Fire on The Plains of India: The Memoirs of Nathanial Kenworthy, #3

By Roger Kenworthy

Fire on the Plains of India is Volume 3 in the Nathanial Kenworthy adventure series. In this page turning tale, Nathanial ends up in ancient India and witnesses first hand an atomic war between two brothers, Bhuvanesh and Mahajan. While this duel is reminiscent of the deadly conflict in Rome between Romulus and Remus or the biblical rivalry between Cain and Abel, nevertheless, the outcome can wipe-out the lives of millions of people and not just a single soul.

Caught up in the passion for the journey, our time traveler is tittering between joining his past and leaving his present when he is unexpectedly abducted by the cruel Mahajan. As a psychological battle takes place between the two, the bodies begin to pile up as the plains of India turn red from the blood of the countless warriors killed in battle.

As the war rages on, Nathanial is no longer an asset to his captors and he is prepared to meet the benevolent gods. As he is about to meet his end, good fortune smiles down upon him from an unexpected source. While his future is alive, death from the skies shakes the countryside, the towns, and the villages… and the blood of innocent men, women and children baptizes the streets, rivers and valleys of this mystical land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Kenworthy
• Release date: Dec 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519969804

Roger Kenworthy

Roger was born in a small town in southern Ontario, Canada, and always yearned to travel the world to experience new adventures within a variety of foreign lands. Higher education opened the doors to achieve this goal. Fulfilling his wanderlust provides a rich and diversified quilt of experiences for his books. The many characters found in Roger's books are forged from the love of adventure manifested over decades of travel and research. He welcomes any comments and can be reached at [e-mail]

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Roger Kenworthy

Authored By Roger Kenworthy

All rights reserved.

ISBN 10: 1519680856

ISBN 13: 978-1519680853

Thank you for downloading this e-book or purchasing this paper book, which remain the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, nor distributed for commercial or noncommercial purposes. If you enjoyed this adventure, please write a review and encourage your friends to purchase their own copy at Amazon.com, where they can also discover my other books. I appreciate your support for my grandfather’s adventures.

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

If you enjoyed this adventure, please write a review. I appreciate your support for my grandfather’s adventures.

Roger C. Kenworthy, PhD, 2015

Covers for the series by Leigh McGlone

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Kenworthy Family

The Kenworthy name has long been synonymous with travelers and adventurers; James Kenworthy set foot in Philadelphia on a hot day in the summer of 1813, William Kenworthy walked into New York City in 1826, and the English convict, Thomas Kenworthy, sailed to Australia in 1849.

My enigmatic family’s history is rich indeed. Throughout time, we find that many of my relatives were in the midst of some of the bloodiest battles, the greatest mysteries, and the wildest adventures witnessed by humankind.

Recorded history tells us that Samuel Kenworthy fought at the side of William the Conqueror; Charles Kenworthy was at the very heart of the War of the Roses; Daniel Kenworthy paddled alongside Radisson and Grosseilliers in the New World; and Frederick Kenworthy fought against none other than the mighty Rommel Corps in the African Campaign during World War II.

It is with the spirit of my famous progenitors that these stories about my grandfather, Nathanial Horatio Kenworthy, have been lovingly passed down along through the generations to be shared with the modern world.

Fire on the Plains of India

Memoirs of Nathanial Kenworthy (Vol.3)

In this next exciting adventure, my Nathanial Kenworthy makes his way to the mysterious lands of India. He witnesses the carnage of a disastrous war between two brothers, which took place over five thousand years ago and left the very heart of India virtually destroyed. Even after all these millennia, traces of the utter destruction that occurred in the distant past are still visible to us in the modern world, which serves as a warning for our future.

But...we will heed that warning?

If you enjoy this volume of my Grandfather’s greatest adventures, here are the first three books of this series:

Secret of the Nile (The Prelude)

Perils of the Amazon (Vol. 1)

Spartan Resurrection (Vol. 2)

Fire on the Plains of India

Memoirs of Nathanial Kenworthy (Vol.3)

Time and another Adventure

Traveling, but Staying Put

Unexpected Offering

The Battle Lines are Drawn

Recollecting the Future

Facing the Enemy

A Cunning Abduction

Short-Lived Truce

High-Stakes Warfare

Supplicate or Retaliate?

