d gravel down upon  his
opponent. Yama shielded his eyes with his left hand, but then  larger pieces
of stone began to rain down upon  him. These  rolled on  the ground, and, as
several  came  beneath  his boots,  he  lost  his footing and fell, slipping
backward  down the  slope.  The other  kicked  at  heavy  rocks  then,  even
dislodging a boulder and following it downhill, his blade held high.
     Unable to gain his footing  in time to meet the attack, Yama rolled and
slid back toward the stream. He  managed to brake himself at the edge of the
crevice,  but  he saw the boulder coming  and tried to draw back  out of its
way. As he  pushed at  the ground with both  hands, his blade  fell into the
waters below.
     With his dagger, which he drew as he sprang into a stumbling crouch, he
managed to parry the high cut of  the other's  blade.  The  boulder splashed
into the stream.
     Then his left hand shot  forward, seizing the wrist that had guided the
blade. He slashed upward with the dagger and felt his own wrist taken.
     They stood then, locking their strength, until Yama sat down and rolled
to his side, thrusting the other from him.
     Still,  both locks held,  and they  continued to roll from the force of
that  thrust. Then the edge of the  crevice was beside  them,  beneath them,
above them.  He felt the blade  go out of his  hand as it struck the  stream
bed.
     When  they  came  again  above the  surface  of the  water, gasping for
breath, each held only water in his hands.
     "Time  for  the final baptism,"  said Yama, and he lashed out with  his
left hand.
     The other blocked the punch, throwing one of his own.
     They moved to  the left  with the waters, until their feet struck  upon
rock and they fought, wading, along the length of the stream.
     It  widened  and  grew  more  shallow as  they moved, until  the waters
swirled about their waists. In  places, the banks began  to  fall nearer the
surface of the water.
     Yama landed blow after blow, both with his fists and  the  edges of his
hands; but  it was  as  if he assailed  a  statue, for the one  who had been
Kali's holy executioner took each blow without  changing his expression, and
he returned them with twisting punches of bone-breaking force. Most of these
blows  were  slowed by the water or  blocked by Yama's guard, but one landed
between  his rib cage and  hipbone and another glanced  on his left shoulder
and rebounded from his cheek.
     Yama cast himself into a backstroke and made for shallower water.
     The other followed and sprang  upon him, to be caught in his impervious
midsection by a red boot, as the front of his garment was jerked forward and
down. He continued on, passing over  Yama's head, to land upon his back on a
section of shale.
     Yama rose to his knees  and turned, as the other found  his footing and
drew a dagger from his belt. His face was still impassive as he dropped into
a crouch.
     For a moment their eyes met, but the other did not waver this time.
     "Now can I meet  your death-gaze, Yama," he stated, "and not be stopped
by it. You have taught me too well!"
     And as he lunged, Yama's hands came  away from  his waist, snapping his
wet sash like a whip about the other's thighs.
     He caught  him  and locked him  to him as he fell forward, dropping the
blade; and with a kick he bore them both back into deeper water.
     "None sing hymns to breath," said Yama. "But, oh to be without it!"
     Then  he  plunged downward, bearing  the other with  him, his arms like
steel loops about his body.
     Later, much later, as the  wet figure stood beside the stream, he spoke
softly and his breath came in gasps:
     "You were-- the greatest-- to be raised up against me-- in all the ages
I can remember. . . . It is indeed a pity . . ."
     Then, having crossed the stream,  he continued on his  way  through the
hills of stone, walking.

     Entering the town of Alundil, the traveler stopped at the first inn  he
came to.  He  took a  room and  ordered a  tub of water. He  bathed while  a
servant cleaned his garments.
     Before he had  his dinner, he moved to  the window and looked down into
the street. The smell of slizzard was strong upon the air, and the babble of
many voices arose from below.
     People  were   leaving  the  town.  In  the  courtyard   at  his  back,
preparations  for the departure of  a morning caravan were being made.  This
night  marked the  end  of  the spring  festival. Below him in  the  street,
businessmen were still trading,  mothers were  soothing tired children and a
local prince  was  returning with his  men from the  hunt, two fire-roosters
strapped to the back of a skittering slizzard. He watched a tired prostitute
discussing something with a priest, who appeared to  be even more  tired, as
he kept shaking  his head and finally walked away. One moon was already high
in the heavens--  seen  as golden through the Bridge  of the  Gods --  and a
second, smaller moon had just  appeared above the horizon.  There was a cool
tingle in the evening air, bearing to him, above the smells of the city, the
scents of the  growing  things of spring:  the  small shoots and  the tender
grasses, the clean  smell of the blue-green spring wheat, the  moist ground,
the roiling  freshet. Leaning forward, he could see the  Temple  that  stood
upon the hill.
     He summoned a servant  to bring his  dinner in his chamber and  to send
for a local merchant.
     He ate slowly, not paying  especial attention to  his food, and when he
had finished, the merchant was shown in.
     The  man bore a cloak full of samples,  and of these he finally decided
upon a long,  curved  blade and a short,  straight dagger,  both of which he
thrust into his sash.
     Then  he  went out  into the evening and  walked along the rutted  main
street  of the town. Lovers  embraced  in  doorways. He passed a house where
mourners  were wailing for  one dead. A beggar  limped after him for  half a
block, until  he turned and glanced  into his  eyes,  saying,  "You  are not
lame," and then the man hurried  away,  losing himself in  a crowd  that was
passing. Overhead,  the  fireworks began  to burst  against the sky, sending
long, cherry-colored streamers  down toward the ground. From the Temple came
the sound  of the gourd horns playing the  <i>nagaswaram</i>  music. A man stumbled
from out a doorway, brushing against him, and he broke the man's wrist as he
felt  his hand fall upon his purse. The man uttered a curse and  called  for
help, but he pushed him into the drainage  ditch and walked on, turning away
his two companions with one dark look.
     At last, he came to the Temple, hesitated a moment and passed within.
     He entered the inner courtyard behind  a priest  who was  carrying in a
small statue from an outer niche.
     He surveyed the courtyard,  then quickly moved to the place occupied by
the statue of the goddess Kali. He studied her for a long while, drawing his
blade  and placing it at her  feet. When he picked it up and turned away, he
saw that the  priest was watching him. He nodded to the man, who immediately
approached and bade him a good evening.
     "Good evening, priest," he replied.
     "May Kali sanctify your blade, warrior."
     "Thank you. She has."
     The priest smiled. "You speak as if you knew that for certain."
     "And that is presumptuous of me, eh?"
     "Well, it may not be in the best of taste."
     "Nevertheless,  I  felt  her  power  come  over  me as I gazed upon her
shrine."
     The  priest shuddered.  "Despite  my  office,"  he  stated, "that is  a
feeling of power I can do without."
     "You fear her power?"
     "Let us  say,"  said the priest, "that  despite its  magnificence,  the
shrine  of Kali is  not so  frequently  visited as  are  those  of  Lakshmi,
Sarasvati, Shakti, Sitala, Ratri and the other less awesome goddesses."
     "But she is greater than any of these."
     "And more terrible."
     "So? Despite her strength, she is not an unjust goddess."
     The priest  smiled. "What man who has lived  for more  than a score  of
years desires  justice, warrior? For  my part, I find mercy infinitely  more
attractive. Give me a forgiving deity any day."
     "Well taken," said the  other, "but I am, as you say, a warrior. My own
nature  is close to hers. We think  alike,  the  goddess and I. We generally
agree on most matters. When we do not, I remember that she is also a woman."
     "I live here," said the priest, "and I  do not speak that intimately of
my charges, the gods."
     "In public, that is," said the  other.  "Tell me not of priests. I have
drunk with  many of  you, and know you to be  as blasphemous as the  rest of
mankind."
     "There is a time and  place  for everything," said the priest, glancing
back at Kali's statue.
     "Aye, aye. Now  tell me  why the  base  of Yama's  shrine has not  been
scrubbed recently. It is dusty."
     "It was cleaned but yesterday, but so many have  passed before it since
then that it has felt considerable usage."
     The other smiled. "Why then are there no offerings laid at his feet, no
remains of sacrifices?"
     "No one  gives flowers to  Death," said  the priest. "They just come to
look and go  away. We priests have always felt  the  two statues to  be well
situated. They make a terrible pair, do they not? Death, and the mistress of
destruction?"
     "A mighty team," said the other. "But do you  mean to  tell me  that no
one makes sacrifice to Yama? No one at all?"'
     "Other than we priests, when the calendar of devotions requires it, and
an occasional townsman, when  a loved one is upon the death-bed and has been
refused  direct  incarnation--  other  than these,  no, I  have  never  seen
sacrifice made to Yama, simply, sincerely, with good will or affection."
     "He must feel offended."
