Chapter 11: At the Foot of the Shivlinga

That mountain was impossibly abrupt, as if it had materialised from thin air.

Judging by its location, it had to be at the Antarctic Pole.

From where we were, it was at least two or three hundred kilometres away.

Plate movement can create mountains, but not in under an hour.

And for a mountain to be visible from two or three hundred kilometres away…

That meant it must be at least five thousand metres high—maybe even taller than Everest.

I sat in the snow, staring at the mountain, not even noticing when the quake finally stopped.

Amit recovered first, pressed the walkie-talkie, and shouted:

"Calling Samudra Shakti 2! Calling Samudra Shakti 2!"

Still just static—no response.

Amit scratched his helmet and patted me: "What do we do? Go check it out?"

I shook my head firmly: "There’s not enough fuel. If we go, we can’t come back."

Amit picked up the bike, wiped snow off the fuel gauge, and said gloomily:

"We just escaped, used up extra fuel. Without resupply, there’s no way we’ll make it back."

Resupply?

The quake must have devastated the Antarctic coast.

Who knew if comms would be restored, let alone if a plane could bring supplies.

When I volunteered, I’d thought about the risks.

But now, staring death in the face, despair seeped into my heart, as cold as the endless snow before me.

So be it.

After all, my purpose in coming here was to uncover the cause of the Antarctic megaquake.

My gut told me that strange mountain was at the heart of it all.

As Chanakya said, "To hear the Way in the morning and die in the evening is enough."

Since the odds of survival were slim, why not… leave a mark on history?

With that thought, my spirits lifted. I joked:

"Let’s go check it out! Worst case, they’ll put up a tombstone for us—the ‘Rohan Menon and Amit Rao’ memorial."

"Future climbers can visit our graves when they come to challenge this mountain. Not a bad legacy."

Amit laughed: "No way, I’m not getting buried with you."

We both forced a laugh, the sound brittle in the endless white. But it was enough to break the tension—a little desi gallows humour, our only shield against dread.

We got back on the snowmobile, and Amit gunned it toward the mountain.

I kept trying to contact Samudra Shakti 2, but still got no response.

The closer we got, the faster my heart pounded.

It was a conical mountain, with a sharp, pointed summit. It looked less like a mountain and more like a shivlinga thrust up from the bowels of the earth—impossibly huge, mythic in its proportions.

By my estimate, it was over ten thousand metres high, with a base at least two kilometres across.

Two hours passed in a blur. Just as the fuel was about to run out, we reached the edge of the cone mountain.

Less than a kilometre remained.

But that last kilometre was like a bottomless gulf:

Abysses split the two-kilometre-thick ice sheet.

Looking down, I could faintly see lava flowing in the depths.

Beyond the fire and ice loomed the dark wall of the cone mountain.

I took out my binoculars. The wall looked smooth, with no soil or snow cover—I couldn’t tell what kind of rock it was.

Amit, ever bold, took out ropes and ice screws, trying to find a way closer.

We shouldered our survey gear, climbing up and down like two ants.

When tired, we rested on a ledge.

When hungry, we shared our last bits of poha and energy bars.

Three hours later, we finally stood at the foot of the cone mountain.

The angle between the mountain and the ground was at least 80 degrees—almost a sheer cliff, impossible to climb.

I checked the time. It was already midnight.

But it was polar day in Antarctica—the sun never set.

Exhausted, we pressed on by sheer willpower.

Because of the quake and magma, the temperature at the pole was only minus twenty Celsius.

Amit took off his glove and pressed his bare hand to the dark mountain wall.

The next moment, Amit asked a question that made my skin crawl:

"Rohan, is this cone mountain really a mountain?"

A shiver ran down my spine. The silence around us was so profound, I could hear my own heart pounding, and the distant hiss of wind against this impossible structure.