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

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

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

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

        "?"
     "That is correct. Sam is doubtless paying you for a private line, is he
not?"
     "Lord . . . !"
     "Enough! Depart!"
     The priest bowed quickly and left, closing the shelves behind him.
     Brahma studied  Sam, who was wearing dark jodhpurs, a sky-blue <i>khameez</i>,
the blue-green turban of Urath and an  empty scabbard  upon a  chain belt of
dark iron.
     Sam, in turn, studied the  other, who stood with blackness at his back,
wearing  a feather cloak  over a suit of  light mail.  It was  caught at the
throat with a clasp of fire opal.  Brahma wore a purple crown, studded  with
pulsating amethysts, and he bore in his right  hand a  scepter mounted  with
the nine auspicious gems. His eyes were two dark stains upon  his dark face.
The gentle strumming of a <i>veena</i> occurred about him.
     "Sam?" he said.
     Sam nodded.
     "I am trying to guess your true identity. Lord Brahma. I confess that I
cannot."
     "This is as it should be," said Brahma, "if one is to be a god who was,
is and always shall be."
     "Fine garments, those you wear," said Sam. "Quite fetching."
     "Thank you. I find it hard to believe that you still exist. Checking, I
note that you have not sought  a new body for half a century. That is taking
quite a chance."
     Sam shrugged. "Life is full of chances, gambles, uncertainties. . ."
     "True," said Brahma. "Pray, draw up a chair and sit down. Make yourself
comfortable."
     Sam did this,  and when  he looked up again, Brahma was  seated upon  a
high throne carved of red marble, with a matching parasol flared above it.
     "That looks a bit uncomfortable," he remarked.
     "Foam-rubber cushion," replied the god, smiling. "You may smoke, if you
wish."
     "Thanks."  Sam  drew his  pipe from the  pouch at his belt, filled  it,
tamped it carefully and struck it to fire.
     "What have you  been doing all  this time,"  asked the  god, "since you
left the roost of Heaven?"
     "Cultivating my own gardens," said Sam.
     "We  could  have  used  you here,"  said  Brahma,  "in  our hydroponics
section. For  that matter, perhaps we still could. Tell me more of your stay
among men."
     "Tiger hunts, border disputes with neighboring kingdoms, keeping up the
morale of the harem, a bit of botanical  research-- things  like  that-- the
stuff of life,"  said Sam. "Now my powers slacken, and  I seek  once more my
youth. But to obtain it again,  I  understand that I  must  have  my  brains
strained. Is that true?"
     "After a fashion," said Brahma.
     "To what end, may I ask?"
     "That wrong shall fail and right prevail," said the god, smiling.
     "Supposing I'm wrong," asked Sam, "how shall I fail?"
     "You  shall be required to  work off  your  karmic  burden  in a lesser
form."
     "Have you  any  figures readily  available  as to  the percentage  that
fails, vis-&aacute;-vis that which prevails?"
     "Think not less of me in my omniscience," said  Brahma, stifling a yawn
with  his scepter,  "if I admit  to having, for  the moment, forgotten these
figures."
     Sam chuckled.  "You  say  you  have need of a  gardener  there  in  the
Celestial City?"
     "Yes," said Brahma. "Would you like to apply for the job?"
     "I don't know," said Sam. "Perhaps."
     "And then again, perhaps not?" said the other.
     "Perhaps not,  also," he acknowledged. "In the old days there was  none
of this shillyshallying  with  a  man's  mind. If  one  of the  First sought
renewal, he paid the body price and was served."
     "We no longer dwell in the old days, Sam. The new age is at hand."
     "One would almost think that you sought the removal of all of the First
who are not marshaled at your back."
     "A pantheon has room for  many, Sam. There is a  niche  for you, if you
choose to claim it."
     "If I do not?"
     "Then inquire in the Hall of Karma after your body."
     "And if I elect godhood?"
     "Your brains will  not be probed.  The Masters will be advised to serve
you quickly  and well.  A flying machine will be dispatched to convey you to
Heaven."
     "It bears a bit of thinking," said Sam. "I'm  quite fond of <i>this</i> world,
though it wallows in  an age  of darkness. On the other hand, such  fondness
will not serve me to enjoy the things I desire, if it is decreed that  I die
the  real death or take on the form of an ape and wander about the  jungles.
But I am not overly fond of artificial perfection either, such as existed in
Heaven when last I visited there. Bide with me a moment while I meditate."
     "I  consider such indecision presumptuous," said Brahma, "when  one has
just been made such an offer."
     "I know, and perhaps I should also, were our positions reversed. But if
I were God and you were me, I do believe I would extend a moment's  merciful
silence while a man makes a major decision regarding his life."
     "Sam, you  are an impossible haggler! Who else  would keep  me  waiting
while his  immortality  hangs  in the  balance?  Surely you  do not  seek to
bargain with <i>me</i>?"
     "Well, I do come from a  long line  of slizzard traders-- and I do very
badly want something."
     "And what may that be?"
     "Answers to a few questions which have plagued me for a while now."
     "These being . . . ?"
     "As you are aware, I stopped attending the  old Council meetings over a
century  ago, for  they had become  lengthy  sessions calculated to postpone
decision-making, and were primarily an excuse  for a Festival  of the First.
Now, I have nothing against  festivals. In fact, for  a century and a half I
went  to them only to  drink good Earth booze once more. But, I felt that we
should be doing something about the passengers, as well as the  offspring of
our many bodies, rather than letting them wander a  vicious world, reverting
to savagery. I felt that we of the  crew should be assisting  them, granting
them the benefits of  the technology we  had preserved, rather than building
ourselves an impregnable paradise and  treating  the world as a  combination
game preserve and whorehouse. So, I  have  wondered long why this  thing was
not done. It would seem a fair and equitable way to run a world."
     "I take it from this that you are an Accelerationist?"
     "No," said Sam, "simply an inquirer.  I am curious, that's  all, as  to
the reasons."
     "Then, to answer your questions,"  said Brahma, "it is because they are
not ready for it. Had we acted immediately-- yes, this thing could have been
done.  But  we were indifferent at first. Then,  when the question arose, we
were divided. Too much time passed. They are not ready,  and will not be for
many centuries. If they were to be exposed to an advanced technology at this
point, the  wars which  would  ensue would result  in the destruction of the
beginnings  they have already made.  They have come far.  They have begun  a
civilization  after  the manner of their fathers  of old. But they are still
children, and like children  would they play with our gifts and  be burnt by
them. They  are our children, by our long-dead First bodies, and second, and
third  and many after--  and so, ours is the parents' responsibility  toward
them.  We  must  not  permit  them  to  be  accelerated into  an  industrial
revolution  and  so destroy  the first  stable society  on this planet.  Our
parental functions can best be performed by  guiding them as we do,  through
the Temples. Gods and goddesses are basically parent  figures, so what could
be truer and  more just  than  that  we  assume these  roles and  play  them
thoroughly?"
     "Why then  do  you destroy their own  infant technology?  The  printing
press  has  been rediscovered  on three occasions that  I  can remember, and
suppressed each time."
     "This  was done for the same reason-- they were  not yet ready for  it.
And  it was not truly  discovered,  but rather it  was remembered. It  was a
thing out of legend which  someone set about duplicating. If  a thing  is to
come, it must come as a result of  factors already  present in  the culture,
and not be pulled from out of the past like a rabbit from a hat."
     "It seems you are drawing  a mighty fine line at that  point, Brahma. I
take it  from this that your  minions go to and fro in the world, destroying
all signs of progress they come upon?"
     "This is not true," said the god. "You talk as if we desire perpetually
this  burden of godhood, as if  we seek to maintain a dark  age that  we may
know forever the wearisome condition of our enforced divinity!"
     "In a word," said Sam, "yes. What of the pray-o-mat which squats before
this very Temple? Is it on par, culturally, with a chariot?"
     "That  is different,"  said  Brahma. "As a divine manifestation, it  is
held in awe by the citizens and is not questioned, for religious reasons. It
is hardly the same as if gunpowder were to be introduced."
     "Supposing  some local  atheist hijacks one  and  picks it  apart?  And
supposing he happens to be a Thomas Edison? What then?"
     "They  have tricky combination locks on them. If  anyone other  than  a
priest opens one, it will blow up and take him along with it."
     "And I notice you were unable to suppress the rediscovery of the still,
though you tried. So you slapped on an alcohol tax, payable to the Temples."
     "Mankind has always sought release through drink," said Brahma. "It has
generally  figured  in  somewhere in his  religious  ceremonies.  Less guilt
involved that  way. True,  we tried suppressing  it at first, but we quickly
saw  we could not. So, in return for  our tax, they receive here  a blessing
upon their  booze. Less guilt, less of a hangover, fewer recriminations-- it
<i>is</i> psychosomatic, you know -- and the tax isn't that high."
     "Funny, though, how many prefer the profane brew."
     "You  came to pray and you are  staying to scoff,  is  that what you're
saying, Sam? I offered to answer your questions, not debate Deicrat policies
with you. Have you made up your mind yet regarding my offer?"
     "Yes, Madeleine," said  Sam, "and did anyone  ever  tell you how lovely
you are when you're angry?"
     Brahma sprang forward off  the  throne. "<i>How could you?  How  could you
tell?</i>" screamed the god.
     "I couldn't, really," said Sam. "Until now. It  was just a guess, based
upon some of  your mannerisms of speech and gesture  which I  remembered. So
you've  finally achieved your lifelong ambition, eh? I'll  bet  you've got a
harem, too. What's it feel like, madam, to be a  real stud after having been
a gal to start out with? Bet every Lizzie in the world would envy you if she
knew. Congratulations."
     Brahma drew himself up  to full height  and glared.  The throne  was  a
flame  at his  back. The <i>veena</i>  thrummed on,  dispassionately. He raised his
scepter then and spoke:
     "Prepare yourself to receive the curse of Brahma . . ." he began.
     "Whatever for?"  asked Sam. "Because  I guessed your secret? If I am to
be a  god, what  difference does  it make? Others must  know of it.  Are you
angry because the only way I  could learn  your true identity was by baiting
you  a  little?  I  had  assumed  you  would appreciate me  the  more  if  I
demonstrated  my  worth by displaying  my  wit in this  manner.  If  I  have
offended you, I do apologize."
     "It is not because you guessed-- or even because of the manner in which
you guessed-- but because you mocked me, that I curse you."
     "Mocked you?" said Sam. "I do not understand. I intended no disrespect.
I was always  on good terms with you in the old days. If  you will but think
back over  them, you will recall that this is true.  Why should I jeopardize
my position by mocking you now?"
     "Because you  said  what you  thought  too  quickly, without thinking a
second time."
     "Nay, my  Lord. I did  but  jest with  you as  any one  man  might with
another when discussing these matters. I am sorry if you took it amiss. I'll
warrant you've a harem I'd envy, and which I'll doubtless try to sneak  into
some night. If you'd curse me for being surprised, then curse away." He drew
upon his pipe and wreathed his grin in smoke.
     Finally,  Brahma  chuckled.  "I'm a bit quick-tempered,  'tis true," he
explained,  "and  perhaps too  touchy about my  past. Of course, I've  often
jested so with other men. You are forgiven. I withdraw my beginning curse.
     "And your decision, I take it, is to accept my offer?" he inquired.
     "That is correct," said Sam.
     "Good.  I've  always  felt a  brotherly affection  for you.  Go now and
summon my priest,  that I may instruct him concerning your incarnation. I'll
see you soon."
     "Sure  thing. Lord Brahma."  Sam nodded and raised his  pipe.  Then  he
pushed back  the row of shelves and sought the priest in  the  hall without.
Various thoughts passed  through his mind,  but this time he let them remain
unspoken.