     "Not  so,  warrior.  For  are  not all  living  things,  in themselves,
sacrifices to Death?"
     "Indeed, you  speak truly. What  need  has he for  their  good will  or
affection? Gifts are unnecessary, for he takes what he wants."
     "Like Kali," acknowledged the priest. "And in the cases of both deities
have I often  sought justification for atheism. Unfortunately, they manifest
themselves  too  strongly  in the world  for  their  existence to be  denied
effectively. Pity."
     The  warrior laughed.  "A  priest who  is an unwilling believer! I like
that. It tickles  my funny bone! Here, buy  yourself a barrel of soma--  for
sacrificial purposes."
     "Thank you, warrior. I shall. Join me in a small libation now -- on the
Temple?"
     "By Kali, I will!" said the other. "But a small one only."
     He accompanied the  priest into the  central building and down a flight
of stairs into the cellar, where a barrel of soma was tapped and two beakers
drawn.
     "To your health and long life," he said, raising it.
     "To your morbid patrons-- Yama and Kali," said the priest.
     "Thank you."
     They gulped the  potent brew, and  the priest drew  two more.  "To warm
your throat against the night."
     "Very good."
     "It is a good thing  to see some of these travelers  depart,"  said the
priest. "Their devotions have enriched the Temple, but  they have also tired
the staff considerably."
     "To the departure of the pilgrims!"
     "To the departure of the pilgrims!"
     They drank again.
     "I thought that most of them came to see the Buddha," said Yama.
     "That is true," replied  the priest,  "but on the  other hand, they are
not anxious to antagonize the gods by this. So, before they visit the purple
grove, they generally make sacrifice or donate to the Temple for prayers."
     "What do you know of the one called Tathagatha, and of his teachings?"
     The  other looked away.  "I am a priest  of  the  gods  and  a Brahmin,
warrior. I do not wish to speak of this one."
     "So, he has gotten to you, too?"
     "Enough!  I  have made my wishes known to you.  It is  not a subject on
which I will discourse."
     "It matters not-- and will matter less shortly. Thank you for the soma.
Good evening, priest."
     "Good evening, warrior. May the gods smile upon your path."
     "And yours also."
     Mounting  the  stairs, he departed the Temple and continued on his  way
through the city, walking.

     When  he  came  to  the  purple  grove,  there were three  moons in the
heavens, small camplights behind the trees, pale blossoms of fire in the sky
above  the town, and  a breeze with  a certain  dampness in  it stirring the
growth about him.
     He moved silently ahead, entering the grove.
     When he came into  the lighted area, he was faced with row  upon row of
motionless, seated figures. Each wore a yellow robe with a yellow cowl drawn
over the head. Hundreds of them were seated so, and not one uttered a sound.
     He approached the one nearest him. "I have come  to see Tathagatha, the
Buddha," he said.
     The man did not seem to hear him.
     "Where is he?"
     The man did not reply.
     He  bent  forward and  stared into the  monk's half-closed  eyes. For a
moment, he glared into them, but it was  as though the other was asleep, for
the eyes did not even meet with his.
     Then he raised his voice, so  that all within the grove might hear him:
"I have come to see Tathagatha, the Buddha," he said. "Where is he?"
     It was as though he addressed a  field of stones. "Do you think to hide
him in this manner?" he called out. "Do you think that because you are many,
and all dressed alike, and  because  you will not answer  me, that for these
reasons I cannot find him among you?"
     There  was only the sighing of the wind,  passing through from the back
of the grove. The light flickered and the purple fronds stirred.
     He laughed.  "In this, you may be right," he  admitted.  "But  you must
move sometime, if you intend to go on living-- and I can wait as long as any
man."
     Then he seated himself upon the ground,  his back against the blue bark
of a tall  tree, his blade across his knees. Immediately, he was seized with
drowsiness. His head  nodded and  jerked upward several times. Then his chin
came to rest upon his breast and he snored.
     Was  walking, across  a  blue-green plain, the  grasses bending down to
form a pathway before him. At the end of this pathway was a massive tree,  a
tree such as did not grow upon the world, but rather held the world together
with its roots, and with its branches  reached up  to utter leaves among the
stars.
     At  its base sat a  man, cross-legged, a faint smile upon his lips.  He
knew this man to be the Buddha, and he approached and stood before him.
     "Greetings, oh  Death," said the seated one,  crowned with a  rose-hued
aureole that was bright in the shadow of the tree.
     Yama did not reply, but drew his blade.
     The Buddha continued to  smile, and as Yama  moved  forward  he heard a
sound like distant music.
     He halted and looked about him, his blade still upraised.
     They came from all quarters, the four  Regents of the world, come  down
from  Mount  Sumernu:  the Master of the  North  advanced,  followed by  his
Yakshas, all in gold, mounted on yellow horses,  bearing shields that blazed
with golden light; the Angel of  the South came  on, followed by his  hosts,
the Kumbhandas, mounted upon blue steeds and bearing sapphire shields;  from
the East rode the  Regent whose horsemen carry shields of pearl, and who are
clad all in silver; and from the West there came the One whose Nagas mounted
blood-red  horses, were clad all in  red and  held before  them  shields  of
coral. Their hooves did not appear to touch the grasses, and  the only sound
in the air was the music, which grew louder.
     "Why do the Regents of the world approach?" Yama found himself saying.
     "They come to bear my bones away," replied the Buddha, still smiling.
     The four Regents drew rein, their hordes at their backs, and Yama faced
them.
     "You come to  bear his bones away,"  said Yama, "but who  will come for
yours?"
     The Regents dismounted.
     "You may not have this man, oh Death," said the Master  of  the  North,
"for he belongs to the world, and we of the world will defend him."
     "Hear me, Regents who dwell upon Sumernu," said Yama, taking his Aspect
upon  him.  "Into your hands  is given the keeping of  the world, but  Death
takes whom  he will from out the world, and whenever he chooses.  It is  not
given to you to dispute my Attributes, or the ways of their working."
     The four Regents moved to a position between Yama and Tathagatha.
     "We do dispute your way  with this one. Lord Yama. For in his  hands he
holds  the  destiny of our world.  You  may  touch  him  only  after  having
overthrown the four Powers."
     "So be it," said Yama. "Which among you will be first to oppose me?"
     "I will," said the speaker, drawing his golden blade.
     Yama, his Aspect  upon him, sheared through  the soft metal like butter
and laid  the flat  of  his  scimitar along  the Regent's head,  sending him
sprawling upon the ground.
     A  great cry came up  from the  ranks  of the Yakshas, and  two of  the
golden horsemen came forward  to  bear away their  leader. Then they  turned
their mounts and rode back into the North;
     "Who is next?"
     The  Regent  of the East  came before  him, bearing a straight blade of
silver and a net woven of moonbeams. "I," he said, and he cast with the net.
     Yama set  his foot upon it, caught  it in his fingers, jerked the other
off  balance.  As the  Regent  stumbled forward, he reversed his  blade  and
struck him in the jaw with its pommel.
     Two  silver  warriors  glared at him, then dropped  their eyes, as they
bore their Master away  to the  East, a discordant  music  trailing in their
wake.
     "Next!" said Yama.
     Then  there  came before him the burly  leader of the  Nagas, who threw
down  his weapons and stripped off his tunic, saying, "I  will  wrestle with
you, deathgod."
     Yama laid his weapons aside and removed his upper garments.
     All the  while  this was happening, the Buddha sat in the shade of  the
great tree, smiling, as though the passage of arms meant nothing to him.
     The Chief of the Nagas  caught Yama behind the neck with his left hand,
pulling his head forward.  Yama did the same to him;  and the other did then
twist his body, casting his  right arm over  Yama's left shoulder and behind
his neck, locking it then tight about his head, which he now drew down  hard
against his hip, turning his body as he dragged the other forward.
     Reaching up behind the Naga Chief's back, Yama caught his left shoulder
in his left hand and then moved his right hand behind the Regent's knees, so
that he lifted both  his legs off the  ground while  drawing back  upon  his
shoulder.
     For a  moment he held this one cradled  in  his arms like a child, then
raised him up to shoulder level and dropped away his arms.
     When the Regent struck  the ground, Yama fell  upon him with his  knees
and rose again. The other did not.
     When the riders  of the West had departed, only the Angel of the South,
clad all in blue, stood before the Buddha.
     "And you?" asked the deathgod, raising his weapons again.
     "I  will not  take up weapons of steel  or leather or stone, as a child
takes up toys,  to face you, god of death. Nor will  I match the strength of
my  body against yours," said the  Angel. "I know I  will be bested if  I do
these things, for none may dispute you with arms."
     "Then climb back upon your blue stallion and ride away," said Yama, "if
you will not fight."
