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Роджер Желязны. Лорд Света (engl)

     Roger Zelazny "Lord of Light"
     Original scan by none. Proofing, layout by Nadie. (v3.0)



I
     It is said that fifty-three years after his liberation he returned from
the Golden Cloud,  to  take up once  again the gauntlet of Heaven, to oppose
the Order of Life and  the gods who ordained it so. His followers had prayed
for his return, though their prayers were sin. Prayer should not trouble one
who  has gone on to Nirvana,  no matter what the circumstances of his going.
The wearers  of the saffron robe prayed,  however,  that  He  of  the Sword,
Manjusri, should  come  again among them,  The  Boddhisatva is  said to have
heard. . .
     He whose desires have been throttled,
     who is independent of root,
     whose pasture is emptiness --
     signless and free --
     his path is as unknowable
     as that of birds across the heavens.

     Dhammapada (93)

     His followers called  him  Mahasamatman  and said  he  was  a  god.  He
preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.
He  never claimed to be a god. But  then, he never claimed  not to be a god.
Circumstances  being what  they  were,  neither admission  could  be  of any
benefit. Silence, though, could.
     Therefore, there was mystery about him.
     It was in the season of the rains . . .
     It was well into the time of the great wetness. . .
     It  was in the days of the  rains that their prayers went  up, not from
the fingering of knotted  prayer cords or the spinning of prayer wheels, but
from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri, goddess of the Night
     The high-frequency prayers were  directed upward through the atmosphere
and out beyond  it, passing into that golden cloud called  the Bridge of the
Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as  a bronze  rainbow at night
and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday.
     Some  of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of  this prayer technique, but
the machine  had been built and was operated  by Yama-Dharma, fallen, of the
Celestial City; and, it was  told, he had ages ago  built the mighty thunder
chariot of Lord  Shiva: that engine  that  fled across the  heavens belching
gouts of fire in its wake.
     Despite his tall  from favor, Yama was  still  deemed  mightiest of the
artificers,  though it was  not doubted that the Gods of the City would have
him to die  the real death  were they to learn of the pray-machine. For that
matter,  though, it was not doubted that they would have him to die the real
death  without the  excuse of the pray-machine,  also,  were he to come into
their custody. How he  would settle this matter with the Lords of Karma  was
his own affair, though none doubted  that when the time came he would find a
way. He was half as old as the Celestial  City itself, and not more than ten
of the gods remembered the founding of that abode. He was known to  be wiser
even than the Lord  Kubera in the ways of the Universal Fire. But these were
his  lesser Attributes. He was best  known for another thing, though few men
spoke of  it. Tall, but  not overly  so; big,  but not heavy; his movements,
slow and fluent. He wore red and spoke little.
     He tended the  pray-machine, and  the giant metal lotus he had set atop
the monastery roof turned and turned in its sockets.
     A light rain was falling upon the building, the lotus and the jungle at
the foot  of the mountains. For six  days he  had offered  many kilowatts of
prayer, but the static kept him from being heard On High. Under his  breath,
he called  upon the more notable of  the current fertility deities, invoking
them in terms of their most prominent Attributes.
     A  rumble  of  thunder  answered  his petition, and  the small  ape who
assisted  him chuckled. "Your prayers and your curses come to the same. Lord
Yama," commented the ape. "That is to say, nothing."
     "It has taken you seventeen incarnations to arrive at this truth?" said
Yama. "I can see then why you are still doing time as an ape."
     "Not so,"  said  the  ape,  whose name was  Tak. "My  fall,  while less
spectacular than your own, nevertheless involved elements of personal malice
on the part of -- "
     "Enough!" said Yama, turning his back to him.
     Tak realized then that he might  have touched upon  a  sore spot. In an
attempt to find another subject for conversation, he crossed to the  window,
leapt onto its wide sill and stared upward.
     "There is a break in the cloud cover, to the west," he said.
     Yama approached,  followed  the  direction of his  gaze,  frowned,  and
nodded.
     "Aye," he said. "Stay where you are and advise me."
     He moved to a bank of controls.
     Overhead, the lotus halted in its turning, then faced the patch of bare
sky.
     "Very good," he said. "We're getting something."
     His hand  moved  across  a separate control panel, throwing a series of
switches and adjusting two dials.
     Below them, in the cavernous cellars of the monastery,  the signal  was
received and other preparations were begun: the host was made ready.
     "The clouds are coming together again!" cried Tak.
     "No  matter, now,"  said  the  other.  "We've  hooked our fish.  Out of
Nirvana and into the lotus, he comes."
     There was more thunder, and the rain came down with a  sound like  hail
upon  the  lotus.  Snakes  of  blue  lightning  coiled,  hissing, about  the
mountaintops.
     Yama sealed a final circuit.
     "How do you think he will take to wearing the flesh again?" asked Tak.
     "Go peel bananas with your feet!"
     Tak chose  to  consider  this  a  dismissal  and departed the  chamber,
leaving Yama to close down the machinery.  He made his way along a  corridor
and down a wide flight  of stairs. He reached the landing,  and as he  stood
there he heard the sound  of voices  and the shuffling  of sandals coming in
his direction from out a side hall.
     Without  hesitating,  he  climbed  the wall, using a series  of  carved
panthers and an opposing row of elephants as  handholds. Mounting a  rafter,
he drew back into a well of shadow and waited, unmoving.
     Two dark-robed monks entered through the archway.
     "So why can she not clear the sky for them?" said the first.
     The  second, an older, more heavily  built man, shrugged. "I am no sage
that I can  answer such questions. That she  is anxious  is obvious, or  she
should never have granted them this sanctuary, nor Yama this usage. But  who
can mark the limits of night?"
     "Or the moods of a woman,"  said the first. "I have heard that even the
priests did not know of her coming."
     "That may be. Whatever the case, it would seem a good omen."
     "So it would seem."
     They passed through another archway, and  Tak listened to the sounds of
their going until there was only silence.
     Still, he did not leave his perch.
     The "she"  referred to  by the  monks could only be  the  goddess Ratri
herself, worshiped by the order that had given sanctuary to the followers of
Great-Souled Sam, the Enlightened One.  Now,  Ratri, too, was to be numbered
among those fallen from the Celestial City and wearing the skin of a mortal.
She had  every reason  to be bitter  over the whole affair; and Tak realized
the chance she  was taking in granting sanctuary, let alone being physically
present during this undertaking. It could jeopardize any possibility of  her
future reinstatement if word of it got out and  reached the proper ears. Tak
recalled her as the dark-haired beauty with silver eyes, passing in her moon
chariot of ebony and chromium, drawn by stallions black and white, tended by
her guard, also black and white, passing  up  the Avenue of Heaven, rivaling
even Sarasvati in her glory. His heart leapt within his hairy breast. He had
to see her again. One night, long ago, in happier times and  better form, he
had  danced with  her, on a balcony under  the stars. It had been for only a
few moments. But he remembered; and it is a difficult thing to be an ape and
to have such memories.
     He climbed down from the rafter.
     There was a tower,  a high tower rising from the northeast comer of the
monastery. Within  that tower  was  a  chamber. It was  said to contain  the
indwelling  presence of  the  goddess.  It  was  cleaned  daily, the  linens
changed,  fresh  incense  burnt and  a votive  offering laid just within the
door. That door was normally kept locked.
     There were, of  course, windows. The question as to whether a man could
have  entered  by means of  any of these windows must  remain  academic. Tak
proved that an ape could.
     Mounting the  monastery  roof,  he proceeded to scale the tower, moving
from brick to  slippery brick, from projection to irregularity, the  heavens
growling  doglike above him, until  finally  he clung to the wall just below
the outer sill. A steady rain fell upon him. He heard a bird singing within.
He saw the edge of a wet, blue scarf hanging over the sill.
     He caught hold  of the ledge  and raised  himself  until he could  peer
inside.
     Her back was to him. She wore a dark blue sari, and she was seated on a
small bench at the opposite end of the room.
     He clambered onto the sill and cleared his throat.
     She  turned  quickly.  She  wore a  veil,  so that  her  features  were
indistinguishable. She regarded him through it,  then rose and  crossed  the
chamber.
     He was dismayed.  Her figure, once lithe, was wide about the waist; her
walk, once the swaying of boughs, was a waddle; her complexion was too dark;
even through the veil the lines of her nose and jaw were too pronounced.
     He  bowed his  head. "'And  so  you have drawn near to us, who  at your
coming have come home," he sang, "'as birds to their nest upon the tree.'"
     She stood, still as her statue in the main hall below.
     "'Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.'"
     She reached out slowly and laid her hand upon his head.
     "You  have  my  blessing,  little   one,"  she  said,  after  a   time.
"Unfortunately, that is  all I can give. I cannot offer protection or render
beauty, who lack these luxuries myself. What is your name?"
     "Tak," he told her.
     She touched her brow. "I once  knew a Tak," she said, "in a bygone day,
a distant place. . ."
     "I am that Tak, madam."
     She seated herself upon the sill. After a time, he  realized  that  she
was weeping, within her veil.
     "Don't cry, goddess. Tak is here. Remember Tak, of the Archives? Of the
Bright Spear? He stands yet ready to do thy bidding."
     "Tak. . ." she said. "Oh, Tak! You, too? I did not know, I never heard.
. ."
     "Another turning of the wheel, madam, and who  knows? Things may yet be
better than even once they were."
     Her shoulders shook. He reached out, drew back his hand.
     She turned and took it.
     After an age, she spoke: "Not  by the normal  course of events shall we
be  restored or  matters settled, Tak of the Bright Spear. We must beat  our
own path."
     "What mean you?" he inquired; then, "Sam?"
     She nodded.
     "He is  the one. He is our hope against Heaven, dear  Tak. If he can be
recalled, we have a chance to live again."
     "This is why  you  have taken this chance,  why you yourself sit within
the jaws of the tiger?"
     "Why else? When there is no real hope we must mint our own. If the coin
be counterfeit it still may be passed."
     "Counterfeit? You do not believe he was the Buddha?"
     She  laughed, briefly. "Sam was the greatest charlatan in the memory of
god  or  man. He was also the worthiest  opponent Trimurti ever faced. Don't
look so shocked  at  my  saying  it.  Archivist! You  know that he stole the
fabric   of  his  doctrine,  path  and  attainment,  the  whole  robe,  from
prehistorical forbidden sources. It was a weapon, nothing more. His greatest
strength was his insincerity. If we could have him back . . ."
     "Lady, saint or charlatan, he is returned."
     "Do not jest with me, Tak."
     "Goddess  and  Lady,  I  just  left  the Lord Yama  shutting  down  the
pray-machine, frowning his frown of success."
     "The  venture was against such mighty odds.  .  . . Lord Agni once said
that no such thing could ever be done."
     Tak stood.
     "Goddess Ratri," he said, "who, be he god or man,  or anything between,
knows more of such matters than Yama?"
     "I have no answer for  that question,  Tak,  because there is none. But
how can you say of a certainty that he has netted us our fish?"
     "Because he is Yama."
     "Then take my arm, Tak. Escort me again, as  once you did. Let  us view
the sleeping Boddhisatva."
     He led her out the door, down the stairs, and into the chambers below.