     That  evening, the prince held council with those of his  retainers who
had visited kinsmen and friends within Mahartha, and with those who had gone
about through the town obtaining news and gossip. From these he learned that
there were only  ten Masters  of Karma in  Mahartha and that they kept their
lodgings in  a palace on the southeastern slopes above  the  city. They made
scheduled visits to the clinics, or reading rooms, of the Temples, where the
citizens  presented  themselves  for judgment when they applied for renewal.
The Hall of Karma itself was a massive black  structure within the courtyard
of  their palace, where a person applied shortly after judgment to have  his
transfer made into his  new  body. Strake, along  with two  of his advisers,
departed  while  daylight  yet  remained  to  make  sketches  of  the palace
fortifications. Two of the prince's courtiers were dispatched across town to
deliver an  invitation to  late dining and revelry to the Shan of Irabek, an
old  man  and distant neighbor of Siddhartha's with whom he had fought three
bloody  border skirmishes  and  occasionally  hunted  tiger.  The  Shan  was
visiting with relatives  while  waiting his  appointment with the Masters of
Karma. Another  man was sent to the Street of the Smiths, where he requested
of the metal workers that they double the  prince's order and  have it ready
by   early  morning.  He  took  along   additional  money  to  ensure  their
cooperation.
     Later, the Shan of Irabek arrived at the Hostel of Hawkana, accompanied
by six of his relatives, who were of the merchant caste but came armed as if
they were warriors. Seeing that the hostel was  a peaceable  abode, however,
and  that none of the  other  guests or  visitors bore  arms, they put aside
their weapons and  seated  themselves near the head of the table, beside the
prince.
     The Shan was a tall  man,  but his posture was considerably hunched. He
wore maroon  robes  and  a dark turban  reaching  down almost  to his great,
caterpillar-like eyebrows, which were the  color of milk.  His beard  was  a
snowy bush, his teeth  shown as  dark  stumps when he laughed and his  lower
eyelids jutted  redly,  as  though  sore  and  weary after so  many years of
holding  back his bloodshot orbs in their obvious attempt to push themselves
forward out of  their sockets.  He laughed a  phlegmy laugh and pounded  the
table, repeating, "Elephants are  too expensive these days, and no damn good
at  all in mud!"  for  the  sixth  time;  this being in  reference to  their
conversation as to the best time of year  to fight a war. Only  one very new
in the business  would be so  boorish as to insult  a neighbor's  ambassador
during the rainy season, it was decided, and  that one would  thereafter  be
marked as a <i>nouveau roi</i>.
     As the evening wore on, the prince's physician excused himself so as to
superintend the preparation of the dessert and introduce a narcotic into the
sweetcakes being served  up  to  the Shan.  As the  evening wore further on,
subsequent to the dessert, the Shan grew more and more inclined to close his
eyes and let his head slump  forward for longer  and longer periods of time.
"Good  party," he muttered,  between snores,  and finally, "Elephants are no
damn good at all. . ." and so passed to sleep and could not be awakened. His
kinsmen did not see fit to escort him home at this time, because of the fact
that the  prince's  physician had added chloral  hydrate to their  wine, and
they  were at  that  moment  sprawled  upon the floor, snoring. The prince's
chief courtier arranged with Hawkana for  their  accommodation, and the Shan
himself was taken to Siddhartha's suite, where he was shortly visited by the
physician, who loosened his garments and spoke to him in  a soft, persuasive
voice:
     "Tomorrow afternoon," he was saying, "you will be Prince Siddhartha and
these will be your retainers. You will  report to the Hall of Karma in their
company, to claim there the  body which Brahma has  promised you without the
necessity of  prior  judgment  You  will  remain Siddhartha  throughout  the
transfer, and  you will  return here in the company of your retainers, to be
examined by me. Do you understand?"
     "Yes," whispered the Shan.
     "Then repeat what I have told you."
     'Tomorrow afternoon,"  said the Shan, "I will be Siddhartha, commanding
these retainers. . ."