Message to the Future

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Chapter 1

Time and another Adventure

A loud peal of thunder unexpectedly summoned me back to my mother's parlor in rural England. My half-opened eyes adjusted to the darkened room to see that the last embers in our fireplace were slowly flickering and about to announce their impending death. With the fireplace begging for more wood, I slowly got out of my warm chair and grabbed a few pieces from the pile to help my grandfather and I keep warm on this horrid afternoon. After stoking the fire, I gazed over and saw my dear grandpa curled up with his favorite blanket, off on a spiritual journey to some unknown location. Quietly, I made my way into the kitchen, put the kettle on the wood stove, and, with a plate of biscuits in hand, found myself back in our living room, preparing to bring the dead back to life.

Grapes, come on; it's time to return to the land of the living.

Huh...oh, thanks, Roger, but I was not sleeping, just resting my eyes.

Ummm, of course, Grandfather. Now the kettle's on the boil, your favorite biscuits are at hand, the fire is burning nicely again, there's a cold southwester slamming torrential rain down upon our home, and it's as dark as the bottom of a mine shaft, although it is only three in the afternoon. So, there's no excuse for you avoiding telling me about your incredible journey to India. You've been promising to tell me for a full fortnight, and still not a word has been said about your subcontinent escapade.

OK, you talked me into it...wait until I clean these darn spectacles, so I can see the look of amazement on your face when I tell you about one of my greatest adventures ever.

I'm all ears and no tongue.

With that pronouncement, we both laughed a hearty laugh.

Right then...as I mentioned to you just a few days ago, I was utterly exhausted from my surreal experience with the Spartan warriors and their mighty leader Leonidas. I had not slept in my own bed for months on end and longed to rest these weary bones in the comfort of my own home and to walk around my precious garden. Although I was still very tired, my wanderlust began to take hold of me, and soon I was itching to set forth on a new adventure.

It must've been a real dilemma, Granddad—you knew you needed to rest, but you also knew you needed to wander. Even as a youngster, I understand that's a very tough decision to make.

It was a real conundrum; however, my time with the Xingu gave me the opportunity to have the best of both worlds, since I could stay at home, and I could travel as well. That is not just hyperbole, my favorite and only grandson. I made up my mind that my soul would be on the move again, regardless of whether my body was not capable of doing so.

Grandfather, I really enjoy when you're talking in such great riddles; they're priceless as a pouch of rare gold Roman coins.

Thank you and I must say that you certainly know how to butter an old piece of bread. You remember my spiritual journey with the Xingu shaman and our adventure to save Captain Simeon Parsons from the evil spirit Xingi, do you not?

Yes, still I enjoy hearing your stories again and again—I never tire of those great days that you spent as a youth traveling around the world.

"Open those willing ears to my story yet one more time. In order to rescue the captain, the shaman and I ingested a handful of Lophophora williamsii, Datura inoxia, and Genus psilocybe. These sacred plants, harvested by the Xingu, are the conduits to the spirit world, a way to be in touch with their ancestors, and identify any evil spirits who may interfere with daily tribal life. They are potent elixirs from the spirits for entry into the spirit world. I must say it was a mind-altering and life-changing experience that I never forgot about, even after seven decades had passed in this world."

Granddad, what do you think was the most important thing that you learned from your time with the Xingu of the Amazon Basin?

That is an easy question to answer; it is our modern-day misunderstanding of time and how most people in general have no idea that they can change what has occurred in the past as they travel to the past. They can also visit the future, as well as change an outcome even though it has never even occurred.

Granddad, it’s just downright impossible to go back in time; once something has happened, it's happened, and we are incapable of returning to the event. As my headmaster, Robert Hawkins-Smith, says, 'When it's done, it's done.' And to visit the future before it even happens is just as farfetched. Please, Grandfather, don't confuse this young lad with such ideas.

Suddenly, my granddad's eyes narrowed, and I knew full well what that meant—another golden moment of wisdom from a truly humble and enlightened man.

Now, I know I am not the most educated or most intelligent human who has ever walked this beautiful world we now find ourselves in, but I swear to you, on your father's grave, that I did travel back in time and I never left my cottage to do so. Let me explain...but please keep an open mind, and just as a wine becomes better with age and a cheese tastes more flavorful over time, let my words and experiences settle within the corridors of your mind and let them age and mellow with the treasured experiences in your life. It is only after going down the long path we call life that you will truly realize the importance of my words, which I gladly pass along to you this day.