     Light,  born  not of torches but of  the generators of Yama, filled the
cavern. The bed, set  upon a platform,  was closed about on  three  sides by
screens. Most of the machinery was also masked by screens  and hangings. The
saffron-robed  monks  who were in attendance moved silently about the  great
chamber. Yama, master artificer, stood at the bedside.
     As  they  approached, several of  the  well-disciplined,  imperturbable
monks uttered brief exclamations. Tak then turned  to the woman at his  side
and drew back a pace, his breath catching in his throat.
     She was no longer the dumpy little matron with whom he had spoken. Once
again did he  stand  at the  side of  Night  Immortal, of whom  it has  been
written, "The goddess has filled wide space, to its depths and  its heights.
Her radiance drives out the dark."
     He looked but  a moment and covered his eyes. She still had this  trace
of her distant Aspect about her.
     "Goddess. . ." he began.
     "To the sleeper," she stated. "He stirs."
     They advanced to the bedstead.
     Thereafter  to  be  portrayed  in  murals  at  the  ends  of  countless
corridors, carved upon the walls of Temples and painted onto the ceilings of
numerous  palaces, came  the  awakening of  he who  was variously  known  as
Mahasamatman, Kalkin, Manjusri,  Siddhartha,  Tathagatha, Binder,  Maitreya,
the Enlightened One, Buddha  and Sam. At  his left was the goddess of Night;
to his right stood Death; Tak, the ape, was crouched at the foot of the bed,
eternal comment upon the coexistence of the animal and the divine.
     He  wore  an  ordinary,  darkish  body  of medium  height and age;  his
features  were regular and undistinguished; when his  eyes opened, they were
dark.
     "Hail, Lord of Light!" It was Ratri who spoke these words.
     The eyes blinked.  They did not focus. Nowhere in the chamber was there
any movement.
     "Hail, Mahasamatman -- Buddha!" said Yama.
     The eyes stared ahead, unseeing.
     "Hello, Sam," said Tak.
     The forehead  creased slightly, the eyes squinted, fell upon Tak, moved
on to the others.
     "Where . . . ?" he asked, in a whisper.
     "My monastery," answered Ratri.
     Without expression, he looked upon her beauty.
     Then he shut his eyes and held them tightly closed, wrinkles forming at
their corners.  A grin of pain made his mouth a bow,  his teeth  the arrows,
clenched.
     "Are you truly he whom we have named?" asked Yama.
     He did not answer.
     "Are you he who fought the army of Heaven to  a standstill on the banks
of the Vedra?"
     The mouth slackened.
     "Are you he who loved the goddess of Death?"
     The eyes flickered. A faint smile came and went across the lips.
     "It is he," said Yama; then, "Who are you, man?"
     "I? I am nothing,"  replied  the other. "A leaf caught in a  whirlpool,
perhaps. A feather in the wind. . ."
     "Too bad," said Yama, "for there are leaves and  feathers enough in the
world for me to have labored so long only to increase their number. I wanted
me a man, one who might continue a war  interrupted by his  absence -- a man
of  power  who  could oppose with that power the will of gods. I thought you
were he."
     "I am"--  he  squinted again"-- Sam.  I am Sam. Once-- long ago . . . I
did fight, didn't I? Many times . . ."
     "You were Great-Souled Sam, the Buddha. Do you remember?"
     "Maybe I was . . ." A slow fire was kindled in his eyes.
     "Yes," he  said then. "Yes, I was.  Humblest of the proud,  proudest of
the humble.  I fought. I taught  the Way for a time. I fought again,  taught
again, tried  politics,  magic, poison  . .  . I fought one great  battle so
terrible the sun itself hid its face from the slaughter-- with men and gods,
with animals and  demons,  with  spirits of  the earth and air, of  fire and
water, with slizzards and horses, swords and chariots-- "
     "And you lost," said Yama.
     "Yes, I did, didn't I? But it was quite a showing we gave them,  wasn't
it?  You, deathgod, were my charioteer. It all comes back to me now. We were
taken prisoner  and the Lords of Karma  were  to be our judges. You  escaped
them by the will-death and the Way of the Black Wheel. I could not."
     "That is correct. Your past was laid out before them. You were judged."
Yama regarded the monks who now sat  upon the floor, their  heads bowed, and
he lowered his voice. "To have you to die the real death would have made you
a martyr. To have permitted you to walk  the world,  in any form, would have
left the door open for your return. So, as you stole your teachings from the
Gottama of another place and time,  did they  steal the tale  of the end  of
that one's days among men. You were judged worthy of Nirvana. Your atman was
projected, not into another  body, but into  the  great magnetic cloud  that
encircles  this  planet.  That  was over  half a  century  ago. You  are now
officially an avatar of  Vishnu, whose teachings were misinterpreted by some
of his more zealous  followers.  You, personally, continued to exist only in
the form of self-perpetuating wavelengths, which I succeeded in capturing."
     Sam closed his eyes.
     "And you dared to bring me back?"
     "That is correct."
     "I was aware of my condition the entire time."
     "I suspected as much."
     His eyes opened, blazing. "Yet you dared recall me from that?"
     "Yes."
     Sam bowed his head. "Rightly  are you called deathgod, Yama-Dharma. You
have snatched away from me the ultimate experience. You have broken upon the
dark stone of  your will that  which is beyond  all comprehension and mortal
splendor. Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?"
     "Because  a  world  has need  of your humility,  your piety, your great
teaching and your Machiavellian scheming."
     "Yama, I'm old," he said. "I'm as old as man upon this world. I was one
of the  First, you know. One of the very  first to come here,  to  build, to
settle. All of the others are dead  now, or are gods -- dei ex  machini. . .
The chance was mine also, but I let it go by. Many times. I never wanted  to
be a god, Yama. Not  really. It was  only later,  only when I saw  what they
were doing,  that I began to gather what  power I  could to me. It  was  too
late, though. They were  too  strong. Now I just want  to sleep the sleep of
ages,  to  know again the Great Rest, the perpetual bliss, to hear the songs
the stars sing on the shores of the great sea."
     Ratri leaned forward and looked into his  eyes. "We need you, Sam," she
said.
     "I  know, I  know," he  told her.  "It's the eternal recurrence of  the
anecdote. You've a willing horse, so flog him another  mile." But he  smiled
as he said it, and she kissed his brow.
     Tak leaped into the air and bounced upon the bed.
     "Mankind rejoices," observed the Buddha.
     Yama handed him a robe and Ratri fitted him with slippers.
     Recovering  from the peace which passeth understanding takes time.  Sam
slept. Sleeping, he  dreamed; dreaming,  he cried out, or just cried. He had
no  appetite; but  Yama had found him  a body  both sturdy  and  in  perfect
health,  one  well  able  to bear  the psychosomatic  conversion from divine
withdrawal.
     But he would  sit  for an hour, unmoving, staring at a pebble or a seed
or a leaf. And on these occasions, he could not be aroused. Yama saw in this
a  danger, and he  spoke of  it with Ratri and Tak. "It is not  good that he
withdraw from the world in this way, now," he said. "I have spoken with him,
but it  is as if I addressed the  wind. He cannot recover that  which he has
left behind. The very attempt is costing him his strength."
     "Perhaps you misread his efforts," said Tak.
     "What mean you?"
     "See how  he regards the  seed  he  has  set before him?  Consider  the
wrinkling at the edges of his eyes."
     "Yes? What of it?"
     "He squints. Is his vision impaired?"
     "It is not."

     "Then why does he squint?"
     "To better study the seed."
     "Study? That is not the Way, as once he  taught it. Yet he  does study.
He does not meditate, seeking within the object that which leads to  release
of the subject. No."
     "What then does he do?"
     "The reverse."
     "The reverse?"
     "He  does study  the object, considering its ways, in an effort to bind
himself. He  seeks within  it an excuse to live. He tries once more  to wrap
himself within the fabric of Maya, the illusion of the world."
     "I believe you are right, Tak!" It  was Ratri who had spoken. "How  can
we assist him in his efforts?"
     "I am not certain, mistress."
     Yama nodded, his dark hair glistening  in a bar of  sunlight  that fell
across the narrow porch.
     "You  have  set  your  finger  upon  the  thing  I  could not see,"  he
acknowledged. "He  has not yet fully returned, though he wears a body, walks
upon human feet, talks as we do. His thought is still beyond our ken."
     "What then shall we do?" repeated Ratri.
     "Take him on long walks  through the countryside," said Yama. "Feed him
delicacies.  Stir  his  soul with  poetry and song. Find him strong drink to
drink-- there is none here in the monastery.  Garb him in bright-hued silks.
Fetch him a  courtesan  or  three. Submerge him in  living again. It is only
thus that he may be freed from the  chains of God. Stupid of me  not to have
seen it sooner . . ."
     "Not really, deathgod," said Tak.
     The flame that  is black  leapt within Yama's eyes, and then he smiled.
"I am repaid,  little one,"  he  acknowledged, "for the comments  I, perhaps
thoughtlessly, let fall  upon thy hairy ears. I apologize, ape-one. You  are
truly a man, and one of wit and perception."
     Tak bowed before him.
     Ratri chuckled.
     "Tell  us, clever Tak-- for mayhap we have been  gods too long, and  so
lack the proper  angle of vision--  how shall  we  proceed in this matter of
rehumanizing him, so as to best serve the ends we seek?"
     Tak bowed him then to Ratri.
     "As Yama has proposed," he stated. "Today, mistress, you take him for a
walk in  the foothills.  Tomorrow, Lord Yama conducts him as far as the edge
of the forest. The following day  I shall take him amidst the  trees and the
grasses, the flowers and the vines. And we shall see. We shall."
     "So be it," said Yama, and so it was.

