ut there came no singing, or movement. About them was the stillness of
time that had no objects upon which to wear.
"How long have we waited?"
"I do not know. Long."
"I feel that all is not well."
"You may be right. Shall we rise a few levels and investigate, or shall
I bear you to your freedom now?"
"Let us wait awhile longer."
"Very well."
Again, there was silence. They paced within it.
"What was that?"
"What?"
"A sound."
"I heard nothing and we are using the same ears."
"Not with the ears of the body-- there it is again!"
"I heard nothing, Taraka."
"It continues. It is like a scream, but it does not end."
"Far?"
"Yes, quite distant. Listen my way."
"Yes! I believe it is the scepter of Kali. The battle, then, goes on."
"This long? Then the gods are stronger than I had supposed."
"No, the Rakasha are stronger than I had supposed."
"Whether we win or lose, Siddhartha, the gods are presently engaged. If
we can get by them, their vessel may be unattended. Do you want it?"
"Steal the thunder chariot? That is a thought. . . . It is a mighty
weapon, as well as transportation. What might our chances be?"
"I am certain the Rakasha can hold them for as long as is necessary--
and it is a long climb up Hellwell. We need not use the trail ourself. I
grow tired, but I can still bear us across the air."
"Let us rise a few levels and investigate."
They left their ledge by the black pool, and time beat again about them
as they passed upward.
As they advanced, a globe of light moved to meet them. It settled upon
the floor of the cavern and grew into a tree of green fire.
"How goes the battle?" asked Taraka.
"We hold them," it reported, "but we cannot close with them."
"Why not?"
"There is that about them which repels. I do not know how to call it,
but we cannot draw too near."
"How then do you fight?"
"A steady storm of rocks rages about them. We hurl fire and water and
great spinning winds, also."
"And how do they respond to this?"
"The trident of Shiva cuts a path through everything. But no matter how
much he destroys, we raise up more against him. So he stands like a statue,
uncreating storms we will not let end. Occasionally, he swerves to kill,
while the Lord of Fires holds back the attack. The scepter of the goddess
slows those who face upon it. Once slowed, they meet the trident or the hand
or the eyes of Death."
"And you have not succeeded in harming them?"
"No."
"Where do they stand?"
"Part way down the well wall. They are still near to the top. They
descend slowly."
"How many have we lost?"
"Eighteen."
"Then it was a mistake to end our waiting to begin this battle. The
cost is too high and nothing is being gained. . .. Sam, do you want to try
for the chariot?"
"It is worth a risk. . .. Yes, let us try."
"Go then," he instructed the Rakasha who branched and swayed before
him. "Go, and we shall follow more slowly. We will rise along the side of
the wall opposite them. When we begin the ascent, redouble your attack.
Occupy them entirely until we have passed. Hold them then to give us time in
which to steal their chariot from the valley. When this has been
accomplished, I will return to you in my true form and we can put an end to
the fighting."
"I obey," replied the other, and he fell upon the floor to become a
green serpent of light, and slithered off ahead of them.
They rushed forward, running part of the way, to conserve the strength
of the demon for the final necessary thrust against gravitation. They had
journeyed a great distance beneath the Ratnagaris, and the return trip
seemed endless.
Finally, though, they came upon the floor of the well; and it was
lighted sufficiently so that, even with the eyes of his body, Sam could see
clearly about him. The noise was deafening. If he and Taraka had had to rely
upon speech for communication, there would have been no communication.
Like some fantastic orchid upon an ebon bough, the fire bloomed upon
the wall of the well. As Agni waved his wand, it changed its shape,
writhing. In the air, like bright insects, danced the Rakasha. The rushing
of winds was one loudness, and the rattling of many stones was another.
Above it all was the ululating cry of the silver skull-wheel, which Kali
waved like a fan before her face; and this was even more terrible when it
rose beyond the range of hearing, but still screamed. Rocks split and melted
and dissolved in midair, their white-hot fragments leaping like sparks from
a forge, out and downward. They bounced and rolled, and glowed redly in the
shadows of Hellwell. The surrounding walls of the well were pocked and
gouged and scored in the places where the flame and the chaos had touched.
"Now," said Taraka, "we go!"
They rose into the air and moved up the side of the well. The power of
the Rakasha's attack increased, to be answered with an intensified
counterattack. Sam covered his ears with his hands, but it did no good
against the burning needles behind his eyes, which stirred whenever the
silver skull swept in his direction. A short distance to his left, a whole
section of rock vanished abruptly.
"They have not detected us," said Taraka.
"Yet," answered Sam. "That accursed Fire god can look through a sea of
ink to spot a shifting grain of sand. If he turns in this direction, I hope
you can dodge his-- "
"How was that?" asked Taraka, as they were suddenly forty feet higher
and somewhat farther to the left.
They sped upward now, and a line of melting rock pursued them. Then
this was interrupted as the demons set up a wailing and tore loose gigantic
boulders, which they hurled upon the gods, with the accompaniment of
hurricanes and sheets of fire. They reached the lip of the well, passed
above it and scurried back out of range.
"We must go all the way around now, to reach the corridor which leads
to the door."
A Rakasha rose from out of the well and sped to their side.
"They retreat!" he cried. "The goddess has fallen. The One in Red
supports her as they flee!"
"They do not retreat," said Taraka. "They move to cut us off. Block
their way! Destroy the trail! Hurry!"
The Rakasha dropped like a meteor back into the well.
"Binder, I grow tired. I do not know whether I can bear us from the
ledge outside all the way to the ground below."
"Can you manage it part of the way?"
"Yes."
"That first three hundred feet or so where the trail is narrow?"
"I think so."
"Good!"
They ran.
As they fled along the rim of Hellwell, another Rakasha rose up and
kept pace with them.
"I report!" he cried. "We have destroyed the trail twice. Each time,
the Lord of Flames has burnt a new one!"
"Then naught more can be done! Stay with us now! We need your
assistance in another matter."
It sped on ahead of them, a crimson wedge lighting their way.
They rounded the well and raced up the tunnel. When they reached its
end, they hurled the door wide and stepped out onto the ledge. The Rakasha
who had led the way slammed the door behind them, saying, "They pursue!"
Sam stepped over the ledge. As he fell, the door glowed for an instant,
then melted above him.
With the help of the second Rakasha, they descended the entire distance
to the base of Channa and moved up a trail and around a bend. The foot of a
mountain now shielded them from the gods. But this rock was lashed with
flame in an instant.
The second Rakasha shot high into the air, wheeled and vanished.
They ran along the trail, heading toward the valley that held the
chariot. By the time they reached it, the Rakasha had returned.
"Kali and Yama and Agni descend," he stated. "Shiva stays behind,
holding the corridor. Agni leads the pursuit. The One in Red helps the
goddess, who is limping."
Before them, in the valley, lay the thunder chariot. Slim and
unadorned, the color of bronze, though it was not bronze, it stood upon a
wide, grassy plain. It looked like a fallen prayer tower or a giant's house
key or some necessary part of a celestial instrument of music that had
slipped free of a starry constellation and dropped to the ground. It seemed
to be somehow incomplete, although the eye could not fault its lines. It
held that special beauty that belongs to the highest orders of weapons,
requiring function to make it complete.
Sam moved to its side, found the hatch, entered.
"You can operate this chariot. Binder?" asked Taraka. "Make it race
through the heavens, spitting destruction across the land?"
"I'm sure Yama would keep the controls as simple as possible. He
streamlines whenever he can. I've flown the jets of Heaven before, and I'm
banking that this is of the same order."
He ducked into the cabin, settled into the control seat and stared at
the panel before him.
"Damn!" he announced, his hand starting forward and twitching back.
The other Rakasha appeared suddenly, passing through the metal wall of
the ship and hovering above the console.
"The gods move rapidly," he announced. "Particularly Agni."
Sam snapped a series of switches and pressed a button. Lights came on
all over the instrument panel and a humming sound began within it.
"How far is he?" asked Taraka.
"Almost halfway down. He widened the trail with his flames. He runs
upon it now, as if it were a roadway. He burn obstacles. He makes a clear
path."
Sam drew back on a lever and adjusted a dial, reading the indicators
before him. A shudder ran through the ship.
"Are you ready?" asked Taraka.
"I can't take off cold. It has to warm up. Also, this instrument board
is trickier than I'd thought."
"We run a close race."
"Yes."
From the distance, there came the sounds of several explosions rising
above the growing growl of the chariot. Sam pulled the lever forward another
notch, readjusted the dial.
"I go to slow them," said the Rakasha, and vanished as he had come.
Sam drew the lever two notches farther, and somewhere something
sputtered and died. The ship stood silent once more.
He pushed the lever back into its former position, spun the dial,
pushed the button again.
And again a shudder ran through the chariot, and somewhere a purring
began. Sam drew the lever one notch forward, adjusted the dial.
After a moment, he repeated it, and the purr became a soft growl
"Gone," said Taraka. "Dead."
"Who? What?"
"The one who went to stop the Lord of Flames. He failed."
There were more explosions.
"Hellwell is being destroyed," said Taraka.
Perspiration upon his brow, Sam waited with his hand on the lever.
"He comes now-- Agni!"
Sam looked through the long, slanted shield plate.
The Lord of Flames came into the valley.
"Good-bye, Siddhartha."
"Not yet," said Sam.
Agni looked at the chariot, raised his wand.
Nothing happened.
He stood, pointing the wand; and then he lowered it, shook it.
He raised it once more.
Again, no flame issued forth.
He reached behind his neck with his left hand, performed some
adjustment upon his pack. As he did this, light streamed from the wand,
burning a huge pit in the ground at his side.
He pointed the wand again.
Nothing.
Then he began running toward the ship.
"Electrodirection?" asked Taraka.
"Yes."
Sam drew back upon the lever, adjusted the dial farther. A huge roaring
grew about him. He pressed another button and there came a crackling sound
from the rear of the vessel. He moved another dial as Agni reached the
hatch.
There was a flash of flame and a metallic clanging.
He rose from his seat and moved out of the cabin and into the corridor.
Agni had entered, and he pointed the wand.
"Do not move-- Sam! Demon!" he cried, above the roar of the engines;
and as he spoke, his lenses clicked red and he smiled. "Demon," he stated.
"Do not move, or you and your host will burn together!"
Sam sprang upon him. Agni fell easily when he struck, for he had not
believed that the other would reach him.