     Bright bloomed the morning,  and debts were settled beneath it. Half of
the prince's men rode out of the city, heading north.  When they were out of
sight  of Mahartha  they began circling to the southeast,  working their way
through the hills, stopping only to don their battle gear.
     Half  a  dozen men were dispatched to the Street of the  Smiths, whence
they returned bearing heavy canvas bags, the contents of which  were divided
into the pouches  of three dozen men  who departed  after breakfast into the
city.
     The prince took counsel with his physician,  Narada, saying, "If I have
misjudged the clemency of Heaven, then am I cursed indeed."
     But the doctor smiled and replied, "I doubt you misjudged."
     And so they passed from morning into the still center of day, the Ridge
of the Gods golden above them.
     When  their  charges awakened, they ministered to  their hangovers. The
Shan was given a posthypnotic and sent with six of Siddhartha's retainers to
the  Palace  of the  Masters.  His kinsmen  were  assured  that  he remained
sleeping in the prince's quarters.
     "Our major risk at this point," said the physician,  "is the Shan. Will
he be recognized? The factors in our favor are that he is a minor  potentate
from a distant kingdom, he has only been in town for a short period of time,
has spent  most of that time  with his kinsmen and he has not  yet presented
himself  for judgment.  The  Masters should  still  be unaware of  your  own
physical appearance -- "
     "Unless I have been  described to  them by Brahma or his  priest," said
the prince. "For all I know,  my communication may  have been  taped and the
tape relayed to them for identification purposes."
     "Why,  though,  should  this have  been  done?"  inquired Narada. "They
should hardly expect stealth and elaborate precautions  of one for whom they
are doing  a favor. No, I  think we should be able to pull it off. The  Shan
would not  be able  to pass  a probe, of course, but he should pass  surface
scrutiny,  accompanied as he is  by your  retainers. At the moment,  he does
believe he is Siddhartha, and he could pass any simple lie-detection test in
that regard-- which I feel is the most serious obstacle he might encounter."
     So  they  waited, and the  three dozen men returned with empty pouches,
gathered their belongings, mounted their horses and one  by one  drifted off
through  the town, as  though  in  search of  revelry, but actually drifting
slowly in a southeasterly direction.
     "Good-bye, good Hawkana," said the prince, as the  remainder of his men
packed  and mounted. "I shalt bear, as  always, good report of your lodgings
to all whom I  meet about the land. I  regret that my stay here  must  be so
unexpectedly  terminated, but  I  must ride  to put down an uprising in  the
provinces as soon as  I leave the Hall of Karma. You are aware of how  these
things spring  up the moment  a ruler's  back is turned. So,  while I should
have  liked to  spend  another  week beneath  your roof,  I  fear  that this
pleasure must be postponed until another  time.  If any  ask after  me, tell
them to seek me in Hades."
     "Hades, my Lord?"
     "It  is  the  southernmost  province  of  my  kingdom,  noted  for  its
excessively  warm weather. Be sure to  phrase it just  so, especially to the
priests of Brahma, who may become concerned as to my whereabouts in days  to
come."
     "I'll do that, my Lord."
     "And  take especial  care  of the boy  Dele.  I expect to hear him play
again on my next visit."
     Hawkana bowed low  and  was about to  begin a  speech,  so  the  prince
decided upon  that moment to toss him the final  bag  of coins  and make  an
additional comment  as to the  wines of Urath--  before mounting quickly and
shouting orders to his men,  in such a manner as  to drown out  any  further
conversation.
     Then  they rode through the gateway and were gone,  leaving behind only
the physician and three warriors, whom he was to treat an additional day for
an  obscure condition having to  do with the change  of climate, before they
rode on to catch up with the others.
     They passed through the town, using side streets, and came after a time
to the  roadway  that  led up toward the Palace of the  Masters of Karma. As
they passed along its  length, Siddhartha  exchanged secret signs with those
three dozen of  his warriors who lay in hiding at various points off  in the
woods.
     When they had gone half the distance to the palace, the prince and  the
eight men who  accompanied him drew rein and made as if to rest, waiting the
while for the others to move  abreast of them, passing  carefully  among the
trees.
     Before  long,  however,  they  saw  movement on  the trail ahead. Seven
riders were advancing on horseback,  and the prince guessed them to  be  his
six lancers and the  Shan.  When  they  came within  hailing distance,  they
advanced to meet them.
     "Who  are you?" inquired the tall,  sharp-eyed  rider mounted  upon the
white mare. "Who  are you that dares block the passage of Prince Siddhartha,
Binder of Demons?"
     The prince looked upon him--  muscular and tanned, in his mid-twenties,
possessed  of  hawklike  features  and  a  powerful  bearing -- and he  felt
suddenly that his doubts had been unfounded and that he bad betrayed himself
by his  suspicion and mistrust. It appeared from the lithe physical specimen
seated  upon  his  own  mount that  Brahma  had  bargained  in  good  faith,
authorizing  for  his  use  an  excellent and sturdy  body,  which  was  now
possessed by the ancient Shan.
     "Lord Siddhartha," said his man, who had ridden at the side of the Lord
of  Irabek, "it  appears  that  they dealt fairly. I  see naught amiss about
him."
     "Siddhartha!" cried  the  Shan. "Who  is this one you dare address with
the name of  your master? I am Siddhartha,  Binder of-- " With that he threw
his head back and his words gurgled in his throat.
     Then the fit hit the Shan. He stiffened, lost his seating and fell from
the saddle. Siddhartha ran to his  side. There were little flecks of foam at
the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were rolled upward.
     "Epileptic!" cried the prince. "They meant me to have a brain which had
been damaged."
     The others gathered  around and helped the prince minister to  the Shan
until the seizure passed and his wits had returned to his body.
     "Wh-what happened?" he asked.
     "Treachery," said  Siddhartha. "Treachery, oh Shan of Irabek! One of my
men will convey you now  to my personal physician, for an examination. After
you have rested, I suggest  you lodge a protest at Brahma's reading room. My
physician will treat you  at  Hawkana's, and then you will be released. I am
sorry this  thing  happened. It  will probably  be set  aright. But if  not,
remember the last siege  of Kapil and  consider us  even on all scores. Good
afternoon, brother prince." He bowed to  the  other, and his men  helped the
Shan to mount Hawkana's bay, which Siddhartha had borrowed earlier.
     Mounting the  mare, the prince observed their departure, then turned to
the men who stood about him, and he spoke in a voice sufficiently loud to be
heard by those who waited off the road:
     "The  nine of us will enter. Two  blasts upon the  horn, and you others
follow. If they resist, make them wish they had been more prudent, for three
more blasts upon the horn will bring the fifty lancers down from the  hills,
if they be  needed.  It  is a  palace of ease,  and not a fort where battles
would be fought. Take the Masters prisoner. Do not harm their machineries or
allow others to do  so. If they do not resist us, all well and good. If they
do, we shall walk through the Palace and Hall of the Masters of Karma like a
small boy across an extensive and excessively elaborate ant hill. Good luck.
No gods be with you!"
     And turning his  horse,  he  headed on up the  road, the eight  lancers
singing softly at his back.
     The  prince  rode  through the wide double gate, which stood  open  and
unguarded. He set  immediately to wondering  concerning secret defenses that
Strake might have missed.
     The courtyard was  landscaped and partly paved. In a large garden area,
servants were at work pruning, trimming and  cultivating.  The prince sought
after  weapon  emplacements and  saw  none. The  servants glanced  up  as he
entered, but did not halt their labors.
     At the far end of the courtyard was  the black  stone Hall. He advanced
in  that direction,  his horsemen  following, until he  was hailed  from the
steps of the palace itself, which lay to his right.
     He drew rein and turned to look in that direction. The  man  wore black
livery, a yellow circle on his breast, and he carried an ebony staff. He was
tall, heavy and muffled to  the eyes.  He did not repeat his salutation, but
stood waiting.
     The  prince guided his mount to  the foot of the wide stairway. "I must
speak to the Masters of Karma," he stated.
     "Have you an appointment?" inquired the man.
     "No," said the prince, "but it is a matter of importance."
     "Then I regret that  you have made this trip for nothing," replied  the
other. "An appointment is necessary. You may make arrangements at any Temple
in Mahartha."
     He then struck upon the stair with his staff, turned his back and began
to move away.
     "Uproot that  garden,"  said the prince  to his men, "cut  down  yonder
trees, heap everything together and set a torch to it."
     The man in black halted, turned again.
     Only the prince  waited  at the foot of the stair. His men were already
moving off in the direction of the garden.
     "You can't do that," said the man.
     The prince smiled.
     His men dismounted and began hacking at the shrubbery, kicking they way
through the flower beds.
     "Tell them to stop!"
     "Why should I? I have come to speak with the  Masters of Karma, and you
tell me that I cannot. I tell you that I can, and will.  Let us see which of
us is correct."
     "Order  them to stop," said the other, "and I will bear your message to
the Masters."
     "Halt!" cried the prince. "But be ready to begin again."
     The man in black  mounted  the stairs,  vanished into the  palace.  The
prince fingered the horn that hung on a cord about his neck.
     In a short while there was movement, and armed men began to emerge from
the doorway. The prince raised his horn and gave wind to it twice.
     The  men wore  leather armor--  some still  buckling  it  hastily  into
place-- and caps of the same material. Their sword arms  were padded to  the
elbow, and they wore small, oval-shaped metal shields, bearing  as  device a
yellow wheel  upon  a  black field. They  carried long, curved  blades. They
filled the stairway completely and stood as if waiting orders.
     The man in black emerged again, and he stood at the head  of the stair.
"Very well," he stated, "if you have a message for the Masters, say it!"
     "Are you a Master?" inquired the prince.
     "I am."
     "Then must your rank be lowest of them all, it you must also do duty as
doorman. Let me speak to the Master in charge here."
     "Your insolence will be repaid both now and in  a  life yet  to  come,"
observed the Master.
     Then three dozen  lancers rode through the gate and arrayed  themselves
at the sides of the prince.  The eight who  had begun the deflowering of the
garden  remounted their horses and moved to join  the formation, blades laid
bare across their laps.
     "Must we enter your palace on horseback?" inquired the prince. "Or will
you now summon the other Masters, with whom I wish to hold conversation?"
     Close to eighty men  stood upon the stair facing them, blades in  hand.
The Master seemed to weigh the balance  of forces.  He decided in  favor  of
maintaining things as they were.
     "Do  nothing  rash," he stated, "for my men will defend themselves in a
particularly  vicious  fashion. Wait upon  my return.  I  shall  summon  the
others."
     The prince filled his pipe and lit it. His men sat like statues, lances
ready. Perspiration was most evident upon the faces of the foot soldiers who
held the first rank on the stairway.
     The prince, to pass the time, observed to his lancers, "Do not think to
display your skill as you did at the last siege of Kapil. Make target of the
breast, rather than the head.
     "Also," he continued,  "think not to engage in the customary mutilation
of  the wounded and  the slain-- for this is a holy place and  should not be
profaned in such a manner.
     "On the  other hand,"  he added, "I shall take it as a personal affront
if  there  are  not  ten  prisoners for  sacrifice to Nirriti  the Black, my
personal patron-- outside these  walls,  of course,  where observance of the
Dark Feast will not be held so heavily against us . . ."
     There  was  a  clatter  to  the  right, as a foot soldier who  had been
staring up the length of Strake's lance  passed out and fell from the bottom
stair.
     "Stop!"  cried  the  figure in  black,  who emerged  with six others --
similarly garbed-- at  the head of the stairway.  "Do not profane the Palace
of Karma with bloodshed. Already that fallen warrior's blood is-- "
     "Rising to his cheeks," finished the prince, "if he be conscious -- for
he is not slain."
     "What is it you want?" The figure in black who  was addressing  him was
of medium height, but of enormous  girth. He stood like a huge, dark barrel,
his staff a sable thunderbolt.
     "I count  seven," replied the  prince.  "I understand that ten  Masters
reside here. Where are the other three?"
     "Those  others are presently  in attendance at  three reading  rooms in
Mahartha. What is it you want of us?"
     "You are in charge here?"
     "Only the Great Wheel of the Law is in charge here."
     "Are you  the  senior  representative of the Great  Wheel within  these
walls?"
     "I am."
     "Very well. I wish to speak with you in private-- over there," said the
prince, gesturing toward the black Hall.
     "Impossible!"
     The prince knocked his pipe empty  against his  heel, scraped its  bowl
with the  point of  his dagger, replaced it in his pouch. Then he  sat  very
erect upon the white mare and clasped the horn  in his left hand. He met the
Master's eyes.
     "Are you absolutely certain of that?" he asked.
     The Master's mouth, small and bright,  twisted around  words he did not
speak. Then:
     "As you say," he finally acknowledged.  "Make way for me here!" and  he
passed down  through the ranks of  the warriors and stood  before the  white
mare.
     The  prince  guided  the  horse  with  his  knees, turning her  in  the
direction of the dark Hall.
     "Hold ranks, for now!" called out the Master.
     "The same applies," said the prince to his men.
     The two of them crossed the courtyard, and the prince dismounted before
the Hall.
     "You owe me a body," he said in a soft voice.
     "What talk is this?" said the Master.
     "I am Prince Siddhartha of Kapil, Binder of Demons."
     "Siddhartha has already been served," said the other.
     "So  you think," said the prince,  "served up as an epileptic, by order
of Brahma. This is not so, however. The man you treated earlier today was an
unwilling impostor. I am the real Siddhartha, oh nameless priest, and I have
come  to claim my  body-- one that is whole and strong,  and  without hidden
disease. You will serve me in  this matter.  You will  serve me willingly or
unwillingly, but you will serve me."
     "You think so?"
     "I think so," replied the prince.
     "Attack!" cried the Master, and he swung his dark staff at the prince's
head.
     The prince ducked the blow and retreated, drawing his  blade. Twice, he
parried the staff. Then  it  fell  upon his shoulder,  a  glancing blow, but
sufficient to stagger  him. He circled around the white mare, pursued by the
Master.  Dodging,  keeping  the horse between himself and  his  opponent, he
raised the horn to his lips and sounded it three tunes. Its notes rose above
the fierce noises of the combat on the  palace stair. Panting, he turned and
raised his guard in time  to ward  off  a temple blow that would surely have
slain him had it landed.
     "It is written," said  the Master, almost  sobbing out the words, "that
he who gives  orders without having the power to enforce them, that man is a
fool."
     "Even ten  years  ago," panted the  prince, "you'd never have laid that
staff on me."
     He hacked at it, hoping to split the wood, but the other always managed
to turn the edge of his blade, so that while he  nicked it and shaved it  in
places, the grain held and the staff remained of a piece.
     Using it  as a singlestick,  the  Master laid  a solid  blow across the
prince's left side, and he felt his ribs break within him. . . . He fell.
     It was not by design that it happened, for the blade spun  from out his
hands as he collapsed; but the weapon caught the Master across the shins and
he dropped to his knees, howling.
     "We're evenly  matched, at that," gasped the  prince.  "My age  against
your fat . . ."
     He drew  his dagger as he lay there, but could not hold  it  steady. He
rested his elbow on the ground. The Master,  tears in his eyes, attempted to
rise and fell again to his knees.
     There came the sound of many hooves.
     "I am  not a  fool,"  said the prince,  "and  now I  have  the power to
enforce my orders."
     "What is happening?"
     "The rest of my lancers are arrived. Had I entered in full force, you'd
have holed up like  a <i>gekk</i> in  a woodpile, and  it  might have taken days to
pull your palace apart  and fetch you out. Now I have you  in the palm of my
hand."
     The Master raised his staff.
     The prince drew back his arm.
     "Lower it,"  he said, "or I'll throw  the dagger. I don't  know  myself
whether I'll  miss  or hit, but I  may hit.  You're not  anxious  to  gamble
against the real death, are you?"
     The Master lowered his staff.
     "You  will know the real death," said the Master,  "when the wardens of
Karma have made dog meat of your horse soldiers."
     The  prince coughed, stared disinterestedly at his bloody spittle.  "In
the meantime, let's discuss politics," he suggested.

