Lord of Light Page 3

  When the blaze and the tumult had passed, he looked down upon an eerily illuminated scene. He did not bother counting. It was apparent that forty of the flame like things now hung about the place, casting their weird glow: their number had doubled.

  The ritual continued. On the left hand of the Buddha, the iron ring glowed with a pale, greenish light all its own.

  He heard the words "Twice, or none at all" repeated again, and he heard the Buddha say "Sacred seven" once more, in reply.

  This time he thought the mountainside would come apart beneath him. This time he thought the brightness was an afterimage, tattooed upon his retina through closed eyelids. But he was wrong.

  When he opened his eyes it was to look upon a veritable army of shifting thunderbolts. Their blaze jabbed into his brain, and he shaded his eyes to stare down below.

  "Well, Raltariki?" asked Sam, and a bright emerald light played about his left hand.

  "One time again, Siddhartha. Twice, or not at all."

  The rains let up for a moment, and, in the great blaze from the host on the hillside, Tak saw that the one called Raltariki had the head of a water buffalo and an extra pair of arms.

  He shivered.

  He covered his eyes and ears and clenched his teeth, waiting. After a time, it happened. It roared and blazed, going on and on until finally he lost consciousness.

  When he recovered his senses, there was only a grayness and a gentle rain between himself and the sheltering rock. At its base only one figure sat, and it did not wear horns or appear to possess more arms than the customary two.

  Tak did not move. He waited.

  "This," said Yama, handing him an aerosol, "is demon repellent. In the future, I suggest you annoint yourself thoroughly if you intend venturing very far from the monastery. I had thought this region free of the Rakasha, or I would have given it to you sooner."

  Tak accepted the container, placed it on the table before him.

  They sat in Yama's chambers, having taken a light meal there. Yama leaned back in his chair, a glass of the Buddha's wine in his left hand, a half-filled decanter in his right.

  "Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.

  "Yes—and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape—then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect."

  "Oh? And what may that be?"

  "It is not a supernatural creature."

  "But it is all those other things?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not—so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will."

  "Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy—it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either."

  Tak shrugged and sipped his wine. "But of the demons. . . ?"

  "Knowable. I did experiment with them for many years, and I was one of the Four who descended into Hellwell, if you recall, after Taraka fled Lord Agni at Palamaidsu. Are you not Tak of the Archives?"

  "I was."

  "Did you read then of the earliest recorded contacts with the Rakasha?"

  "I read the accounts of the days of their binding. . . "

  "Then you know that they are the native inhabitants of this world, that they were present here before the arrival of Man from vanished Urath."

  "Yes."

  "They are creatures of energy, rather than matter. Their own traditions have it that once they wore bodies, lived in cities. Their quest for personal immortality, however, led them along a different path from that which Man followed. They found a way to perpetuate themselves as stable fields of energy. They abandoned their bodies to live forever as vortices of force. But pure intellect they are not. They carried with them their complete egos, and born of matter they do ever lust after the flesh. Though they can assume its appearance for a time, they cannot return to it unassisted. For ages they did drift aimlessly about this world. Then the arrival of Man stirred them from their quiescence. They took on the shapes of his nightmares to devil him. This is why they had to be defeated and bound, far beneath the Ratnagaris. We could not destroy them all. We could not permit them to continue their attempts to possess the machines of incarnation and the bodies of men. So they were trapped and contained in great magnetic bottles."

  "Yet Sam freed many to do his will," said Tak.

  "Aye. He made and kept a nightmare pact, so that some of them do still walk the world. Of all men, they respect perhaps only Siddhartha. And with all men do they share one great vice."

  "That being. . .?"

  "They do dearly love to gamble. . . . They will make game for any stakes, and gambling debts are their only point of honor. This must be so, or they would not hold the confidence of other gamesters and would so lose that which is perhaps their only pleasure. Their powers being great, even princes will make game with them, hoping to win their services. Kingdoms have been lost in this fashion."

  "If," said Tak, "as you feel, Sam was playing one of the ancient games with Raltariki, what could the stakes have been?"

  Yama finished his wine, refilled the glass. "Sam is a fool. No, he is not. He is a gambler. There is a difference. The Rakasha do control lesser orders of energy beings. Sam, through that ring he wears, does now command a guard of fire elementals, which he won from Raltariki. These are deadly, mindless creatures—and each bears the force of a thunderbolt."

  Tak finished his wine. "But what stakes could Sam have brought to the game?"

  Yama sighed. "All my work, all our efforts for over half a century."

  "You mean—his body?"

  Yama nodded. "A human body is the highest inducement any demon might be offered."

  "Why should Sam risk such a venture?"

  Yama stared at Tak, not seeing him. "It must have been the only way he could call upon his life-will, to bind him again to his task — by placing himself in jeopardy, by casting his very existence with each roll of the dice."

  Tak poured himself another glass of wine and gulped it. "That is unknowable to me," he said.

  But Yama shook his head. "Unknown, only," he told him. "Sam is not quite a saint, nor is he a fool."