"Short circuit, eh?" said Sam, and hit him across the throat.
"Or sunspots?" and he struck him in the temple.
Agni fell to his side, and Sam hit him a final blow with the edge of
his hand, just above the collarbone.
He kicked the wand the length of the corridor, and as he moved to close
the hatch he knew that it was too late.
"Go now, Taraka," he said. "This is my fight from here on. You can do
nothing more."
"I promised my assistance."
"You have none to give, now. Get out while still you can."
"If such is your will. But I have a final thing to say to you -- "
"Save it! Next time I'm in the neighborhood-- "
"Binder, it is this thing I learned of you-- I am sorry. I - "
There was a terrible twisting, wrenching sensation within his body and
mind, as the death-gaze of Yama fell upon him and struck deeper than his own
being.
Kali, too, looked into his eyes; and as she did so, she raised her
screaming scepter.
It was as the lifting of one shadow and the falling of another.
"Good-bye, Binder," came the words within his mind.
Then the skull began its screaming.
He felt himself falling.
There was a throbbing.
It was within his head. It was all about him.
He was awakened by throbbing, and he felt himself covered with aches,
as with bandages.
There were chains upon his wrists and his ankles.
He was half seated on the floor of a small compartment. Beside the
doorway sat the One in Red, smoking.
Yama nodded, said nothing.
"Why am I alive?" Sam asked him.
"You live for purposes of keeping an appointment made many years ago in
Mahartha," said Yama. "Brahma is particularly anxious to see you once
again."
"But I am not especially anxious to see Brahma."
"Over the years, that has become somewhat apparent."
"I see you got out of the mud all right."
The other smiled. "You are a nasty man," he said.
"I know. I practice."
"I gather your business deal fell through?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Perhaps you can try recouping your losses. We're halfway to Heaven."
"Think I'd have a chance?"
"You just might. Times change. Brahma could be a merciful god this
week."
"My occupational therapist told me to specialize in lost causes."
Yama shrugged.
"What of the demon?" Sam asked. "The one who was with me?"
"I touched it," said Yama, "hard. I don't know whether I finished it or
just drove it away. But you needn't worry about it again. I doused you with
demon repellant. If the creature still lives, it will be a long time before
it recovers from our contact. Maybe never. How did it happen in the first
place? I thought you were the one man immune to demonic possession."
"So did I. What's demon repellant?"
"I found a chemical agent, harmless to us, which none of the energy
beings can stand."
"Handy item. Could've used it in the days of the binding."
"Yes. We wore it into Hellwell."
"That was quite a battle, from what I saw of it."
"Yes," said Yama. "What is it like-- demonic possession? What does it
feel like to have another will overriding your own?"
"It is strange," said Sam, "and frightening, and rather educating at
the same time."
"In what ways?"
"It was their world first," said Sam. "We took it away from them. Why
shouldn't they be everything we hate them for being? To them, we are the
demons."
"But what does it feel like?"
"To have one's will overridden by that of another?
You should know."
Yama's smile vanished, then returned. "You would like me to strike you,
wouldn't you, Buddha? It would make you feel superior. Unfortunately, I'm a
sadist and will not do it."
Sam laughed.
"Touché, Death," he said.
They sat in silence for a time.
"Can you spare me a cigarette?"
Yama passed him one, lit it.
"What's First Base like these days?"
"You'll hardly recognize the place," said Yama. "If everyone in it were
to die at this moment, it would still be perfect ten thousand years from
now. The flowers would still bloom and the music would play and the
fountains would ripple the length of the spectrum. Warm meals would still be
laid within the garden pavilions. The City itself is immortal."
"A fitting abode, I suppose, for those who call themselves gods."
"Call themselves?" asked Yama. "You are wrong, Sam, Godhood is more
than a name. It is a condition of being. One does not achieve it merely by
being immortal, for even the lowliest laborer in the fields may achieve
continuity of existence. Is it then the conditioning of an Aspect? No. Any
competent hypnotist can play games with the self-image. Is it the raising up
of an Attribute? Of course not. I can design machines more powerful and more
accurate than any faculty a man may cultivate. Being a god is the quality of
being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond
with the forces of the universe, so that those who look upon you know this
without hearing your name spoken. Some ancient poet said that the world is
full of echoes and correspondences. Another wrote a long poem of an inferno,
wherein each man suffered a torture which coincided in nature with those
forces which had ruled his life. Being a god is being able to recognize
within one's self these things that are important, and then to strike the
single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that
exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the
sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the
end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one's ruling passions.
Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is
Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your
statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though,
everyone who beholds them."
"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"
"You choose the wrong adjective."
"You've already used up all the others."
"It appears that our minds will never meet on this subject."
"If someone asks you why you're oppressing a world and you reply with a
lot of poetic crap, no. I guess there can't be a meeting of minds."
"Then let us choose another subject for conversation."
"I do look upon you, though, and say, 'He is Death.'"
Yama did not reply.
"Odd ruling passion. I've heard that you were old before you were young
. . ."
"You know that is true."
"You were a mechanical prodigy and a weapons master. You lost your
boyhood in a burst of flame, and you became an old man that same day. Did
death become your ruling passion in that moment? Or was it earlier? Or
later?"
"It does not matter," said Yama.
"Do you serve the gods because you believe what you have said to me--
or because you hate the larger portion of humanity?"
"I did not lie to you."
"Then Death is an idealist. Amusing."
"Not so."
"Or could it be. Lord Yama, that neither guess is correct? That your
ruling passion-- "
"You've mentioned her name before," said Yama, "in the same speech
wherein you likened her to a disease. You were wrong then and you are still
wrong. I do not care to hear that sermon over again, and since I am not at
the moment sinking in quicksand, I will not."
"Peace," said Sam. "But tell me, do the ruling passions of the gods
ever change?"
Yama smiled. "The goddess of dance was once the god of war. So it would
seem that anything can change."
"When I have died the real death," said Sam, "then will I be changed.
But until that moment I will hate Heaven with every breath that I draw. If
Brahma has me burnt, I will spit into the flames. If he has me strangled, I
will attempt to bite the executioner's hand. If my throat is cut, may my
blood rust the blade that does it. Is that a ruling passion?"
"You are good god material," said Yama.
"Good god!" said Sam.
"Before whatever may happen happens," said Yama, "I have been assured
that you will be permitted to attend the wedding."
"Wedding? You and Kali? Soon?"
"At the full of the lesser moon," Yama replied. "So, whatever Brahma
decides, at least I can buy you a drink before it occurs."
"For that I thank you, deathgod. But it has always been my
understanding that weddings are not made in Heaven."
"That tradition is about to be broken," said Yama. "No tradition is
sacred."
"Then good luck," said Sam.
Yama nodded, yawned, lit another cigarette.
"By the way," said Sam, "what is the latest vogue in celestial
executions? I ask purely for informational purposes."
"Executions are not held in Heaven," said Yama, opening a cabinet and
removing a chessboard.
V
From Hellwell to Heaven he went, there to commune with the gods. The
Celestial City holds many mysteries, including some of the keys to his own
past. Not all that transpired during the time he dwelled there is known. It
is known, however, that he petitioned the gods on behalf of the world,
obtaining the sympathy of some, the enmity of others. Had he chosen to
betray humanity and accept the proffers of the gods, it is said by some that
he might have dwelled forever as a Lord of the City and not have met his
death beneath the claws of the phantom cats of Kaniburrha. It is said by his
detractors, though, that he did accept these proffers, but was later
betrayed himself, so giving his sympathies back to suffering mankind for the
rest of his days, which were few. . . .
Girt about with lightnings, standard-bearer, armed with the sword, the
wheel, the bow,
devourer, sustainer. Kali, night of destruction at Worldsend, who
walketh the world by night,
protectress, deceiver, serene one, loved and lovely, Brahmani, Mother
of the Vedas, dweller in the silent and most secret places,
well-omened, and gentle, all-knowing, swift as thought, wearer of
skulls, possessed of power, the twilight, invincible leader, pitiful one,
opener of the way before those lost, granter of favors, teacher, valor
in the form of woman,
chameleon-hearted, practitioner of austerities, magician, pariah,
deathless and eternal. . ..
Âryatârâbhattârikânâmâshtottarásatakastotra (36-40)
Then, as so often in the past, her snowy fur was sleeked by the wind.
She walked where the lemon-colored grasses stirred. She walked a
winding track under dark trees and jungle flowers, crags of jasper rising to
her right, veins of milk-white rock, shot through with orange streaks, open
about her.
Then, as so often before, she moved on the great cushions of her feet,
the wind sleeking her fur, white as marble, and the ten thousand fragrances
of the jungle and the plain stirring about her; there, in the twilight of
the place that only half existed.
Alone, she followed the ageless trail through the jungle that was part
illusion. The white tiger is a solitary hunter. If others moved along a
similar course, none cared for company.
Then, as so often before, she looked up at the smooth, gray shell of
the sky and the stars that glistened there like shards of ice. Her crescent
eyes widened, and she stopped and sat upon her haunches, staring upward.
What was it she was hunting?
A deep sound, like a chuckle ending in a cough, came from her throat.
She sprang then suddenly to the top of a high rock, and sat there licking
her shoulders. When a moon moved into view, she watched it. She seemed a
figure molded of unmelting snow, topaz flames gleaming beneath her brows.
Then, as before, she wondered whether this was the true jungle of
Kaniburrha in which she sat. She felt that she was still within the confines
of the actual forest. But she could not really know.
What was it she was hunting?
Heaven exists upon a plateau that was once a range of mountains. These
mountains were fused and smoothed to provide a level base. Topsoil was
transported from the verdant south, to give it the growth that fleshed over
this bony structure. Cupping the entire area is a transparent dome,
protecting it against the polar cold and anything else unwanted within.
Heaven stands high and temperate and enjoys a long twilight and long,
lazy days. Fresh airs, warmed as they are drawn within, circulate through
the City and the forest. Within the dome itself, clouds can be generated.
From within the clouds rains can be called forth, to fall upon almost any
area. A snowfall could even be brought down in this manner, although this
thing has never been done. It has always been summer in Heaven.
Within the summer of Heaven stands the Celestial City.