     After  the sounds of battle had ended, it was Strake-- tall, dusty, his
hair  near matching  the  gore that  dried  on his blade -- Strake, who  was
nuzzled by the white mare as he saluted his prince and said, "It is over."
     "Do  you hear that, Master of  Karma?" asked  the prince. "Your wardens
are dog meat."
     The Master did not answer.
     "Serve me now  and you may have your life," said  the  prince. "Refuse,
and I'll have it."
     "I will serve you," said the Master.
     "Strake,"  ordered the prince, "send two men  down into the town -- one
to fetch back Narada, my physician, and the other to go to the Street of the
Weavers  and  bring  here  Jannaveg the  sailmaker. Of the three lancers who
remain at Hawkana's, leave but one to hold the Shan  of Irabek till sundown.
He is then to bind him and leave him, joining us here himself."
     Strake smiled and saluted.
     "Now bring men to bear me within the Hall, and to keep  an eye on  this
Master."

     He burned  his old  body,  along with all  the  others. The wardens  of
Karma, to  a man, had passed in  battle. Of the seven nameless Masters, only
the  one who had been fat survived.  While the  banks of sperm  and ova, the
growth  tanks  and  the body lockers could not be transported,  the transfer
equipment itself was dismantled  under the direction of Dr.  Narada, and its
components were loaded  onto the  horses of  those  who  had fallen  in  the
battle. The  young prince sat upon  the white mare and  watched the  jaws of
flame close upon the bodies. Eight pyres blazed against the predawn sky. The
one  who had been a sailmaker turned his eyes to the pyre nearest the gate--
the  last  to  be ignited, its flames were only  just  now reaching the top,
where lay the gross bulk of one who wore a robe of black, a circle of yellow
on the breast. When the flames touched it and the robe began to smolder, the
dog who cowered in the ruined garden raised his head in a howl that was near
to a sob.
     "This  day  your  sin  account  is  filled  to overflowing,"  said  the
sailmaker.
     "But, ah, my prayer account!" replied  the  prince. "I'll stand on that
for the time being. Future theologians will have to make the final decision,
though, as  to  the acceptability of all those slugs in the pray-o-mats. Let
Heaven wonder now what happened here this  day--  where  I  am, if I am, and
who. The time has come to ride, my captain. Into  the mountains for a while,
and  then our separate ways, for safety's sake. I am not sure as to the road
I will follow, save that it leads to Heaven's gate and I must go armed."
     "Binder of Demons," said the other, and he smiled.
     The  lancer  chief  approached. The  prince  nodded  him.  Orders  were
shouted.
     The columns of mounted men moved forward, passed out through the  gates
of the Palace of Karma, turned  off the roadway and headed up the slope that
lay to the southeast of the city of Mahartha, comrades blazing like the dawn
at their back.