     In the  weeks that followed,  Sam came to  look  forward to these walks
with what appeared at first a mild anticipation, then a moderate enthusiasm,
and  finally a blazing eagerness.  He took  to going  off unaccompanied  for
longer and longer stretches of time: at  first, it was for several  hours in
the morning; then, morning  and  evening. Later, he stayed away all day, and
on occasion a day and a night.
     At the end of the third week, Yama and Ratri discussed  it on the porch
in the early hours of morning.
     "This thing I do not like," said Yama. "We cannot insult him by forcing
our company upon him  now, when he does not wish it. But there is danger out
there, especially for one born again such as he. I would that we knew how he
spends his hours."
     "But whatever he  does,  it  is helping  him to  recover," said  Ratri,
gulping a sweetmeat  and waving a  fleshy hand.  "He  is less  withdrawn. He
speaks more, even jesting. He drinks of the wine we bring him.  His appetite
is returning."
     "Yet, if  he should meet with an agent of  Trimurti, the final doom may
come to pass."
     Ratri chewed  slowly.  "It  is not likely, though, that such should  be
abroad in  this country,  in these days," she stated. "The  animals will see
him as a child and will not harm him.  Men would consider him a holy hermit.
The demons fear him of old, and so respect him."
     But Yama shook  his head.  "Lady,  it is not  so simple. Though I  have
dismantled much of my machinery and hidden it hundreds of leagues from here,
such  a massive  trafficking  of energies as I employed  cannot have  passed
unnoticed. Sooner or later this place will  be visited.  I  used screens and
baffling  devices, but this  general  area  must have  appeared  in  certain
quarters as though the Universal Fire did a dance upon the map. Soon we must
move on. I should prefer to wait until our charge is fully recovered, but. .
."
     "Could not certain natural forces have produced the same energy effects
as your workings?"
     "Yes, and they do occur  in this vicinity, which is  why I  chose it as
our base-- so  it  may well be that nothing will come  of it. Still, I doubt
this. My spies in the villages report no unusual  activities now. But on the
day of his return, riding upon the crest of the storm, some say the  thunder
chariot passed, hunting through the heavens and across the countryside. This
was far from here, but I cannot believe that there was no connection."
     "Yet, it has not returned."
     "Not that we know of. But I fear . . ."
     "Then  let us depart at  once. I respect your forebodings too well. You
have more of the  power upon you than any other among the Fallen. For me, it
is  a  great  strain  even  to assume a  pleasing shape for more than  a few
minutes . . ."
     "What powers  I  possess," said Yama, refilling her teacup, "are intact
because they were not of the same order as yours."
     He smiled then, showing even rows of  long, brilliant teeth. This smile
caught at the edge of a scar upon his left cheek and reached up to the comer
of his eye. He winked to put a period to it and continued, "Much of my power
is in the form of knowledge,  which  even the Lords of Karma could  not have
wrested from me. The power of most  of the gods, however, is predicated upon
a  special physiology, which they  lose in part when  incarnated into a  new
body.  The mind, somehow remembering,  after  a time  alters any body  to  a
certain extent,  engendering a new homeostasis, permitting  a gradual return
of power. Mine does return quickly, though, and it is with me fully now. But
even if it were not, I have my knowledge to use as  a weapon-- and that is a
power."
     Ratri sipped  her tea. "Whatever  its source, if your power  says move,
then move we must. How soon?"
     Yama opened a pouch of tobacco  and rolled a cigarette as he spoke. His
dark, supple fingers, she noted, always  had about then: movement that which
was like the movements of one who played upon an instrument of music.
     "I should say let us not tarry here more than another week or ten days.
We must wean him from this countryside by then."
     She nodded. "Where to then?"
     "Some  small  southern  kingdom,  perhaps,  where  we may  come  and go
undisturbed."
     He lit the cigarette, breathed smoke.
     "I've a  better idea," said she. "Know  that under  a  mortal name am I
mistress of the Palace of Kama in Khaipur."
     "The Fornicatorium, madam?"
     She frowned. "As such is it often known to  the vulgar, and do not call
me 'madam' in the same breath-- it smacks of an ancient jest. It is  a place
of rest, pleasure, holiness and much of my revenue. There,  I feel, would be
a good hiding place for our  charge while  he makes  his recovery and we our
plans."
     Yama  slapped his  thigh. "Aye! Aye!  Who would think to  look  for the
Buddha in a whorehouse? Good! Excellent! To Khaipur, then, dear goddess-- to
Khaipur and the Palace of Love!"
     She stood and stamped her sandal upon the flagstones. "I will not  have
you speak that way of my establishment!"
     He dropped his  eyes, and with pain dropped the grin from his  face. He
stood then and bowed. "I apologize, dear  Ratri, but  the revelation came so
sudden-- " He choked then and looked  away. When he looked back, he was full
of  sobriety and  decorum.  He  continued, "That I was taken  aback  by  the
apparent incongruity. Now, though, I do see the wisdom of the thing. It is a
most  perfect cover-up, and  it  provides you both with wealth  and, what is
more  important,  with a  source of privy information among  the  merchants,
warriors and priests. It is an indispensable part of the community. It gives
you  status and  a voice in civil affairs. Being a god is one of  the oldest
professions in the world. It is only fitting, therefore, that we fallen ones
take umbrage within the pale of another venerable tradition. I salute you. I
give  thanks  for  your  wisdom  and  forethought.  I  do  not  slander  the
enterprises of a benefactor and coconspirator.  In  fact, I look  forward to
the visit."
     She smiled and seated  herself  once  more. "I accept  your  well-oiled
apology, oh son of the serpent. In any event, it is too difficult to  remain
angry with you. Pour me some more tea, please."
     They reclined, Ratri sipping  her tea, Yama smoking. In the distance, a
storm front  drew a curtain across  half the prospect. The  sun still  shone
upon them, however, and a cool breeze visited the porch.
     "You have seen the ring, the ring of iron which he wears?" asked Ratri,
eating another sweetmeat.
     "Yes."
     "Know you where he obtained it?"
     "I do not."
     "Nor I. But I feel we should learn its origin."
     "Aye."
     "How shall we essay this thing?"
     "I have assigned the  chore to Tak, who is better suited to the ways of
the forest than we. Even now he follows the trail."
     Ratri nodded. "Good," she said.
     "I have heard," said Yama, "that the gods  do  still occasionally visit
the more notable palaces of Kama throughout the land, generally in disguise,
but sometimes in full power. Is this true?"
     "Yes. But a  year  ago did Lord Indra come to Khaipur. Some three years
back, the  false Krishna  made  a visit. Of all the Celestial party, Krishna
the  Tireless  does  cause the  greatest consternation among  the  staff. He
stayed for  a  month of riot, which  involved much broken furniture and  the
services  of  many  physicians. He did  near empty the wine cellar  and  the
larder.  He played then  upon his  pipes one  night, however, the hearing of
which would have  been  enough  to gain the old Krishna forgiveness for near
anything. But  it  was not the true magic we heard that night, for  there is
only  one true Krishna-- swart and  hairy, his eyes so red and blazing. This
one  did  dance  upon  the  tables,  causing  much  havoc,  and his  musical
accompaniment was insufficient."
     "Paid he for this carnage with other than a song?"
     She laughed.  "Come  now, Yama. Let there  be  no  rhetorical questions
between us."
     He snorted smoke.
     "Surya,  the  sun, is now about to be encompassed," said Ratri, staring
out  and upward, "and Indra slays the dragon. At any moment,  the rains will
arrive."
     A  wave  of  grayness  covered  over  the  monastery. The  breeze  grew
stronger, and  the  dance of  the waters began upon the walls. Like a beaded
curtain, the rain covered that open end of the porch at which they stared.
     Yama poured more tea. Ratri ate another sweetmeat.

     Tak made his way through the forest. He moved from tree to tree, branch
to branch, watching the trail below him. His fur  was moist, for  the leaves
shook small showers  down upon him as he passed. Clouds mounted at his back,
but the sun of early morning still shone in the  eastern sky and the  forest
was a  swarm of colors in its red-gold light. About him, birds  were singing
from within  the tangle  of branches, vines,  leaves and grasses that  stood
like  a wall upon  either side  of  the trail. The birds made  their  music,
insects hummed and occasionally there was a growl  or  bark. The foliage was
stirred by the wind. Below him, the trail bent sharply, entering a clearing.
Tak  dropped  to  the  ground,  proceeded on  foot. At the other side of the
clearing he took to the  trees again. Now, he noticed, the trail was running
parallel to the mountains, even inclining slightly back in  their direction.
There was a distant rattle of thunder and after a time a new breeze came up,
cool. He swung on,  breaking  through moist  spider webs,  frightening birds
into shrieking flurries of bright plumage. The trail  continued to  move  in
the direction of the mountains,  slowly doubling back upon itself. At times,
it met with other hard-packed,  yellow trails,  dividing, crossing, parting.
On these occasions,  he  descended  to the  ground and studied  the  surface
markings.  Yes, Sam  had turned here; Sam had  stopped beside  this pool  to
drink-- here, where the orange  mushrooms grew taller  than a tall  man, and
wide  enough  to shelter several from  the rains; now, Sam  had  taken  that
branch of the  roadway; here, he had stopped to fix a sandal strap;  at this
point,  he had  leaned upon  a tree, which showed indications  of housing  a
dryad. . . .
     Tak moved on, about half  an hour behind  his quarry, as he judged it--
so giving him plenty of time to get to wherever  he was  going  and to begin
whatever activity  so  engaged  his enthusiasms. A  halo  of heat  lightning
reached above the mountains he was now facing. There was  another rumble  of
thunder.  The  trail  headed on  up into  the foothills,  where  the  forest
thinned, and  Tak moved  on  all fours amid tall grasses. It headed steadily
upward, and  rocky  outcroppings became  more and more prominent. Still, Sam
had passed this way, so Tak followed.
     Overhead,  the pollen-colored Bridge of the Gods vanished as the clouds
rolled  steadily  eastward. Lightning flashed, and now the  thunder followed
quickly. The wind came faster here in the open; the grasses bent down before
it; the temperature seemed suddenly to plummet.
     Tak felt  the first drops of rain and dashed for the  shelter of one of
the  stands of stone. It ran like a narrow hedge,  slightly slanted  against
the  rain. Tak moved along its base  as  the waters were unleashed and color
deserted the world along with the last bit of blue in the sky.
     A sea of turbulent light  appeared  overhead, and three  times  spilled
streams that rode crazy crescendo down to splash upon the stone fang curving
blackly into the wind, about a quarter mile up the slope.
     When Tak's vision  cleared, he saw that which he did now understand. It
was as though each bolt that had fallen had left a part of itself, standing,
swaying in  the gray  air, pulsing  fires,  despite the  wetness  that  came
steadily down upon the ground.
     Then Tak heard  the laughter-- or was it a ghost sound left in his ears
by the recent thunder?
     No, it was laughter-- gigantic, unhuman!
     After a time, there came a  howl of rage. Then there was another flash,
another rumble.
     Another funnel of fire swayed beside the stone fang.
     Tak lay  still for about five minutes. Then it  came again--  the howl,
followed by three bright flashes and the crash.
     Now there were seven pillars of fire. Dared he approach, skirting these
things, spying upon the fang peak from its opposite side?
     And if he did, and if--  as he  felt--  Sam was  somehow involved, what
good  could  he do if  the  Enlightened  One  himself could  not  handle the
situation?
     He had no answer,  but he found himself moving forward, crouched low in
the damp grass, swinging far to his left.
     When he was halfway there it happened again,  and  ten  of  the  things
towered, red and gold  and  yellow,  drifting  and  returning, drifting  and
returning, as though their bases were rooted to the ground.
     He  crouched there wet and shivering, examined his courage and found it
to be a  small thing indeed. Yet, he pushed  on until he was parallel to the
strange place, then past it.
     He drew up  behind  it,  finding  himself  in the  midst  of many large
stones. Grateful  for  their shelter  and the  cover  they  provided against
observation from  below,  he inched forward, never taking his eyes from  the
fang.
     He could  see now that it was partly hollow.  There  was a dry, shallow
cave at its  base, and two figures knelt  within it. Holy men  at prayer? He
wondered.
     Then it happened.  The  most frightful  flashing  he had ever seen came
down upon  the stones--  not once, or for a  mere  instant. It  was  as if a
fire-tongued beast licked and licked about the stone, growling as it did so,
for perhaps a quarter of a minute.
     When Tak opened his eyes, he counted twenty of the blazing towers.
     One of  the holy men  leaned forward, gestured. The  other laughed. The
sound carried to where Tak  lay, and the  words: "Eyes  of the serpent! Mine
now!"
     "What is  the  quantity?"  asked the second, and Tak knew it to  be the
voice of Great-Souled Sam.
     "Twice, or  none  at all!"  roared  the  other,  and he leaned forward,
rocked back, then gestured as Sam had done.
     "Nina from  Srinagina!"  he chanted,  and leaned,  rocked, and gestured
once more.
     "Sacred seven," Sam said softly.
     The other howled.
     Tak closed  his eyes and  covered  his ears,  expecting what might come
after that howl.
     Nor was he mistaken.
     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 building,
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."
     Yama's  red-gloved  hands fell like a pair  of cobras upon his  throat.
"Then try  that strength which you so mock. Dreamer. You have taken  on  the
appearance of power. Use it! Best me not with words!"
     His cheeks and forehead bloomed scarlet  as Yama's hands tightened upon
his throat. His eye seemed to leap, a green search-light sweeping the world.
     Mara fell to his knees. "Enough, Lord  Yama!" he  gasped. "Wouldst slay
thyself?"
     He  changed. His features  flowed,  as  though he  lay beneath restless
waters.
     Yama looked down upon his own face, saw his own  red  hands plucking at
his wrists.
     "You grow  desperate  now, Mara, as the life leaves you. But Yama is no
child, that he fears breaking the mirror you have become.  Try your last, or
die like a man, it is all the same in the end."
     But once more there was a flowing and a change.
     This time Yama hesitated, breaking his strength.
     Her  bronze  hair fell upon his hands. Her pale eyes  pleaded with him.
Caught about her throat was  a necklace of  ivory skulls, but slightly paler
than her flesh. Her sari was the color of  blood.  Her hands rested upon his
own, almost caressing. . .
     "Goddess!" he hissed.
     "You would not slay Kali . . . ? Durga . . . ?" she choked.
     "Wrong again, Mara," he  whispered.  "Did  you not know  that each  man
kills  the thing he loved?" and with this his hands twisted, and there was a
sound of breaking bones.
     "Tenfold be  your damnation," he said, his eyes tightly closed.  "There
shall be no rebirth."
     His  hands came open then. A  tall, nobly proportioned man lay upon the
floor at his feet, his head resting upon his right shoulder.
     His eye had finally closed.
     Yama turned the corpse with the toe of his boot. "Build a pyre and burn
this body," he  said to the monks, not turning toward them. "Spare  none  of
the rites. One of the highest has died this day."
     Then he  removed his eyes  from this work of his hands, turned upon his
heel and left the room.