The Celestial City did not grow up as the cities of men grow up, about
a port or near to good farmland, pasturage, hunting country, trade routes or
a region rich in some natural resource that men desired and so settled
beside. The Celestial City sprang from a conception in the minds of its
first dwellers. Its growth was not slow and haphazard, a building added
here, a thoroughfare rerouted there, one structure torn down to make way for
another, and all parts coming together into an irregular and unseemly whole.
No. Every demand of utility was considered and every inch of magnificence
calculated by the first planners and the design-augmentation machines. These
plans were coordinated and brought to fruition by an architectural artist
without peer. Vishnu, the Preserver, held the entire Celestial City within
his mind, until the day he circled Milehigh Spire on the back of the Garuda
Bird, stared downward and the City was captured perfect in a drop of
perspiration on his brow.
So Heaven sprang from the mind of a god, its conception stimulated by
the desires of his fellows. It was laid by choice, rather than necessity, in
a wilderness of ice and snow and rock, at the timeless Pole of the world,
where only the mighty might make their home.
(What was it she was hunting?)
Beneath the dome of Heaven there stood, beside the Celestial City, the
great forest of Kaniburrha. Vishnu, in his wisdom, had seen that there must
be a balance between the metropolis and the wilderness. While wilderness can
exist independent of cities, that which dwells within a city requires more
than the tamed plants of a pleasance. If the world were all city, he had
reasoned, the dwellers within it would turn a portion of it into a
wilderness, for there is that within them all which desires that somewhere
there be an end to order and a beginning of chaos. So, within his mind there
had grown up a forest, pumping forth streams and the smells of growth and
decay, uttering the cries of the uncitied creatures who dwelled within its
shadows, shrugging in the wind and glistening in the rain, falling down and
growing up again.
The wilderness came to the edge of the City and stopped. It was
forbidden to enter there, just as the City kept to its bounds.
But of the creatures who dwelled within the forest, some were
predators; these knew no boundaries of limits, coming and going as they
chose. Chief among these were the albino tigers. So it was written by the
gods that the phantom cats might not look upon the Celestial City; and so it
was laid upon their eyes, through the nervous systems that lay behind them,
that there was no City. Within their white-cat brains, the world was only
the forest of Kaniburrha. They walked the streets of Heaven, and it was a
jungle trail they trod. If the gods stroked their fur as they passed them
by, it was as the wind laying hands upon them. Should they climb a broad
stairway, it was a rocky slope they mounted. The buildings were cliffs and
the statues were trees; the passers-by were invisible.
Should one from the City enter the true forest, however, cat and god
then dwelled upon the same plane of existence-- the wilderness, the
balancer.
She coughed again, as she had so often before, and her snowy fur was
sleeked by the wind. She was a phantom cat, who for three days had stalked
about the wilderness of Kaniburrha, slaying and eating the raw red flesh of
her kill, crying out her great-throated cat-challenge, licking her fur with
her broad, pink tongue, feeling the rain fall down upon her back, dripping
from off the high, hanging fronds, coming in torrents down from the clouds,
which coalesced, miraculously, in the center of the sky; moving with fire in
her loins, having mated the night before with an avalanche of death-colored
fur, whose claws had raked her shoulders, the smell of the blood driving
them both into a great frenzy; purring, as the cool twilight came over her,
bringing with it the moons, like the changing crescents of her eyes, golden
and silver and dun. She sat upon the rock, licking her paws and wondering
what it was she had hunted.
Lakshmi, in the Garden of the Lokapalas, lay with Kubera, fourth keeper
of the world, upon a scented couch set beside the pool in which the
Apsarases played. The other three of the Lokapalas were absent this evening.
. . . Giggling, the Apsarases splashed the perfumed waters toward the couch.
Lord Krishna the Dark, however, chose that moment to blow upon his pipes.
The girls then turned away from Kubera the Fat and Lakshmi the Lovely, to
rest their elbows upon the edges of the pool and stare at him, there beneath
the flowering tree where he lay sprawled amid wineskins and the remains of
several meals.
He ran up and down the scale and produced one long wailing note and a
series of goatlike bleats. Guari the Fair, whom he had spent an hour
undressing and then had apparently forgotten, rose up from his side, dove
into the pool and vanished into one of the many subaquaean caves. He
hiccupped, began a tune, stopped, began another.
"Is it true what they say about Kali?" asked Lakshmi.
"What do they say?" grunted Kubera, reaching for a bowl of soma.
She took the bowl from his hands, sipped at it, returned it to him. He
quaffed it, and a servant refilled it as he placed it back upon the tray.
"That she wants a human sacrifice, to celebrate her wedding?"
"Probably," said Kubera. "Wouldn't put it past her. Bloodthirsty bitch,
that one. Always transmigrating into some vicious animal for a holiday.
Became a fire-hen once and clawed Sitala's face over something she'd said."
"When?"
"Oh, ten-- eleven avatars back. Sitala wore a veil for a devilish long
time, till her new body was ready."
"A strange pair," said Lakshmi into his ear, which she was biting.
"Your friend Yama is probably the only one would live with her. Supposing
she grew angry with a lover and cast her deadly look upon him? Who else
could bear that gaze?"
"Jest not," said Kubera. "Thus did we lose Kartikeya, Lord of the
Battles."
"Oh?"
"Aye. She's a strange one. Like Yama, yet not like him. He is deathgod,
true. But his is the way of the quick, clean kill. Kali is rather like a
cat."
"Does Yama ever speak of this fascination she holds for him?"
"Did you come here to gather gossip or to become some?"
"Both," she replied.
At that moment, Krishna took his Aspect upon him, raising up the
Attribute of divine drunkenness. From his pipes there poured the bitter-dark
sour-sweet melody contagious. The drunkenness within him expanded across the
garden, in alternating waves of joy and sadness. He rose upon his lithe,
dark legs and began to dance. His flat features were expressionless. His
wet, dark hair lay in tight rings, like wire; even his beard was so curled.
As he moved, the Apsarases came forth from the pool to follow him. His pipes
wandered along the trails of the ancient melodies, growing more and more
frenzied as he moved faster and faster, until finally he broke into the
Rasa-lila, the Dance of Lust, and his retinue, hands on their hips, followed
him with increasing speed through its gyrating movements.
Kubera's grip upon Lakshmi tightened.
"Now there is an Attribute," she said.
Rudra the Grim bent his bow and sent an arrow flying. The arrow sped on
and on and finally came to rest in the center of a distant target. At his
side. Lord Murugan chuckled and lowered his bow.
"You win again," he said. "I can't beat that."
They unbraced their bows and moved toward the target after the arrows.
"Have you met him yet?" asked Murugan.
"I knew him a long time ago," said Rudra.
"Accelerationist?"
"He wasn't then. Wasn't much of anything, politically. He was one of
the First, though, one of those who had looked upon Urath."
"Oh?"
"He distinguished himself in the wars against the People-of-the-Sea and
against the Mothers of the Terrible Glow." Here, Rudra made a sign in the
air. "Later," he continued, "this was remembered, and he was given charge of
the northern marches in the wars against the demons. He was known as Kalkin
in those days, and it was there that he came to be called Binder. He
developed an Attribute which he could use against the demons. With it, he
destroyed most of the Yakshas and bound the Rakasha. When Yama and Kali
captured him at Hellwell in Malwa, he had already succeeded in freeing these
latter. Thus, the Rakasha are again abroad in the world."
"Why did he do this thing?"
"Yama and Agni say that he had made a pact with their leader. They
suspect he offered this one a lease on his body in return for the promise of
demon troops to war against us."
"May we be attacked?"
"I doubt it. The demons are not stupid. If they could not defeat four
of us in Hellwell, I doubt they would attack us all here in Heaven. And even
now, Yama is in the Vasty Hall of Death designing special weapons."
"And where is his bride-to-be?"
"Who knows?" said Rudra. "And who cares?"
Murugan smiled.
"I once thought you more than passing fond of her yourself."
"Too cold, too mocking," said Rudra,
"She repulsed you?"
Rudra turned his dark face, which never smiled, upon the fair god of
youth.
"You fertility deities are worse than Marxists," he said. "You think
that's all that goes on between people. We were just friends for a time, but
she is too hard on her friends and so loses them."
"She did repulse you?"
"I suppose so."
"And when she took Morgan, the poet of the plains, as her lover -- he
who one day incarnated as a jackbird and flew away-- you then hunted
jackbirds, until inside a month with your arrows you had slain near every
one in Heaven."
"And I still hunt jackbirds."
"Why is that?"
"I do not care for their singing."
"She is too cold, too mocking," agreed Murugan.
"I do not like being mocked by anyone, youthgod. Could you outrun the
arrows of Rudra?"
Murugan smiled again. "No," said he, "nor could my friends the
Lokapalas-- nor would they need to."
"When I assume my Aspect," said Rudra, "and take up my great bow, which
was given me by Death himself, then can I send a heat-tracking arrow
whistling down the miles to pursue a moving target and strike it like a
thunderbolt, dead."
"Let us then talk of other matters," said Murugan, suddenly interested
in the target. "I gather that our guest mocked Brahma some years ago in
Mahartha and did violence in holy places. I understand, though, that he is
the same one who founded the religion of peace and enlightenment."
"The same."
"Interesting."
"An understatement."
"What will Brahma do."
Rudra shrugged. "Brahma only knows," he replied.
At the place called Worldsend, where there is nothing beyond the edge
of Heaven but the distant flicker of the dome and, far below, the blank
ground, hidden beneath a smoke-white mist, there stands the open-sided
Pavilion of Silence, upon whose round, gray roof the rains never fall, and
across whose balconies and balustrades the fog boils in the morning and the
winds walk at twilight, and within whose airy chambers, seated upon the
stark, dark furniture, or pacing among the gray columns, are sometimes to be
found the gods contemplative, the broken warriors or those injured in love,
who come to consider there all things hurtful or futile, beneath a sky that
is beyond the Bridge of the Gods, in the midst of a place of stone where the
colors are few and the only sound is the wind -- there, since slightly after
the days of the First, have sat the philosopher and the sorceress, the sage
and the magus, the suicide, and the ascetic freed from the desire for
rebirth or renewal; there, in the center of renunciation and abandonment,
withdrawal and departure, are the five rooms named Memory, Fear, Heartbreak,
Dust and Despair; and this place was built by Kubera the Fat, who cared not
a tittle for any of these sentiments, but who, as a friend of Lord Kalkin,
had done this construction at the behest of Candi the Fierce, sometimes
known as Durga and as Kali, for he alone of all the gods possessed the
Attribute of inanimate correspondence, whereby he could invest the works of
his hands with feelings and passions to be experienced by those who dwelled
among them.