        III
     <i>It is said that, when the Teacher appeared, those of all castes went to
hear  his  teachings, as well as animals,  gods  and an occasional saint, to
come  away  improved  and  uplifted.  It was  generally conceded that he had
received enlightenment,  except  by those who believed  him to  be  a fraud,
sinner, criminal or  practical  joker. These  latter ones were not all to be
numbered as his enemies;  but,  on the other hand, not all of those improved
and  uplifted could be counted  as his friends and supporters. His followers
called him Mahasamatman and  some said he was  a god. So,  after it was seen
that he  had been accepted as  a  teacher, was looked upon with respect, had
many  of the wealthy  numbered as his supporters and had gained a reputation
reaching  far across the  land, he was referred to as Tathagatha, meaning He
Who  Has Achieved.  It must  be noted that while the goddess Kali (sometimes
known as Durga  in her softer moments) never voiced a formal  opinion as  to
his buddhahood, she  did render  him the singular honor  of  dispatching her
holy executioner to pay him her tribute, rather  than a mere hired assassin.
. . .</i>
     <i>There is no disappearing of the true Dhamma</i>
     <i>until a false Dhamma arises in the world.</i>
     <i>When the false Dhamma arises, he makes the</i>
     <i>true Dhamma to disappear.</i>
     <i><i>Samyutta-nikaya (II, 224)</i></i>
     Near the city of Alundil there was  a  rich grove of blue-barked trees,
having purple foliage  like  feathers.  It was famous for its beauty and the
shrinelike peace of its shade. It had been the property of the merchant Vasu
until  his  conversion,  at which  time  he had presented it to the  teacher
variously known as Mahasamatman, Tathagatha and the Enlightened One. In that
wood did this teacher abide with his followers, and when they  walked  forth
into the town at midday their begging bowls never went unfilled.
     There  was always a  large  number  of  pilgrims about  the grove.  The
believers, the curious and those who preyed upon the others  were constantly
passing through it. They came by horseback,  they came by boat, they came on
foot.
     Alundil was not an overly  large  city. It  had its  share  of thatched
huts, as well as  wooden bungalows; its main roadway was unpaved and rutted;
it  had  two large bazaars and many  small ones;  there were wide fields  of
grain, owned by the Vaisyas, tended by the Sudras, which flowed and rippled,
blue-green, about the city;  it had many hostels (though none so fine as the
legendary  hostel of  Hawkana, in  far  Mahartha), because  of  the constant
passage  of travelers; it had its holy men and  its storytellers; and it had
its Temple.
     The Temple was  located on a low hill near the center of town, enormous
gates on each of its four sides. These gates, and the walls about them, were
filled with layer upon layer of decorative  carvings, showing  musicians and
dancers,  warriors and  demons,  gods and  goddesses,  animals and  artists,
lovemakers and  half-people, guardians  and devas. These gates led into  the
first courtyard, which held  more walls and more gates, leading in turn into
the second courtyard. The first courtyard contained  a  little bazaar, where
offerings to the  gods  were  sold.  It also housed  numerous  small shrines
dedicated to the lesser deities. There were begging beggars, meditating holy
men,  laughing  children, gossiping women, burning incenses, singing  birds,
gurgling purification tanks and  humming  pray-o-mats  to  be found in  this
courtyard at any hour of the day.
     The inner courtyard, though, with its  massive shrines dedicated to the
major  deities, was a focal point of religious intensity.  People chanted or
shouted  prayers, mumbled verses from the Vedas, or stood,  or knelt, or lay
prostrate  before  huge stone images, which  often were so heavily garlanded
with flowers,  smeared with  red  <i>kumkum</i> paste and  surrounded  by  heaps of
offerings that it was impossible  to  tell which deity  was so  immersed  in
tangible adoration. Periodically, the horns of  the Temple were blown, there
was a moment's hushed appraisal of their echo and the clamor began again.
     And none would dispute the fact that Kali was queen of this Temple. Her
tall,  white-stone statue,  within its gigantic shrine, dominated  the inner
courtyard. Her faint smile, perhaps contemptuous of the other gods and their
worshipers, was, in its way, as arresting as the chained grins of the skulls
she  wore  for a  necklace.  She held daggers in  her hands; and  poised  in
mid-step she stood, as though deciding whether to dance before or slay those
who came  to her  shrine. Her lips were full,  her  eyes were  wide. Seen by
torchlight, she seemed to move.
     It was fitting, therefore, that her shrine faced upon that of Yama, god
of  Death.  It had  been  decided, logically  enough,  by  the  priests  and
architects, that he was best suited of all the deities to spend every minute
of the day facing her, matching his  unfaltering death-gaze against her own,
returning  her  half  smile  with  his  twisted  one.  Even the  most devout
generally made a detour rather than pass between  the two shrines; and after
dark their  section of  the  courtyard  was always the abode  of silence and
stillness, being untroubled by late worshipers.
     From out  of the north, as  the winds of spring blew  across the  land,
there came the one  called Rild. A small  man, whose hair was white,  though
his years were few-- Rild, who  wore  the dark  trappings of a pilgrim,  but
about  whose forearm, when they found him lying in  a ditch with  the fever,
was wound the crimson strangling cord of his true profession: Rild.
     Rild came in the spring, at festival-time, to Alundil of the blue-green
fields, of the thatched huts and  the bungalows of wood, of unpaved roadways
and many hostels, of  bazaars and  holy men and storytellers,  of  the great
religious revival and its  Teacher,  whose reputation had spread  far across
the land-- to Alundil of the Temple, where his patron goddess was queen.

     Festival-time.
     Twenty  years  earlier, Alundil's  small festival  had  been  an almost
exclusively  local  affair.  Now,  though,  with  the passage  of  countless
travelers, caused by the presence of the Enlightened One, who taught the Way
of the Eightfold  Path,  the Festival of  Alundil attracted so many pilgrims
that local accommodations  were filled to  overflowing.  Those who possessed
tents  could charge a high fee for their rental. Stables were rented out for
human occupancy. Even bare pieces of land were let as camping sites.
     Alundil loved its Buddha. Many other towns had tried to entice him away
from  his purple grove: Shengodu. Flower of the Mountains, had offered him a
palace  and  harem  to  come bring  his  teaching  to  the slopes.  But  the
Enlightened One did not  go to  the mountain. Kannaka, of the Serpent River,
had offered him  elephants and ships, a  town  house and  a  country  villa,
horses  and  servants,  to  come  and  preach  from  its  wharves.  But  the
Enlightened One did not go to the river.
     The Buddha  remained in his grove and all things came to him.  With the
passage  of years the festival grew larger and  longer  and  more elaborate,
like a well-fed dragon, scales  all a-shimmer.  The  local Brahmins  did not
approve  of  the  antiritualistic  teachings of the Buddha, but his presence
filled their coffers to overflowing; so  they learned to  live in his  squat
shadow, never voicing the word <i>tirthika</i>-- heretic.
     So  the  Buddha remained  in  his grove and  all  things  came  to him,
including Rild.
     Festival-time.
     The drums began in the evening on the third day. On the third day,  the
massive drums of the <i>kathakali</i> began their rapid thunder. The miles-striding
staccato  of the  drums carried  across the fields  to the  town, across the
town, across the  purple grove and across the wastes of  marshland that  lay
behind it. The drummers, wearing white <i>mundus</i>, bare to the waist, their dark
flesh  glistening with perspiration, worked in  shifts, so strenuous was the
mighty beating they set up; and  never was the flow of sound broken, even as
the new relay of drummers moved into position before the  tightly  stretched
heads of the instruments.
     As darkness arrived  in the world, the  travelers and townsmen  who had
begun walking as soon as they heard the chatter of the drums began to arrive
at the  festival  field,  large as a  battlefield  of old.  There they found
places  and  waited for the night to deepen  and the drama to begin, sipping
the sweet-smelling tea that they purchased at the stalls beneath the trees.
     A great brass bowl of oil, tall  as  a man, wicks hanging down over its
edges,  stood in the  center  of  the field. These wicks  were  lighted, and
torches flickered beside the tents of the actors.
     The drumming, at dose  range, was deafening and  hypnotic, the  rhythms
complicated, syncopated, insidious. As  midnight approached,  the devotional
chanting began, rising and falling with  the  drumbeat, working a net  about
the senses.
     There was a brief  lull as the Enlightened One and  his  monks arrived,
their yellow robes near-orange in the flamelight. But  they threw back their
cowls and seated themselves  cross-legged upon the ground. After  a time, it
was only the chanting and the voices of the drums that  filled  the minds of
the spectators.
     When  the  actors  appeared,  gigantic  in  their  makeup,  ankle bells
jangling as their  feet beat the  ground, there was no  applause,  only rapt
attention. The  <i>kathakali</i> dancers  were famous,  trained from their youth in
acrobatics as well as the ages-old patterns of the classical  dance, knowing
the nine distinct movements of the neck and of the eyeballs and the hundreds
of hand positions required to re-enact the ancient epics of love and battle,
of the  encounters  of  gods  and  demons, of the valiant fights  and bloody
treacheries of tradition. The musicians shouted out the words of the stories
as the actors, who never spoke, portrayed  the awesome exploits of Rama  and
of the Pandava brothers. Wearing makeup of green and red, or black and stark
white,  they   stalked   across   the   field,   skirts   billowing,   their
mirror-sprinkled halos glittering in the light of the lamp.
     Occasionally, the  lamp  would  flare  or sputter, and it  was  as if a
nimbus  of holy or unholy light played about their  heads, erasing  entirely
the sense  of the  event,  causing the spectators to feel for a moment  that
they themselves  were the illusion, and that the great-bodied figures of the
cyclopean dance were the only real things in the world.
     The dance would continue until daybreak, to end with the rising  of the
sun. Before  daybreak,  however, one of  the wearers  of  the  saffron  robe
arrived from the direction of town, made his way through the crowd and spoke
into the ear of the Enlightened One.
     The Buddha  began to rise, appeared  to think better of it and reseated
himself. He  gave  a message to the  monk, who  nodded and departed from the
field of the festival.
     The Buddha, looking imperturbable, returned his attention to the drama.
A monk seated nearby noted that he was  tapping his fingers upon the ground,
and  he decided  that the  Enlightened  One  must be keeping  time with  the
drumbeats,  for it was  common  knowledge that he was  above  such things as
impatience.
     When the drama had ended and Surya  the sun pinked the skirts of Heaven
above the eastern rim of the world, it was as  if the night just passed  had
held the  crowd prisoner within  a tense and frightening  dream, from  which
they were just now released, weary, to wander this day.
     The  Buddha and his  followers  set  off  walking  immediately, in  the
direction of the town. They did not pause to  rest along the way, but passed
through Alundil at a rapid but dignified gait.
     When  they  came  again  to  the  purple  grove,  the  Enlightened  One
instructed  his monks to take rest, and  he moved off in the  direction of a
small pavilion located deep within the wood.