  "Almost, though," Yama decided, and that night he squirted demon repellent about the monastery.

  The following morning, a small man approached the monastery and seated himself before its front entrance, placing a begging bowl on the ground at his feet. He wore a single, threadbare garment of coarse, brown cloth, which reached to his ankles. A black patch covered his left eye. What remained of his hair was dark and very long. His sharp nose, small chin, and high, flat ears gave to his face a foxlike appearance. His skin was tight-drawn and well-weathered. His single, green eye seemed never to blink.

  He sat there for perhaps twenty minutes before one of Sam's monks noticed him and mentioned the fact to one of Ratri's dark-robed Order. This monk located a priest and passed the information to him. The priest, anxious to impress the goddess with the virtues of her followers, sent for the beggar to be brought in and fed, offered new garments and given a cell in which to sleep for as long as he chose to remain.

  The beggar accepted the food with the courtesies of a Brahmin, but declined to eat anything other than bread and fruit. He accepted, too, the dark garment of Ratri's Order, casting aside his begrimed smock. Then he looked upon the cell and the fresh sleeping mat that had been laid for him.

  "I do thank you, worthy priest," he said, in a
voice rich and resonant, and altogether larger than his person. "I do thank you, and pray your goddess smile upon you for your kindness and generosity in her name."

  The priest smiled at this himself, and still hoped that Ratri might pass along the hall at that moment, to witness his kindness and generosity in her name. She did not, however. Few of her Order had actually seen her, even on the night when she put on her power and walked among them: for only those of the saffron robe had attended Sam's awakening and were certain as to his identity. She generally moved about the monastery while her followers were at prayer or after they had retired for the evening. She slept mainly during the day; when she did cross their sight she was well-muffled and cloaked; her wishes and orders she communicated directly to Gandhiji, the head of the Order, who was ninety-three years old this cycle, and more than half blind.

  Consequently, both her monks and those of the saffron robe wondered as to her appearance and sought to gain possible favor in her eyes. It was said that her blessing would ensure one's being incarnated as a Brahmin. Only Gandhiji did not care, for he had accepted the way of the real death.

  Since she did not pass along the hall as they stood there, the priest prolonged the conversation, "I am Balarma," he stated. "May I inquire as to your name, good sir, and perhaps your destination?"

  "I am Aram," said the beggar, "who has taken upon himself a ten-year vow of poverty, and of silence for seven. Fortunately, the seven have elapsed, that I may now speak to thank my benefactors and answer their questions. I am heading up into the mountains to find me a cave where I may meditate and pray. I may, perhaps, accept your kindly hospitality for a few days, before proceeding on with my journey."

  "Indeed," said Balarma, "we should be honored if a holy one were to see fit to bless our monastery with his presence. We will make you welcome. If there is anything you wish to assist you along your path, and we may be able to grant this thing, please name it to us."

  Aram fixed him with his unblinking green eye and said, "The monk who first observed me did not wear the robe of your Order." He touched the dark garment as he said it. "Instead, I believe my poor eye did behold one of another color."

  "Yes," said Balarma, "for the followers of the Buddha do shelter here among us, resting awhile from their wanderings."

  "That is truly interesting," said Aram, "for I should like to speak with them and perhaps learn more of their Way."

  "You should have ample opportunity if you choose to remain among us for a time."

  "This then shall I do. For how long will they remain?"

  "I do not know."

  Aram nodded. "When might I speak with them?"

  "This evening there will be an hour when all the monks are gathered together and free to speak as they would, save for those who have taken vows of silence."

  "I shall pass the interval till then in prayer," said Aram. "Thank you."

  Each bowed slightly, and Aram entered his room.

  That evening, Aram attended the community hour of the monks. Those of both Orders did mingle at this time and engage in conversation. Sam did not attend it himself, nor did Tak; and Yama never attended it in person.

  Aram seated himself at the long table in the refectory, across from several of the Buddha's monks. He talked for some time with these, discoursing on doctrine and practice, caste and creed, weather and the affairs of the day.

  "It seems strange," he said after a while, "that those of your Order have come so far to the south and the west so suddenly."

  "We are a wandering Order," replied the monk to whom he had spoken. "We follow the wind. We follow our hearts."

  "To the land of rusted soil in the season of lightnings? Is there perhaps some revelation to occur hereabout, which might be enlarging to my spirit were I to behold it?"

  "The entire universe is a revelation," said the monk. "All things change, yet all things remain. Day follows night. . . each day is different, yet each is day. Much of the world is illusion, yet the forms of that illusion follow a pattern which is a part of divine reality."

  "Yes, yes," said Aram. "In the ways of illusion and reality am I well-versed, but by my inquiry I did mean to know whether perhaps a new teacher had arisen in this vicinity, or some old one returned, or mayhap a divine manifestation, the presence of which it might profit my soul to be aware."

  As he spoke, the beggar brushed from the table before him a red, crawling beetle, the size of a thumbnail, and he moved his sandal as if to crush it.

  "Pray, brother, do not harm it," said the monk.

