incidents adjusted his monocle and squinted at a form.
INCIDENT 1034022B: — Unauthorized glyph activation by karmically deficient mortal— Spontaneous reawakening of Seed-Class Relic— Reassignment of cursed goat-entity to active consultancy— Potential breach of the Primordial Pause Agreement
He frowned.
Then, with the weary sigh of one who'd seen too many timelines implode before lunch, stamped the scroll:
🕉️ "PROCEED WITH COSMIC DISCRETION."
Back in the land of Too Many Trees…
The forest had thinned. The horizon widened into rolling hills of gold-green grass, dotted with massive yajña pillars—each one engraved with forgotten mantras, their tops crackling faintly with static wisdom.
Nikāma, despite the weirdness, was starting to enjoy the breeze.
Until he stepped into a hole.
"Augh!"
He crashed face-first into the ground.
Again.
"Do you practice falling?" the goat asked.
"I think the universe is training me for it," Nikāma mumbled, spitting out a pebble.
But what he'd landed on wasn't just earth. Beneath him, etched deep into the soil, was a spiraling yantra, lines glowing faintly like buried lightning.
Kaśyapī landed beside him, wings flaring.
"...Oh no."
"What 'oh no'?" Nikāma said, brushing dirt from his tunic. "Is this bad?"
The goat sniffed the air. "It's... a Parokṣa Gateway."
"A what-now?"
"A hidden door," Kaśyapī muttered, feathers ruffling. "To a realm of secret knowledge. They don't open for just anyone."
Before Nikāma could protest, the glyph beneath his feet flared bright blue—and the world tilted.
Somewhere beneath logic...
Nikāma landed with a grunt, sliding across obsidian tiles carved in languages he couldn't read. Light came from nowhere and everywhere, casting long shadows that flickered out of sync with his movements.
The goat landed on his back with a thud.
"You could've warned me!" Nikāma snapped.
"I did!" the goat snapped back. "You just ignored the warning."
Kaśyapī fluttered down slowly, folding her wings. "We're in the Vault of Forgotten Threads."
Nikāma looked around. Books floated in orbits. Weapons hung in the air, vibrating with the weight of past wars. In the center of the chamber was a mirror made of memory, framed by a serpent swallowing its own tail.
"It's beautiful…" Nikāma whispered.
Then, from the mirror, a figure stepped out.
It was Nikāma.
But older. Wiser. And absolutely furious.
"You idiot," the older Nikāma said. "You're not supposed to be here yet."
"...Hi?"
Meanwhile, in the god-cubicle dimension...
The divine intern, Bhṛgu-Assistant-Class-7, was staring at the timeline monitor in horror.
"Um. Sir? We have a Nikāmic Overlap."
The supervisor dropped his mug of metaphor.
"Not again."