     The monk  who had brought the message during the drama  sat within  the
pavilion. There he tended the fever of the traveler he had come  upon in the
marshes, where he  walked often to better meditate upon the putrid condition
his body would assume after death.
     Tathagatha studied the man who lay upon the sleeping mat. His lips were
thin and pale;  he had a high forehead,  high  cheekbones,  frosty eyebrows,
pointed  ears; and Tathagatha guessed that when those eyelids rose, the eyes
revealed  would be  of  a  faded blue  or  gray.  There  was a  quality of--
translucency?-- fragility perhaps, about his unconscious form,  which  might
have been caused  partly by the fevers that racked his body, but which could
not be  attributed  entirely  to  them.  The  small  man did  not  give  the
impression of being one who would bear the thing that Tathagatha now  raised
in his hands. Rather, on first viewing, he might seem to  be a very old man.
If one granted him a second look, and realized then that his colorless  hair
and his slight frame did not signify advanced age, one might then be  struck
by  something  childlike about  his  appearance. From the condition  of  his
complexion,  Tathagatha doubted that  he  need shave  very often. Perhaps  a
slightly mischievous pucker was now hidden somewhere  between his cheeks and
the corners of his mouth. Perhaps not, also.
     The Buddha raised the crimson  strangling cord, which was a thing borne
only by the holy executioners  of the goddess Kali.  He fingered  its silken
length, and it passed like a serpent through his hand, clinging slightly. He
did not  doubt but that it was intended to move in such  a manner  about his
throat.  Almost unconsciously,  he held it and twisted his hands through the
necessary movements.
     Then he looked up at the wide-eyed monk who had watched him, smiled his
imperturbable  smile and  laid the cord aside. With  a damp cloth, the  monk
wiped the perspiration from the pale brow.
     The man on the sleeping  mat shuddered at  the  contact,  and  his eyes
snapped open. The  madness  of the fever was in them and they did  not truly
see, but Tathagatha felt a sudden jolt at their contact.
     Dark, so dark they were almost jet, and it was impossible to tell where
the pupil ended and the iris began. There was something extremely unsettling
about eyes of such power in a body so frail and effete.
     He reached out and stroked the man's hands, and it  was  like  touching
steel, cold and impervious. He  drew his fingernail sharply across the  back
of  the right hand. No scratch  or  indentation marked  its passage, and his
nail  fairly slid,  as though across a pane of glass. He squeezed the  man's
thumbnail and released it. There was  no sudden change of color.  It was  as
though these hands were dead or mechanical things.
     He  continued  his examination. The phenomenon ended somewhat above the
wrists, occurred again in other places. His hands, breast, abdomen, neck and
portions of  his back had soaked  within  the  death bath, which  gave  this
special  unyielding power.  Total  immersion would, of  course,  have proved
fatal; but as it was, the man had traded some of his tactile sensitivity for
the equivalent of invisible gauntlets, breastplate, neckpiece and back armor
of steel. He was indeed one of the select assassins of the terrible goddess.
     "Who else knows of this man?" asked the Buddha.
     "The monk Simha," replied the other, "who helped me bear him here."
     "Did he  see"-- Tathagatha gestured  with his  eyes  toward the crimson
cord-- that?" he inquired.
     The monk nodded.
     "Then go fetch him. Bring him to me at once. Do not mention anything of
this to anyone, other than  that a  pilgrim was taken ill and we are tending
him here. I will personally take over his care and minister to his illness."
     "Yes, Illustrious One."
     The monk hurried forth from the pavilion.
     Tathagatha seated himself beside the sleeping mat and waited.

     It was  two  days before the  fever broke and intelligence  returned to
those dark  eyes.  But  during  those two  days, anyone  who  passed by  the
pavilion  might have heard  the voice of the Enlightened One droning  on and
on,  as  though  he  addressed his  sleeping  charge. Occasionally,  the man
himself mumbled and spoke loudly, as those in a fever often do.
     On  the second day, the man opened his eyes suddenly and stared upward.
Then he frowned and turned his bead.
     "Good morning, Rild," said Tathagatha.
     "You are . . . ?" asked the other, in an unexpected baritone.
     "One who teaches the way of liberation," he replied.
     "The Buddha?"
     "I have been called such."
     "Tathagatha?"
     "This name, too, have I been given."
     The other  attempted to rise, failed, settled back. His eyes never left
the placid countenance. "How is it that you know my name?" he finally asked.
     "In your fever you spoke considerably."
     "Yes,  I was very sick, and doubtless babbling. It  was in  that cursed
swamp that I took the chill."
     Tathagatha smiled. "One of the disadvantages of traveling alone is that
when you fall there is none to assist you."
     "True," acknowledged  the other,  and his eyes closed once more and his
breathing deepened.
     Tathagatha remained in the lotus posture, waiting.
     When Rild awakened again, it was evening. "Thirsty," he said.
     Tathagatha gave him water. "Hungry?" he asked.
     "No, not yet. My stomach would rebel."
     He raised himself up onto his elbows and stared at his attendant.  Then
he sank back upon the mat. "You are the one," he announced.
     "Yes," replied the other.
     "What are you going to do?"
     "Feed you, when you say you are hungry."
     "I mean, after that."
     "Watch as you sleep, lest you lapse again into the fever."
     "That is not what I meant."
     "I know."
     "After I have eaten and rested and recovered my strength-- what then?"
     Tathagatha smiled as he drew the silken cord from somewhere beneath his
robe. "Nothing," he replied, "nothing at all," and he draped the cord across
Rild's shoulder and withdrew his hand.
     The other  shook his head  and leaned back. He  reached up and fingered
the length  of crimson.  He twined it about his fingers  and then  about his
wrist. He stroked it.
     "It is holy," he said, after a time.
     "So it would seem."
     "You know its use, and its purpose?"
     "Of course."
     "Why then will you do nothing at all?"
     "I have no need to move or to  act. All things come  to me. If anything
is to be done, it is you who will do it."
     "I do not understand."
     "I know that, too."
     The man stared into the shadows overhead.  "I will attempt to eat now,"
he announced.
     Tathagatha  gave him  broth  and bread, which he managed to  keep down.
Then he drank more water, and when he had finished he was breathing heavily.
     "You have offended Heaven," he stated.
     "Of that, I am aware."
     "And you have  detracted  from the glory of a goddess,  whose supremacy
here has always been undisputed."
     "I know."
     "But I owe you my life, and I have eaten your bread."
     There was no reply.
     "Because  of this,  I must break a  most holy  vow,"  finished Rild. "I
cannot kill you, Tathagatha."
     "Then I  owe my life to the fact that you owe me yours. Let us consider
the life-owing balanced."
     Rild uttered a short chuckle. "So be it," he said.
     "What will you do, now that you have abandoned your mission?"
     "I do not know. My sin is too great to permit me to return. Now I, too,
have  offended against Heaven, and the goddess will turn away her  face from
my prayers. I have failed her."
     "Such being  the case, remain here. You will  at least  have company in
damnation."
     "Very well," agreed Rild. "There is nothing else left to me."
     He slept once again, and the Buddha smiled.

     In the days that followed, as the festival wore on, the Enlightened One
preached to the crowds who passed through the purple  grove. He spoke of the
unity of all things, great and small, of the law of cause,  of becoming  and
dying, of  the illusion  of the world, of the spark of the <i>atman</i>, of the way
of  salvation through renunciation of the self and union  with the whole; he
spoke  of  realization  and  enlightenment, of the  meaninglessness  of  the
Brahmins' rituals, comparing their  forms  to vessels empty of content. Many
listened, a few heard  and some  remained in the purple grove to take up the
saffron robe of the seeker.
     And each time  he  taught,  the man  Rild sat nearby, wearing his black
garments  and  leather   harness,  his  strange  dark  eyes  ever  upon  the
Enlightened One.
     Two weeks after his recovery, Rild  came upon the teacher  as he walked
through the  grove in meditation. He fell  into step beside him, and after a
time he spoke.
     "Enlightened  One,  I  have  listened  to  your teachings, and  I  have
listened well. Much have I thought upon your words."
     The other nodded.
     "I have always been a religious man,"  he stated, "or I  would not have
been selected  for  the post I once occupied. After it became impossible for
me to fulfill my mission, I felt a great emptiness. I had failed my goddess,
and life was without meaning for me."
     The other listened, silently.
     "But I have heard your words," he said, "and they have filled me with a
kind of joy. They have shown me another way to salvation, a way which I feel
to be superior to the one I previously followed."
     The Buddha studied his face as he spoke.
     "Your way of renunciation is a strict one, which I feel  to be good. It
suits  my  needs. Therefore, I  request  permission to  be  taken into  your
community of seekers, and to follow your path."
     "Are  you  certain," asked  the Enlightened One, "that you do  not seek
merely to punish yourself for what has been weighing upon your conscience as
a failure, or a sin?"
     "Of that I am certain," said Rild.  "I have held your  words within  me
and felt the truth which  they contain. In the service of the goddess have I
slain  more men than purple fronds upon yonder bough. I am not even counting
women and children. So I am  not easily taken  in by words, having heard too
many, voiced in all tones of speech-- words pleading, arguing, cursing.  But
your words move me, and  they are superior to the teachings of the Brahmins.
Gladly would I  become your  executioner, dispatching for you  your  enemies
with a  saffron cord-- or with a  blade, or pike, or with my hands, for I am
proficient  with  all  weapons, having spent three lifetimes learning  their
use-- but I  know  that such is not your way. Death and life  are  as one to
you,  and you  do  not  seek the  destruction of your enemies. So  I request
entrance to your Order. For me, it is not so difficult  a thing as  it would
be  for another. One  must  renounce home and family, origin and property. I
lack these things. One  must renounce one's  own will, which I have  already
done. All I need now is the yellow robe."
     "It is yours," said Tathagatha, "with my blessing."