     That evening  the lightnings fled across the  skies and the  rain  came
down like bullets from Heaven.
     The four of them sat  in the chamber in  the high tower that rose  from
the northeast corner of the monastery.
     Yama paced the room, stopping at the window each time he came to it.
     The others sat watching him, listening.
     "They suspect," he  told them, "but  they do not know.  They  would not
ravage the  monastery of a fellow god, displaying before men the division of
their ranks-- not  unless they were certain. They were not  certain, so they
investigated. This means that time is still with us."
     They nodded.
     "A Brahmin who  renounced the world to find his soul  passed  this way,
suffered an accident,  died here the real death.  His body was burnt and his
ashes cast into the river that leads to the sea. This is what  occurred. . .
. The wandering monks of the Enlightened One were visiting at the time. They
moved on shortly after this occurrence. Who knows where they went?"
     Tak stood as nearly erect as he could.
     "Lord  Yama," he stated,  "while it  may  hold  for a week,  a month --
possibly even longer-- this story will come apart in the hands of the Master
to judge the first of any of those here present in this  monastery who  pass
within the  Halls of Karma.  Under the circumstances, I believe some of them
may achieve early judgment for just this reason. What then?"
     Yama rolled a cigarette  with care and precision. "It  must be arranged
that what I said is what actually occurred."
     "How can  that  be? When a man's brain is subject to karmic  play-back,
all the events he has witnessed in  his most recent  cycle of life  are laid
out before his judge and the machine, like a scroll."
     "That is correct," said Yama. "And have you. Tak of the Archives, never
heard of a  palimpsest--  a scroll which has been used previously,  cleaned,
and then used again?"
     "Of course, but the mind is not a scroll."
     "No?" Yama smiled. "Well, it was your simile  to begin with,  not mine.
What's truth, anyway? Truth is what you make it."
     He  lit  his  cigarette.  "These  monks  have witnessed a  strange  and
terrible  thing," he continued. "They  saw me take on my Aspect and wield an
Attribute. They saw Mara do the same-- here, in this monastery where we have
revived  the  principle  of ahimsa. They are  aware that  a god may do  such
things  without  karmic burden, but the  shock was great  and the impression
vivid. And the final  burning is still to come. By the time of that burning,
the tale I have told you must be true in their minds."
     "How?" asked Ratri.
     "This very night, this very hour," he said, "while the image of the act
flames  within their consciousness and  their thoughts are troubled, the new
truth will be forged and nailed  into place. . . . Sam, you have rested long
enough. This thing is  now  yours to  do. You must preach them a sermon. You
must call forth within them those nobler sentiments and higher qualities  of
spirit which  make men  subject to divine meddling.  Ratri  and I will  then
combine our powers and a new truth will be born."
     Sam shifted and dropped his eyes. "I don't know  if I can  do it.  It's
been so long. . ."
     "Once  a  Buddha, always  a Buddha,  Sam.  Dust  off some  of  your old
parables. You have about fifteen minutes."
     Sam held out his hand. "Give me some tobacco and a paper."
     He  accepted the  package,  rolled himself a cigarette. "Light?  . .  .
Thanks."
     He drew in  deeply, exhaled, coughed. "I'm tired  of lying to them," he
finally said. "I guess that's what it really is."
     "Lying?"  asked Yama. "Who asked you to lie about anything? Quote  them
the Sermon  on the Mount,  if you want. Or something from  the Popul Voh, or
the Iliad.  I don't  care what you say. Just stir them a bit, soothe them  a
little. That's all I ask."
     "Then what?"
     "Then? Then I shall proceed to save them-- and us!"
     Sam nodded slowly. "When you put it that way . . . but I'm a little out
of shape when  it comes to this sort  of thing. Sure,  I'll find me a couple
truths and throw in a few pieties-- but make it twenty minutes."
     "Twenty  minutes,  then.  And afterward we pack. Tomorrow we  leave for
Khaipur."
     "So soon?" asked Tak.
     Yama shook his head. "So late," he said.

     The  monks were seated upon the  floor of the refectory. The tables had
been moved  back against the  walls. The insects had vanished. Outside,  the
rain continued to fall.
     Great-Souled  Sam, the  Enlightened  One, entered  and  seated  himself
before them.
     Ratri came in dressed as a Buddhist nun, and veiled.
     Yama and Ratri moved to the back of  the room and settled to the floor.
Somewhere, Tak too, was listening.
     Sam sat with his eyes closed for several minutes, then said softly:
     "I have  many  names, and none  of  them matter."  He opened  his  eyes
slightly  then, but  he did not move his  head.  He  looked  upon nothing in
particular.
     "Names are not important," he said. "To speak is to  name names, but to
speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before.
Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen.
Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, 'What is it like,
this thing you have seen?' So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the
very  first fire in the  world. He tells them, 'It is red, like a poppy, but
through  it dance  other  colors.  It  has  no  form,  like  water,  flowing
everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a
time  upon  a piece of wood, and  then the  wood is gone, as though it  were
eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can  be sifted like sand. When
the wood is gone, it too is gone.' Therefore, the hearers must think reality
is  like  a  poppy,  like water,  like  the sun, like that  which  eats  and
excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by
the man who has known it.  But they have not  looked  upon fire. They cannot
really know  it.  They  can only know of it.  But fire  comes again into the
world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is  as common
as grass and  clouds and the  air they breathe. They see  that, while  it is
like a poppy, it  is not a  poppy, while it is like water, it is not  water,
while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which
eats and passes wastes,  it  is not  that which  eats and passes wastes, but
something different from each  of  these apart or all of  these together. So
they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call
it 'fire.'
     "If they come upon one who  still has not seen it and they speak to him
of fire, he does  not know what they mean.  So they, in turn, fall back upon
telling him  what fire  is like. As they do  so, they  know  from  their own
experience that what they are telling him is  not the truth, but only a part
of it. They know  that  this  man will never  know reality from their words,
though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must  look upon  the
fire, smell of  it,  warm  his hands by it, stare into its  heart, or remain
forever  ignorant. Therefore, 'fire' does not  matter, 'earth' and 'air' and
'water' do not matter. 'I' do not  matter. No  word matters. But man forgets
reality and remembers words.  The more words  he remembers, the cleverer  do
his fellows  esteem him.  He  looks  upon the  great  transformations of the
world,  but  he does  not see them as they  were seen when man  looked  upon
reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he
tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming.  The thing that has never
happened before is still happening. It is still a miracle. The great burning
blossom squats, flowing,  upon the  limb  of the world, excreting the ash of
the world, and being none of these things I  have named and at the same time
all of them, and this is reality-- the Nameless.
     "Therefore,  I charge you-- forget the names you bear, forget the words
I speak  as soon as they are uttered. Look, rather, upon the Nameless within
yourselves, which arises as I address it. It hearkens not to  my  words, but
to the reality within me,  of which  it  is part.  This is the  atman, which
hears me rather than my words. All else is unreal. To define is to lose. The
essence of  all things is the Nameless. The Nameless is unknowable, mightier
even than Brahma. Things pass, but  the essence remains. You sit, therefore,
in the midst of a dream.
     "Essence  dreams it a  dream  of  form.  Forms  pass,  but  the essence
remains, dreaming new dreams.  Man  names these  dreams and thinks  to  have
captured the essence, not knowing that  he invokes the unreal. These stones,
these walls, these bodies you see seated about you are poppies and water and
the sun. They are the dreams of the Nameless. They are fire, if you like.
     "Occasionally, there  may come  a dreamer  who  is  aware  that  he  is
dreaming. He  may control something of  the dream-stuff, bending  it to  his
will, or  he may awaken into greater self-knowledge. If he chooses  the path
of self-knowledge, his glory is great and he shall be for all ages like unto
a star. If he chooses instead  the way of the Tantras, combining Samsara and
Nirvana, comprehending the world and continuing to live  in it, this one  is
mighty among dreamers. He may be mighty for good or for ill, as we look upon
him--  though these terms, too,  are meaningless,  outside of the namings of
Samsara.
     "To dwell within Samsara, however,  is to  be subject  to the  works of
those  who are  mighty among dreamers. If they be  mighty for good, it  is a
golden time. If they be mighty for ill, it  is a time of darkness. The dream
may turn to nightmare.
     "It is written that  to live is  to suffer. This is  so, say the sages,
for man must work off his burden of Karma if he is to achieve enlightenment.
For this reason, say the sages, what does it profit a man to struggle within
a dream against that which  is his lot, which is the path he must follow  to
attain  liberation?  In the light  of eternal  values,  say the  sages,  the
suffering is as nothing; in the terms of Samsara, say the sages, it leads to
that which is good. What justification,  then, has a man to struggle against
those who be mighty for ill?"
     He paused for a moment, raised his head higher.
     "This  night the Lord of Illusion passed among you-- Mara, mighty among
dreamers-- mighty for ill. He  did come upon another who  may  work with the
stuff of dreams in a different way. He did meet with Dharma, who may expel a
dreamer from his dream. They did struggle, and the Lord Mara is no more. Why
did  they struggle, deathgod against  illusionist?  You say  their ways  are
incomprehensible, being the ways of gods. This is not the answer.
     "The answer, the justification, is  the same for men as it is for gods.
Good or ill, say the sages, mean nothing for they are of Samsara. Agree with
the  sages, who have taught our people for  as far as the  memory of man may
reach. Agree,  but  consider also a thing of  which the sages do  not speak.
This thing  is  'beauty,' which is  a  word-- but look  behind the  word and
consider the Way of the Nameless. And what is the way of the Nameless? It is
the Way of  Dream. And  why does the Nameless dream? This thing is not known
to any dweller within Samsara. So ask, rather, what does the Nameless dream?
     "The Nameless, of which we are all a part, does dream form. And what is
the  highest attribute  any form  may possess? It  is beauty. The  Nameless,
then, is an artist. The problem, therefore, is not one of good or evil,  but
one of esthetics. To  struggle against  those who are  mighty among dreamers
and are mighty for ill,  or ugliness, is not to struggle for that  which the
sages have taught us to be  meaningless in terms of Samsara or  Nirvana, but
rather it is to struggle for the symmetrical dreaming  of a dream,  in terms
of the rhythm  and the point, the balance and the antithesis which will make
it a  thing  of  beauty. Of this, the  sages say  nothing. This truth  is so
simple  that they have obviously overlooked it.  For this reason, I am bound
by the esthetics of the  situation to call it to your attention. To struggle
against the dreamers who dream ugliness, be  they men or gods, cannot but be
the will  of the Nameless. This  struggle will also  bear suffering, and  so
one's  karmic  burden  will  be lightened thereby,  just as  it  would be by
enduring the ugliness; but this  suffering is  productive of a higher end in
the light of the eternal values of which the sages so often speak.
     "Therefore,  I  say unto you, the esthetics of what  you have witnessed
this evening were of a high order. You may ask me,  then, 'How  am I to know
that  which  is  beautiful  and  that  which is ugly,  and  be moved  to act
thereby?' This question, I say, you  must answer for yourself.  To do  this,
first forget what I have spoken, for I have said nothing. Dwell now upon the
Nameless." He raised his right hand and bowed his head.
     Yama stood, Ratri stood, Tak appeared upon a table.
     The  four of  them left together,  knowing the  machineries of Karma to
have been defeated for a time.