Granddad continued his wise words. "There are many differences between what we think about time and what the reality of time is. Time appears to us in the Western world as linear, while those in the Eastern world view time as circular. We here in England, for example, seem to look at time for what it appears to represent instead of what it really is. We see it as linear, which then transposes it to something profane, since the time we have is rushing to an end and that end is our end. On the other hand, Eastern minds experience time as sacred and endless; hence, they are not rushing to their untimely end...rather, they are traveling forward to another state of being. That other state is an eternal home, where we live here and pass there and live here again and pass there throughout eternity.

We fear time since we fear the past, and we fear the future as we live in the present. Then the day arrives when we no longer have a present; we pass this life, and the present ceases to exist as our body is no longer capable of carrying out its regular and normal functions, such as breathing and thinking. The present represents life, our one and only life at the exact moment, and metaphorically speaking, our past is dead while our future will not reach fruition, since it never existed. So, to sum up the Western view of time—the past is a memory while the future is a crapshoot. It is of little wonder that we feel such anxiety about time.

I had to agree with Gramps about the way my culture felt about time; anxiety, guilt, hopelessness—all those were connected to time.

"Just look at how our language reflects our angst about time. We say things like, 'We live on borrowed time; we spend time; time is cruel; time is heartless; time is money; time is fleeting; time takes its toll; and so on and so on. To me, these words all appear to be negative, as we lose a costly commodity that has been given to us by the Creator. Hence, since we only live at this time and do not live throughout time, we feel angst, anxiety, and sorrow over what happens to us and our physical bodies and minds over time.

Now, if we looked at time differently, such as we live and pass and live again eternally, how would we here on our fog-shrouded island think about and respond to time? Surely, there would be a big difference, and we could enjoy this life and this time, knowing that we could live and relive what has happened and what is about to happen.

My young mind was spinning at an alarming rate, trying to comprehend what my dear grandfather so obviously thought about time. Little did I know that it'd take an entire lifetime of searching, reading, and meditating to grasp what this wise man had known and practiced throughout his life.

"Now, since we view time as linear, it indicates motion, and we then go about measuring time in a whole handful of ways. We measure time in days, hours, minutes, and so forth. Then we also have the seasons, where we measure winter and summer. In this modern-day world, we need to have a means to coordinate our economic activities, since businesses would fail miserably if we did not agree upon meeting and working at a specific time and for a specific length of time each and every day of our lives. Can you imagine every one of the hundreds of workers at the Green-Adams Boiler Factory wandering in at any time of the day to do their work? Of course not, so the way we measure time is necessary in this day and age, yet, when we look at it as such, we move away from its sacred nature and the divine connection that we have with time and our Creator.

So, we should accept the modern-day means to measure time but not accept the trilogy of time where we have the past, the present, and the future in nice, little compartments. Since it is organized in this fashion, one segment of time cannot interfere, overlap, or impinge upon another compartment or measurement of time. It is a difficult concept, yet a necessary one to accept in order to be able to transcend time as we move to experience the past again and to experience the future one more time, although it has never happened in the logical sequence of time as we in this day and age think that it should occur.

Wow, Grapes was really on a philosophical tangent this time. Although, I gasped for air between each word that came from him, I was, nonetheless, lost in my own battle with time as I tried to imagine what it'd be like to return to my Latin exam a fortnight ago and receive a much higher grade than what I'd just recently earned.

I see those brilliant green eyes rolling and hazing over like a fox caught unexpectedly in the brilliance of a roaring bonfire; however, do not leave me yet. There is so much more to tell about time and our misconception of this miraculous gift from our compassionate Creator. While we view time errantly, other cultures do not share our jaundiced view of time. The natives of the Amazon, for example, have no words in their lexicon for birthday, hours, or minutes. Hence, a birthday never passes, an hour is never lost, and a minute is never taken. They never spend time, waste time, or borrow time. Since time does not run out, rather, running around and around, they believe that the past, present, and future exist as one. Time is, indeed, the marvelous unity of a sacred concept, which we, in our Western minds, must analyze, dissect, and split into a profane trilogy.

OK, I replied. What else could I possibly say?

Lad, listen carefully, and this is the true essence of what it means when time is not linear but circular. If time is linear, we live and die and that is the end of you and me and any other member of humankind. It is rather depressing thinking that all of our earthly experiences just end as our bones, muscles, and organs manifest as a pile of dirt after the microbes have finished us off.