They sat in the room called Heartbreak, and they drank of the soma but
they were never drunken.
It was twilight all about the Pavilion of Silence, and the winds that
circled through Heaven flowed past them.
They sat within black robes upon the dark seats, and his hand lay atop
hers, there on the table that stood between them; and the horoscopes of all
their days moved past them on the wall that separated Heaven from the
heavens; and they were silent as they considered the pages of their
centuries.
"Sam," she finally said, "were they not good?"
"Yes," he replied.
"And in those ancient days, before you left Heaven to dwell among men--
did you love me then?"
"I do not really remember," he said. "It was so very long ago. We were
both different people then-- different minds, different bodies. Probably
those two, whoever they were, loved one another. I cannot remember."
"But I recall the springtime of the world as though it were yesterday--
those days when we rode together to battle, and those nights when we shook
the stars loose from the fresh-painted skies! The world was so new and
different then, with a menace lurking within every flower and a bomb behind
every sunrise. Together we beat a world, you and I, for nothing really
wanted us here and everything disputed our coming. We cut and burnt our way
across the land and over the seas, and we fought under the seas and in the
skies, until there was nothing left to oppose us. Then cities were built,
and kingdoms, and we raised up those whom we chose to rule over them, until
they ceased to amuse us and we cast them down again. What do the younger
gods know of those days? How can they understand the power we knew, who were
First?"
"They cannot," he replied.
"When we held court in our palace by the sea and I gave you many sons,
and our fleets swept out to conquer the islands, were those days not fair
and full of grace? And the nights things of fire and perfume and wine? . . .
Did you not love me then?"
"I believe those two loved one another, yes."
"Those two? We are not that different. We are not that changed. Though
ages slip away, there are some things within one's being which do not
change, which do not alter, no matter how many bodies one puts upon oneself,
no matter how many lovers one takes, no matter how many things of beauty and
ugliness one looks upon or does, no matter how many thoughts one thinks or
feelings one feels. One's self stands at the center of all this and
watches."
"Open a fruit and there is a seed within it. Is that the center? Open
the seed and there is nothing within it. Is that the center? We are two
different persons from the master and the mistress of battles. It was good
to have known those two, but that is all."
"Did you go to dwell outside of Heaven because you were tired of me?"
"I wanted a change of perspective."
"There have been long years over which I have hated you for departing.
Then there have been times when I sat in the room called Despair, but was
too much of a coward to walk beyond Worldsend. Then again, there have been
times when I have forgiven you and invoked the seven Rishi to bring your
image before me, so that I looked upon you as you went about your day, and
it was almost as though we walked together once again. Other times I have
desired your death, but you turned my executioner into a friend as you turn
my wrath into forgiveness. Do you mean to say that you feel nothing for me?"
"I mean to say that I no longer love you. It would be nice if there
were some one thing constant and unchanging in the universe. If there is
such a thing, then it is a thing which would have to be stronger than love,
and it is a thing which I do not know."
"I have not changed, Sam."
"Think carefully. Lady, over all that you have said, over all that you
have recalled for me this day. It is not really the man whom you have been
remembering. It is the days of carnage through which the two of you rode
together. The world is come into a tamer age now. You long for the fire and
the steel of old. You think it is the man, but it is the destiny the two of
you shared for a time, the destiny which is past, that stirs your mind, and
you call it love."
"Whatever I call it, it has not changed! Its days are not past. It is a
constant thing within the universe, and I call you to come share it with me
once again!"
"What of Lord Yama?"
"What of him? You have dealt with those who would be numbered as his
peers, did they still live."
"I take it, then, that it is his Aspect for which you care?"
She smiled, within the shadows and the wind.
"Of course."
"Lady, Lady, Lady, forget me! Go live with Yama and be his love. Our
days are past, and I do not wish to recall them. They were good, but they
are past. As there is a time for everything, there is a time also for the
end of anything. This is an age for the consolidation of man's gains upon
this world. This is a time for the sharing of knowledge, not the crossing of
blades."
"Would you fight Heaven for this knowledge? Would you attempt to break
the Celestial City, to open its vaults to the world?"
"You know that I would."
"Then we may yet have a common cause."
"No, Lady, do not deceive yourself. Your allegiance lies with Heaven,
not with the world. You know that. If I won my freedom and you joined with
me and we fought, perhaps you would be happy for a time. But win or lose, in
the end I fear you would be unhappier than before."
"Hear me, soft-hearted saint of the purple grove. It is quite kind of
you to anticipate my feelings, but Kali casts her allegiances where she
will, owing nothing to anyone, but as she chooses. She is the mercenary
goddess, remember that! Perhaps all that you have said is true, and she lies
when she tells you she loves you still. Being ruthless and full of the
battle lust, however, she follows the smell of blood. I feel that she may
yet become an Accelerationist."
"Take care what you say, goddess. Who knows what may be listening?"
"None listens," said she, "for seldom are words spoken within this
place."
"All the more reason for someone to be curious when they are."
She sat for a time in silence, then, "None listens," she said.
"Your powers have grown."
"Yes. What of yours?"
"About the same, I think."
"Then will you accept my sword, my wheel, my bow, in the name of
Accelerationism?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You give your promises too easily. You break them as readily as you
make them, and because of this I can never trust you. If we fight and we win
in the name of Accelerationism, it may also be the last great battle of this
world. This is a thing you could not desire, nor permit to occur."
"You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great
battle is always the next one. Shall I come to you in a more comely shape to
convince you that I speak the truth? Shall I embrace you in a body with the
seal of virginity set upon it? Will this make you to trust my word?"
"Doubt, Lady, is the chastity of the mind, and I bear its seal upon my
own."
"Then know that I did but bring you here to this place to torment you,
and that you are correct-- I spit upon your Accelerationism, and I have
already numbered your days. I sought to give you false hopes, that you may
be cast down from a greater height. It is only your stupidity and your
weakness that have saved you from this."
"I am sorry. Kali-- "
"I do not want your apology! I would have liked your love, though, so
that I might have used it against you at the end of your days, to make them
pass the harder. But, as you say, we have changed too much-- and you are no
longer worth the trouble. Do not think that I could not have made you love
me again, either, with smiles and with caresses as of old. For I feel the
heat within you, and it is an easy thing for me to fan it in a man. You are
not worth a mighty death, however, falling from the heights of passion to
the depths of despair. I do not have the time to give you more than my
contempt."
The stars wheeled about them, frictionless and fiery, and her hand was
gone from beneath his own, as she poured two more cups of soma to warm them
against the night.
"Kali?"
"Yes?"
"If it will give you any satisfaction in the end, I still care for you.
Either there is no such thing as love, or the word does not mean what I have
thought it to mean on many different occasions. It is a feeling without a
name, really-- better to leave it at that. So take it and go away and have
your fun with it. You know that we would both be at one another's throats
again one day, as soon as we had run out of common enemies. We had many fine
reconciliations, but were they ever worth the pain that preceded them? Know
that you have won and that you are the goddess I worship -- for are not
worship and religious awe a combination of love and hate, desire and fear?"
They drank their soma in the room called Heartbreak, and the spell of
Kubera lay about them.
Kali spoke:
"Shall I fall upon you and kiss you now, saying that I lied when I said
I lied-- so that you may laugh and say you lied, to achieve a final revenge?
Go to, Lord Siddhartha! Better one of us died in Hellwell, for great is the
pride of the First. We should not have come here-- to this place."
"No."
"Shall we then depart?"
"No."
"In this, I agree. Let us sit here and worship one another for a time."
Her hand fell upon his own, caressed it. "Sam?"
"Yes?"
"Would you like to make love to me?"
"And so seal my doom? Of course."
"Then let us go into the room called Despair, where the winds stand
stilled and where there is a couch . . ."
He followed her from Heartbreak to Despair, his pulse quickening in his
throat, and when he had laid her bare on the couch and placed his hand upon
the soft whiteness of her belly, he knew that Kubera was indeed the
mightiest of the Lokapalas-- for the feeling to which that room had been
dedicated filled him, even as his desires mounted within him and he upon
her-- there came a loosening, a tightening, a sigh, and the ultimate tears
burning to be shed.
"What is it you wish, Mistress Maya?"
"Tell me of Accelerationism, Tak of the Archives."
Tak stretched his great lean frame and his chair adjusted backward with
a creak.
Behind him, the data banks were still, and certain rare records filled
the long, high bookshelves with their colorful bindings and the air with
their musty smells.
He handled the lady before him with his eyes, smiled and shook his
head. She wore green, tightly, and an impatient look; her hair was an
insolent red, and faint freckles flecked her nose and the hemispheres of her
cheeks. Her hips and shoulders were wide, and her narrow waist tightly
disciplined against this tendency.
"Why do you shake your head? Everyone comes to you for information."
"You are young, mistress. Three avatars, if I am not mistaken. lie
behind you. At this point in your career, I am certain that you do not
really wish to have your name placed upon the special list of those younger
ones who seek this knowledge."
"List?"
"List."
"Why should there be a list of such inquirers?"
Tak shrugged. "Gods collect the strangest things, and certain among
them save lists."
"I have always heard Accelerationism mentioned as a completely dead
issue."
"So why this sudden interest in the dead?"
She laughed, and her green eyes bored into his gray ones.
The Archives exploded around him, and he stood in the ballroom halfway
up Milehigh Spire. It was night, so late that it would soon be morning. A
party had obviously been going on for a long while; but now the crowd in
which he stood had come together in the corner of the room. They were
leaning, and they were sitting and reclining, and all of them listening to
the short, dark, husky man who stood beside the goddess Kali and talked.
This was Great-Souled Sam the Buddha, who, with his warden, had just
arrived. He was talking of Buddhism and Accelerationism, and of the days of
the binding, and Hellwell, and the blasphemies of Lord Siddhartha in the
city of Mahartha by the sea. He was talking, and his voice went on and on,
hypnotic, and he radiated power and confidence and warmth, hypnotic, and his
words went on and on and on, as the crowd slowly passed out and fell down
around him. All of the women were quite ugly, except for Maya, who tittered
then and clapped her hands, bringing back the Archives about them, and Tak
again to his chair, his smile still upon his lips.
"So why this sudden interest in the dead?" he repeated.