     They  walked through the jagged  brilliance of the morning, beneath the
Bridge of the  Gods. Tall fronds, still wet with the night's rain, glistened
at the sides of  the trail. The tops of  trees and the peaks of the  distant
mountains rippled beyond the rising vapors. The day was cloudless. The faint
breezes of morning still bore a trace  of the night's cold. The clicking and
buzzing and chirping of the jungle accompanied the monks as they walked. The
monastery from  which  they had departed was only  partly visible  above the
upper reaches  of the treetops; high in the air above it, a twisting line of
smoke endorsed the heavens.
     Ratri's servitors bore her  litter in the midst of  the moving party of
monks,  servants and her small guard  of warriors. Sam and Yama  walked near
the head of  the band. Silent  overhead, Tak  followed, passing among leaves
and branches, unseen.
     "The pyre still blazes," said Yama.
     "Yes."
     "They burn the wanderer who suffered a heart attack as he took his rest
among them."
     "This is true."
     "For a spur of the moment thing,  you  came  up with  a fairly engaging
sermon."
     "Thanks."
     "Do you really believe what you preached?"
     Sam  laughed.  "I'm  very  gullible  when it comes to my  own words.  I
believe everything I say, though I know I'm a liar."
     Yama snorted. "The rod of Trimurti still falls upon  the backs of  men.
Nirriti stirs within his dark lair; he harasses the seaways of the south. Do
you plan on spending another lifetime indulging in metaphysics-- to find new
justification for opposing your enemies? Your talk last  night sounded as if
you have reverted to considering why again, rather than how."
     "No," said Sam,  "I just wanted to try another line on the audience. It
is  difficult  to stir rebellion  among those to whom all things  are  good.
There is no room for evil  in their minds, despite the fact that they suffer
it  constantly.  The slave  upon  the  rack who  knows that he  will be born
again-- perhaps as a  fat merchant --  if he suffers willingly-- his outlook
is  not the  same as that of a man with but one life to live.  He  can  bear
anything, knowing that great as his present pain may be, his future pleasure
will rise higher. If such a one does not choose to believe in good or  evil,
perhaps then  beauty and ugliness can be made to serve him as well. Only the
names have been changed."
     "This, then, is the new, official party line?" asked Yama.
     "It is," said Sam.
     Yama's  hand  passed through an invisible slit  in his robe and emerged
with a dagger, which he raised in salute.
     "To beauty," he said. "Down with ugliness!"
     A wave  of silence passed  across the jungle. All the life-sounds about
them ceased.
     Yama raised  one  hand, returning the dagger to its hidden  sheath with
the other.
     "Halt!" he cried out.
     He looked upward, squinting against the sun, head cocked to his right.
     "Off the trail! Into the brush!" he called.
     They moved. Saffron-cloaked bodies flashed from off the  trail. Ratri's
litter was borne in among the trees. She now stood at Yama's side.
     "What is it?" she asked.
     "Listen!"
     It came then, riding down the sky on a blast of sound. It flashed above
the peaks of the mountains,  crossed over the monastery, whipping the smokes
into  invisibility.  Explosions  of sound trumpeted its coming, and the  air
quaked as it cut its way through the wind and the light.
     It was a great-looped tau cross, a tail of fire streaming behind it.
     "Destroyer come a-hunting," said Yama.
     "Thunder chariot!" cried one of the mercenaries, making a sign with his
hand.
     "Shiva passes," said a monk, eyes wide with fear. "The Destroyer . . ."
     "Had I known at the time how well I wrought," said Yama,  "I might have
numbered its days intentionally. Occasionally, do I regret my genius."
     It passed beneath the Bridge of  the Gods, swung above the jungle, fell
away to  the south.  Its roar gradually diminished  as  it departed in  that
direction. Then there was silence.
     A bird  made a brief piping  noise. Another replied to it. Then all the
sounds of life began again and the travelers returned to their trail.
     "He will  be back," said Yama, and  this was  true. Twice more that day
did  they have to leave the trail as the thunder chariot  passed above their
heads.  On the  last occasion, it circled the monastery,  possibly observing
the  funeral rites being conducted there. Then it crossed over the mountains
and was gone.
     That night they made camp under the stars, and on the second night they
did the same.
     The third day brought them to  the river  Deeva and the small port city
of Koona. It was there that  they found  the transportation they wished, and
they set  forth that same evening,  heading south by bark to where the Deeva
joined with the mighty Vedra, and  then proceeded onward to pass at last the
wharves of Khaipur, their destination.
     As they flowed  with the river, Sam listened  to  its sounds. He  stood
upon the dark deck, his hands resting on  the rail. He stared out across the
waters where the bright heavens  rose and fell, star bending back upon star.
It  was  then  that the  night  addressed him  in  the voice of Ratri,  from
somewhere nearby.
     "You have passed this way before, Tathagatha."
     "Many times," he  replied.  "The Deeva  is a thing of beauty under  the
stars, in its rippling and its folding."
     "Indeed."
     "We go now to Khaipur and the Palace of Kama. What will you do  when we
arrive?"
     "I will spend some time in meditation, goddess."
     "Upon what shall you meditate?"
     "Upon my past lives and the mistakes they each contained. I must review
my own tactics as well as those of the enemy."
     "Yama thinks the Golden Cloud to have changed you."
     "Perhaps it has."
     "He  believes it  to have softened you,  weakened  you. You have always
posed  as a mystic, but now he believes you have become one  -- to your  own
undoing, to our undoing."
     He shook his head, turned around.  But  he did not see  her.  Stood she
there  invisible,  or  had  she  withdrawn?  He  spoke  softly  and  without
inflection:
     "I  shall tear  these stars from out the heavens," he stated, "and hurl
them in the faces of the gods, if  this be necessary. I  shall  blaspheme in
every Temple throughout  the land.  I shall take lives  as a fisherman takes
fish, by  the net, if this be necessary.  I  shall mount me  again up to the
Celestial City, though every step be a flame or a naked sword and the way be
guarded by tigers. One day will  the gods  look down from Heaven and  see me
upon the stair, bringing them the gift they fear most. That day will the new
Yuga begin.
     "But first I must meditate for a time," he finished.
     He turned back again and stared out over the waters.
     A shooting star burnt  its way across the heavens.  The ship moved  on.
The night sighed about him.
     Sam stared ahead, remembering.



II
     One time a minor rajah from a minor  principality came with his retinue
into Mahartha,  the city  that is called Gateway of the South and Capital of
the Dawn, there to purchase him a  new  body.  This was in the days when the
thread of destiny might yet be plucked from out a gutter, the gods were less
formal, the demons still bound, and the Celestial City yet occasionally open
to men. This is  the story of how the prince did bait the one-armed receiver
of devotions before the Temple,  incurring  the  disfavor of  Heaven for his
presumption. . .
     Few are the beings born again among men; more
     numerous are those born again elsewhere.
     Anguttara-nikaya (I, 35)
     Riding into the capital  of dawn at mid-afternoon, the  prince, mounted
upon a white  mare,  passed  up  the  broad  avenue  of Surya,  his  hundred
retainers  massed  at  his back,  his adviser Strake  at his left  hand, his
scimitar in his sash, and  a  portion  of his  wealth  in the  bags his pack
horses bore.
     The heat crashed  down upon the turbans  of  the men, washed past them,
came up again from the roadway.
     A chariot moved slowly by, headed in the opposite direction, its driver
squinting up at the banner the chief retainer bore; a courtesan stood at the
gateway to her pavilion, studying  the traffic; and a pack  of mongrel  dogs
followed at the heels of the horses, barking.
     The prince was  tall, and his  mustaches were  the color  of smoke. His
hands, dark as coffee,  were  marked  with  the stiff  ridges  of his veins.
Still, his posture was erect, and  his eyes were like the eyes of an ancient
bird, electric and clear.
     Ahead, a crowd gathered to watch the passing troop. Horses  were ridden
only by those who could afford them, and few were that wealthy. The slizzard
was the common mount-- a scaled  creature with snakelike  neck, many  teeth,
dubious lineage, brief life span and a vicious  temperament; the horse,  for
some reason, having grown barren in recent generations.
     The prince rode on, into the capital of dawn, the watchers watching.
     Passing, they turned off the avenue of the sun and headed up a narrower
thoroughfare. They moved by the low  buildings of  commerce, the great shops
of the great merchants, the banks, the Temples, the inns, the brothels. They
passed on, until at the fringe of  the  business district they came upon the
princely  hostel of  Hawkana, the  Most  Perfect Host. They drew rein at the
gate,  for  Hawkana  himself  stood   outside  the  walls,  simply  dressed,
fashionably corpulent and  smiling, waiting  to personally conduct the white
mare within.
     "Welcome,  Lord Siddhartha!"  he  called in a loud voice,  so that  all
within earshot  might  know  the  identity  of his guest.  "Welcome to  this
well-nightingaled vicinity, and  to the perfumed gardens and marble halls of
this humble establishment!  To your  riders welcome also,  who have ridden a
goodly ride with you and no doubt seek subtle refreshment and dignified ease
as well as  yourself. Within,  you will  find all  things to  your liking, I
trust, as you have upon the many occasions in the past when you have tarried
within  these  halls in the company  of  other  princely  guests  and  noble
visitors, too numerous to mention, such as -- "
     "And a good afternoon  to you also, Hawkana!" cried the prince, for the
day was hot and the innkeeper's  speeches, like rivers, always threatened to
flow on forever. "Let us enter quickly within your walls, where, among their
other virtues too numerous to mention, it is also cool."
     Hawkana  nodded briskly,  and taking  the  mare by the  bridle  led her
through the gateway and into his courtyard; there, he held the stirrup while
the prince dismounted, then gave  the horses  into the keeping of his stable
hands and  dispatched a small boy through the  gateway to clean  the  street
where they had waited.
     Within the hostel, the  men were  bathed,  standing  in the marble bath
hall while servants poured water over their shoulders. Then did they annoint
themselves after the custom of the warrior caste, put  on fresh garments and
passed into the hall of dining.
     The meal lasted the  entire afternoon, until the warriors lost count of
the  courses. At the right hand of the  prince,  who  sat at the head of the
long,  low, serving board, three dancers wove their way through an intricate
pattern, finger  cymbals clicking, faces  bearing the proper expressions for
the  proper moments  of  the dance, as  four  veiled  musicians  played  the
traditional music of the hours.  The table was covered with a  richly  woven
tapestry of blue, brown, yellow, red and green, wherein was worked  a series
of hunting and battle scenes: riders  mounted on slizzard and horse met with
lance  and bow the charges of  feather-panda, fire-rooster and  jewel-podded
command plant; green  apes  wrestled in the tops  of trees; the Garuda  Bird
clutched a sky demon in its talons, assailing it with beak and pinions; from
the depths  of  the sea crawled an army of  horned fish, clutching spikes of
pink coral in their jointed  fins, facing  a row of kirtled and helmeted men
who bore lances and torches to oppose their way upon the land.
     The prince ate but sparingly.  He  toyed with his food, listened to the
music, laughed  occasionally at the jesting of one  of his men. He  sipped a
sherbet, his rings clicking against the sides of the glass.
     Hawkana  appeared  beside  him.  "Goes  all  well  with  you, Lord?" he
inquired.
     "Yes, good Hawkana, all is well," he replied.
     "You do not eat as do your men. Does the meal displease you?"
     "It is not the food, which is excellent, nor  its preparation, which is
faultless,  worthy  Hawkana. Rather, it is my appetite,  which has  not been
high of late."
     "Ah!" said Hawkana, knowingly.  "I have the thing, the very thing! Only
one such as yourself may truly appreciate  it. Long has it rested  upon  the
special shelf of my cellar. The god Krishna had somehow preserved it against
the  ages. He gave  it to me many years ago because the  accommodations here
did not displease him. I shall fetch it for you."
     He bowed then, and backed from the hall.
     When he returned he bore a bottle.  Before he  saw the  paper upon  its
side, the prince recognized the shape of that bottle.
     "Burgundy!" he exclaimed.
     "Just so," said Hawkana. "Brought from vanished Uratha, long ago."
     He sniffed at  it  and smiled. Then he poured  a small quantity  into a
pear-shaped goblet and set it before his guest.
     The prince raised it and inhaled of its bouquet. He took a slow sip. He
closed his eyes.
     There was a silence in the room, in respect of his pleasure.
     Then he  lowered the  glass, and Hawkana poured  into it once again the
product of the pinot noir grape, which could not be cultivated in this land.
     The  prince did  not  touch the glass.  Instead, he  turned to Hawkana,
saying, "Who is the oldest musician in this house?"
     "Mankara, here," said his  host, gesturing toward  the white-haired man
who took his rest at the serving table in the comer.
     "Old not in body, but in years," said the prince.
     "Oh, that  would be Dele,"  said Hawkana, "if he  is to be counted as a
musician at all. He says that once he was such a one."
     "Dele?"
     "The boy who keeps the stables."
     "Ah, I see. . ..  Send for him." Hawkana clapped his hands and  ordered
the  servant  who appeared  to  go  into  the  stables,  make the  horse-boy
presentable and fetch him with dispatch into the presence of the diners.
     "Pray, do  not  bother  making him  presentable,  but simply  bring him
here," said the prince.
     He leaned back and waited then, his eyes closed.
     When the horse-boy stood before him, he asked:
     "Tell me. Dele, what music do you play?"
     "That which no longer finds favor in the hearing of Brahmins," said the
boy.
     "What was your instrument?"
     "Piano," said Dele.
     "Can you play upon any of these?" He gestured at those instruments that
stood, unused now, upon the small platform beside the wall.
     The  boy cocked  his head  at them. "I suppose  I could  manage on  the
flute, if I had to."
     "Do you know any waltzes?"
     "Yes."
     "Will you play me 'The Blue Danube'?"
     The  boy's  sullen  expression  vanished,  to  be  replaced by  one  of
uneasiness. He cast a quick glance back at Hawkana, who nodded.
     "Siddhartha is a  prince  among men,  being of the  First," stated  the
host.
     "'The Blue Danube,' on one of these flutes?"
     "If you please."
     The boy shrugged, "I'll try," he said. "It's been an awfully long time.
. .. Bear with me."
     He crossed to  where the instruments lay and muttered something to  the
owner of the flute he selected.  The man nodded his head.  Then he raised it
to his  lips and blew a few tentative notes. He  paused, repeated the trial,
then turned about.
     He raised it once  more and  began the quivering movement of the waltz.
As he played, the prince sipped his wine.
     When  he  paused for breath, the  prince motioned  him  to continue. He
played  tune  after  forbidden  tune, and  the  professional  musicians  put
professional expressions of scorn upon their faces; but  beneath their table
several feet were tapping in slow time with the music.
     Finally, the prince had finished his wine. Evening was near to the city
of Mahartha.  He tossed the  boy  a purse of coins and did not look into his
tears as he departed from the hall. He rose then and stretched, smothering a
yawn with the back of his hand.
     "I retire to my chambers," he said to his men. "Do not gamble away your
inheritances in my absence."
     They laughed then and bade him good night, calling for strong drink and
salted biscuits. He heard the rattle of dice as he departed.

