Lord of Light (33 page)

He swept his scarlet cloak back over his right shoulder and surveyed the thunder chariot.

"It was damaged by the lightnings."

"Yes," he agreed.

He looked back toward the tail assembly, at the one who had spoken.

His armor shone like bronze, but it was not bronze.

It was worked about with the forms of many serpents.

He wore the horns of a bull upon his burnished helm, and in his left hand he held a gleaming trident.

"Brother Agni, you have come up in the world."

"I am no longer Agni, but Shiva, Lord of Destruction."

"You wear his armor upon a new body and you carry his trident. But none could master the trident of Shiva so quickly. This is why you wear the white gauntlet on your right hand, and the goggles upon your brow."

Shiva reached up and lowered the goggles over his eyes.

"It is true, I know. Throw away your trident, Agni. Give me your glove and your wand, your belt and your goggles."

He shook his head.

"I respect your power, deathgod, your speed and your strength, your skill. But you stand too far away for any of these to aid you now. You cannot come at me but I will burn you before you reach me here. Death, you shall die."

He reached for the wand at his belt.

"You seek to turn the gift of Death against its giver?" The blood-red scimitar came into his hand as he spoke.

"Good-bye, Dharma. Your days are come to an end."

He drew the wand.

"In the name of a friendship which once existed," said the one in red, "I will give you your life if you surrender to me."

The wand wavered.

"You killed Rudra to defend the name of my wife."

"It was to preserve the honor of the Lokapalas that I did it. Now I am God of Destruction, and one with the Trimurti!"

He pointed the fire wand, and Death swirled his scarlet cloak before him.

There came a flash of light so blinding that two miles away upon the walls of Keenset the defenders saw it and wondered.

The invaders had entered Keenset. There were fires now, screams, and the blows of metal upon wood, metal upon metal.

The Rakasha pushed down buildings upon the invaders with whom they could not close. The invaders as well as the defenders were few in number. The main bodies of both forces had perished upon the plains.

Sam stood atop the highest tower of the Temple and stared down into the falling city.

"I could not save you, Keenset," he stated. "I tried, but was not sufficient."

Far below, in the street, Rudra strung his bow.

Seeing him, Sam raised his lance.

The lightnings fell upon Rudra and the arrow exploded in their midst.

When the air cleared, where Rudra had been standing there was now a small crater in the center of a space of charred ground.

Lord Vayu appeared upon a distant rooftop and called forth the winds to fan the flames. Sam raised his lance once more, but then a dozen Vayus stood upon a dozen rooftops.

"Mara!" said Sam. "Show yourself. Dreamer! It you dare!"

There was laughter all around him.

"When I am ready, Kalkin," came the voice, out of the smoky air, "I
will
dare. The choice, though, is mine to make. . .. Are you not dizzy? What would happen if you were to cast yourself down toward the ground? Would the Rakasha come to bear you up? Would your demons save you?"

Lightnings fell upon all the buildings near the Temple then, but above the noise came the laughter of Mara. It faded away into the distance as fresh fires crackled.

Sam seated himself and watched the city burn. The sounds of fighting died down and ceased. There was only flame.

A sharp pain came and went in his head. Then it came and would not go. Then it racked his entire body, and he cried out.

Brahma, Vayu, Mara and four demigods stood below in the street.

He tried to raise his lance, but his hand shook so that it fell from his grasp, rattled on brick, was gone.

The scepter that is a skull and a wheel was pointed in his direction.

"Come down, Sam!" said Brahma, moving it slightly so that the pains shifted and burned. "You and Ratri are the only ones left alive! You are the last! Surrender!"

He struggled to his feet and clasped his hands upon his glowing belt.

He swayed and said the words through clenched teeth:

"Very well! I shall come down, as a bomb into your midst!"

But then the sky was darkened, lightened, darkened.

A mighty cry rose above the sound of the flames.

"It is Garuda!" said Mara.

"Why should Vishnu come—now?"