"He is not dead, that one!"
"No?" said Tak. "He isn't? . . . Mistress Maya, he was dead the moment
he set foot within the Celestial City. Forget him. Forget his words. Let it
be as if he never existed. Leave no trace of him within your mind. One day
you will seek renewal-- so know that the Masters of Karma will seek after
this one within every mind that passes through their halls. The Buddha and
his words are an abomination in the eyes of the gods."
"But why?"
"He is a bomb-throwing anarchist, a hairy-eyed revolutionary. He seeks
to pull down Heaven itself. If you want more scientific information, I'll
have to use the machines to retrieve the data. Would you care to sign an
authorization for this?"
"No . . ."
"Then put him out of your mind and lock the door."
"He is really that bad?"
"He's worse."
"Then why do you smile as you say these things?"
"Because I'm not a very serious person. Character has nothing to do
with my message, however. So heed it."
"You seem to know all about it. Are archivists themselves immune to
these lists?"
"Hardly. My name is first upon it. But this is not because I am an
archivist. He is my father."
"That one? Your father?"
"Yes. You speak as one quite young, however. I doubt that he is even
aware that he fathered me. What is paternity to the gods, who inhabit a
succession of bodies, begetting scores of offspring by others who also
change bodies four or five times a century? I am the son of a body he once
inhabited, born of another who also passed through many, and I myself no
longer live in the same body I was born into. The relationship, therefore,
is quite intangible, and interesting primarily on levels of speculative
metaphysics. What is the true father of a man? The circumstances which
brought together the two bodies which begat him? Was it the fact that, for
some reason, at one moment in time, these two pleased one another beyond any
possible alternatives? If so, why? Was it the simple hunger of the flesh, or
was it curiosity, or the will? Or was it something else? Pity? Loneliness?
The desire to dominate? What feeling, or what thought was father to the body
in which I first came into consciousness? I know that the man who inhabited
that particular father-body at that particular instant of time is a
complicated and powerful personality. Chromosomes mean nothing to us, not
really. If we live, we do not carry these hallmarks down through the ages.
We really inherit nothing at all, save for occasional endowments of property
and cash. The bodies mean so little in the long run that it is far more
interesting to speculate as to the mental processes which plucked us forth
from chaos. I am pleased that it was he who called me to life, and I often
conjecture as to the reasons. I see that your face is suddenly lacking in
color, mistress. I did not mean to upset you with this talk, simply to
satisfy your curiosity somewhat, and to lay upon your mind some of the
thinking we old ones do upon these matters. One day you, too, will look upon
it in this light, I am certain. But I am sorry to see you looking so
distressed. Pray sit down. Forgive my prattle. You are the Mistress of
Illusion. Are not the things of which I have spoken akin to the very stuff
with which you work? I am certain that you can tell from the manner in which
I speak why my name is first upon the list I mentioned. It is a case of hero
worship, I suppose. My creator is quite distinguished. . . . Now you are
looking somewhat flushed. Would you care for a cool drink? Wait here a
moment. . . . There. Sip this. Now then, about Accelerationism-- it is a
simple doctrine of sharing. It proposes that we of Heaven give unto those
who dwell below of our knowledge and powers and substance. This act of
charity would be directed to the end of raising their condition of existence
to a higher level, akin to that which we ourselves occupy. Then every man
would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that
there would no longer be any gods, only men. We would give them knowledge of
the sciences and the arts, which we possess, and in so doing we would
destroy their simple faith and remove all basis for their hoping that things
will be better-- for the best way to destroy faith or hope is to let it be
realized. Why should we permit men to suffer this burden of godhood
collectively, as the Accelerationists wished, when we do grant it to them
individually when they come to deserve it? In his sixtieth year a man passes
through the Halls of Karma. He is judged, and if he has done well, observing
the rules and restrictions of his caste, paying the proper observances to
Heaven, advancing himself intellectually and morally, then this man will be
incarnated into a higher caste, eventually achieving godhood itself and
coming to dwell here in the City. Each man eventually receives his just
desserts-- barring unfortunate accidents, of course-- and so each man,
rather than society as a sudden whole, may come into the divine inheritance
which the ambitious Accelerationists wished to scatter wholesale before
everyone, even those who were unready. You can see that this attitude was
dreadfully unfair and proletarian-oriented. What they really wanted to do
was to lower the requirements for godhood. These requirements are
necessarily strict. Would you give the power of Shiva, of Yama, or of Agni
into the hands of an infant? Not unless you are a fool, you wouldn't Not
unless you wished to wake up one morning and see that the world no longer
existed. This is what the Accelerationists would have wrought, though, and
this is why they were stopped. Now you know all about Accelerationism. . . .
My, you look awfully warm. May I hang your garment while I get you another
drink? . . . Very good. . . . Now, where were we, Maya? Oh yes-- the beetles
in the pudding. . . . Well, the Accelerationists claimed that everything I
have just said would be true, excepting for the fact that the system is
corrupt. They cast aspersions upon the probity of those who authorized
incarnation. Some even dared claim that Heaven was comprised of an immortal
aristocracy of wilful hedonists who played games with the world. Others
dared to say that the best of men never achieve godhood, but meet ultimately
with the real death or incarnation into a lower life form. Some others would
even say that one such as yourself had been chosen for deification only
because your original form and attitude struck the fancy of some lustful
divinity, rather than for your other obvious virtues, my dear. .. . My,
you're full of freckles, aren't you? . . . Yes, these are the things those
thrice-damned Accelerationists preached. These are the things, the
accusations, that the father of my spirit stands for, I am ashamed to say.
What can one do with such a heritage but wonder at it? He rides a cycle of
mighty days, and he represents the last great schism among the gods. Evil
though he obviously is, he is a mighty figure, this father of my spirit, and
I respect him as the sons of old did the fathers of their bodies. . . . Are
you cold now? Here, let me. . . . There. . . . There. . . . There. . . .
Come, now weave us an illusion, my lovely, where we walk in a world that is
free of such foolishness. . . . This way now. Turn here. . .. Now let there
be a new Eden within this bunker, my moist-lipped one of the green eyes. . .
. What is that? . . . What is it that is paramount within me at this instant
of time? . . . Truth, my love-- and sincerity-- and the desire to share . .
."
Ganesha the god-maker walked with Shiva in the forest of Kaniburrha.
"Lord of Destruction," he said, "I understand that you already seek
reprisal against those here in the City who mark the words of Siddhartha
with more than a smirk of dismissal."
"Of course," said Shiva.
"By so doing, you destroy his effectiveness."
"'Effectiveness'? Explain what you mean."
"Kill me that green bird on yonder limb."
Shiva gestured with his trident and the bird fell.
"Now kill me its mate."
"I do not see her."
"Then kill me any other from among its flock."
"I see none."
"And now that it lies dead, you will not. So, if you wish, strike at
the first who harken to the words of Siddhartha."
"I gather your meaning, Ganesha. He shall walk free, for a time. He
shall."
Ganesha the god-maker regarded the jungle about him. Though he walked
through the realm of the phantom cats, he feared no evil. For the Lord of
Chaos walked by his side, and the Trident of Destruction comforted him.
Vishnu Vishnu Vishnu regarded regarded regarded Brahma Brahma Brahma .
. .
They sat in the Hall of Mirrors.
Brahma held forth upon the Eightfold Path and the glory that is
Nirvana.
After the space of three cigarettes, Vishnu cleared his throat.
"Yes, Lord?" asked Brahma.
"Why, may I inquire, this Buddhist tract?"
"Do you not find it fascinating?"
"Not particularly."
"That is indeed hypocritical of you."
"What do you mean?"
"A teacher should display at least a modicum of interest in his own
lessons."
"Teacher? Lessons?"
"Of course, Tathagatha. Why else in recent years would the god Vishnu
be moved to incarnate among men, other than to teach them the Way of
Enlightenment?"
"I . . . ?"
"Hail, reformer, who has removed the fear of the real death from men's
minds. Those who are not born again among men have now gone on to Nirvana."
Vishnu smiled. "Better to incorporate than struggle to extirpate?"
"Almost an epigram."
Brahma stood, considered the mirrors, considered Vishnu.
"So after we have disposed of Sam, you will have been the real
Tathagatha."
"How shall we dispose of Sam?"
"I have not yet decided, but I am open to suggestions."
"Might I suggest that he be incarnated as a jackbird?"
"You might. But then, someone else might desire that the jackbird be
reincarnated as a man. I feel that he is not without some supporters."
"Well, we do have time to consider the problem. There is no hurry now
that he is in the custody of Heaven. I shall give you my thoughts on the
matter as soon as I have some."
"That is sufficient, then, for now."
They they they walked walked walked from the from the Hall, then.
Vishnu passed from the Garden of Brahma's Joys; and as he departed, the
Mistress of Death entered there. She addressed the eight-armed statue with
the veena and it began to play upon it.
Hearing the music, Brahma approached.
"Kali! Lovely Lady . . ." he announced.
"Mighty is Brahma," she replied.
"Yes," Brahma agreed, "as mighty as might be desired. And it is so
seldom that you visit here that I am mightily pleased. Come walk with me
among the flowered paths and we shall talk. Your dress is lovely."
"Thank you."
They walked among the flowered paths. "How go the preparations for the
wedding?"
"Well."
"Will you have honeymoon in Heaven?"
"We plan to take it far from here."
"Where, may I ask?" "We have not yet agreed as to where."
"Time passes on the wings of the jackbird, my dear. If you wish, you
and the Lord Yama may dwell in my Garden of Joys for a time."
"Thank you. Creator, but it is too splendid a place for the two
destroyers to pass the time and feel at ease. We shall go forth, somewhere."
"As you wish." He shrugged. "What else lies upon your thinking?"
"What of the one called the Buddha?"
"Sam? Your old lover? What of him, indeed? What would you know
concerning him?"
"How shall he be-- dealt with?"
"I have not yet decided. Shiva has suggested we wait for a time before
doing anything. Thus, we may assess his effect upon the community of Heaven.
I have decided that Vishnu will have been the Buddha, for historical and
theological purposes. As for Sam himself, I will give hearing to any
reasonable suggestion."
"Did you not offer him godhood once?"
"Yes. He did not accept it, however."
"Supposing you did so again?"
"Why?"
"The present problem would not exist were he not a very talented
individual. His talents would make him a worthy addition to the pantheon."