     The prince retired early  so  that  he might arise  before daybreak. He
instructed a servant to remain outside his door all the following day and to
refuse admission to any who sought it, saying that he was indisposed.
     Before the first flowers had opened to the first insects of morning, he
had  gone  from the hostel,  only  an  ancient green  parrot witnessing  his
departure. Not in  silks  sewn with pearls did he go, but in tatters, as was
his  custom  on these occasions. Not preceded by conch and drum did he move,
but  by  silence, as  he passed along  the dim  streets  of  the city. These
streets were deserted, save for an occasional doctor or prostitute returning
from a late call. A stray dog followed him as he passed through the business
district, heading in the direction of the harbor.
     He seated himself upon a crate  at the foot of a pier. The dawn came to
lift the darkness from the world; and he watched the ships stirring with the
tide,  empty  of  sail,  webbed  with  cables, prows carved with monster  or
maiden. His every visit to  Mahartha brought  him again to the harbor for  a
little while.
     Morning's pink parasol opened above the tangled hair of the clouds, and
cool breezes crossed the docks. Scavenger birds uttered hoarse cries as they
darted  about loop-windowed towers,  then swooped  across  the waters of the
bay.
     He watched a ship put out to sea,  tentlike vanes of  canvas growing to
high peaks and swelling in the salt air. Aboard other ships, secure in their
anchorage, there was  movement now,  as crews made ready to  load or  unload
cargoes of incense, coral, oil and all kinds of fabrics, as  well as metals,
cattle, hardwoods and spices. He smelled the smells of commerce and listened
to the cursing of the sailors, both  of which  he admired: the former, as it
reeked of wealth, and the latter  because  it combined  his two  other chief
preoccupations, these being theology and anatomy.
     After  a time, he spoke with a foreign sea captain who had overseen the
unloading of sacks  of grain,  and  now  took his  rest in the  shade of the
crates.
     "Good  morning,"  he  said. "May  your passages  be  free of  storm and
shipwreck, and the  gods grant you  safe  harbor and a good market for  your
cargoes."
     The other nodded, seated himself  upon  a crate and proceeded to fill a
small clay pipe.
     "Thank you, old  one,"  he said. "Though I do  pray to the gods of  the
Temples of my own choosing, I accept the blessings  of any and all.  One can
always use blessings, especially a seaman."
     "Had you a difficult voyage?"
     "Less  difficult than it might have been," said the sea  captain. "That
smoldering sea mountain, the Cannon of Nirriti, discharges its bolts against
heaven once again."
     "Ah, you sailed from the southwest!"
     "Yes. Chatisthan, from Ispar-by-the-Sea. The  winds  are good  in  this
season of  the year, but for  this reason they also  carried the  ash of the
Cannon much farther  than any would think. For six days this black snow fell
upon us, and the odors of the underworld pursued us, fouling food and water,
making the eyes to weep and the throat to burn. We offered much thanksgiving
when we finally outran it. See how the hull is smeared? You should have seen
the sails -- black as the hair of Ratri!"
     The prince leaned forward to better  regard the vessel. "But the waters
were not especially troubled?" he asked.
     The sailor shook his head. "We  hailed a cruiser near the Isle of Salt,
and we learned  of it that  we had missed by six days the worst dischargings
of the Cannon. At that time, it  burnt  the clouds and  raised great  waves,
sinking two ships the cruiser did know of, and possibly a third." The sailor
leaned back,  stoking  his  pipe.  "So,  as I say, a  seaman can  always use
blessings."
     "I seek a man of the sea," said the prince. "A captain. His name is Jan
Olvegg, or perhaps he is now known as Olvagga. Do you know him?"
     "I knew him," said the other, "but it has been long since he sailed."
     "Oh? What has become of him?"
     The  sailor turned his head to better study  him. "Who are you to ask?"
he finally inquired.
     "My name is Sam. Jan is a very old friend of mine."
     "How old is 'very old'?"
     "Many, many years ago, in another place, I knew him when he was captain
of a ship which did not sail these oceans."
     The sea captain leaned forward suddenly and picked up a piece  of wood,
which he hurled at the dog who had rounded a piling at the other side of the
pier.  It yelped once  and dashed off toward the shelter  of a warehouse. It
was the same dog who had followed the prince from the hostel of Hawkana.
     "Beware  the  hounds of hell,"  said the  captain. "There are dogs  and
there are dogs-- and there are dogs. Three different kinds, and in this port
drive them all from your presence." Then he appraised the other  once again.
"Your  hands,"  he said, gesturing with  his  pipe, "have recently worn many
rings. Their impressions yet remain."
     Sam glanced  at his hands and smiled. "Your eyes miss nothing, sailor,"
he replied. "So I admit to the obvious. I have recently worn rings."
     "So,  like the dogs,  you are not what you appear to be-- and  you come
asking after Olvagga, by his most ancient  name. Your name, you say, is Sam.
Are you, perchance, one of the First?"
     Sam did not reply immediately, but studied the  other as though waiting
for him to say more.
     Perhaps realizing  this, the captain  continued: "Olvagga, I  know, was
numbered among  the  First, though he  never spoke of it.  Whether  you  are
yourself among the First, or are one of the Masters, you  are aware of this.
So I do not betray him by so speaking. I do  wish to know whether I speak to
a friend or an enemy, however."
     Sam  frowned. "Jan was never known for the making of enemies," he said.
"You speak as if he has them now, among those whom you call the Masters."
     The  seaman  continued to  stare  at him. "You  are not a  Master,"  he
finally said, "and you come from afar."
     "You are correct," said Sam, "but tell me how you know these things."
     "First," said the other, "you are an old man. A Master, too, could have
upon him an old body, but he would not-- any more than he would remain a dog
for very  long. His fear of dying the real death, suddenly, in the manner of
the old, would be too great. So  he would not remain so long as to leave the
marks of rings  deeply imprinted  upon  the  fingers. The wealthy are  never
despoiled of  their bodies. If they  are refused rebirth, they live out  the
full span  of their days. The Masters would fear a  rising  up in arms among
the  followers  of  such a  one, were  he to meet with  other than a natural
passing. So a  body such as yours could  not be  obtained in this  manner. A
body from the life tanks would not have marked fingers either.
     "Therefore," he concluded, "I take you to be a  man of importance other
than  a Master. If you knew  Olvagga of old, then you are  also one  of  the
Firstlings, such as he. Because of the sort of information which you seek, I
take you  to be one  from afar. Were you a man of Mahartha you would know of
the Masters, and knowing  of the  Masters you  would know why Olvagga cannot
sail."
     "Your knowledge of matters in Mahartha seems greater than my own -- oh,
newly arrived sailor."
     "I, too, come from a distant place,"  acknowledged the captain, smiling
faintly, "but  in  the  space of a dozen months I  may visit twice  as  many
ports. I hear news-- news and gossip  and tales  from  all over--  from more
than  a double  dozen ports. I hear of the  intrigues of the palace and  the
affairs of the Temple. I hear the secrets  whispered at night to  the golden
girls beneath the  sugar-cane bow of Kama. I hear  of  the campaigns of  the
Khshatriya and the  dealings of the great merchants in the futures of grains
and  spices, jewels and  silk. I drink  with the bards  and the astrologers,
with the  actors and the servants, the coachmen and the  tailors. Sometimes,
perhaps, I may strike the port where freebooters  have haven and learn there
the  faring of those they hold to ransom. So do not think it strange that I,
who  come  from afar,  may know  more of Mahartha than you,  who  may  dwell
perhaps a week's faring hence. Occasionally,  I may even hear of the  doings
of the gods."
     "Then  you can tell me of  the Masters, and why they are to be numbered
as enemies?" asked Sam.
     "I can tell  you something of  them,"  replied the captain,  "since you
should not  go unwarned.  The  body merchants  are now the Masters of Karma.
Their individual names are now kept secret, after the manner of the gods, so
that  they  seem  as  impersonal  as  the  Great Wheel,  which they claim to
represent. They are no longer merely body merchants, but are allied with the
Temples. These, too, are changed,  for your kinsmen of the First who are now
gods do commune with them from Heaven. If you are  indeed of the First, Sam,
your  way must lead you either to  deification or extinction,  when you face
these new Masters of Karma."
     "How?" asked Sam.
     "Details  you must seek elsewhere," said the other. "I do not  know the
processes  whereby  these  things  are  achieved.  Ask  after  Jannaveg  the
sailmaker on the Street of the Weavers."
     "This is how Jan is now known?"
     The other nodded. "And beware the dogs," he said, "or, for that matter,
anything else which is alive and may harbor intelligence."
     "What is your name, captain?" asked Sam.
     "In this  port, I have no  name  at all or a  false one, and  I  see no
reason for lying to you. Good day, Sam."
     "Good day, captain. Thank you for your words."
     Sam rose  and departed  the harbor,  heading  back toward  the business
district and the streets of the trades.