"Garuda was stolen! Do you forget?"

The great Bird dived upon the burning city, like a titan phoenix toward its flaming nest.

Sam twisted his head upward and saw the hood suddenly fall over Garuda's eyes. The Bird fluttered his wings, then plummeted toward the gods, where they stood before the Temple.

"Red!" cried Mara. "The rider! He wears red!"

Brahma spun and turned the screaming scepter, holding it with both hands toward the head of the diving Bird.

Mara gestured, and Garuda's wings seemed to take fire.

Vayu raised both arms, and a wind like a hurricane hammered the mount of Vishnu, whose beak smashes chariots.

He cried once more, opening his wings, slowing his descent. The Rakasha then rushed about his head, urging him downward with buffets and stings. He slowed, slowed, but could not stop.

The gods scattered.

Garuda struck the ground and the ground shuddered.

From among the feathers of his back, Yama came forth, blade in hand, took three steps, and fell to the ground. Mara emerged from a ruin and struck him across the back of his neck, twice, with the edge of his hand.

Sam sprang before the second blow descended, but he did not reach the ground in time. The scepter screamed once more and everything spun about him. He fought to break his fall. He slowed.

The ground was forty feet below him—thirty—twenty . . . The ground was clouded by a blood-dimmed haze, then black.

"Lord Kalkin has finally been beaten in battle," someone said softly.

Brahma, Mara, and two demigods named Bora and Tikan were the only ones who remained to bear Sam and Yama from the dying city of Keenset by the river Vedra. The Lady Ratri walked before them, a cord looped about her neck.

They took Sam and Yama to the thunder chariot, which was even more damaged than it had been when they left it, having a great gaping hole in its right side and part of its tail assembly missing. They secured their prisoners in chains, removing the Talisman of the Binder and the crimson cloak of Death. They sent a message then to Heaven, and after a time sky gondolas came to return them to the Celestial City.

"We have won," said Brahma. "Keenset is no more."

"A costly victory, I think," said Mara.

"But we have won!"

"And the Black One stirs again."

"He sought but to test our strength."

"And what must he think of it? We lost an entire army? And even gods have died this day."

"We fought with Death, the Rakasha, Kalkin, Night and the Mother of the Glow. Nirriti will not lift up his hand against us again, not after a winning such as this."

"Mighty is Brahma," said Mara, and turned away.

The Lords of Karma were called to stand in judgment of the captives.

The Lady Ratri was banished from the City and sentenced to walk the world as a mortal, always to be incarnated into middle-aged bodies of more than usually plain appearance, bodies that could not bear the full power of her Aspect or Attributes. She was shown this mercy because she was judged an incidental accomplice only, one misled by Kubera, whom she had trusted.

When they sent after Lord Yama, to bring him to judgment, he was found to be dead in his cell. Within his turban, there had been a small metal box. This box had exploded.

The Lords of Karma performed an autopsy and conferred.

"Why did he not take poison if he wished to die?" Brahma had asked. "It would be easier to conceal a pill than that box."

"It is barely possible," said one of the Lords of Karma, "that somewhere in the world he had another body, and that he sought to transmigrate by means of a broadcast unit, which was set to destroy itself after use."

"Could this thing be done?"

"No, of course not. Transfer equipment is bulky and complicated. But Yama boasted he could do anything. He once tried to convince me that such a device could be built. But the contact between the two bodies must be direct and by means of many leads and cables. And no unit that tiny could have generated sufficient power."

"Who built you the psych-probe?" asked Brahma.

"Lord Yama."

"And Shiva, the thunder chariot? And Agni, the fire wand? Rudra, his terrible bow? The Trident? The Bright Spear?"

"Yama."

"I should like to advise you then, that at approximately the same time as that tiny box must have been operating, a great generator, as of its own accord, turned itself on within the Vasty Hall of Death. It functioned for less than five minutes, and then turned itself off again."

"Broadcast power?"

Brahma shrugged.

"It is time to sentence Sam."