     The Angel  did not answer,  but cast his  blue shield into the  air, so
that  it spun like a wheel of sapphire, growing larger and larger as it hung
above them.
     Then it  fell to the ground and began to sink into it, without a sound,
still growing as it vanished from sight, the grasses  coming  together again
above the spot where it had struck.
     "And what does that signify?" asked Yama.
     "I  do not actively contest. I merely  defend.  Mine  is  the power  of
passive  opposition. Mine is the  power  of life, as  yours is  the power of
death. While you can destroy anything I send against you, you cannot destroy
everything,  oh Death. Mine is  the power  of the shield, but not the sword.
Life will oppose you, Lord Yama, to defend your victim."
     The  Blue  One turned then,  mounted his blue steed and  rode  into the
South,  the  Kumbhandas at  his back. The sound of the music did not go with
him, but remained in the air he had occupied.
     Yama advanced once more, his  blade in his hand. "Their efforts came to
naught," he said. "Your time is come."
     He struck forward with his blade.
     The  blow  did not  land, however, as a branch from the great tree fell
between them and struck the scimitar from his grasp.
     He reached for  it  and  the grasses  bent to  cover it  over,  weaving
themselves into a tight, unbreakable net.
     Cursing, he drew his dagger and struck again.
     One mighty branch bent down, came  swaying  before his target, so  that
his  blade  was imbedded deeply in its  fibers. Then the branch lashed again
skyward, carrying the weapon with it, high out of reach.
     The Buddha's eyes were closed in meditation and his halo glowed  in the
shadows.
     Yama  took a step forward, raising  his hands,  and the grasses knotted
themselves about his ankles, holding him where he stood.
     He  struggled  for a moment, tugging at their unyielding roots. Then he
stopped  and raised both  hands  high, throwing his  head  far  back,  death
leaping from his eyes.
     "Hear me, oh Powers!" he  cried. "From this  moment  forward, this spot
shall bear  the curse  of Yama! No  living thing shall  ever stir again upon
this ground! No bird shall sing, nor snake slither  here! It shall be barren
and stark, a  place  of rocks and shifting sand! Not a spear of grass  shall
ever be upraised from here against the sky! I speak this curse and lay  this
doom upon the defenders of my enemy!"
     The  grasses began  to wither, but before they  had released him  there
came a  great splintering,  cracking noise,  as  the  tree whose  roots held
together the world and in whose branches the stars were caught, as fish in a
net, swayed forward, splitting down its middle, its uppermost  limbs tearing
apart the sky,  its  roots opening chasms in  the ground, its leaves falling
like blue-green  rain  about  him. A massive section  of  its  trunk toppled
toward him, casting before it a shadow dark as night.
     In  the distance, he  still saw  the Buddha,  seated in meditation,  as
though unaware of the chaos that erupted about him.
     Then there was only blackness and a sound like the crashing of thunder.

     Yama jerked his head, his eyes springing open.
     He sat in the purple grove, his back  against the  bole of a blue tree,
his blade across his knees.
     Nothing seemed to have changed.
     The rows of monks were seated, as in meditation, before him. The breeze
was still cool and moist and the lights still flickered as it passed.
     Yama stood, knowing then, somehow, where  he must go to find that which
he sought.
     He moved past the monks, following a well-beaten path that led far into
the interior of the wood.
     He came upon a purple pavilion, but it was empty.
     He  moved  on, tracing  the path  back  to  where  the  wood  became  a
wilderness. Here, the ground  was damp and a faint mist sprang up about him.
But  the way  was still  clear  before him, illuminated by the light  of the
three moons.
     The trail led downward, the blue  and purple  trees growing shorter and
more twisted here than they did above. Small  pools of  water, with floating
patches of leprous, silver scum, began to appear at the sides  of the trail.
A  marshland  smell  came  to his nostrils,  and  the  wheezing  of  strange
creatures came out of clumps of brush.
     He heard  the sound of  singing, coming  from far up behind him, and he
realized that the monks he had left  were now awake  and  stirring about the
grove. They had finished with the task of combining their thoughts to  force
upon him  the vision  of  their leader's  invincibility. Their chanting  was
probably a signal, reaching out to --
     There!  He  was  seated  upon a  rock  in  the middle  of a  field, the
moonlight falling full upon him.
     Yama drew his blade and advanced.
     When he was about twenty paces away, the other turned his head.
     "Greetings, oh Death," he said.
     "Greetings, Tathagatha."
     "Tell me why you are here."
     "It has been decided that the Buddha must die."
     "That does not answer my question, however. Why have you come here?"
     "Are you not the Buddha?"
     "I have been called Buddha, and  Tathagatha,  and  the Enlightened One,
and many  other things. But, in  answer to your  question, no, I am not  the
Buddha. You have already succeeded in what  you  set out to do. You slew the
real Buddha this day."
     "My memory  must  indeed be  growing weak, for I  confess that I do not
remember doing this thing."
     "The  real  Buddha was named by us  Sugata," replied the other. "Before
that, he was known as Rild."
     "Rild!" Yama chuckled. "You are trying to tell me that he was more than
an executioner whom you talked out of doing his job?"
     "Many people  are executioners who have been talked  out of doing their
jobs," replied the one on the rock.  "Rild gave up his mission willingly and
became a follower  of the  Way. He was the only man  I ever  knew  to really
achieve enlightenment."
     "Is  this  not  a  pacifistic  religion,  this  thing  you  have   been
spreading?"
     "Yes."
     Yama threw  back his  head and laughed.  "Gods! Then it is well you are
not preaching a militant one! Your foremost disciple, enlightenment and all,
near had my head this afternoon!"
     A tired look  came over the Buddha's wide countenance. "Do you think he
could actually have beaten you?"
     Yama was silent a moment, then, "No," he said.
     "Do you think he knew this?"
     "Perhaps," Yama replied.
     "Did you not know one another prior to this day's meeting? Have you not
seen one another at practice?"
     "Yes," said Yama. "We were acquainted."
     "Then he knew your skill and realized the outcome of the encounter."
     Yama was silent.
     "He went willingly to his  martyrdom,  unknown to me at  the time. I do
not feel that he went with real hope of beating you."
     "Why, then?"
     "To prove a point."
     "What point could he hope to prove in such a manner?"
     "I do  not know. I only know that it must be as I have said, for I knew
him. I have  listened  too  often to his sermons, to his subtle parables, to
believe that  he would do a thing such  as this without a purpose.  You have
slain the true Buddha, deathgod. You know what I am."
     "Siddhartha," said Yama, "I know that  you are a fraud. I know that you
are  not  an Enlightened One.  I realize that your doctrine is a thing which
could  have  been remembered by any  among the First. You chose to resurrect
it,  pretending to be its  originator. You decided to spread it, in hopes of
raising an opposition to  the religion by which the true gods rule. I admire
the  effort. It was cleverly planned and executed. But your biggest mistake,
I feel, is that you picked a pacifistic creed with which to oppose an active
one.  I  am curious  why you did  this  thing,  when there were so many more
appropriate religions from which to choose."
     "Perhaps I  was just curious  to see how such  a  countercurrent  would
flow," replied the other.
     "No, Sam, that is not it," answered Yama. "I feel it is  only part of a
larger  plan you  have  laid,  and  that for  all these years  -- while  you
pretended  to  be  a saint and preached sermons  in which  you did not truly
believe yourself-- you  have  been making  other plans. An  army,  great  in
space, may  offer opposition  in a brief  span  of time. One  man,  brief in
space, must  spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to
have  a chance of succeeding. You are  aware  of this, and now that you have
sown the seeds of this stolen creed, you are planning to move on  to another
phase of opposition. You  are trying  to be a  one-man antithesis to Heaven,
opposing the will of the gods across the years, in many ways and from behind
many masks. But it will end here and now, false Buddha."
     "Why, Yama?" he asked.
     "It  was considered quite carefully,"  said Yama. "We did  not  want to
make you a martyr, encouraging more than ever the growth  of  this thing you
have been teaching.  On the other  hand,  if  you were not stopped, it would
still continue to grow.  It was decided,  therefore, that you must meet your
end at the hands of an agent  of Heaven-- thus showing which religion is the
stronger.  So,  martyr  or  no, Buddhism  will  be  a  second-rate  religion
henceforth. That is why you must now die the real death."
     "When I asked 'Why?' I meant something different. You have answered the
wrong question. I meant, why have you come to do this thing, Yama? Why  have
you, master of arms, master of sciences, come as lackey to a crew of drunken
body-changers, who are not qualified to polish your blade  or wash out  your
test  tubes? Why  do you, who might be  the freest spirit of us  all, demean
yourself by serving your inferiors?"
     "For that, your death shall not be a clean one."