     The sun was a red discus in the heavens, rising to  meet the Bridge  of
the Gods. The prince walked  through  the awakened  city, threading  his way
among the stalls displaying the  skills of the workmen in  the small crafts.
Hawkers of  unguents  and  powders, perfumes  and  oils,  moved  about  him.
Florists  waved  their  garlands  and  corsages  at the passer-by;  and  the
vintners said  nothing,  sitting  with their  wineskins  on  rows of  shaded
benches, waiting for their customers to come to them as they always did. The
morning  smelled  of cooking food, musk, flesh, excrement, oils and  incense
all churned up together and turned loose to wander like an invisible cloud.
     Dressed as a  beggar himself, it  did not seem out of place for him  to
stop and speak to the hunchback with the begging bowl.
     "Greetings, brother,"  he  stated.  "I  am far from  my quarter  on  an
errand. Can you direct me to the Street of the Weavers?"
     The hunchback nodded and shook his bowl suggestively.
     He withdrew a small coin from  the pouch concealed beneath his tattered
garments. He dropped it into the hunchback's bowl and it quickly vanished.
     "That way."  The man gestured with his head. "The third street you come
upon, turn there to the left. Then follow it past two streets more,  and you
will be at the Circle of the Fountain before  the Temple of  Varuna.  Coming
into that  Circle,  the Street of the Weavers  is marked by the  Sign of the
Awl."
     He nodded to the hunchback, patted his hump and continued on his way.
     When he reached  the Circle of the Fountain, the prince halted. Several
dozen  people  stood  in a  shifting line before  the Temple of Varuna, most
stern and  august  of all the deities. These  people  were not  preparing to
enter the  Temple, but rather were engaged in  some occupation that required
waiting  and taking turns. He  heard the rattling  of coins and he  wandered
nearer.
     It was a machine, gleaming and metallic, before which they moved.
     A man  inserted a coin  into the  mouth  of a  steel tiger. The machine
began to purr.  He  pressed  buttons  cast  in the likenesses of animals and
demons. There came then a flashing of lights along the lengths of the Nagas,
the two holy serpents who twisted about the transparent face of the machine.
     He edged closer.
     The man drew down upon the lever that grew from the side of the machine
cast in the likeness of the tail of a fish.
     A holy blue  light filled the  interior of the  machine;  the  serpents
pulsed redly; and there, in the midst of the light and a soft music that had
begun  to  play, a  prayer wheel  swung  into view  and began spinning at  a
furious pace.
     The man wore a beatific expression.  After several minutes, the machine
shut  itself off. He  inserted another coin and pulled the  lever once more,
causing several of  those nearer to the end of the line to  grumble audibly,
remarking  to the effect  that that was his seventh coin, it was a warm day,
there were other people waiting  to get some praying done and why did he not
go  inside and render such a large donation directly to the priests? Someone
replied  that the little  man obviously had much  atoning to do. There  then
began some speculation  as  to  the  possible nature of  his  sins. This was
accompanied by considerable laughter.
     Seeing that there were several beggars  waiting their turn in line, the
prince moved to its end and stood there.
     As the line  advanced, he  noted that, while some  of those who  passed
before the  machine pushed its buttons, others merely inserted a  flat metal
disc into the mouth of the second tiger on the opposite side of the chassis.
After  the machine  had ceased to function, the disc fell into a cup and was
retrieved by its owner. The prince decided to venture an inquiry.
     He addressed the man who stood before him in line:
     "Why is it," he asked, "that some men do have discs of their own?"
     "It is because they have  registered," said the other,  without turning
his head.
     "In the Temple?"
     "Yes."
     "Oh."
     He  waited half a  minute, then inquired, "Those who  are unregistered,
and wish to use it-- they push the buttons?"
     "Yes," said  the  other, "spelling  out  their  name,  occupation,  and
address."
     "Supposing one be a visitor here, such as myself?"
     "You should add the name of your city."
     "Supposing one is unlettered, such as myself-- what then?"
     The other turned to him.  "Perhaps  ''twere better," he said, "that you
make prayer in the old way, and give the donation directly into the hands of
the priests. Or else register and obtain a disc of your own."
     "I  see," said  the prince. "Yes, you are right. I  must  think of this
more. Thank you."
     He left the line and circled  the fountain to where the Sign of the Awl
hung upon a pillar. He moved up the Street of the Weavers.
     Three times did he ask after Janagga the sailmaker, the third time of a
short woman with powerful arms and  a small  mustache, who sat cross-legged,
plaiting a  rug, in her  stall beneath the  low eave of what once might have
been a stable and still smelled as if it were.
     She growled him directions, after raking him upward and down again with
oddly  lovely brown-velvet eyes. He  followed her directions, taking his way
up a zigzagging alley and down an outer stair, which ran along the wall of a
five-story building, ending at a door that opened  upon  a basement hallway.
It was damp and dark within.
     He knocked upon the third door to his left, and after a time it opened.
     The man stared at him. "Yes?"
     "May I come in? It is a matter of some urgency . . ."
     The man hesitated a moment, then nodded abruptly and stepped aside.
     The prince moved past him and into his chamber. A great sheet of canvas
was spread out over the floor,  before the stool upon which the man reseated
himself. He motioned the prince into the only other chair in the room.
     He was short and big in the shoulders; his hair was pure white, and the
pupils of his eyes bore the smoky beginnings of cataract invasion. His hands
were brown and hard, the joints of his fingers knotted.
     "Yes?" he repeated.
     "Jan Olvegg," said the other.
     "The old man's eyes widened, then narrowed to slits.
     He weighed a pair of scissors in his hand.
     "'It's a long way to Tipperary,' " said the prince.
     The  man stared, then smiled suddenly. "'If your heart's not here,'" he
said, placing the scissors on his workstand. "How long has it been, Sam?" he
asked.
     "I've lost count of the years."
     "Me  too.  But it must be  forty -- forty-five?-- since  I've seen you.
Much beer over the damn dam since then, I daresay?"
     Sam nodded.
     "I don't really know where to begin . . ." said the man.
     "For a start, tell me-- why 'Janagga'?"
     "Why  not?" asked  the other.  "It has a certain earnest, working-class
sound about it. How about yourself? Still in the prince business?"
     "I'm still  me," said Sam, "and they still call me Siddhartha when they
come to call."
     The  other chuckled.  "And 'Binder  of the Demons,'" he recited.  "Very
good. I take it, then, since your fortunes do not match your  garb, that you
are casing the scene, as is your wont."
     Sam nodded. "And I have come upon much which I do not understand."
     "Aye," sighed Jan. "Aye.  How shall  I begin?  How? I shall tell you of
myself, that's how. . . . I have accumulated too much bad karma to warrant a
current transfer."
     "What?"
     "Bad  karma,  that's what I said. The old  religion  is  not  only  the
religion--  it  is the  revealed, enforced  and  frighteningly  demonstrable
religion. But don't think that last part too loudly. About a dozen years ago
the  Council  authorized the  use of psych-probes on  those who were up  for
renewal. This was right after  the  Accelerationist-Deicrat split, when  the
Holy Coalition squeezed out the tech  boys and kept right on squeezing.  The
simplest solution was to outlive  the problem. The Temple crowd then  made a
deal with the body sellers, customers were brain-probed and Accelerationists
were refused  renewal, or . . . well  . . . simple as that. There aren't too
many Accelerationists now.  But  that was only the beginning. The god  party
was  quick to realize that therein lay the  way of power. Having your brains
scanned has  become a standard procedure, just prior to a transfer. The body
merchants are  become  the  Masters of  Karma,  and a  part  of  the  Temple
structure. They read over  your  past  life, weigh the karma, and  determine
your life  that is yet to come. It's a perfect  way of maintaining the caste
system  and  ensuring  Deicratic control.  By  the  way,  most  of  our  old
acquaintances are in it up to their halos."
     "God!" said Sam.
     "Plural,"  Jan corrected.  "They've always  been considered gods,  with
their  Aspects and Attributes, but they've made it awfully official now. And
anyone who  happens  to  be among  the First had bloody well better be  sure
whether he wants quick deification or  the pyre when he walks into the  Hall
of Karma these days.
     "When's your appointment?" he finished.
     "Tomorrow,"  said Sam,  "in the afternoon. . .  .  Why  are  you  still
walking around, if you don't have a halo or a handful of thunderbolts?"
     "Because I do have a couple friends, both  of whom suggested I continue
living-- quietly-- rather than face the  probe.  I took their sage advice to
heart and consequently am still around  to mend  sails and  raise occasional
hell in  the local bistros. Else"-- he raised a callused hand,  snapped  his
fingers-- "else, if not the real death, then  perhaps  a body shot full with
cancer, or the interesting life of a gelded water buffalo, or . . ."
     "A dog?" asked Sam.
     "Just so," Jan replied.
     Jan filled the silence and two glasses with a splashing of alcohol.
     "Thanks."
     "Happy hellfire." He replaced the bottle on his workstand.
     "On an empty stomach yet. . . . You make that yourself?"
     "Yep. Got a still in the next room."
     "Congratulations, I guess.  If I had  any bad  karma, it should all  be
dissolved by now."
     "The definition of bad  karma is anything  our  friends the  gods don't
like."
     "What made you think you had some?"
     "I wanted to start passing out machines among our descendants here. Got
batted down  at  Council for  it. Recanted,  and hoped  they'd  forget.  But
Accelerationism is so far out now that it'll never make it back in during my
lifetime.  Pity, too. I'd like to lift sail again, head  off toward  another
horizon. Or lift ship. . ."
     "The probe is actually sensitive enough to spot something as intangible
as an Accelerationist attitude?"
     "The  probe," said Jan, "is sensitive enough  to tell what you  had for
breakfast eleven years ago yesterday and where you cut yourself shaving that
morning, while humming the Andorran national anthem."
     "They were  experimental things when we left  home," said Sam. "The two
we brought  along  were  very  basic brain-wave  translators. When  did  the
breakthrough occur?"
     "Hear me, country cousin," said Jan. "Do you remember a snot-nosed brat
of dubious parentage,  third generation, named  Yama? The kid who was always
souping  up generators, until one day one blew and he  was  so  badly burned
that he got his second  body-- one over  fifty years old-- when  he was only
sixteen?  The  kid  who  loved weapons? The fellow who  anesthetized  one of
everything that moves  out there and dissected it,  taking such pleasure  in
his studies that we called him deathgod?"
     "Yes, I recall him. Is he still alive?"
     "If you want to call it that. He now is deathgod-- not by nickname, but
by  title. He perfected  the probe about forty years  ago,  but the Deicrats
kept it under wraps until fairly recently. I hear he's dreamed up some other
little jewels, too, to serve the will of the  gods . .  .  like a mechanical
cobra capable  of  registering encephalogram readings from a mile away, when
it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd, regardless
of  the  body  he wears. There is  no  known antidote  for  its venom.  Four
seconds, no more. . . . Or the fire wand, which is said  to  have scored the
surfaces  of all  three moons while Lord  Agni stood upon the  seashore  and
waved it. And I understand that he is  designing some sort  of jet-propelled
juggernaut for Lord Shiva at this moment. . . things like that."
     "Oh," said Sam.
     "Will you pass the probe?" Jan asked.
     "I'm  afraid not," he replied. "Tell  me, I saw a  machine this morning
which I think may best be described as a pray-o-mat-- are they very common?"
     "Yes," said  Jan. "They appeared  about  two  years ago-- dreamed up by
young Leonardo over a short glass of soma one night. Now that the karma idea
has caught  on, the  things  are  better  than tax  collectors.  When mister
citizen  presents himself  at  the clinic of the  god  of the church of  his
choice  on the eve of his sixtieth  year,  his prayer account is said to  be
considered along with his sin account, in deciding the caste he will enter--
as well as the age, sex and health of the body he will receive. Nice. Neat."
     "I  will  not pass  the probe," said Sam, "even if I build up  a mighty
prayer account. They'll snare me when it comes to sin."
     "What sort of sin?"
     "Sins I have yet to commit, but which are being written in my mind as I
consider them now."
     "You plan to oppose the gods?"
     "Yes."
     "How?"
     "I do not yet know. I shall  begin, however, by contacting them. Who is
their chief?"
     "I  can name you no one. Trimurti rules-- that is, Brahma,  Vishnu  and
Shiva. Which of these three  be chiefest at any one time, I cannot say. Some
say Brahma-- "
     "Who are they-- really?" asked Sam.
     Jan shook his head. "I do not know. They all wear different bodies than
they did a generation ago. They all use god names."
     Sam stood. "I will return later, or send for you."
     "I hope so. . . . Another drink?"
     Sam shook his head.  "I go to become Siddhartha once more,  to break my
fast at the hostel  of Hawkana and  announce  there my  intent  to visit the
Temples. If  our  friends are  now gods then they  must  commune with  their
priests. Siddhartha goes to pray."
     "Then  put  in no  words for me," said Jan,  as  he  poured out another
drink. "I do not know whether I would live through a divine visitation."
     Sam smiled. "They are not omnipotent."
     "I sincerely hope not," replied the other, "but I fear  that day is not
far off."
     "Good sailing, Jan."
     "Skaal."