"This thought has occurred to me, also. Now, however, he would agree,
whether he meant it or not. I am certain that he wishes to live."
"Yet, there are ways in which one can be sure in these matters."
"Such as?"
"Psych-probe."
"And if this shows a lack of commitment to Heaven-- which it will . . .
?"
"Could not his mind itself be altered-- by one such as Lord Mara?"
"I have never thought you guilty of sentiment, goddess. But it would
seem you are most anxious for him to continue existing, in any form."
"Perhaps I am."
"You know that he might be-- very changed. He will not be the same if
this thing is done to him. His 'talent' may then be totally absent."
"In the course of ages all men change naturally-- opinions, beliefs,
convictions. Parts of the mind may sleep and other parts may awaken. Talent,
I feel, is a difficult thing to destroy-- as long as life itself remains. It
is better to live than to die."
"I might be convinced of this, goddess-- if you have the time, most
lovely one."
"How much time?"
"Say, three days."
"Three days, then."
"Then let us adjourn to my Pavilion of Joys and discuss the matter
fully."
"Very well."
"Where is Lord Yama now?"
"He labors in his workshop."
"A lengthy project, I trust."
"At least three days."
"Good. Yes, there may be some hope for Sam. It is against my better
thinking, but then I can appreciate the notion. Yes, I can."
The eight-armed statue of the goddess who was blue played upon the
veena, making music to fall about them as they walked in the garden, that
summer.
Helba dwelled on the far side of Heaven, near to the wilderness' edge.
So near to the forest, in fact, was the palace called Plunder that the
animals stalked past the one transparent wall, brushing against it as they
went. From the room called Rape, one could look out upon the shaded trails
of the jungle.
It was within this room, its walls hung with the stolen treasures of
lives past, that Helba entertained the one called Sam.
Helba was the god/goddess of thieves.
No one knew Helba's true sex, for Helba's was the habit of alternating
gender with each incarnation.
Sam looked upon a lithe, dark-skinned woman who wore a yellow sari and
yellow veil. Her sandals and nails were the color of cinnamon, and she wore
a tiara that was golden upon her black hair.
"You have," said Helba, in a voice soft and purring, "my sympathy. It
is only during those seasons of life when I incarnate as a man, Sam, that I
wield my Attribute and engage in actual plunder."
"You must be able to take on your Aspect now."
"Of course."
"And raise up your Attribute?"
"Probably."
"But you will not?"
"Not while I wear the form of woman. As a man, I will undertake to
steal anything from anywhere. . .. See there, upon the far wall, where some
of my trophies are hung? The great blue-feather cloak belonged to Srit,
Chief among the Kataputna demons. I stole it from out his cave as his
hellhounds slept, drugged by myself. The shape-changing jewel I took from
the very Dome of the Glow, climbing with suction discs upon my wrists and
knees and toes, as the Mothers beneath me-- "
"Enough!" said Sam. "I know all of these tales, Helba, for you tell
them constantly. It has been so long since you have undertaken a daring
theft, as of old, that I suppose these glories long past must be oft
repeated. Else, even the Elder Gods would forget what once you were. I can
see that I have come to the wrong place, and I shall try elsewhere."
He stood, as to go.
"Wait," said Helba, stirring.
Sam paused. "Yes?"
"You could at least tell me of the theft you are contemplating. Perhaps
I can offer advice-- "
"What good would even your greatest advice be, Monarch of Thieves? I do
not need words. I need actions."
"Perhaps, even . . . tell me!"
"All right," said Sam, "though I doubt you would be interested in a
task this difficult-- "
"You can skip over the child psychology and tell me what it is you want
stolen."
"In the Museum of Heaven, which is a well-built and continuously
guarded installation-- "
"And one that is always open. Go on."
"In this building, within a computer-protected guard case -- "
"These can be beaten, by one of sufficient skill."
"Within this case, upon a manikin, is hung a gray, scaled uniform. Many
weapons lie about it."
"Whose?"
"This was the ancient habit of he who fought in the northern marches in
the days of the wars against the demons."
"Was this not yourself?"
Sam tipped his smile forward and continued:
"Unknown to most, as a part of this display there is an item which was
once known as the Talisman of the Binder. It may have lost all its virtue by
now, but, on the other hand, it is possible that it has not. It served as a
focus for the Binder's special Attribute, and he finds that he needs it once
again."
"Which is the item you want stolen?"
"The great wide belt of shells which is clasped about the waist of the
costume. It is pink and yellow in color. It is also full of micro-miniature
circuitry, which could probably not be duplicated today."
"That is not so great a theft. I just might consider it in this form--
"
"I would need it in a hurry, or not at all."
"How soon?"
"Within six days, I fear."
"What would you be willing to pay me to deliver it into your hands?"
"I would be willing to pay you anything, if I had anything."
"Oh. You came to Heaven without a fortune?"
"Yes."
"Unfortunate."
"If I make good my escape, you can name your price."
"And if you do not, I receive nothing."
"It appears that way."
"Let me ponder. It may amuse me to do this thing and have you owe me
the favor."
"Pray, do not ponder overlong."
"Come sit by me. Binder of Demons, and tell me of the days of your
glory-- when you, with the immortal goddess, rode abroad in the world,
scattering chaos like seed."
"It was long ago," said Sam.
"Might those days come again if you win free?"
"They may."
"That is good to know. Yes . . ."
"You will do this thing?" "Hail, Siddhartha! Unbinder!"
"Hail?"
"And lightning and thunder. May they come again!"
"It is good."
"Now tell me of the days of your glory, and I will speak again of
mine."
"Very well."
Dashing through the forest, clad in a leather belt, Lord Krishna
pursued the Lady Ratri, who had declined to couple with him after the
rehearsal dinner. The day was clear and fragrant, but not half so fragrant
as the midnight-blue sari he clutched in his left hand. She ran on ahead of
him, beneath the trees; and he followed, losing sight of her for a moment as
she turned up a side trail that led out into the open.
When he glimpsed her again, she stood upon a hillock, her bare arms
upraised above her head, her fingertips touching. Her eyes were half closed,
and her only garment, a long black veil, stirred about her white and
gleaming form.
He realized then that she had taken on her Aspect, and might be about
to wield an Attribute.
Panting, he raced up the hillside toward her; and she opened her eyes
and smiled down upon him, lowering her arms.
As he reached for her, she swirled her veil in his face and he heard
her laugh-- somewhere within the immense night that covered him over.
It was black and starless and moonless, without a glint, shimmer, spark
or glow from anywhere. It was a nighttime akin to blindness that had fallen
upon him.
He snorted, and the sari was torn from his fingers. He halted, shaking,
and he heard her laughter ringing about him.
"You have presumed too much. Lord Krishna," she told him, "and offended
against the sanctity of Night. For this, I shall punish you by leaving this
darkness upon Heaven for a time."
"I am not afraid of the dark, goddess," he replied, chuckling.
"Then your brains are indeed in your gonads. Lord, as hath often been
said before-- to stand lost and blinded in the midst of Kaniburrha, whose
denizens need not to strike-- and not to be afraid-- I think this somewhat
foolhardy. Good-bye, Dark One. Perhaps I'll see you at the wedding."
"Wait, lovely lady! Will you accept my apology?"
"Certainly, for I deserve it."
"Then lift this night you have laid upon this place."
"Another time, Krishna-- when I am ready."
"But what shall I do until then?"
"It is said, sir, that by your piping you can charm the most fearsome
of beasts. I suggest that if this be true you take up your pipes at this
moment and begin your most soothing melody, until such a time as I see fit
to let the light of day enter again into Heaven."
"Lady, you are cruel," said Krishna.
"Such is life. Lord of the Pipes," and she departed.
He began to play, thinking dark thoughts.
They came. Out of the sky, riding on the polar winds, across the seas
and the land, over the burning snow, and under it and through it, they came.
The shape-shifters drifted across the fields of white, and the sky-walkers
fell down like leaves; trumpets sounded over the wastes, and the chariots of
the snows thundered forward, light leaping like spears from their burnished
sides; cloaks of fur afire, white plumes of massively breathed air trailing
above and behind them, golden-gauntleted and sun-eyed, clanking and
skidding, rushing and whirling, they came, in bright baldric, wer-mask,
fire-scarf, devil-shoe, frost-greaves and power-helm, they came; and across
the world that lay at their back, there was rejoicing in the Temples, with
much singing and the making of offerings, and processions and prayers,
sacrifices and dispensations, pageantry and color. For the much-feared
goddess was to be wed with Death, and it was hoped that this would serve to
soften both their dispositions. A festive spirit had also infected Heaven,
and with the gathering of the gods and the demigods, the heroes and the
nobles, the high priests and the favored rajahs and high-ranking Brahmins,
this spirit obtained force and momentum and spun like an all-colored
whirlwind, thundering in the heads of the First and latest alike.
So they came into the Celestial City, riding on the backs of the
cousins of the Garuda Bird, spinning down in sky gondolas, rising up through
arteries of the mountains, blazing across the snow-soaked, ice-tracked
wastes, to make Milehigh Spire to ring with their song, to laugh through a
spell of brief and inexplicable darkness that descended and dispersed again,
shortly; and in the days and nights of their coming, it was said by the poet
Adasay that they resembled at least six different things (he was always
lavish with his similes): a migration of birds, bright birds, across a
waveless ocean of milk; a procession of musical notes through the mind of a
slightly mad composer; a school of those deep-swimming fish whose bodies are
whorls and runnels of light, circling about some phosphorescent plant within
a cold and sea-deep pit; the Spiral Nebula, suddenly collapsing upon its
center; a storm, each drop of which becomes a feather, songbird or jewel;
and (and perhaps most cogent) a Temple full of terrible and highly decorated
statues, suddenly animated and singing, suddenly rushing forth across the
world, bright banners playing in the wind, shaking palaces and toppling
towers, to meet at the center of everything, to kindle an enormous fire and
dance about it, with the ever-present possibility of either the fire or the
dance going completely out of control.
They came.
When the secret alarm rang in the Archives, Tak seized the Bright Spear
from out its case on the wall. At various times during the day, the alarm
would alert various sentinels. Having a premonition as to its cause, Tak was
grateful that it did not ring at another hour. He elevated to the level of
the City and made for the Museum on the hill.
It was already too late, though.
Open was the case and unconscious the attendant. The Museum was
otherwise unoccupied, because of the activity in the City.