This was done. And since he had died once before, without much effect, it was decided that a sentence of death was not in order.

Accordingly, he was transmigrated. Not into another body.

A radio tower was erected, Sam was placed under sedation, transfer leads were attached in the proper manner, but there was no other body. They were attached to the tower's converter.

His
atman
was projected upward through the opened dome, into the great magnetic cloud that circled the entire planet and was called the Bridge of the Gods.

Then he was given the unique distinction of receiving a second funeral in Heaven. Lord Yama received his first; and Brahma, watching the smoke arise from the pyres, wondered where he really was.

"The Buddha has gone to nirvana," said Brahma. "Preach it in the Temples! Sing it in the streets'. Glorious was his passing! He has reformed the old religion, and we are better now than ever before! Let all who would think otherwise remember Keenset!"

This thing was done also.

But they never found Lord Kubera.

The demons were free.

Nirriti was strong.

And elsewhere in the world there were those who remembered bifocal glasses and toilets that flushed, petroleum chemistry and internal combustion engines, and the day the sun had hidden its face from the justice of Heaven.

Vishnu was heard to say that the wilderness had come into the City at last.

Another name by which he is sometimes called is Maitreya, meaning Lord of Light. After his return from the Golden Cloud, he journeyed to the Palace of Kama at Khaipur, where he planned and built his strength against the Day of the Yuga. A sage once said that one never sees the Day of the Yuga, but only knows it when it is past. For it dawns like any other day and passes in the same wise, recapitulating the history of the world.

He is sometimes called Maitreya, meaning Lord of Light. . .

The world is a fire of sacrifice, the sun its fuel, sunbeams its smoke, the day its flames, the points of the compass its cinders and sparks. In this fire the gods offer faith as libation. Out of this offering King Moon is born.

Rain, oh Gautama, is the fire, the year its fuel, the clouds its smoke, the lightning its flame, cinders, sparks. In this fire the gods offer King Moon as libation. Out of this offering the rain is born.

The world, oh Gautama, is the fire, the earth its fuel, fire its smoke, the night its flame, the moon its cinders, the stars its sparks. In this fire the gods offer rain as libation. Out of this offering food is produced.

Man, oh Gautama, is the fire, his open mouth its fuel, his breath its smoke, his speech its flame, his eye its cinders, his ear its sparks. In this fire the gods offer food as libation. Out of this offering the power of generation is born.

Woman, oh Gautama, is the fire, her form its fuel, her hair its smoke, her organs its flame, her pleasures its cinders and its sparks. In this flame the gods offer the power of generation as libation. Out of this offering a man is born. He lives for so long as he is to live.

When a man dies, he is carried to be offered in the fire. The fire becomes his fire, the fuel his fuel, the smoke his smoke, the flame his flame, the cinders his cinders, the sparks his sparks. In this fire the gods offer the man as libation. Out of this offering the man emerges in radiant splendor.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (VI, ii, 9-14)

In a high, blue palace of slender spires and filigreed gates, where the tang of salt sea spray and the crying of sea-wights came across the bright air to season the senses with life and delight. Lord Nirriti the Black spoke with the man who had been brought to him.

"Sea captain, what is your name?" he asked.

"Olvagga, Lord," answered the captain. "Why did you kill my crew and let me live?"

"Because I would question
you
, Captain Olvagga."

"Regarding what?"

"Many things. Things such as an old sea captain might know, through his travels. How stands my control of the southern sea lanes?"

"Stronger than I thought, or you'd not have me here."

"Many others are afraid to venture out, are they not?"

"Yes."

Nirriti moved to a window overlooking the sea. He turned his back upon his captive. After a time, he spoke again:

"I hear there has been much scientific progress in the north since, oh, the battle of Keenset."

"I, too, have heard this. Also, I know it to be true. I have seen a steam engine. The printing press is now a part of life. Dead slizzard legs are made to jump with galvanic currents. A better grade of steel is now being forged. The microscope and the telescope have been rediscovered."