     "Why? I  did but  ask a question,  which  must  have  long since passed
through more  minds than my own. I did not take offense when you called me a
false Buddha. I know what I am. Who are you, deathgod?"
     Yama placed his blade within his sash and withdrew a pipe, which he had
purchased at the inn earlier  in the day. He  filled its bowl  with tobacco,
lit it, and smoked.
     "It is obvious that we must talk a little longer, if only to clear both
our  minds of  questions," he stated, "so I may  as well be comfortable." He
seated himself upon a low rock.  "First, a man  may in some ways be superior
to his fellows and still serve them, if  together they serve a  common cause
which is greater than any one man. I believe that I serve such a cause, or I
would not be doing it. I take it that you feel the same way concerning  what
you do, or you  would not put up with this  life of miserable  asceticism --
though I note that  you are not so gaunt as your followers. You were offered
godhood some  years  ago in  Mahartha,  as I recall, and you  mocked Brahma,
raided the Palace of  Karma,  and filled all  the pray-machines of the  city
with slugs . . ."
     The Buddha chuckled. Yama joined him  briefly and continued, "There are
no Accelerationists remaining  in  the  world, other than  yourself. It is a
dead issue, which should never have become an issue in the first place. I do
have  a certain respect for the manner in which you  have acquitted yourself
over the years. It  has  even  occurred to me that if you  could be  made to
realize  the  hopelessness  of  your  present position,  you might still  be
persuaded to join the hosts of Heaven. While I did come here to kill you, if
you can be convinced of this now and give me your word upon it, promising to
end your foolish fight, I will take it upon myself to vouch for you.  I will
take you back to  the Celestial City with me, where you may now accept  that
which you once refused. They will harken to me, because they need me."
     "No," said Sam, "for I am not convinced of the futility of my position,
and I fully intend to continue the show."
     The chanting came down from the camp in the  purple  grove.  One of the
moons disappeared beyond the treetops.
     "Why are your followers not beating the bushes, seeking to save you?"
     "They would come if I called, but I will not call. I do not need to."
     "Why did they cause me to dream that foolish dream?"
     The Buddha shrugged.
     "Why did they not arise and slay me as I slept?"
     "It is not their way."
     "You might  have, though, eh? If  you could  get away  with it? If none
would know the Buddha did it?"
     "Perhaps,"  said the other. "As you know,  the  personal  strengths and
weaknesses of a leader are no true indication of the merits of his cause."
     Yama drew upon his pipe. The smoke wreathed his head and eddied away to
join the fogs, which were now becoming more heavy upon the land.
     "I know we are alone here, and you are unarmed," said Yama.
     "We  are  alone  here. My traveling  gear is  hidden farther  along  my
route."
     "Your traveling gear?"
     "I  have  finished here. You guessed correctly. I have begun what I set
out to begin. After we have finished our conversation, I will depart."
     Yama chuckled. "The optimism of  a revolutionary always gives rise to a
sense of wonder. How do you propose to depart? On a magic carpet?"
     "I shall go as other men go."
     "That is rather condescending of you. Will the powers of the world rise
up  to defend  you?  I see no great tree to  shelter  you with its branches.
There is no clever grass to seize at my feet. Tell  me how you  will achieve
your departure?"
     "I'd rather surprise you."
     "What say we  fight? I do not like  to slaughter an unarmed man. If you
actually do  have supplies cached somewhere nearby, go fetch your blade.  It
is  better  than  no  chance at all.  I've  even  heard  it  said that  Lord
Siddhartha was, in his day, a formidable swordsman."
     "Thank you, no. Another time, perhaps. But not this time."
     Yama drew once more upon his pipe, stretched, and yawned. "I  can think
of  no more questions then, which I  wish to ask you. It is futile  to argue
with you. I have nothing more to say. Is there anything else  that you would
care to add to the conversation?"
     "Yes," said Sam. "What's she like,  that bitch Kali? There are  so many
different reports that I'm beginning to believe she is all things to all men
-- "
     Yama  hurled  the  pipe, which  struck him upon the shoulder and sent a
shower of sparks down his  arm. His scimitar  was  a bright flash about  his
head as he leapt forward.
     When  he struck the  sandy stretch  before  the rock,  his  motion  was
arrested.  He  almost  fell,  twisted  himself perpendicularly and  remained
standing. He struggled, but could not move.
     "Some  quicksand,"   said  Sam,  "is   quicker  than  other  quicksand.
Fortunately, you are  settling  into  that of the slower sort. So  you  have
considerable time yet remaining  at  your  disposal. I would like to prolong
the conversation, if I thought I had a chance of persuading you to join with
me.  But I know that  I do not-- no more than you could persuade me to go to
Heaven."
     "I will get free," said Yama softly, not  struggling. "I will  get free
somehow, and I will come after you again."
     "Yes," said Sam, "I feel this  to be true. In  fact, in a short while I
will instruct you  how  to  go about it. For the  moment,  however,  you are
something every  preacher longs for-- a captive audience,  representing  the
opposition. So, I have a brief sermon for you. Lord Yama."
     Yama hefted  his  blade, decided  against throwing it, thrust it  again
into his sash.
     "Preach on," he said, and he succeeded in catching the other's eyes.
     Sam swayed where he sat, but he spoke again:
     "It  is amazing," he said, "how that mutant  brain of yours generated a
mind capable  of  transferring its powers to  any  new  brain  you choose to
occupy. It has been  years since I last exercised my one ability, as I am at
this moment-- but it, too, behaves in a  similar manner. No matter what body
I inhabit, it appears that my power follows me into it also. I understand it
is still that way with most of us. Sitala, I hear, can control  temperatures
for  a  great distance  about her. When she  assumes  a new body,  the power
accompanies her into her new nervous system, though it comes only weakly  at
first. Agni, I know, can set fire to objects by staring at them for a period
of time and willing that they burn. Now, take for example the death-gaze you
are at this moment turning upon me. Is it not amazing how you keep this gift
about you in all times and places, over the centuries? I have often wondered
as to the  physiological basis  for the phenomenon. Have you ever researched
the area?"
     "Yes," said Yama, his eyes burning beneath his dark brows.
     "And what is the explanation? A person is born  with an abnormal brain,
his  psyche  is later  transferred  to a  normal  one  and  yet his abnormal
abilities are not destroyed in the transfer. Why does this thing happen?"
     "Because you really have only one  body-image, which is  electrical  as
well  as  chemical  in  nature. It begins  immediately  to  modify  its  new
physiological environment. The  new  body has  much about it which it treats
rather like a disease, attempting to cure it into being the old body. If the
body which you  now  inhabit were to be made  physically  immortal, it would
someday come to resemble your original body."
     "How interesting."
     "That is why the transferred power is weak at first, but grows stronger
as you continue occupancy. That is why it is best to cultivate an Attribute,
and perhaps to employ mechanical aids, also."
     "Well. That is something I have often wondered about. Thank you. By the
way, keep trying with your  death-gaze-- it is painful, you know. So that is
something, anyway. Now, as to the sermon-- a proud and arrogant man, such as
yourself-- with an  admittedly admirable quality of didacticism about  him--
was  given  to doing  research  in  the area  of  a certain  disfiguring and
degenerative disease. One day he contracted it himself. Since he had not yet
developed  a cure for the condition, he  did take time out to regard himself
in a  mirror and  say, 'But  on <i>me</i> it does look  good.' You are such a  man,
Yama. You will not attempt to fight your condition. Rather, you are proud of
it. You betrayed yourself in  your fury, so I  know that  I speak  the truth
when I say  that the  name of your disease is Kali. You would not give power
into the hands of the unworthy if that woman  did not bid  you do it. I knew
her of old, and  I am certain that  she  has not changed. She cannot love  a
man.  She cares  only for those who bring  her  gifts of chaos. If ever  you
cease to suit her purposes,  she will put  you aside, deathgod. I do not say
this because  we  are  enemies, but rather as  one man to another.  I  know.
Believe  me, I  do.  Perhaps it  is unfortunate  that  you were never really
young, Yama, and did not know your first love in the days of spring. .  .  .
The moral,  therefore, of  my sermon on this  small  mount is this-- even  a
mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see. Cross her once
to try  the truth of my words,  even in a small  matter, and see how quickly
she responds, and in what fashion. What will you do if  your own weapons are
turned against you, Death?"
     "You have finished speaking now?" asked Yama.
     "That's about it. A sermon is a warning, and you have been warned."
     "Whatever  your  power, Sam,  I  see  that  it is at this moment  proof
against my death-gaze. Consider yourself fortunate that I am weakened -- "
     "I do indeed, for my head is about to split. Damn your eyes!"