  "But they are all over the place, and the Masters of Karma have stated that a man cannot be made to return as an insect, and the killing of an insect is a karmically inoperative act."

  "Nevertheless," said the monk, "all life being one, in this monastery all do practice the doctrine of ahimsa and refrain from taking life of any sort."

  "Yet," said Aram, "Patanjali does state that it is the intention rather than the act which governs. Therefore, if I killed with love rather than malice, it would be as if I had not killed. I confess that this was not the case and that malice was present—therefore, even if I did not kill I do bear the burden of the guilt because of the presence of that intention. So I could step upon it now and be none the worse for it, according to the principle of ahimsa. Since I am a guest, however, I of course respect the practice and do not do this thing." With this, he moved his sandal away from the insect, which stood immobile, reddish antennae pricked upward.

  "Indeed, he is a scholar," said one of the Order of Ratri.

  Aram smiled. "Thank you, but it is not so," he stated. "I am only a humble seeker of truth, and on occasion in the past have I been privileged to overhear the discourses of the learned. Would that I might be so privileged again! If there were some great teacher or scholar in the vicinity, then I would most surely walk across a bed of hot coals to sit at his feet and to hear his words or observe his example. If—"

  He stopped then, for all eyes had suddenly turned upon the doorway at his back. He did not move his head, but reached out to crush a beetle that stood near his hand. The tip of a small crystal and two tiny wires protruded through the broken chitin of its back.

  Then he turned, his green eye sweeping across the row of monks seated between himself and the doorway, and he looked upon Yama, who wore breeches, boots, shirt, sash, cloak and gloves all of red, and about whose head was twisted a turban the color of blood.

  "'If?'" said Yama. "You were saying 'if'? If some sage or some avatar of the godhead resided in the vicinity, you should like to make his acquaintance? Is that what you were saying, stranger?"

  The beggar rose from the table. He bowed. "I am Aram," he stated, "a fellow seeker and traveler with all who wish enlightenment."

  Yama did not return the salute. "Why do you spell your name backward, Lord of Illusion, when all your words and actions herald it before you?"

  The beggar shrugged. "I do not understand what you say."

  But the smile came again to his lips. "I am one who seeks the Path and the Right," he added.

  "I find that hard to believe, after witnessing at least a thousand years of your treachery."

  "You speak of the lifetime of gods."

  "Unfortunately, I do. You have made a serious mistake, Mara."

  "What may that be?"

  "You feel that you must be permitted to leave here alive."

  "I admit that I anticipate doing so."

  "Not considering the numerous accidents which might befall a lone traveler in this wild region."

  "I have been a lone traveler for many years. Accidents always happen to other people."

  "You might believe that even if your body were destroyed here, your atman would be transferred remotely to another body located elsewhere. I understand that someone has deciphered my notes, and the trick is now possible."

  The beggar's brows moved a quarter of an inch lower and closer together.

  "You do not realize the forces which even now contain this build
ing, defending against any such transfer."

  The beggar stepped to the center of the room. "Yama," he stated, "you are a fool if you think to match your puny fallen powers against those of the Dreamer."

  "Perhaps this is so. Lord Mara," Yama replied, "but I have waited too long for this opportunity to postpone it further. Remember my promise at Keenset? If you wish to continue your chain of existence you will have to pass through this, the only door to this room, which I bar. Nothing beyond this room can help you now."

  Mara then raised his hands, and the fires were born.

  Everything was flaming. Flames leapt from the stone walls, the tables, the robes of the monks. Smoke billowed and curled about the room. Yama stood in the midst of a conflagration, but he did not move.

  "Is that the best you can do?" he asked. "Your flames are everywhere, but nothing burns."

  Mara clapped his hands and the flames vanished.

  In their place, its swaying head held at almost twice the height of a man, its silver hood fanned, the mechobra drew into its S-shaped strike position.

  Yama ignored it, his shadowy gaze reaching now like the probe of a dark insect, boring into Mara's single eye.

  The mechobra faded in mid-strike. Yama strode forward.

  Mara fell back a pace.

  They stood thus for perhaps three heartbeats, then Yama moved forward two paces farther and Mara backed away again. Perspiration blistered upon both their brows.

  The beggar now stood taller and his hair was heavier; he was thicker about the waist and broader across the shoulders. A certain grace, not previously apparent, accompanied all his movements.

  He fell back another step.

  "Yes, Mara, there is a deathgod," said Yama between clenched teeth. "Fallen or no, the real death dwells in my eyes. You must meet them. When you reach the wall you can back no farther. Feel the strength go out of your limbs. Feel the coldness begin in your hands and your feet."

  Mara's teeth bared in a snarl. His neck was as thick as a bull's. His biceps were as big about as a man's thighs. His chest was a barrel of strength and his legs were like great trees of the forest.

  "Coldness?" he asked, extending his arms. "I can break a giant with these hands, Yama. What are you but a banished carrion god? Your frown may claim the aged and the infirm. Your eyes may chill dumb animals and those of the lower classes of men. I stand as high above you as a star above the ocean's bottom."