Lord of Light (2 page)

"Hail, Lord of Light!" It was Ratri who spoke these words.

The eyes blinked. They did not focus. Nowhere in the chamber was there any movement.

"Hail, Mahasamatman — Buddha!" said Yama.

The eyes stared ahead, unseeing.

"Hello, Sam," said Tak.

The forehead creased slightly, the eyes squinted, fell upon Tak, moved on to the others.

"Where . . . ?" he asked, in a whisper.

"My monastery," answered Ratri.

Without expression, he looked upon her beauty.

Then he shut his eyes and held them tightly closed, wrinkles forming at their corners. A grin of pain made his mouth a bow, his teeth the arrows, clenched.

"Are you truly he whom we have named?" asked Yama.

He did not answer.

"Are you he who fought the army of Heaven to a standstill on the banks of the Vedra?"

The mouth slackened.

"Are you he who loved the goddess of Death?"

The eyes flickered. A faint smile came and went across the lips.

"It is he," said Yama; then, "Who are you, man?"

"I? I am nothing," replied the other. "A leaf caught in a whirlpool, perhaps. A feather in the wind. . ."

"Too bad," said Yama, "for there are leaves and feathers enough in the world for me to have labored so long only to increase their number. I wanted me a man, one who might continue a war interrupted by his absence — a man of power who could oppose with that power the will of gods. I thought you were he."

"I am"—he squinted again"—Sam. I am Sam. Once—long ago . . . I
did
fight, didn't I? Many times . . ."

"You were Great-Souled Sam, the Buddha. Do you remember?"

"Maybe I was . . ." A slow fire was kindled in his eyes.

"Yes," he said then. "Yes, I was. Humblest of the proud, proudest of the humble. I fought. I taught the Way for a time. I fought again, taught again, tried politics, magic, poison . . . I fought one great battle so terrible the sun itself hid its face from the slaughter—with men and gods, with animals and demons, with spirits of the earth and air, of fire and water, with slizzards and horses, swords and chariots—"

"And you lost," said Yama.

"Yes, I did, didn't I? But it was quite a showing we gave them, wasn't it? You, deathgod, were my charioteer. It all comes back to me now. We were taken prisoner and the Lords of Karma were to be our judges. You escaped them by the will-death and the Way of the Black Wheel. I could not."

"That is correct. Your past was laid out before them. You were judged." Yama regarded the monks who now sat upon the floor, their heads bowed, and he lowered his voice. "To have you to die the real death would have made you a martyr. To have permitted you to walk the world, in any form, would have left the door open for your return. So, as you stole your teachings from the Gottama of another place and time, did they steal the tale of the end of that one's days among men. You were judged worthy of Nirvana. Your
atman
was projected, not into another body, but into the great magnetic cloud that encircles this planet. That was over half a century ago. You are now officially an avatar of Vishnu, whose teachings were misinterpreted by some of his more zealous followers. You, personally, continued to exist only in the form of self-perpetuating wavelengths, which I succeeded in capturing."

Sam closed his eyes.

"And you
dared
to bring me back?"

"That is correct."

"I was aware of my condition the entire time."

"I suspected as much."

His eyes opened, blazing. "Yet you dared recall me from
that
?"

"Yes."

Sam bowed his head. "Rightly are you called deathgod, Yama-Dharma. You have snatched away from me the ultimate experience. You have broken upon the dark stone of your will that which is beyond all comprehension and mortal splendor. Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?"

"Because a world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming."

"Yama, I'm old," he said. "I'm as old as man upon this world. I was one of the First, you know. One of the very first to come here, to build, to settle. All of the others are dead now, or are gods —
dei ex machini
. . . The chance was mine also, but I let it go by. Many times. I never wanted to be a god, Yama. Not really. It was only later, only when I saw what they were doing, that I began to gather what power I could to me. It was too late, though. They were too strong. Now I just want to sleep the sleep of ages, to know again the Great Rest, the perpetual bliss, to hear the songs the stars sing on the shores of the great sea."

Ratri leaned forward and looked into his eyes. "We need you, Sam," she said.