     Prince Siddhartha stopped on the  Street of the Smiths, on his  way  to
the Temple of Brahma. Half an hour later he emerged from a shop, accompanied
by  Strake and three of his retainers. Smiling, as though he  had received a
vision of what was to come, he passed through the center of Mahartha, coming
at last to the high, wide Temple of the Creator.
     Ignoring  the  stares  of  those  who stood before  the pray-o-mat,  he
mounted the long, shallow stairway, meeting at the Temple entrance  with the
high priest, whom he had advised earlier of his coming.
     Siddhartha  and his men entered the  Temple, disarming  themselves  and
paying preliminary obeisances  toward its central chamber  before addressing
the priest.
     Strake  and the others drew  back a  respectful  distance as the prince
placed a heavy purse in the priest's hands and said, in a low voice:
     "I'd like to speak with God."
     The priest studied his face as he replied,  "The Temple is open to all.
Lord Siddhartha,  where  one may  commune  with  Heaven for  so long  as one
wishes."
     "That is not exactly  what  I had  in mind,"  said Siddhartha.  "I  was
thinking of something more personal than a sacrifice and a long litany."
     "I do not quite follow you . . ."
     "But you understand the weight of that purse, do  you  not? It contains
silver. Another which I bear is filled with gold-- payable upon delivery.  I
want to use your telephone."
     "Tele . . . ?"
     "Communication system. If you were  of the First, such  as I, you would
understand my reference."
     "I do not . . ."
     "I assure you my call will not reflect  adversely upon your  wardenship
here. I am aware of these matters and my discretion has always been a byword
among the First. Call First Base yourself and inquire, if it will put you at
ease.  I'll  wait here in the outer chamber.  Tell them Sam would have words
with Trimurti. They will take the call."
     "I do not know. . ."
     Sam withdrew the second purse and weighed  it in the palm of his  hand.
The priest's eyes fell upon it and he licked his lips.
     "Wait  here," he ordered,  and he  turned  on his  heel  and  left  the
chamber.

     Ili, the fifth note of the harp, buzzed within the Garden of the Purple
Lotus.
     Brahma loafed upon the  edge  of the heated pool, where  he bathed with
his harem. His eyes appeared closed, as he leaned there upon his elbows, his
feet dangling in the water.
     But  he stared out  from beneath his long  lashes, watching  the  dozen
girls at sport in the pool, hoping to see one or  more cast an  appreciative
glance upon the dark,  heavily muscled length of his body. Black upon brown,
his mustaches glistened in moist disarray and his hair was a black wing upon
his back. He smiled a bright smile in the filtered sunlight.
     But none of them  appeared to notice,  so he refolded his smile and put
it away. All  their attention lay with the  game of water polo in which they
were engaged.
     Ili,  the bell of communication, buzzed  once  more,  as  an artificial
breeze  waited the  odor of  garden jasmine  to his nostrils. He  sighed. He
wanted so for them  to worship him--  his  powerful physique, his  carefully
molded features. To worship him as a man, not as a god.
     But though his special and improved  body permitted feats no mortal man
could  duplicate,  still he felt uneasy  in the presence of an old war horse
like  Lord Shiva--  who, despite his  adherence to the normal  body  matrix,
seemed to hold far more attraction for women. It was almost as if sex were a
thing that transcended biology; and  no matter how hard he tried to suppress
the  memory and destroy that segment of spirit, Brahma had been born a woman
and somehow was woman still. Hating this thing, he had  elected to incarnate
time  after  time as  an eminently  masculine  man, did so,  and still  felt
somehow inadequate, as though the mark of his true sex were branded upon his
brow. It made him want to stamp his foot and grimace.
     He  rose and stalked  off toward his pavilion, past stunted  trees that
twisted with a  certain grotesque beauty, past trellises  woven with morning
glory, pools of blue water lilies, strings of pearls swinging from rings all
wrought of white gold, past lamps shaped like girls, tripods wherein pungent
incenses burnt and  an eight-armed statue of a blue  goddess who played upon
the veena when properly addressed.
     Brahma entered the pavilion and crossed to the screen of crystal, about
which a  bronze  Naga  twisted, tail in  teeth. He  activated the  answering
mechanism.
     There was a static snowfall, and then he  faced the high priest of  his
Temple in Mahartha. The  priest  dropped to his knees and  touched his caste
mark three times upon the floor.
     "Of  the four  orders  of  gods  and the  eighteen  hosts  of Paradise,
mightiest is Brahma," said the priest. "Creator of all. Lord of high  Heaven
and everything beneath it. A lotus springs forth from your navel, your hands
churn the oceans, in three  strides  your feet encompass all the worlds. The
drum  of your glory strikes terror in the hearts of your  enemies. Upon your
right hand is the wheel of the law.  You tether  catastrophes, using a snake
for rope. Hail! See  fit to accept the  prayer of your priest. Bless me  and
hear me, Brahma!'
     "Arise  .  .  . priest," said Brahma, having forgotten his name.  "What
thing of mighty importance moved you to call me thus?"
     The priest arose, cast a quick glance upon Brahma's dripping person and
looked away again.
     "Lord," said the  priest,  "I  did not mean to  call while you  were at
bath, but there is one  among your worshipers here now  who would speak with
you, on a matter which I take to be of mighty importance."
     "One of my  worshipers! Tell him that all-hearing Brahma hears all, and
direct him to pray to me in the ordinary manner, in the Temple proper!"
     Brahma's hand moved toward the shutoff switch, then paused.  "How  came
he  to  know of the Temple-to-Heaven line?" he inquired. "And of  the direct
communion of saints and gods?"
     "He  says," replied the priest,  "that he is of  the First, and that  I
should relay the message that Sam would have words with Trimurti."
     "Sam?" said Brahma. "Sam? Surely it cannot be . . . that Sam?"
     "He is the one known hereabouts as Siddhartha, Binder of the Demons."
     "Await  my  pleasure,"   said   Brahma,  "singing   the  while  various
appropriate verses from the Vedas."
     "I hear, my Lord," said the priest, and he commenced singing.
     Brahma  moved to  another part of the pavilion and  stood awhile before
his wardrobe, deciding what to wear.

     The  prince, hearing his name called, turned from the contemplation  of
the Temple's interior. The priest, whose name he had forgotten, beckoned him
along  a corridor. He  followed, and the passage led into a storage chamber.
The priest rumbled after  a  hidden catch, then drew  upon a  row of shelves
that opened outward, doorlike.
     The prince passed  through this  doorway. He  found  himself  within  a
richly  decorated   shrine.   A   glowing   view-screen   hung   above   its
altar/control-panel,  encircled by a bronze Naga, which held its tail in its
teeth.
     The priest bowed three times.
     "Hail, ruler of the universe, mightiest  of the four orders of gods and
the eighteen hosts of paradise.  From your  navel  springs forth the  lotus,
your hands churn the oceans, in three strides -- "
     "I acknowledge the truth  of what  you  say," replied Brahma. "You  are
blessed and heard. You may leave us now."

"?"
     "That is correct. Sam is doubtless paying you for a private line, is he
not?"
     "Lord . . . !"
     "Enough! Depart!"
     The priest bowed quickly and left, closing the shelves behind him.
     Brahma studied  Sam, who was wearing dark jodhpurs, a sky-blue khameez,
the blue-green turban of Urath and an  empty scabbard  upon a  chain belt of
dark iron.
     Sam, in turn, studied the  other, who stood with blackness at his back,
wearing  a feather cloak  over a suit of  light mail.  It was  caught at the
throat with a clasp of fire opal.  Brahma wore a purple crown, studded  with
pulsating amethysts, and he bore in his right  hand a  scepter mounted  with
the nine auspicious gems. His eyes were two dark stains upon  his dark face.
The gentle strumming of a veena occurred about him.
     "Sam?" he said.
     Sam nodded.
     "I am trying to guess your true identity. Lord Brahma. I confess that I
cannot."
     "This is as it should be," said Brahma, "if one is to be a god who was,
is and always shall be."
     "Fine garments, those you wear," said Sam. "Quite fetching."
     "Thank you. I find it hard to believe that you still exist. Checking, I
note that you have not sought  a new body for half a century. That is taking
quite a chance."
     Sam shrugged. "Life is full of chances, gambles, uncertainties. . ."
     "True," said Brahma. "Pray, draw up a chair and sit down. Make yourself
comfortable."
     Sam did this,  and when  he looked up again, Brahma was  seated upon  a
high throne carved of red marble, with a matching parasol flared above it.
     "That looks a bit uncomfortable," he remarked.
     "Foam-rubber cushion," replied the god, smiling. "You may smoke, if you
wish."
     "Thanks."  Sam  drew his  pipe from the  pouch at his belt, filled  it,
tamped it carefully and struck it to fire.
     "What have you  been doing all  this time,"  asked the  god, "since you
left the roost of Heaven?"
     "Cultivating my own gardens," said Sam.
     "We  could  have  used  you here,"  said  Brahma,  "in  our hydroponics
section. For  that matter, perhaps we still could. Tell me more of your stay
among men."
     "Tiger hunts, border disputes with neighboring kingdoms, keeping up the
morale of the harem, a bit of botanical  research-- things  like  that-- the
stuff of life,"  said Sam. "Now my powers slacken, and  I seek  once more my
youth. But to obtain it again,  I  understand that I  must  have  my  brains
strained. Is that true?"
     "After a fashion," said Brahma.
     "To what end, may I ask?"
     "That wrong shall fail and right prevail," said the god, smiling.
     "Supposing I'm wrong," asked Sam, "how shall I fail?"
     "You  shall be required to  work off  your  karmic  burden  in a lesser
form."
     "Have you  any  figures readily  available  as to  the percentage  that
fails, vis-á-vis that which prevails?"
     "Think not less of me in my omniscience," said  Brahma, stifling a yawn
with  his scepter,  "if I admit  to having, for  the moment, forgotten these
figures."
     Sam chuckled.  "You  say  you  have need of a  gardener  there  in  the
Celestial City?"
     "Yes," said Brahma. "Would you like to apply for the job?"
     "I don't know," said Sam. "Perhaps."
     "And then again, perhaps not?" said the other.
     "Perhaps not,  also," he acknowledged. "In the old days there was  none
of this shillyshallying  with  a  man's  mind. If  one  of the  First sought
renewal, he paid the body price and was served."
     "We no longer dwell in the old days, Sam. The new age is at hand."
     "One would almost think that you sought the removal of all of the First
who are not marshaled at your back."
     "A pantheon has room for  many, Sam. There is a  niche  for you, if you
choose to claim it."
     "If I do not?"
     "Then inquire in the Hall of Karma after your body."
     "And if I elect godhood?"
     "Your brains will  not be probed.  The Masters will be advised to serve
you quickly  and well.  A flying machine will be dispatched to convey you to
Heaven."
     "It bears a bit of thinking," said Sam. "I'm  quite fond of this world,
though it wallows in  an age  of darkness. On the other hand, such  fondness
will not serve me to enjoy the things I desire, if it is decreed that  I die
the  real death or take on the form of an ape and wander about the  jungles.
But I am not overly fond of artificial perfection either, such as existed in
Heaven when last I visited there. Bide with me a moment while I meditate."
     "I  consider such indecision presumptuous," said Brahma, "when  one has
just been made such an offer."
     "I know, and perhaps I should also, were our positions reversed. But if
I were God and you were me, I do believe I would extend a moment's  merciful
silence while a man makes a major decision regarding his life."
     "Sam, you  are an impossible haggler! Who else  would keep  me  waiting
while his  immortality  hangs  in the  balance?  Surely you  do not  seek to
bargain with me?"
     "Well, I do come from a  long line  of slizzard traders-- and I do very
badly want something."
     "And what may that be?"
     "Answers to a few questions which have plagued me for a while now."
     "These being . . . ?"
     "As you are aware, I stopped attending the  old Council meetings over a
century  ago, for  they had become  lengthy  sessions calculated to postpone
decision-making, and were primarily an excuse  for a Festival  of the First.
Now, I have nothing against  festivals. In fact, for  a century and a half I
went  to them only to  drink good Earth booze once more. But, I felt that we
should be doing something about the passengers, as well as the  offspring of
our many bodies, rather than letting them wander a  vicious world, reverting
to savagery. I felt that we of the  crew should be assisting  them, granting
them the benefits of  the technology we  had preserved, rather than building
ourselves an impregnable paradise and  treating  the world as a  combination
game preserve and whorehouse. So, I  have  wondered long why this  thing was
not done. It would seem a fair and equitable way to run a world."
     "I take it from this that you are an Accelerationist?"
     "No," said Sam, "simply an inquirer.  I am curious, that's  all, as  to
the reasons."
     "Then, to answer your questions,"  said Brahma, "it is because they are
not ready for it. Had we acted immediately-- yes, t