     Rild  donned  the  robe  of  a buddhist  monk and  took to fasting  and
meditating. After  a  week, when the  festival was  near to  its  close,  he
departed  into the town with his begging  bowl, in the company of  the other
monks.  He did not return with them, however. The  day wore on into evening,
the  evening into darkness. The horns of the Temple had  already sounded the
last notes of  the <i>nagaswaram</i>,  and many of the travelers had since departed
the festival.
     For  a long  while,  the Enlightened One walked  the woods, meditating.
Then he, too, vanished.
     Down from the grove, with the  marshes  at its back, toward the town of
Alundil,  above  which lurked the  hills of rock  and around  which  lay the
blue-green  fields, into the town  of Alundil,  still  astir with travelers,
many  of  them  at the height of their  revelry, up the  streets  of Alundil
toward the hill with its Temple, walked the Buddha.
     He  entered the first  courtyard, and it was quiet  there. The dogs and
children  and  beggars  had  gone  away.  The  priests  slept. One  drowsing
attendant  sat behind a bench at  the bazaar. Many  of  the shrines were now
empty, the statues having been borne  within. Before several  of the others,
worshipers knelt in late prayer.
     He entered the  inner courtyard. An ascetic was seated on a prayer  mat
before the statue of Ganesha. He, too, seemed to qualify as a statue, making
no visible movements. Four oil lamps flickered about the yard, their dancing
light serving primarily to accentuate the  shadows that lay upon most of the
shrines. Small votive  lights  cast  a  faint illumination upon some  of the
statues.
     Tathagatha  crossed the yard  and stood facing  the  towering figure of
Kali, at whose feet  a tiny lamp blinked.  Her smile seemed  a  plastic  and
moving thing, as she regarded the man before her.
     Draped across her outstretched hand, looped once about the point of her
dagger, lay a crimson strangling cord.
     Tathagatha smiled back at her, and she seemed  almost to frown at  that
moment.
     "It is a resignation, my dear," he stated. "You have lost this round."
     She seemed to nod in agreement.
     "I am pleased to have achieved such a height of recognition in so short
a period of  time," he continued. "But even if you had succeeded, old  girl,
it would  have  done you little good. It  is too late now.  I  have  started
something which  you cannot undo. Too many have heard the ancient words. You
had thought  they were lost, and  so  did  I. But we  were  both  wrong. The
religion by which  you rule is very ancient, goddess, but my protest is also
that of a venerable tradition. So call me a protestant, and remember-- now I
am more than a man. Good night."
     He left the Temple and the shrine of Kali, where the eyes  of Yama  had
been fixed upon his back.

     It was many months before the miracle occurred, and when it did, it did
not seem a miracle, for it had grown up slowly about them.
     Rild, who had come out of the north  as the winds of spring blew across
the land, wearing  death upon his arm and the black  fire  within his eyes--
Rild, of the  white brows and pointed ears--  spoke one afternoon, after the
spring had passed, when the long days of summer hung warm beneath the Bridge
of the  Gods. He  spoke,  in that unexpected baritone, to answer  a question
asked him by a traveler.
     The man asked him a second question, and then a third.
     He continued to speak, and some of the other monks and several pilgrims
gathered about him. The answers following the questions, which now came from
all of  them,  grew longer  and  longer, for they became parables, examples,
allegories.
     Then they  were seated  at his feet, and his  dark eyes became  strange
pools, and his voice came down as from  Heaven,  clear and soft, melodic and
persuasive.
     They listened, and then the travelers went their way.  But they met and
spoke with other  travelers  upon the road,  so that, before  the summer had
passed,  pilgrims  coming  to  the  purple grove were asking  to  meet  this
disciple of the Buddha's, and to hear his words also.
     Tathagatha shared  the preaching with him. Together, they taught of the
Way of the Eightfold  Path, the glory of Nirvana, the illusion of  the world
and the chains that the world lays upon a man.
     And then there were times when even the soft-spoken Tathagatha listened
to  the words  of his  disciple,  who had digested all of the things he  had
preached, had  meditated long and fully upon them and now, as though  he had
found entrance to  a secret sea, dipped with his steel-hard hand into places
of hidden waters, and then  sprinkled  a thing of truth  and beauty upon the
heads of the hearers.
     Summer passed.  There  was  no  doubt now  that there were two  who had
received enlightenment: Tathagatha and his  small disciple, whom they called
Sugata. It  was even said that  Sugata was a  healer, and that when his eyes
shone  strangely and the icy touch of  his hands came upon  a  twisted limb,
that  limb  grew straight again. It was said that  a blind man's  vision had
suddenly returned to him during one of Sugata's sermons.
     There  were two things in  which  Sugata believed: the Way of Salvation
and Tathagatha, the Buddha.
     "Illustrious One," he said to him one day, "my life was empty until you
revealed to  me the True Path. When you  received your enlightenment, before
you began your teaching, was it like a rush of fire and the roaring of water
and you everywhere and  a part of everything-- the clouds and the trees, the
animals in the forest, all people, the snow on the mountaintop and the bones
in the field?"
     "Yes," said Tathagatha.
     "I, also, know the joy of all things," said Sugata.
     "Yes, I know," said Tathagatha.
     "I see  now why once  you said that  all things  come to  you. To  have
brought  such a  doctrine  into  the  world-- I can  see  why  the gods were
envious. Poor  gods!  They  are to  be  pitied.  But you know. You  know all
things."
     Tathagatha did not reply.

     When the  winds of spring blew  again across the land,  the year having
gone full cycle since the arrival of the second Buddha,  there  came one day
from out of the heavens a fearful shrieking.
     The  citizens of Alundil turned out  into their streets to stare  up at
the sky. The Sudras  in  the fields put by  their work and looked upward. In
the great Temple on the hill there was a sudden silence. In the purple grove
beyond the town, the monks turned their heads.
     It paced the heavens, the one who was born to rule the wind. . . . From
out of the north it came-- green  and red, yellow and brown. . . . Its glide
was a dance, its way was the air. . . .
     There came another shriek, and then the beating of mighty pinions as it
climbed past clouds to become a tiny dot of black.
     And then it fell, like a meteor, bursting into flame, all of its colors
blazing and  burning bright,  as it  grew and  grew, beyond all belief  that
anything could live at that size, that pace, that magnificence. . . .
     Half spirit, half bird, legend darkening the sky.
     Mount of Vishnu, whose beak smashes chariots.
     The Garuda Bird circled above Alundil.
     Circled,  and  passed beyond the hills of  rock that  stood behind  the
city.
     "Garuda!"  The word ran through the  town, the fields, the Temple,  the
grove.
     If  he did not fly  alone;  it was known that only a  god could use the
Garuda Bird for a mount.
     There was silence.  After those shrieks  and  that  thunder of pinions,
voices seemed naturally to drop to a whisper.
     The Enlightened One stood  upon  the  road before the grove,  his monks
moving about him, facing in the direction of the hills of rock.
     Sugata came to  his side  and stood there. "It was but a spring ago . .
." he said.
     Tathagatha nodded.
     "Rild failed," said Sugata. "What new thing comes from Heaven?"
     The Buddha shrugged.
     "I fear for you,  my teacher," he  said. "In all my lifetimes, you have
been my only  friend. Your  teaching has given me peace.  Why can  they  not
leave you alone?  You are the  most harmless  of men, and your doctrine  the
gentlest. What ill could you possibly bear them?"
     The other turned away.
     At that moment, with a mighty beating of the air  and a jagged cry from
its opened beak, the  Garuda Bird rose once more above the hills. This time,
it  did  not  circle over  the  town,  but climbed to  a great height in the
heavens and swept off to the north. Such was the  speed  of its passing that
it was gone in a matter of moments.
     "Its passenger has dismounted and remains behind," suggested Sugata.
     The Buddha walked within the purple grove.