So near to the Archives was the building set, that Tak caught the two
on their way down the opposite side of the hill.
He waved the Bright Spear, afraid to use it. "Stop!" he cried.
They turned to him.
"You did trigger an alarm!" accused the other. He hurried to clasp the
belt about his waist.
"Go on, get away!" he said. "I will deal with this one!"
"I could not have tripped an alarm!" cried his companion.
"Get out of here!"
He faced Tak, waiting. His companion continued to retreat down the
hill. Tak saw that it was a woman.
"Take it back," said Tak, panting. "Whatever you have taken, take it
back-- and perhaps I can cover-- "
"No," said Sam. "It is too late. I am the equal of anyone here now, and
this is my only chance to depart. I know you, Tak of the Archives, and I do
not wish to destroy you. Therefore, go -- quickly!"
"Yama will be here in a moment! And-- "
"I do not fear Yama. Attack me or leave me now!"
"I cannot attack you."
"Then good-bye," and, so saying, Sam rose into the air like a balloon.
But as he drifted above the ground, the Lord Yama appeared upon the
hillside with a weapon in his hands. It was a slender and gleaming tube that
he held, with a small butt and a large trigger mechanism.
He raised it and pointed. "Your last chance!" he cried, but Sam
continued to rise.
When he fired it, the dome was cracked, high overhead.
"He has taken on his Aspect and raised up an Attribute," said Tak. "He
binds the energies of your weapon."
"Why did you not stop him?" asked Yama.
"I could not, Lord. I was taken by his Attribute."
"It does not matter," said Yama. "The third sentinel will overcome
him."
Binding gravitation to his will, he rose.
As he fled, he grew conscious of a pursuing shadow.
Somewhere just at the periphery of his vision, it lurked. No matter how
he turned his head it escaped his sight. But it was always there, and
growing.
Ahead, there was a lock. A gate to the outside hovered above and ahead.
The Talisman could unbind that lock, could warm him against the cold, could
transport him anywhere in the world. . . .
There came a sound of wings, beating.
"Flee!" the voice thundered in his head. "Increase your speed, Binder!
Flee faster! Flee faster!"
It was one of the strangest sensations he had ever experienced.
He felt himself moving forward, racing onward.
But nothing changed. The gate was no nearer. For all his sense of
tremendous speed, he was not moving.
"Faster, Binder! Faster!" cried the wild, booming voice. "Seek to
emulate the wind and the lightning in your going!"
He strove to halt the sense of motion that he felt.
Then the winds buffeted him, the mighty winds that circle through
Heaven.
He fought them down, but the voice sounded right next to him now,
though he saw nothing but shadow.
"'The senses are horses and objects the roads they travel,'" said the
voice. "'If the intellect is related to a mind that is distracted, it loses
then its discrimination,' " and Sam recognized the mighty words of the Katha
Upanishad roaring at his back. "'In this case,' " the voice went on, "'the
senses then become uncontrolled, like wild and vicious horses beneath the
rein of a weak charioteer.'"
And the sky exploded with lightnings about him and the darkness wrapped
him around.
He sought to bind the energies that assailed him, but found nothing
with which to grapple.
"It is not real!" he cried out.
"What is real and what is not?" replied the voice. "Your horses escape
you now."
There was a moment of terrible blackness, as if he moved through a
vacuum of the senses. Then there was pain. Then nothing.
It is difficult to be the oldest youthgod in the business.
He entered the Hall of Karma, requested audience with a representative
of the Wheel, was shown into the presence of the Lord, who had had to forego
probing him two days before.
"Well?" he inquired.
"I am sorry for the delay. Lord Murugan. Our personnel had become
involved in the wedding preparations."
"They are out reveling, when they should be preparing my new body?"
"You should not speak. Lord, as though it is truly your body. It is a
body loaned you by the Great Wheel, in response to your present karmic
needs-- "
"And it is not ready because the staff is out reveling?"
"It is not ready because the Great Wheel turns in a manner- - "
"I want it by tomorrow evening at the latest. If it is not ready, the
Great Wheel may become as a juggernaut upon its ministers. Do you hear me
and understand, Lord of Karma?"
"I hear you, but your speech is out of place in this-- "
"Brahma recommended the transfer, and he would be pleased for me to
appear at the wedding party at Milehigh Spire in my new form. Shall I inform
him that the Great Wheel is unable to comply with his wishes because it
turns exceeding slow?"
"No, Lord. It will be ready in time."
"Very good."
He turned and left.
The Lord of Karma made an ancient and mystical sign behind his back.
"Brahma."
"Yes, goddess?"
"Concerning my suggestion . . ."
"It shall be done as you requested, madam."
"I would have it otherwise."
"Otherwise?"
"Yea, Lord. I would have a human sacrifice."
"Not. . ."
"Yes."
"You are indeed even more sentimental than I had thought."
"Shall this thing be done, or shall it not?"
"To speak plainly-- in the light of recent events, I should prefer it
this way."
"Then it is resolved?"
"It shall be as you wish. There was more power present in that one than
I had thought. If the Lord of Illusion had not been sentinel-- well, I had
not anticipated that one who had been so quiet for so long could also be
as-- talented, as you have put it."
"Will you give unto me the full disposition of this thing, Creator?"
"Gladly."
"And throw in the Monarch of Thieves, for dessert?"
"Yes. Let it be so."
"Thank you, mighty one."
"It is nothing."
"It will be. Good evening."
"Good evening."
It is said that on that day, that great day, the Lord Vayu stopped the
winds of Heaven and a stillness came upon the Celestial City and the wood of
Kaniburrha. Citragupta, serving man to Lord Yama, built a mighty pyre at
Worldsend, out of aromatic woods, gums, incenses, perfumes and costly
cloths; and upon the pyre he laid the Talisman of the Binder and the great
blue-feather cloak that had belonged to Srit, chief among the Kataputna
demons; he also placed there the shape-changing jewel of the Mothers, from
out the Dome of the Glow, and a robe of saffron from the purple grove of
Alundil, which was said to have belonged to Tathagatha the Buddha. The
silence of the morning after the night of the Festival of the First was
complete. There was no movement to be seen in Heaven. It is said that demons
flitted invisible through the upper air, but feared to draw near the
gathering of power. It is said that there had been many signs and portents
signifying the fall of the mighty. It was said, by the theologians and holy
historians, that the one called Sam had recanted his heresy and thrown
himself upon the mercy of Trimurti. It is also said that the goddess
Parvati, who had been either his wife, his mother, his sister, his daughter,
or perhaps all of these, had fled Heaven, to dwell in mourning among the
witches of the eastern continent, whom she counted as kin. With dawn, the
great bird called Garuda, Mount of Vishnu, whose beak smashes chariots, had
stirred for a moment into wakefulness and had uttered a single hoarse cry
within his cage, a cry that rang through Heaven, stabbing glass into shards,
echoing across the land, awakening the soundest sleeper. Within the still
summer of Heaven, the day of Love and Death began.
The streets of Heaven were empty. The gods dwelled for a time indoors,
waiting. All the portals of Heaven had been secured.
The thief and the one whose followers had called him Mahasamatman
(thinking him a god) were released. The air was of a sudden chill, with the
laying of a weird.
High, high above the Celestial City, on a platform at the top of
Milehigh Spire, stood the Lord of Illusion, Mara the Dreamer. He had upon
him his cloak of all colors. His arms were raised, and the powers of others
among the gods flowed through him, adding to his own.
In his mind, a dream took shape. Then he cast his dream, as a high
wave-front casts waters across a beach.
For all ages, since their fashioning by Lord Vishnu, the City and the
wilderness had existed side by side, adjacent, yet not really touching,
accessible, yet removed from one another by a great distance within the
mind, rather than by a separation merely spatial in nature. Vishnu, being
the Preserver, had done this for a reason. Now, he did not wholly approve of
the lifting of his barrier, even in a temporary and limited way. He did not
wish to see any of the wilderness enter into the City, which, in his mind,
had grown into the perfect triumph of form over chaos.
Yet, by the power of the Dreamer was it given unto the phantom cats to
look upon all of Heaven for a time.
They stirred, restlessly, upon the dark and ageless trails of the
jungle that was part illusion. There, within the place that only half
existed, a new seeing came into their eyes, and with it a restlessness and a
summons to the hunt.
It was rumored among the seafaring folk, those worldwide gossips and
carriers of tales, who seem to know all things, that some among the phantom
cats who hunted on that day were not really cats at all. They say that it
was told in the places of the world where the gods passed later, that some
among the Celestial Party transmigrated on that day, taking upon themselves
the bodies of white tigers out of Kaniburrha, to join in the hunt through
the alleys of Heaven after the thief who had failed and the one who had been
called Buddha.
It is said that, as he wandered the streets of the City, an ancient
jackbird cycled three times above him, then came to rest upon Sam's
shoulder, saying:
"Are you not Maitreya, Lord of Light, for whom the world has waited,
lo, these many years-- he whose coming I prophesyed long ago in a poem?"
"No, my name is Sam," he replied, "and I am about to depart the world,
not enter into it Who are you?"
"I am a bird who was once a poet. All morning have I flown, since the
yawp of Garuda opened the day. I was flying about the ways of Heaven looking
for Lord Rudra, hoping to befoul him with my droppings, when I felt the
power of a weird come over the land. I have flown far, and I have seen many
things, Lord of Light"
"What things have you seen, bird who was a poet?"
"I have seen an unlit pyre set at the end of the world, with fogs
stirring all about it. I have seen the gods who come late hurrying across
the snows and rushing through the upper airs, circling outside the dome. I
have seen the players upon the ranga and the nepathya, rehearsing the Masque
of Blood, for the wedding of Death and Destruction. I have seen the Lord
Vayu raise up his hand and stop the winds that circle through Heaven. I have
seen all-colored Mara atop the spire of the highest tower, and I have felt
the power of the weird he lays-- for I have seen the phantom cats troubled
within the wood, then hurrying in this direction. I have seen the tears of a
man and of a woman. I have heard the laughter of a goddess. I have seen a
bright spear uplifted against the morning, and I have heard an oath spoken.
I have seen the Lord of Light at last, of whom I wrote, long ago:
Always dying, never dead;
Ever ending, never ended;
Loathed in darkness,
Clothed in light,
He comes, to end a world,
As morning ends the night.