I understand this idea, Grandfather.

Right...if time is circular, then there is no ending and there is no beginning; rather, there is just a different state of being. Since our human bodies only carry our bones, muscles, and sinew but are not our spirits, when our time on earth is up, we must pass and be born and reborn in a continuous loop of cosmic timelessness. And since we are born and reborn, we carry our experiences with us in this life, in a past life, and in our future life.

I raised my eyebrows at that last idea my grandfather had just elaborated upon, and he well knew that I doubted what he'd said without giving his words time to incubate in my heart or my mind.

Lad, I see those eyebrows revealing your true feelings to your dear granddad on this idea; please be patient, and do not throw my words to the wind just yet. Let me ask you a simple question, and I believe that you shall comprehend the wisdom and correctness of the assumptions in my last words. Why is a person a natural at something? For example, how did the genius of Mozart manifest at such a young age without training? Or how does an artist with no formal instruction pick up a brush and create a masterpiece well beyond the artist's age or experience?

I did read about Mozart and wondered how he possibly could've been so good at such a young age. When I was six, I was still playing jacks with Dad.

That was a very good question to ask of yourself, and why do you feel that you have met a person before, although you have never met that person in this life? Or, when you walk into a store or a building that you have never been in before, why does everything appear familiar to you? Here is a story that will make the hair on your arms stand up.

Quite a few years ago, I went into old Mr. Scott-Davis's haberdashery just down the road. His shop had been there for decades, and yet I had never once gone to do any business with him. Well, when I went into his store, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, because the stench of burning flesh overtook my mind and stomach. I must have looked in need of help, since the kind owner quickly ran over and asked if he could be of assistance.

Sir, are you all right? You look very pale. Can I get you a glass of water and some smelling salts? You look like you're going to pass out. Here, just sit down and wait until you feel better. Give me a moment, and I'll retrieve my smelling salts and have my wife fetch a nice, warm glass of water for you. OK, now...just relax, and be patient, sir; I'll only be a minute or two.

After a few minutes, Mr. Scott-Davis returned, with his arms full of items he had picked up at the local apothecary. I was touched by his kindness and asked myself why I had avoided his shop for so many years. I was soon going to unravel the mystery behind my predicament to this caring gentleman.

Take this, and drink some warm water along with it, and remember, no cold drinks until you are one hundred percent again. Are you feeling better now? Sir, please tell me what happened to you a few minutes ago. I saw when you entered my shop that you looked fine, and then suddenly it appeared that you were overwhelmed by something or somebody.

Dear Sir, your observation is absolutely correct, since I was feeling fine on my walk here, but as soon as I set my first step into your fine establishment, I was hit unexpectedly, like a gale from the north, with no warning and no mercy. I was overcome by the smell of burning wood and the pain of a poor soul as his flesh was eaten away by the tremendous heat of an unmerciful fire.

Mr. Scott-Davis looked at me with a great degree of unease, and after a few moments of silence, he summoned up his courage and began to speak again. Sir, may I ask what your name is before I attempt to explain the feelings that you experienced when you entered into my shop?

Of course, my name is Nathanial Kenworthy, and I live just up the road, about a fifteen-minute walk from here, in the white cottage with the thatched roof.

He looked at me curiously, and then his eyes grew as large as the eyes of my dear cat, Cassandra, when she had a plump rodent in her sharp claws. Ah, yes, I've heard the name Nathanial Kenworthy, and what I heard was that you're a great adventurer who fights natives, battles dead Spartans, and solves some of the greatest mysteries that have been presented to mankind. I really can't say that I believe all the adventures that you were supposed to have. Perhaps these are all just adventures made up in your mind?

My dear sir, let me ask you this: does it matter if I experienced all of these great adventures in my mind or in different parts of the world? Does it make the adventure false if it is a spiritual journey and not a physical journey? Does it make it true if I experience a physical journey and not a spiritual journey?

Mr. Kenworthy, you're very clever, and the words and questions that you speak demonstrate to me that you're even cleverer than what I've heard about you. However, how can you possibly say and believe that being in a foreign land, fighting real enemies with sharpened spears and deadly daggers, is entirely the same as fighting armed enemies within your mind?

"Mr. Scott-Davis, do you not think that an enemy in your mind can present even greater damage to your body and your soul than an enemy