     "One day I will try  your power  again, and even if it should still  be
proof  against  my own,  you  will fall on that day. If not by my Attribute,
then by my blade."
     "If that is a  challenge, I choose to defer  acceptance. I suggest that
you do try my words before you attempt to make it good."
     At this point, the sand was halfway up Yama's thighs.
     Sam sighed and climbed down from his perch.
     "There is only one clear path to this rock, and I am about to follow it
away from here. Now,  I will tell you how  to gain your life, if you are not
too  proud. I have  instructed  the monks  to  come to my aid, here at  this
place, if they hear a cry  for help. I told you earlier that I was not going
to  call for  help, and that is true. If, however, you begin calling out for
aid with  that powerful  voice of yours, they shall be here before  you sink
too much farther. They will bring you safely to firm ground and will not try
to harm you, for such is their way. I like the thought  of the god of  death
being saved by the monks of Buddha. Good night, Yama, I'm going to leave you
now."
     Yama smiled. "There  will be another day, oh Buddha," he stated. "I can
wait for it. Flee now  as far and as fast as you can. The world is not large
enough to hide you from my wrath. I will follow you, and I will teach you of
the enlightenment that is pure hellfire."
     "In the meantime," said Sam, "I suggest you solicit aid of my followers
or learn the difficult art of mud-breathing."
     He picked his way across the field, Yama's eyes burning into his back.
     When he reached the trail, he turned. "And you may want to  mention  in
Heaven," he said, "that I was called out of town on a business deal."
     Yama did not reply.
     "I think  I am going to  make  a deal for some  weapons," he  finished,
"some rather special weapons.  So when  you  come after me,  bring your girl
friend  along. If  she likes what she  sees, she may persuade you to  switch
sides."
     Then he struck the  trail and moved away through  the night, whistling,
beneath a moon that was white and a moon that was golden.



        IV
     <i>It is told how the Lord of Light descended into the Well of the Demons,
to make there  a bargain with the  chief of the Rakasha.  He dealt  in  good
faith,  but  the  Rakasha are the Rakasha. That is to say, they are  malefic
creatures, possessed of great  powers,  life-span and the ability to  assume
nearly any shape. The Rakasha are almost indestructible. Their chiefest lack
is a true body; their chiefest  virtue,  their  honor  toward their gambling
debts. That the Lord of  Light went  to Hellwell  at all serves to show that
perhaps he was somewhat distraught concerning the state of the world. . . .</i>

     <i>When the gods and the demons,  both offspring of  Prajapati, did battle
with  one another, the  gods seized upon  the life-principle of the Udgitha,
thinking that with this would they vanquish the demons.</i>
     <i>They meditated upon  the Udgitha which  functions through the nose, but
the demons pierced  it through with  evil. Therefore, with  the  breath  one
smells both that which is pleasant and that which  is  foul. Thus the breath
is touched by evil.</i>
     <i>They  meditated upon  the Udgitha as  words, but the demons pierced  it
through  with  evil.  Therefore, one speaks  both  truth and falsehood. Thus
words are touched by evil.</i>
     <i>They  meditated upon the Udgitha which functions through the  eye,  but
the demons pierced it through with evil. Therefore,  one  sees both  what is
pleasing and what is ugly. Thus the eye is touched by evil.</i>
     <i>They  meditated upon  the Udgitha as hearing, but the demons pierced it
through  with evil. Therefore, one hears both good things and bad.  Thus the
ear is touched by evil.</i>
     <i>Then did they meditate  upon the Udgitha  as the  mind, but  the demons
pierced it  through with evil. Therefore, one thinks what is  proper,  true,
and  good,  and  what  is  improper, false,  and depraved. Thus the mind  is
touched by evil.</i>

     <i><i>Chhandogya Upanishad (I, ii, 1-6)</i></i>

     Hellwell lies at the top of the world and it leads down to its roots.
     It is probably as old as the world  itself; and if it is not, it should
be, because it looks as if it were.
     It begins with  a  doorway.  There  is  a huge, burnished  metal  door,
erected by the First,  that is heavy as sin, three times the height of a man
and half that  distance  in width.  It  is  a full  cubit thick and  bears a
head-sized  ring  of  brass,  a  complicated  pressure-plate  lock  and   an
inscription that reads, roughly, "Go away. This is not a place to be. If you
do  try to  enter  here,  you will  fail and also be cursed. If  somehow you
succeed, then do  not complain that you entered unwarned, nor bother us with
your deathbed prayers." Signed, "The Gods."
     It  is set near the peak of a very  high mountain named Channa, in  the
midst  of  a region  of very high mountains  called the Ratnagaris.  In that
place there is always snow upon the ground,  and rainbows  ride like  fur on
the backs of icicles,  which sprout about the frozen caps of cliffs. The air
is sharp as a sword. The sky is bright as the eye of a cat.
     Very few feet have ever trod the trail that leads to Hellwell. Of those
who  visited,  most came only  to look, to see whether the great door really
existed; and when  they returned home and told of having seen it,  they were
generally mocked.
     Telltale scratches about the lock plate testify that some have actually
sought entrance.  Equipment sufficient to force the great door could  not be
transported  or properly  positioned,  however.  The  trail  that  leads  to
Hellwell is less than ten inches in  width for the final three hundred  feet
of its  ascent; and perhaps six men  could stand,  with  crowding, upon what
remains of the once wide ledge that faces that door.
     It  is told that  Pannalal the  Sage, having  sharpened  his mind  with
meditation and divers asceticisms, had divined the operation of the lock and
entered Hellwell, spending  a  day and a night beneath the mountain. He  was
thereafter known as Pannalal the Mad.
     The peak known  as  Channa, which holds the  great door, is removed  by
five days'  journey from a small  village.  This is within the  far northern
kingdom  of  Malwa.  This  mountain  village nearest  to Channa  has no name
itself, being  filled with  a  fierce  and independent  people  who  have no
special  desire  that  their town  appeal on  the maps of  the  rajah's  tax
collectors. Of  the  rajah, it is sufficient to  tell  that  he is of middle
height and middle years, shrewd, slightly stout, neither pious nor more than
usually notorious and fabulously wealthy.  He is  wealthy  because he levies
high taxes  upon  his subjects.  When his  subjects begin to  complain,  and
murmurs of revolt run through  the realm, he declares war upon a neighboring
kingdom and  doubles the  taxes. If  the  war  does not go well, he executes
several generals and has his Minister  of Peace negotiate  a treaty.  If, by
some chance, it goes especially well,  he exacts tribute for whatever insult
has caused the  entire affair. Usually, though, it ends  in a truce, souring
his subjects on fighting and reconciling them to the high tax rate. His name
is Videgha and he has  many children. He is fond of grak-birds, which can be
taught  to  sing  bawdy  songs, of snakes,  to which  he  occasionally feeds
grak-birds  who cannot carry a tune, and  of gaming  with dice. He does  not
especially like children.
     Hellwell begins with  the  great doorway  high in the mountains  at the
northernmost comer of  Videgha's  kingdom, beyond which there  are  no other
kingdoms of men. It begins there,  and  it corkscrews down through the heart
of the  mountain  Channa, breaking, like a corkscrew, into  vast  cavernways
uncharted by men, extending  far beneath the  Ratnagari  range, the  deepest
passageways pushing down toward the roots of the world.
     To this door came the traveler.
     He was simply  dressed, and he traveled  alone, and he seemed  to  know
exactly where he was going and what he was doing.
     He climbed the trail up Channa, edging his way across its gaunt face.
     It  took him the better part of  the morning to reach  his destination,
the door.
     When he  stood before  it,  he rested a moment, took a  drink from  his
water bottle, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, smiled.
     Then he sat down with his back against the door and ate his lunch. When
he had finished, he threw the leaf  wrappings over the edge and watched them
fall, drifting from side to side on the air currents, until they were out of
sight. He lit his pipe then and smoked.
     After he had rested, he stood and faced the door once again.
     His hand fell upon the pressure plate, moved slowly through a series of
gestures. There  was  a musical sound from within the  door as his hand left
the plate.
     Then  he  seized upon  the  ring  and drew  back, his shoulder  muscles
straining. The door moved, slowly at  first,  then more rapidly.  He stepped
aside and it swung outward, passing beyond the ledge.
     There was another ring,  twin to the first, on the inner surface of the
door. He caught at it as it passed  him, dragging his heels to keep it  from
swinging so far as to place it beyond his reach.
     A rush of warm air emerged from the opening at his back.
     Drawing the door closed  again behind him, he paused only to light  one
of  the many torches he bore. Then he advanced along a corridor that widened
as he moved ahead.
     The  floor slanted abruptly, and after a hundred paces the  ceiling was
so high as to be invisible.
     After two hundred paces, he stood upon the lip of the well.