"I know, I know," he told her. "It's the eternal recurrence of the anecdote. You've a willing horse, so flog him another mile." But he smiled as he said it, and she kissed his brow.

Tak leaped into the air and bounced upon the bed.

"Mankind rejoices," observed the Buddha.

Yama handed him a robe and Ratri fitted him with slippers.

Recovering from the peace which passeth understanding takes time. Sam slept. Sleeping, he dreamed; dreaming, he cried out, or just cried. He had no appetite; but Yama had found him a body both sturdy and in perfect health, one well able to bear the psychosomatic conversion from divine withdrawal.

But he would sit for an hour, unmoving, staring at a pebble or a seed or a leaf. And on these occasions, he could not be aroused. Yama saw in this a danger, and he spoke of it with Ratri and Tak. "It is not good that he withdraw from the world in this way, now," he said. "I have spoken with him, but it is as if I addressed the wind. He cannot recover that which he has left behind. The very attempt is costing him his strength."

"Perhaps you misread his efforts," said Tak.

"What mean you?"

"See how he regards the seed he has set before him? Consider the wrinkling at the edges of his eyes."

"Yes? What of it?"

"He squints. Is his vision impaired?"

"It is not."

"Then why does he squint?"

"To better study the seed."

"Study? That is not the Way, as once he taught it. Yet he
does
study. He does not meditate, seeking within the object that which leads to release of the subject. No."

"What then does he do?"

"The reverse."

"The reverse?"

"He does study the object, considering its ways, in an effort to bind himself. He seeks within it an excuse to live. He tries once more to wrap himself within the fabric of Maya, the illusion of the world."

"I believe you are right, Tak!" It was Ratri who had spoken. "How can we assist him in his efforts?"

"I am not certain, mistress."

Yama nodded, his dark hair glistening in a bar of sunlight that fell across the narrow porch.

"You have set your finger upon the thing I could not see," he acknowledged. "He has not yet fully returned, though he wears a body, walks upon human feet, talks as we do. His thought is still beyond our ken."

"What then shall we do?" repeated Ratri.

"Take him on long walks through the countryside," said Yama. "Feed him delicacies. Stir his soul with poetry and song. Find him strong drink to drink—there is none here in the monastery. Garb him in bright-hued silks. Fetch him a courtesan or three. Submerge him in living again. It is only thus that he may be freed from the chains of God. Stupid of me not to have seen it sooner . . ."

"Not really, deathgod," said Tak.

The flame that is black leapt within Yama's eyes, and then he smiled. "I am repaid, little one," he acknowledged, "for the comments I, perhaps thoughtlessly, let fall upon thy hairy ears. I apologize, ape-one. You are truly a man, and one of wit and perception."

Tak bowed before him.

Ratri chuckled.

"Tell us, clever Tak—for mayhap we have been gods too long, and so lack the proper angle of vision—how shall we proceed in this matter of rehumanizing him, so as to best serve the ends we seek?"

Tak bowed him then to Ratri.

"As Yama has proposed," he stated. "Today, mistress, you take him for a walk in the foothills. Tomorrow, Lord Yama conducts him as far as the edge of the forest. The following day I shall take him amidst the trees and the grasses, the flowers and the vines. And we shall see. We shall."

"So be it," said Yama, and so it was.

In the weeks that followed, Sam came to look forward to these walks with what appeared at first a mild anticipation, then a moderate enthusiasm, and finally a blazing eagerness. He took to going off unaccompanied for longer and longer stretches of time: at first, it was for several hours in the morning; then, morning and evening. Later, he stayed away all day, and on occasion a day and a night.

At the end of the third week, Yama and Ratri discussed it on the porch in the early hours of morning.

"This thing I do not like," said Yama. "We cannot insult him by forcing our company upon him now, when he does not wish it. But there is danger out there, especially for one born again such as he. I would that we knew how he spends his hours."

"But whatever he does, it is helping him to recover," said Ratri, gulping a sweetmeat and waving a fleshy hand. "He is less withdrawn. He speaks more, even jesting. He drinks of the wine we bring him. His appetite is returning."