     He came from beyond the hills of  stone, walking. He came to  a passing
place  through  stone, and  he  followed this trail, his red  leather  boots
silent on the rocky path.
     Ahead, there was  a sound  of running  water, from where a small stream
cut  across  his  way.  Shrugging  his  blood-bright  cloak  back  over  his
shoulders,  he advanced  upon  a bend in  the  trail, the  ruby head  of his
scimitar gleaming in his crimson sash.
     Rounding a comer of stone, he came to a halt.
     One waited ahead, standing beside the log that led across the stream.
     His eyes narrowed for an instant, then he moved forward again.
     It was a  small man  who stood there, wearing the  dark  garments  of a
pilgrim, caught about  with  a leather harness  from which was  suspended  a
short, curved blade of  bright  steel. This man's  head was closely  shaven,
save for a small lock of white hair. His eyebrows were white above eyes that
were dark, and his skin was pale; his ears appeared to be pointed.
     The traveler raised  his  hand and spoke  to  this  man,  saying, "Good
afternoon, pilgrim."
     The man did not  reply,  but moved  to bar his way, positioning himself
before the log that led across the stream.
     "Pardon  me,  good pilgrim, but I  am about to  cross here and you  are
making my passage difficult," he stated.
     "You are mistaken, Lord Yama, if you think you are about to pass here,"
replied the other.
     The One in Red smiled, showing  a long row of even, white teeth. "It is
always  a  pleasure to  be recognized," he acknowledged,  "even by  one  who
conveys misinformation concerning other matters."
     "I do not fence with words," said the man in black.
     "Oh?" The  other raised his eyebrows  in  an expression  of exaggerated
inquiry. "With what  then do you fence, sir?  Surely not that piece  of bent
metal you bear."
     "None other."
     "I took it for some barbarous prayer-stick at first. I  understand that
this  is  a  region fraught  with strange cults  and primitive sects. For  a
moment, I took you to be a devotee of some such superstition. But if, as you
say, it is indeed a weapon, then I trust you are familiar with its use?"
     "Somewhat," replied the man in black.
     "Good, then," said Yama, "for I dislike having to kill a  man who  does
not know what he  is  about. I feel  obligated to point out to you, however,
that when you stand before the Highest for judgment, you will be accounted a
suicide."
     The other smiled faintly.
     "Any time that you  are ready,  deathgod, I will facilitate the passage
of your spirit from out its fleshy envelope."
     "One more item only,  then," said Yama, "and I shall put a quick end to
conversation.  Give me a name to tell the  priests, so that  they shall know
for whom they offer the rites."
     "I renounced my final name but a short while back," answered the other.
"For  this  reason,  Kali's  consort  must  take  his death  of  one  who is
nameless."
     "Rild, you are a fool," said Yama, and drew his blade.
     The man in black drew his.
     "And it is fitting that you  go unnamed to your doom. You betrayed your
goddess."
     "Life is full of  betrayals," replied the other, before he struck,  "By
opposing you now and in  this manner, I also betray the teachings  of my new
master. But  I must follow the dictates of my heart. Neither my old name nor
my new do therefore fit me, nor are they deserved-- so call me by no name!"
     Then his blade was fire, leaping everywhere, clicking, blazing.
     Yama  fell  back  before  this onslaught,  giving ground  foot by foot,
moving only his wrist as he parried the blows that fell about him.
     Then, after  he had retreated ten paces, he stood his ground  and would
not  be moved.  His  parries  widened slightly, but his ripostes became more
sudden now, and were interspersed with feints and unexpected attacks.
     They  swaggered blades till their perspiration fell upon  the ground in
showers;  and  then Yama  began  to  press the  attack,  slowly, forcing his
opponent into  a retreat. Step  by step,  he  recovered the ten paces he had
given.
     When  they stood  again upon  the ground where the first blow had  been
struck,  Yama acknowledged,  over  the  clashing  of  steel, "Well have  you
learned   your   lessons,  Rild!   Better   even   than   I   had   thought!
Congratulations!"
     As  he  spoke,  his opponent wove his blade through an elaborate double
feint and scored a light touch  that  cut  his shoulder, drawing blood  that
immediately merged with the color of his garment.
     At  this,  Yama  sprang  forward, beating down  the other's guard,  and
delivered a blow to the side of his neck that might have decapitated him.
     The man  in black raised his  guard, shaking his head, parried  another
attack and thrust forward, to be parried again himself.
     "So,  the death  bath  collars  your  throat,"  said  Yama. "I'll  seek
entrance elsewhere, then," and his blade sang a faster song, as he tried for
a low-line thrust.
     Yama unleashed the full fury of that blade, backed by the centuries and
the masters of many ages. Yet, the other met his attacks, parrying wider and
wider, retreating faster and faster now, but still managing to hold him  off
as he backed away, counterthrusting as he went.
     He  retreated  until his back was to the  stream.  Then Yama slowed and
made comment:
     "Half a  century  ago," he stated, "when  you were my pupil for a brief
time, I said to  myself, 'This  one has within him the makings of a master.'
Nor was I wrong, Rild. You are perhaps the  greatest swordsman raised  up in
all  the ages I can remember. I can almost  forgive apostasy  when I witness
your skill. It is indeed a pity. . ."
     He feinted then a  chest cut, and at the last instant moved  around the
parry so that he lay the edge of his weapon high upon the other's wrist.
     Leaping backward, parrying wildly and cutting  at Yama's  head, the man
in black came into a position at  the  head of  the log  that lay  above the
crevice that led down to the stream.
     "Your  hand,  too,  Rild!  Indeed,  the  goddess  is  lavish  with  her
protection. Try this!"
     The steel  screeched as he caught it in  a  bind,  nicking  the other's
bicep as he passed about the blade.
     "Aha! There's a place she missed!" he cried. "Let's try for another!"
     Their blades bound and disengaged, feinted, thrust, parried, riposted.
     Yama met an elaborate attack with a stop-thrust, his longer blade again
drawing blood from his opponent's upper arm.
     The man in black stepped up upon the log, swinging  a vicious head cut,
which Yama beat away. Pressing  the attack then even harder, Yama forced him
to back out upon the log and then he kicked at its side.
     The other jumped backward, landing upon  the opposite bank. As soon  as
his feet touched ground, he, too, kicked out, causing the log to move.
     It rolled,  before Yama  could mount it,  slipping free  of  the banks,
crashing  down  into  the stream,  bobbing  about  for  a  moment, and  then
following the water trail westward.
     "I'd say it is only a seven- or eight-foot jump, Yama! Come on across!"
cried the other.
     The deathgod smiled. "Catch your breath quickly now, while you may," he
stated. "Breath is the least  appreciated gift of the gods. None  sing hymns
to it, praising the good  air, breathed  by king and beggar,  master and dog
alike. But, oh to be without  it! Appreciate each breath, Rild, as though it
were your last-- for that one, too, is near at hand!"
     "You are said  to be wise in these matters, Yama," said the one who had
been  called Rild  and  Sugata. "You are said to be a god, whose kingdom  is
death  and whose  knowledge  extends  beyond  the  ken  of  mortals. I would
question you, therefore, while we are standing idle."
     Yama did not smile his mocking smile, as he had  to  all his opponent's
previous statements. This one had a touch of ritual about it.
     "What  is  it  that you wish to know? I  grant you the death-boon of  a
question."
     Then, in the ancient words of the <i>Katha Upanishad</i>, the one who had been
called Rild and Sugata chanted:
     "'There is doubt concerning  a man when  he  is dead. Some say he still
exists. Others say he does not. This thing I should like to know, taught  by
you.' "
     Yama replied with the ancient  words,  "'On  this subject even the gods
have their doubts. It is not easy to understand, for the nature of the <i>atman</i>
is a subtle thing. Ask me another question. Release me from this boon!'"
     "'Forgive me  if  it is  foremost in  my mind, oh  Death,  but  another
teacher such as yourself cannot  be found, and surely there is no other boon
which I crave more at this moment.'"
     "'Keep your life and go your way,'" said Yama, plunging his blade again
into  his  sash. "'I release you from your doom. Choose  sons and grandsons;
choose elephants, horses,  herds of cattle and gold. Choose any other boon--
fair  maidens, chariots, musical instruments. I shall give them unto you and
they shall wait upon you. But ask me not of death.'"
     "'Oh Death,' " sang the other, "'these endure only  till tomorrow. Keep
your maidens, horses, dances and  songs for yourself.  No boon will I accept
but the  one which  I have  asked-- tell  me, oh Death, of  that  which lies
beyond life, of which men and the gods have their doubts.'"
     Yama stood  very still and he did  not continue the  poem. "Very  well,
Rild," he said, his eyes  locking with the other's, "but it is not a kingdom
subject to words. I must show you."
     They  stood,  so, for a moment;  and then the  man in  black swayed. He
threw his arm across his face, covering  his eyes, and  a single sob escaped
his throat.
     When this occurred, Yama drew his cloak from his  shoulders and cast it
like a net across the stream.
     Weighted  at the hems  for such a maneuver, it fell, netlike,  upon his
opponent.
     As he struggled to free himself, the man in black heard rapid footfalls
and then  a  crash,  as Yama's blood-red boots struck upon  his side  of the
stream. Casting aside the cloak and raising his guard, he parried Yama's new
attack. The ground  behind  him  sloped  upward, and he  backed  farther and
farther, to  where it steepened, so that  Yama's head was no higher than his
belt. He  then struck down  at  his  opponent.  Yama  slowly  fought his way
uphill.
     "Deathgod,  deathgod," he chanted, "forgive  my presumptuous  question,
and tell me you did not lie."
     "Soon you shall know," said Yama, cutting at his legs.
     Yama struck a blow that would have run  another  man through,  cleaving
his heart. But it glanced off his opponent's breast.
     When  he  came  to a place where the ground was broken,  the small  man
kicked, again and again,  sending showers of dirt  an