These lines were writ
By Morgan, free,
Who shall, the day he dies,
See this prophecy."
The bird ruffled his feathers then and was still.
"I am pleased, bird, that you have had a chance to see many things,"
said Sam, "and that within the fiction of your metaphor you have achieved a
certain satisfaction. Unfortunately, poetic truth differs considerably from
that which surrounds most of the business of life."
"Hail, Lord of Light!" said the bird, and sprang into the air. As he
rose, he was pierced through by an arrow shot from a nearby window by one
who hated jackbirds.
Sam hurried on.
It is said that the phantom cat who had his life, and that of Helba a
little later, was really a god or a goddess, which was quite possible.
It is said, also, that the phantom cat who killed them was not the
first, or the second, to attempt this thing. Several tigers died beneath the
Bright Spear, which passed into them, withdrew itself, vibrated clean of
gore and returned then to the hand of its thrower. Tak of the Bright Spear
fell himself, however, struck in the head by a chair thrown by Lord Ganesha,
who had entered silently into the room at his back. It is said by some that
the Bright Spear was later destroyed by Lord Agni, but others say that it
was cast beyond Worldsend by the Lady Maya.
Vishnu was not pleased, later being quoted as having said that the City
should not have been defiled with blood, and that wherever chaos finds
egress, it will one day return. But he was laughed at by the younger of the
gods, for he was accounted least among Trimurti, and his ideas were known to
be somewhat dated, he being numbered among the First. For this reason,
though, he disclaimed any part in the affair and retired into his tower for
a time. Lord Varuna the Just turned away his face from the proceedings and
visited the Pavilion of Silence at Worldsend, where he sat for a spell in
the room named Fear.
The Masque of Blood was quite lovely, having been written by the poet
Adasay, who was noted for his elegant language, being of the anti-Morganic
school. It was accompanied by powerful illusions cast by the Dreamer
especially for the occasion. It is said that Sam, too, had walked in
illusion on that day; and that, as a part of the weird, he had walked in
partial darkness, amidst awful odors, through regions of wailing and
shrieking, and that he had seen once again every terror he had known in his
life conjured up before him, brilliant or swart, silent or trumpeting,
fresh-torn from the fabric of his memory and dripping with the emotions of
their birth into his life, before it was over.
What remained was taken in procession to the pyre at Worldsend, placed
there upon it, burned amidst chanting. Lord Agni had raised his goggles,
stared for a time, and then the flames had arisen. Lord Vayu had lifted up
his hand and a wind had come to fan the fire. When it was finished. Lord
Shiva had blasted the ashes beyond the world with a twist of his trident.
These things considered, it was thorough as well as impressive, the
funeral.
Long unrehearsed in Heaven, the wedding came on with all the power of
tradition. Milehigh Spire glistened, blindingly, like a stalagmite of ice.
The weird had been withdrawn, and the phantom cats walked the streets of the
City, blinded once more, their fur sleeked as if by the wind; and should
they climb a broad stairway, it was a rocky slope they mounted; the
buildings were cliffs and the statues were trees. The winds that circled
through Heaven captured song and scattered it across the land. A sacred fire
was kindled in the Square within the City's center Circle. Virgins, imported
for the occasion, fed this fire with a clean, dry, aromatic wood, which
crackled and burnt with very little smoke, save for occasional puffs of
purest white. Surya, the sun, shone down with such brilliance that the day
fairly vibrated with clarity. The groom, attended by a great procession of
friends and retainers decked all in red, was escorted through the City to
the Pavilion of Kali, where all were taken within by her servants and led
into the great dining hall. There, Lord Kubera served as host, seating the
scarlet train, which was three hundred in number, in chairs of black and
chairs of red, alternating, around the long black-wood tables, which were
inlaid with bone. There, in that hall, were they all given to drink of
madhuparka, which was of honey and curds and psychedelic powders; and this
they drank in the company of the blue-garbed train of the bride, which
entered the hall bearing double cups. The train of the bride numbered three
hundred also; and when all were seated and all had drunk of the madhuparka,
Kubera did then speak for a time, jesting with them broadly and alternating
his speech with words of practical wisdom and occasional references to the
ancient scriptures. The legion of the groom then departed to the pavilion in
the Square, and that of the bride advanced upon it from another direction.
Yama and Kali entered this pavilion separately and sat on either side of a
small curtain. There was much singing of ancient songs and the curtain was
removed by Kubera, permitting the two to look upon one another for the first
time that day. Kubera did speak then, giving Kali into the care of Yama in
return for the promises of goodness, wealth and pleasure to be given unto
her. Then Lord Yama clasped her hand and Kali cast an offering of grain into
the fire, about which Yama led her, their garments having been knotted
together by one of her retainers. After this, Kali trod upon a millstone,
and the two of them took seven steps together, Kali treading upon a small
pile of rice with each step. Then was a light rain summoned down from the
sky for the space of several heartbeats, to sanctify the occasion with the
blessing of water. The retainers and guests then combined into a single
procession and moved off through the town in the direction of the dark
pavilion of Yama, where great feasting and revelry was held, and where the
Masque of Blood was presented.
As Sam had faced his final tiger, it had nodded its head slowly,
knowing what it was hunting. There was no place for him to run, so he stood
there, waiting. The cat took its time also. A horde of demons had tried to
descend upon the City at that moment, but the power of the weird held them
back. The goddess Ratri was seen to be weeping and her name was entered upon
a list. Tak of the Archives was incarcerated for a time in the dungeons
beneath Heaven. The Lord Yama was heard to say, "Life did not rise up," as
though he had almost expected that it would.
All things considered, it was thorough as well as impressive, the
death.
The wedding party lasted for seven days, and the Lord Mara spun dream
after dream about the revelers. As if by a carpet of magic, he transported
them through the lands of illusion, raising up palaces of colored smoke upon
pillars of water and of fire, escalating the benches at which they sat down
canyons of stardust, striving with coral and myrrh to bend their senses
beyond themselves, bringing onto them all their Aspects, wherein he held
them, rotating about the archetypes upon which they had based their powers,
as Shiva danced in a graveyard the Dance of Destruction and the Dance of
Time, celebrating the legend of his annihilation of the three flying cities
of the Titans, and Krishna the Dark moved through the Wrestler's Dance in
commemoration of his breaking of the black demon Bana, while Lakshmi danced
the Dance of the Statue, and even Lord Vishnu was coerced into celebrating
again the steps of the Dance of the Amphora, as Murugan, in his new body,
laughed at the world clad in all her oceans, and did his dance of triumph
upon those waters as upon a stage, the dance that he had danced after the
slaying of Shura, who had taken refuge in the depths of the sea. When Mara
gestured there was magic and color and music and wine. There was poetry and
gaming. There was song and laughter. There was sport, in which mighty trials
of strength and skill took place. In all, it required the stamina of a god
to bear the entire seven days of pleasure.
These things considered, it was thorough as well as impressive, the
wedding.
When it was over, the bride and the groom departed Heaven, to wander
for a time about the world, to take in the pleasures of many places. They
went, without servants or retainers, to wander free. They did not announce
the order of their visitations, or the length of time they would spend--
which was to be expected, their fellows being the celestial practical jokers
that they were.
After their going, there was still some revelry. Lord Rudra, having
consumed a magnificent quantity of soma, stood up upon a table and began to
deliver a speech concerning the bride-- a speech with which, had Yama been
present, he would doubtless have taken issue. Such being the case. Lord Agni
slapped Rudra across the mouth and was immediately challenged to a duel, in
Aspect, across the length of Heaven.
Agni was flown to a mountaintop beyond Kaniburrha, and Lord Rudra took
up a position near Worldsend. When the signal was given, Rudra sent a
heat-tracking arrow whistling down the miles in the direction of his
opponent. From fifteen miles away, however, Lord Agni spotted the arrow as
it sped toward him and burnt it from out the air with a blast of the
Universal Fire, which same power he then moved like a needle of light, to
touch upon Rudra and burn him to ashes where he stood, also piercing through
the dome at his back. Thus was the honor of the Lokapalas upheld, and a new
Rudra was raised up from the ranks of the demigods to take the place of the
old, who had fallen.
One rajah and two high priests died of poisoning, quite colorfully, and
pyres were built to accommodate their bluish remains. Lord Krishna raised up
his Aspect and played a music after which there is no music, and Guari the
Fair relented and came to him once more, her heart softened, after he had
finished. Sarasvati in her glory did the Dance of Delight, and then Lord
Mara re-created the flight of Helba and the Buddha through the City. This
last dreaming troubled many, however, and more names were recorded at that
time. A demon then dared enter into their midst, with the body of a youth
and the head of a tiger, attacking Lord Agni with a terrible fury. He was
repelled by the combined powers of Ratri and of Vishnu, but he succeeded in
escaping into incorporeality before Agni could bring his wand to bear upon
him.
In the days that followed, there were changes within Heaven.
Tak of the Archives and the Bright Spear was judged by the Lords of
Karma and was transmigrated into the body of an ape; and there was a warning
set within his mind that wherever he presented himself for renewal he was to
be given again into the body of an ape, to wander the world in this form
until such a time as Heaven saw fit to extend its mercy and lift this doom
from him. He was then sent forth into the jungles of the south, and there
released to work off his karmic burden.
Lord Varuna the Just gathered his servants about him and departed the
Celestial City, to make his home elsewhere in the world. Some of his
detractors likened his departure to that of Nirriti the Black, god of
darkness and corruption, who had left Heaven filled with ill will and the
miasma of many a dark curse. The detractors of Varuna were not so numerous,
however, for it was common knowledge that he deserved the title Just, and
his condemnation could easily be construed to reflect upon the worth of its
speaker, so few spoke of him beyond the days immediately following his
going.
Much later, others among the gods were exiled into the world, in the
days of the Heavenly Purges. Their going, however, had its beginnings in
these times, when Accelerationism entered again into Heaven.
Brahma, mightiest of the four orders of gods and the eighteen hosts of
paradise. Creator of all. Lord of High Heaven and everything beneath it,
from whose navel springs forth a lotus and whose hands churn the oceans--
he, who in three strides encompasses all the worlds, the drum of whose glory
strikes terror into the hearts of his enemies, upon whose right hand is the
wheel of the law, who tethers catastrophes, using a snake for rope -- Brahma
was to feel more and more uncomfortable and distraught in the days that came
to pass as a