"Yet, if he should meet with an agent of Trimurti, the final doom may come to pass."

Ratri chewed slowly. "It is not likely, though, that such should be abroad in this country, in these days," she stated. "The animals will see him as a child and will not harm him. Men would consider him a holy hermit. The demons fear him of old, and so respect him."

But Yama shook his head. "Lady, it is not so simple. Though I have dismantled much of my machinery and hidden it hundreds of leagues from here, such a massive trafficking of energies as I employed cannot have passed unnoticed. Sooner or later this place will be visited. I used screens and baffling devices, but this general area must have appeared in certain quarters as though the Universal Fire did a dance upon the map. Soon we must move on. I should prefer to wait until our charge is fully recovered, but. . ."

"Could not certain natural forces have produced the same energy effects as your workings?"

"Yes, and they do occur in this vicinity, which is why I chose it as our base—so it may well be that nothing will come of it. Still, I doubt this. My spies in the villages report no unusual activities now. But on the day of his return, riding upon the crest of the storm, some say the thunder chariot passed, hunting through the heavens and across the countryside. This was far from here, but I cannot believe that there was no connection."

"Yet, it has not returned."

"Not that we know of. But I fear . . ."

"Then let us depart at once. I respect your forebodings too well. You have more of the power upon you than any other among the Fallen. For me, it is a great strain even to assume a pleasing shape for more than a few minutes . . ."

"What powers I possess," said Yama, refilling her teacup, "are intact because they were not of the same order as yours."

He smiled then, showing even rows of long, brilliant teeth. This smile caught at the edge of a scar upon his left cheek and reached up to the comer of his eye. He winked to put a period to it and continued, "Much of my power is in the form of knowledge, which even the Lords of Karma could not have wrested from me. The power of most of the gods, however, is predicated upon a special physiology, which they lose in part when incarnated into a new body. The mind, somehow remembering, after a time alters any body to a certain extent, engendering a new homeostasis, permitting a gradual return of power. Mine does return quickly, though, and it is with me fully now. But even if it were not, I have my knowledge to use as a weapon—and that is a power."

Ratri sipped her tea. "Whatever its source, if your power says move, then move we must. How soon?"

Yama opened a pouch of tobacco and rolled a cigarette as he spoke. His dark, supple fingers, she noted, always had about then: movement that which was like the movements of one who played upon an instrument of music.

"I should say let us not tarry here more than another week or ten days. We must wean him from this countryside by then."

She nodded. "Where to then?"

"Some small southern kingdom, perhaps, where we may come and go undisturbed."

He lit the cigarette, breathed smoke.

"I've a better idea," said she. "Know that under a mortal name am I mistress of the Palace of Kama in Khaipur."

"The Fornicatorium, madam?"

She frowned. "As such is it often known to the vulgar, and do not call me 'madam' in the same breath—it smacks of an ancient jest. It is a place of rest, pleasure, holiness and much of my revenue. There, I feel, would be a good hiding place for our charge while he makes his recovery and we our plans."

Yama slapped his thigh. "Aye! Aye! Who would think to look for the Buddha in a whorehouse? Good! Excellent! To Khaipur, then, dear goddess—to Khaipur and the Palace of Love!"

She stood and stamped her sandal upon the flagstones. "I will not have you speak that way of my establishment!"

He dropped his eyes, and with pain dropped the grin from his face. He stood then and bowed. "I apologize, dear Ratri, but the revelation came so sudden—" He choked then and looked away. When he looked back, he was full of sobriety and decorum. He continued, "That I was taken aback by the apparent incongruity. Now, though, I do see the wisdom of the thing. It is a most perfect cover-up, and it provides you both with wealth and, what is more important, with a source of privy information among the merchants, warriors and priests. It is an indispensable part of the community. It gives you status and a voice in civil affairs. Being a god is one of the oldest professions in the world. It is only fitting, therefore, that we fallen ones take umbrage within the pale of another venerable tradition. I salute you. I give thanks for your wisdom and forethought. I do not slander the enterprises of a benefactor and coconspirator. In fact, I look forward to the visit."