     He was  now in the  midst  of a  vast blackness  shot  through with the
flames of his torch. The walls had vanished, save for the one behind him and
to the right. The floor ended a short distance before him.
     Beyond that edge was what appeared to be a bottomless pit. He could not
see across it, but he knew it  to be roughly circular in shape; and he knew,
too, that it widened in circumference as it descended.
     He made  his way down  along the trail that wound about  the well wall,
and he could feel the rush of warm air  rising from out of  the depths. This
trail was  artificial. One could  feel this, despite its steepness.  It  was
precarious and  it was  narrow; it was cracked in many places, and  in spots
rubble  had accumulated upon it. But  its steady, winding slant bespoke  the
fact that there was purpose and pattern to its existence.
     He moved along this trail, carefully. To his left  was the wall. To his
right there was nothing.
     After what seemed an age and a half, he sighted a tiny flicker of light
far below him, hanging in midair.
     The curvature of the wall, however, gradually bent his way so that this
light  no  longer hung in the distance, but  lay  below  and slightly to his
right.
     Another twisting of the trail set it directly ahead of him.
     When he passed the  niche in the wall wherein the flame was cached,  he
heard a voice within his mind cry out:
     "Free me, master, and I will lay the world at thy feet!"
     But  he  hurried  by, not even glancing at  the almost-face  within the
opening.
     Floating upon the ocean  of black that lay beneath his feet, there were
more lights now visible.
     The  well continued to widen. It was filled  with brightening glimmers,
like  flame,  but  not flame;  filled  with  shapes, faces,  half-remembered
images. From each there rose up a cry as he passed: "Free me! Free me!"
     But he did not halt.
     He  came to  the bottom of the well and moved across it, passing  among
broken stones and over  fissures in the rocky floor.  At last he reached the
opposite wall, wherein a great orange fire danced.
     It became cherry-red  as he approached, and when he stood before it, it
was the blue of a sapphire's heart.
     It stood  to twice  his height, pulsing and twisting.  From  it, little
flamelets licked out toward him, but they  drew back as if they fell against
an invisible barrier.
     During his descent he had  passed so many flames that he had lost count
of their  number. He knew, too, that more lay hidden within the caverns that
open into the well bottom.
     Each flame  he had passed on the way down had addressed him,  using its
own species of communication, so that  the words had sounded drumlike within
his head: threatening words, and pleading, promising words. But  no  message
came  to  him from this great blue  blaze, larger than any of the others. No
forms turned or twisted, tantalizing, within its bright heart. Flame it was,
and flame it remained.
     He kindled a fresh torch and wedged it between two rocks.
     "So, Hated One, you have returned!"
     The  words fell upon him  like whiplashes. Steadying  himself, he faced
the blue flame then and replied:
     "You are called Taraka?"
     "He who bound  me here should know what I am called,"  came  the words.
"Think not, oh Siddhartha, that because you wear a different body you go now
unrecognized. I look upon  the flows of  energy which are  your real being--
not the flesh that masks them."
     "I see," replied the other.
     "Do you come to mock me in my prison?"
     "Did I mock you in the days of the Binding?"
     "No, you did not."
     "I did that which had to be done, to  preserve my own species. Men were
weak and few in number.  Your kind fell upon  them and would  have destroyed
them."
     "You  stole  our  world,  Siddhartha.  You  chained  us here. What  new
indignity would you lay upon us?"
     "Perhaps there is a way in which some reparation may be made."
     "What is it that you want?"
     "Allies."
     "You want us to take your part in a struggle?"
     "That is correct."
     "And when it is over, you will seek to bind us again."
     "Not if we can work out some sort of agreement beforehand."
     "Speak to me your terms," said the flame.
     "In the old  days your  people walked, visible and  invisible,  in  the
streets of the Celestial City."
     "That is true."
     "It is better fortified now."
     "In what ways?"
     "Vishnu the Preserver  and Yama-Dharma, Lord of Death, have covered the
whole of Heaven, rather than just the City-- as it was in days of old-- with
what is said to be an impenetrable dome."
     "There is no such thing as an impenetrable dome."
     "I say only what I have heard."
     "There are many ways into a city. Lord Siddhartha."
     "You will find them all for me?"
     "That is to be the price of my freedom?"
     "Of your own freedom-- yes."
     "What of the others of my kind?"
     "If they, too, are to be freed, you must all agree to help me lay siege
to that City and take it."
     "Free us, and Heaven shall fall!"
     "You speak for the others?"
     "I am Taraka. I speak for all."
     "What assurance do you give, Taraka, that this bargain will be kept?"
     "My word? I shall be happy to swear by anything you care to name -- "
     "A  facility  with  oaths  is  not  the  most reassuring  quality in  a
bargainer. And your strength is also your weakness in any bargaining at all.
You are so strong as to  be unable  to grant to another the power to control
you. You have no gods  to  swear  by. The only thing you  will  honor  is  a
gambling debt, and there are no grounds for gaming here."
     "<i>You</i> possess the power to control us."
     "Individually, perhaps. But not collectively."
     "It  is  a difficult problem," said  Taraka. "I  should give anything I
have  to be  free--  but then, all that I  have is  power  -- pure power, in
essence uncommittable. A greater force might subdue it,  but that is not the
answer. I do  not really know how to give you satisfactory assurance that my
promise will be kept. If I were you, <i>I</i> certainly would not trust me."
     "It is something of a dilemma. So I will free you now-- you alone--  to
visit the Pole and scout out the defenses of Heaven. In your absence, I will
consider the  problem further. Do you likewise, and perhaps upon your return
an equitable arrangement can be made."
     "Accepted! Release me from this doom!"
     "Know  then my power,  Taraka," he said.  "As I  bind, so can I loose--
thus!"
     The flame boiled forward out of the wall.
     It rolled into a ball of fire and  spun about the well like a comet; it
burned like a small sun, lighting  up the darkness; it changed  colors as it
fled about, so that the rocks shone both ghastly and pleasing.
     Then  it hovered above the head of the  one  called Siddhartha, sending
down its throbbing words upon him:
     "You cannot know my pleasure to feel again my strength set free. I've a
mind to try your power once more."
     The man beneath him shrugged.
     The ball of flame coalesced. Shrinking, it grew brighter, and it slowly
settled to the floor.
     It  lay  there quivering, like a petal fallen from some  titanic bloom;
then it  drifted  slowly across the  floor  of  Hellwell and re-entered  the
niche.
     "Are you satisfied?" asked Siddhartha.
     "Yes," came  the reply, after a time. "Your power is undimmed.  Binder.
Free me once more."
     "I grow  tired of this sport, Taraka. Perhaps I'd best leave you as you
are and seek assistance elsewhere."
     "No! I gave you my promise! What more would you have?"
     "I would  have  an absence of  contention between us.  Either you  will
serve me now in this matter, or you will not. That is all. Choose, and abide
by your choice-- and your word."
     "Very well. Free me, and I will visit Heaven upon its mountain of  ice,
and report back to you of its weaknesses."
     "Then go!"
     This time, the flame emerged more slowly. It swayed before him, took on
a roughly human outline.
     "What  is your power, Siddhartha? How do you do  what you do?" it asked
him.
     "Call it electrodirection," said the other, "mind over energy. It is as
good a term as any. But whatever you call it, do not seek to cross it again.
I can kill you with  it, though no weapon formed  of matter may be laid upon
you. Go now!"
     Taraka vanished, like a firebrand plunged  into a river, and Siddhartha
stood among stones, his torch lighting the darkness about him.

     He rested,  and  a  babble  of  voices  filled  his  mind--  promising,
tempting,  pleading. Visions of  wealth and of  splendor flowed  before  his
eyes. Wondrous harems were paraded before him, and banquets were laid at his
feet. Essences of musk and champac,  and the bluish haze of burning incenses
drifted,  soothing his soul, about him. He walked among flowers, followed by
bright-eyed girls  who bore his wine cups, smiling; a silver  voice  sang to
him, and creatures not human danced upon the surface of a nearby lake. "Free
us,  free us,"  they chanted. But  he smiled  and  watched and did  nothing.
Gradually,  the prayers and the pleas and the promises turned to a chorus of
curses and threats. Armored skeletons advanced upon him, babies impaled upon
their blazing swords. There were pits all about  him, from which fires leapt
up, smelling of brimstone. A serpent dangled  from a branch before his face,
spitting venom. A rain of spiders and toads descended upon him.
     "Free us-- or infinite will be thy agony!" cried the voices.
     "If you persist," he stated, "Siddhartha shall grow angry, and you will
lose the one chance at freedom which you really do possess."
     Then all was still about him, and he emptied his mind, drowsing.

     He had two meals, there in the cavern, and then he slept again.
