It was fine. I hated small, hidden places; they suffocated me.
I gulped, gathering my courage, and we both opened it. I looked at the rope ladder hanging inside.
“We should go inside,” I said, even though I was scared. We couldn’t see where it’d take us.
I entered first, then Eklavya followed.
One after another, we descended deeper into it. It was small, but our eyes remained wide with astonishment when we reached the lowest point.
We couldn’t see a wall. It was wide open as long as we could see through the darkness and the lamp’s light.
Eklavya grabbed my hand, and we moved further inside.
Then, suddenly, we spotted six to seven-foot-long iron tubes, or perhaps cylinders, which were not too wide but tapered from one end to the other.
“What’s this?” I asked as Eklavya touched my shoulder, poking me.
Lifting my gaze, I followed his as he asked,“What the hell is that?”
I felt shaken. My throat went dry.
My eyes widened in shock and then narrowed to improve my vision in the dim light from the torch that barely reached far. It was pitch-black, massive, and dangerous—something I’d never seen or heard of before.
“It looks dangerous,” Eklavya said nervously, and I turned to see more than one. There were many, nearly hundreds.
As I stepped closer to it, I gulped in fear and worry. It had wheels and a long tube—the same one I had seen in abundance.
I scrutinised its cylindrical design, and my mind instantly thought of the gun Rashmika gave me. It fired gunpowder, and I sensed this was precisely the same model, just the more dangerous and destructive version, as I had guessed.
“It blasts gunpowder,” I said, looking at Eklavya, who was furrowing his brows at me.
“The one you tested, right?”
I nodded.“But this one would cause major destruction; it could kill many at once,” I stated, and he asked, confused.
“How do you know about that?”
I licked my dry lips and looked at him.“Look at their size. Gunpowder is explosive; it detonates like a volcano when it comes into contact with fire. It can burn a mass of people easily at a time, and hundreds of them are here,” I explained, and he nodded, dabbing the sweat off his forehead.
He looked scared, more than I was.
“But there must be a way to get them out,” I said, raking my sight around as he furrowed his brows.
“What do you mean?” he asked, biting his lips. His cheeks had reddened; the fear was evident in his eyes.
“I mean, they definitely can’t get them out through this narrow, hidden secret passage. They’re heavy; they would need people to push them out in large numbers, and there must be a way to slide them out since they have wheels,” I verbalised the whole possibility to him.
Suddenly, he said,“Do you know how dangerous this is? This thing could blow a whole village, and I don’t know what the hell we’re doing—”
“Yes,” I interrupted him firmly.
His eyes widened in shock.“What?” he stammered, swallowing hard.
“There are things that could blow the entire kingdom away.”
“No, no, no... Agastya. It’s too dangerous, brutal, and destructive,” he said, stepping closer, and I shook my head.
“It is not. It’s our defence. We have no personal animosity towards Mehrangarh, but they’re assisting those invaders, and this is our response. They’re considering using these in the war, and if we can destroy them, then we’ve already won half the battle,” I tried to persuade him, but he shook his head.