     Later, Taraka returned in the form of a great-taloned bird and reported
to him:
     "Those of my kind may enter through the  air vents," he said,  "but men
may not. There  are also many elevator shafts within the  mountain. Many men
might  ride up the larger ones with  ease. Of course, these are guarded. But
if the  guards  were slain and the alarms disconnected, this thing  might be
accomplished.  Also,  there  are  times when the dome  itself  is  opened in
various places, to permit flying craft to enter and to depart."
     "Very well," said  Siddhartha.  "I've  a kingdom,  some  weeks' journey
hence, where I rule. A regent has  been  seated in my place for many  years,
but  if  I return there I  can raise me  an army. A new  religion moves  now
across the land. Men may now think less of the gods than once they did."
     "You wish to sack Heaven?"
     "Yes, I wish to lay open its treasures to the world."
     "This is to my liking. It  will not be easily won, but with an army  of
men and an army of my kind we should be able to do it. Let us free my people
now, that we may begin."
     "I believe I will simply have  to trust you," said Siddhartha. "So yes,
let us begin," and  he moved across the  floor  of Hellwell toward the first
deep tunnel beading downward.
     That day he  freed sixty-five  of them,  filling the caverns with their
color and their  movement and their light. The air sounded with mighty cries
of joy and the noise of their passage as they swept about Hellwell, changing
shape constantly and exulting in their freedom.
     Without  warning, then,  one  took  upon itself  the  form  of a flying
serpent and swept down toward him, talons outstretched and slashing.
     For a moment, his full attention lay upon it.
     It uttered a brief,  broken  cry, and then it came apart,  falling in a
shower of blue-white sparks.
     Then these faded, and it was utterly vanished.
     There was  silence in  the caverns, and the lights  pulsed  and  dipped
about the walls.
     Siddhartha  directed his attention toward  the largest  point of light,
Taraka.
     "Did that one attack me in order to test my strength?" he inquired. "To
see whether I can also kill, in the manner I told you I could?"
     Taraka approached, hovered before him. "It  was not  by my bidding that
he  attacked,"  he  stated.  "I  feel  that  he  was  half crazed  from  his
confinement."
     Siddhartha shrugged. "For a time now, disport yourselves as you would,"
he said. "I would  have rest from  this task,"  and he departed the  smaller
cavern.
     He returned  to the bottom of  the  well,  where he lay down  upon  his
blanket and dozed.

     There came a dream.
     He was running.
     His shadow lay before him, and, as he ran upon it, it grew.
     It grew  until it  was  no longer his  shadow but a  grotesque outline.
Suddenly  he knew that his shadow had been overrun by  that  of his pursuer:
overrun, overwhelmed, submerged and surmounted.
     Then  he  knew a  moment of terrible panic,  there upon the blind plain
over which he fled.
     He knew that it was now his own shadow.
     The doom which had pursued him no longer lay at his back.
     He knew that he was his own doom.
     Knowing  that he had finally caught up with himself, he  laughed aloud,
wanting really to scream.

     When he awoke again, he was walking.
     He was walking up the twisted wall-trail of Hellwell.
     As he walked, he passed the imprisoned flames.
     Again, each cried out to him as he went by:
     "Free us, masters!"
     And  slowly, about the edges  of the ice that was his mind, there was a
thawing.
     Masters.
     Plural. Not singular.
     Masters, they had said.
     He knew then that he did not walk alone.
     None of the dancing, flickering shapes moved through the darkness about
him, below him.
     The ones who had been imprisoned were still imprisoned. The ones he had
freed were gone.
     Now he climbed  the high wall of Hellwell,  no  torch lighting his way.
But still, he saw.
     He saw every feature of the rocky trail, as though by moonlight.
     He knew that his eyes were incapable of this feat.
     And he had been addressed in the plural.
     And his body was moving, but was not under the direction of his will.
     He made an effort to halt, to stand still.
     He continued to advance up the trail, and  it  was then  that  his lips
moved, forming the words:
     "You have awakened, I see. Good morning."
     A question  formed  itself  in his  mind,  to  be answered  immediately
through his own mouth:
     "Yes,  and how does it  feel to be bound yourself, Binder-- in your own
body?"
     Siddhartha formed another thought:
     "I  did  not  think  any  of your kind capable of  taking control of me
against my will-- even as I slept."
     "To  give  you an  honest answer," said  the other, "neither did I. But
then, I had at my disposal the combined powers of many of my kind. It seemed
to be worth the attempt."
     "And of the others? Where are they?"
     "Gone. To wander the world until I summon them."
     "And what of these others  who  remain  bound? Had  you waited, I would
have freed them also."
     "What care I of these others? I am free now, and in a body  again! What
else matters?"
     "I take it, then, that your promised assistance means nothing?"
     "Not so," replied the demon. "We shall return to this matter in, say, a
lesser  moon or so. The idea <i>does</i>  appeal to me. I feel  that a war with the
gods  would  be  a  very excellent  thing.  But  first  I  wish to enjoy the
pleasures of the  flesh  for a  time. Why should  you begrudge me  a  little
entertainment  after  the  centuries of  boredom and  imprisonment you  have
wrought?"
     "I must admit, however, that I do begrudge you this use of my person."
     "Whatever  the case, you must, for a time,  put up with  it. You,  too,
shall be  in a position to enjoy what  I enjoy, so why  not make the best of
it?"
     "You state that you <i>do</i> intend to war against the gods?"
     "Yes  indeed. I  wish I  had thought of it  myself  in  the  old  days.
Perhaps,  then, we  should never have been  bound.  Perhaps there  would  no
longer be  men  or  gods upon  this world. We were never  much for concerted
action,   though.   Independence  of   spirit   naturally   accompanies  our
independence of person.  Each fought his own battles in the general conflict
with mankind. I am  a  leader, true-- by  virtue of the fact that I am older
and stronger and  wiser than the others. They come  to  me for counsel, they
serve me when I order them. But I have never ordered them all into battle. I
shall, though, later. The novelty will do much to relieve the monotony."
     "I suggest you do not wait, for there will be no 'later', Taraka."
     "Why not?"
     "I came to  Hellwell, the wrath  of the gods swarming and buzzing at my
back. Now sixty-six demons are loose in the world. Very soon, your  presence
will be felt. The gods will know who has done this thing, and they will take
steps against us. The element of surprise will be lost."
     "We fought the gods in the days of old . . ."
     "And these are not the days of old, Taraka. The  gods are stronger now,
much stronger. Long have you been bound, and their might has grown  over the
ages. Even if you command the  first army of Rakasha in history, and backing
them in  battle  I raise me up  a mighty army of men-- even  then, will  the
final  result  be a  thing uncertain.  To  delay now is  to throw everything
away."
     "I  wish you would  not speak to  me  like this,  Siddhartha,  for  you
trouble me."
     "I mean  to.  For all your powers,  if you meet the  One in Red he will
drink your  life with his eyes. He will come here to the Ratnagaris,  for he
follows me. The freedom of demons is as a signpost, directing him hither. He
may  bring others with  him. You may find them  more than a match for all of
you."
     The demon did not reply.  They  reached the top of the well, and Taraka
advanced the two  hundred paces to the great  door, which now stood open. He
stepped out onto the ledge and looked downward.
     "You  doubt  the power of the  Rakasha,  eh.  Binder?" he  asked. Then,
"Behold!"
     He stepped outward, over the edge.
     They did not fall.
     They drifted, like the leaves he had dropped-- how long ago?
     Downward.
     They landed upon the trail halfway down the mountain called Channa.
     "Not only do I contain your  nervous  system," said Taraka, "but I have
permeated your entire body and wrapped it all about with the energies  of my
being. So send  me your One in  Red, who drinks life with his eyes. I should
like to meet him."
     "Though you can walk on air," said Siddhartha, "you  speak  rashly when
you speak thus."
     "The Prince Videgha holds his court not  far from here, at Palamaidsu,"
said Taraka, "for  I visited there on my return from Heaven. I understand he
is fond of gaming. Therefore, thither fare we."
     "And if the God of Death should come to join the game?"
     "Let him!" cried the other. "You cease to amuse me, Binder. Good night.
Go back to sleep!"
     There was a small darkness and a great silence, growing and shrinking.

     The days that followed were bright fragments.
     There would  come  to him  snatches of conversation  or song,  colorful
vistas  of  galleries,  chambers, gardens. And once he looked upon a dungeon
where men were hung upon racks, and he heard himself laughing.
     Between these fragments there came to him dreams  and half dreams. They
were  lighted  with fire, they  ran  with blood  and  tears. In a  darkened,
endless  cathedral he rolled  dice that were suns and planets. Meteors broke
fire above his head, and comets inscribed blazing arcs upon a vault of black
glass. There came to him a joy shot through with fear,  and he knew it to be
mainly that  of another, but it was partly his, too. The fear-- that was all
his.
     When Taraka drank too much  wine, or lay panting on his wide, low couch
in the harem, then was his grip loosened somewhat, upon the body that he had
stolen. But Siddhartha was still weak with the mind-bruise, and his body was
drunk or fatigued; and he knew that the time had not yet come to contest the
mastery of the demon-lord.
     There were times when he saw, not through the eyes of the body that had
once been his, but saw as a demon saw, in all directions, and stripped flesh
and bone from those  among whom he  passed, to  behold the  flames  of their
beings, colored with the hues and shades of their passions,  flickering with
avarice and lust and envy,  darting with  greed and hunger, smouldering with
hate, waning with fear and pain. His hell was a many-colored place, somewhat
mitigated only by the  cold blue  blaze of a  scholar's intellect, the white
light of a dying monk, the rose halo of a noble lady who fled his sight, and
the dancing, simple colors of children at play.
     He stalked  the high  halls and wide galleries of the  royal palace  at
Palamaidsu, which were his winnings. The Prince Videgha lay in chains in his
own  dungeon.  Throughout  the kingdom, his subjects were  not aware that  a
demon now sat upon  the  throne.  Things seemed  to be the same as  they had
always  been. Siddhartha had  visions  of riding through the  streets of the
town on the  back of an elephant. All the women of the town had been ordered
to stand before the doors  of their dwellings. Of these,  he chose those who
pleased him and had them taken back  to his harem. Siddhartha realized, with
a sudden shock, that he was assisting in the choosing, disputing with Taraka
over the  virtues of this or that matron, maid or lady.  He had been touched
by the lusts of the demon-lord, and  they  were becoming his own. With  this
realization, he came into a greater  wakefulness, and it was  not always the
hand of the demon which  raised  the  wine horn to his lips, or twitched the
whip  in  the  dungeon. He came to be conscious for greater periods of time,
and with a certain horror he knew that, within himself, as within every man,
there lies a demon capable of responding to his own kind.
     Then, one day, he fought  the power that ruled  his  body and  bent his
mind. He  had largely recovered, and  he coexisted  with Taraka  in  all his
doings, both as silent watcher and active participant.
     They stood on the balcony above the garden, looking out across the day.
Taraka had, with a single gesture,  turned all the flowers black. Lizardlike
creatures  had  come  to dwell  in the trees  and  the  ponds,  croaking and
flitting among the shadows. The incenses  and perfumes which filled  the air
were thick and cloying. Dark smokes coiled like serpents along the ground.
     There had been three attempts upon  his life. The captain of the palace
guard had been the last to try. But his blade had turned to a reptile in his
hand and struck at his face, taking out  his eyes and filling his veins with
a venom that had caused him to darken and swell,  to die  crying for a drink
of water.
     Siddhartha  considered  the ways of  the demon,  and  in that moment he
struck.
     His power had grown again, slowly, since that day in Hellwell when last
he  had wielded it.  Oddly independent of the brain of his body, as Yama had
once told  him, the power turned like a slow pinwheel at  the center  of the
space that was himself.
     It spun again faster, and he hurled it against the force of the other.
     A  cry escaped Taraka,  and a counterthrust of pure energy came back at
Siddhartha like a spear.
     Partly, he managed to deflect it, to absorb some of  its  force. Still,
there  was pain and turmoil  within him as the brunt of the  attack  touched
upon his being.
     He did not pause to consider  the pain, but struck again, as a spearman
strikes into the darkened burrow of a fearsome beast.
     Again, he heard his lips cry out.
     Then the demon was building black walls against his power.
     But one by one, these walls fell before his onslaught.
     And as they fought, they spoke:
     "Oh  man  of many bodies," said  Taraka,  "why do you begrudge me a few
days within this  one? It is not the body  you were born into, and you, too,
do but borrow it for a time. Why then, do you feel my touch to be a thing of
defilement? One day  you may wear another  body,  untouched by me. So why do
you consider my presence a pollution, a disease? Is it because there is that
within you which is like unto myself?  Is it because  you, too, know delight
in the ways of  the Rakasha, tasting the  pain  you cause  like  a pleasure,
working your will as you choose upon whatsoever you choose? Is it because of
this?  Because you,  too, know and desire  these  things, but also bear that
human curse called guilt? If it is, I mock you in your weakness, Binder. And
I shall prevail against you."
     "It is  because I  am what  I am, demon,"  said Siddhartha, hurling his
energies back  at him. "It is because I am a man who occasionally aspires to
things  beyond the  belly  and  the  phallus. I  am not not  the  saint  the
Buddhists think me to be, and I am not the hero out  of legend. I  am a  man
who knows much fear, and who occasionally  feels guilt. Mainly, though, I am
a  man who has set out to do a thing, and you are now blocking my  way. Thus
you inherit my  curse-- whether  I  win or whether I lose now,  Taraka, your
destiny has already been altered. This is the curse of the Buddha-- you will
never again be the same as once you were."
     And all that  day they stood upon the  balcony, garments  drenched with
perspiration. Like a statue they stood, until the sun  had  gone down out of
the sky and  the golden  trail  divided the dark bowl of  the night. A  moon
leapt up above the garden wall. Later, another joined it.
     "What is the curse  of the Buddha?"  Taraka  inquired,  over  and  over
again. But Siddhartha did not reply.
     He had beaten down the final  wall, and they fenced  now  with energies
like flights of blazing arrows.
     From  a Temple in the distance there came  the monotonous beating of  a
drum, and  occasionally a garden creature  croaked,  a  bird  cried out or a
swarm of insects settled upon them, fed, and swirled away.
     Then, like a shower of stars, they came, riding upon the night wind . .
. the  Freed of Hellwell, the  other  demons  who had  been loosed upon  the
world.
     They came in answer to  Taraka's summons,  adding  their powers  to his
own.
     He became as a whirlwind, a tidal wave, a storm of lightnings.
     Siddhartha  felt  himself swept over by a titanic  avalanche,  crushed,
smothered, buried.
     The last thing he knew was the laughter within his throat.

     How  long it was before  he recovered, he did not know. It  was a  slow
thing this time, and it was in a palace where demons walked as servants that
he woke up.
     When the last anesthetic  bonds of  mental fatigue fell away, there was
strangeness about him. The  grotesque revelries continued. Parties were held
in  the dungeons, where the  demons would animate  corpses to  pursue  their
victims and  embrace  them. Dark miracles were wrought, such as the grove of
twisted trees which sprang from the marble flags of the throne room itself--
a grove wherein  men  slept  without awakening, crying out as old nightmares
gave way to new. But a different strangeness had entered the palace.
     Taraka was no longer pleased.
     "What  is the curse  of  the  Buddha?"  he  inquired again, as  he felt
Siddhartha's presence pressing once more upon his own.
     Siddhartha did not reply at once.
     The  other continued, "I feel that I will  give you back your body  one
day  soon. I grow tired of this sport, of this palace. I grow  tired, and  I
think perhaps the day draws near when we should make war with  Heaven.  What
say you to this. Binder? I told you I would keep my word."
     Siddhartha did not answer him.
     "My pleasures diminish by the day! Do you know why this is, Siddhartha?
Can  you  tell me  why strange feelings  now  come  over  me,  dampening  my
strongest moments, weakening me and casting me down when I should be elated,
when I should be filled with joy? Is <i>this</i> the curse of the Buddha?"
     "Yes," said Siddhartha.
     "Then lift your  curse, Binder, and I will depart this very day. I will
give you back this cloak of flesh. I long again for the cold, clean winds of
the heights! Will you free me now?"
     "It is  too late, oh chief of the Rakasha. You have brought  this thing
upon yourself."
     "What thing? How have you bound me this time?"
     "Do you recall how, when we strove upon the balcony, you mocked me? You
told me that I, too,  took pleasure  in the ways of the pain which you work.
You were correct, for all men  have  within them both that which is dark and
that which  is light.  A man is a thing of many divisions, not a pure, clear
flame such as you once were. His intellect often wars with his emotions, his
will with his desires . . . his ideals are at odds with his environment, and
if he follows them, he knows keenly the  loss of that which was old-- but if
he does not  follow  them,  he  feels the pain of  having forsaken a new and
noble dream. Whatever he does represents both a  gain and a loss, an arrival
and a departure. Always he mourns that which is gone and  fears some part of
that   which  is  new.  Reason  opposes   tradition.   Emotions  oppose  the
restrictions his fellow men lay upon him. Always, from the friction of these
things,  there  arises the thing  you  called the curse of man  and mocked--
guilt!
     "Know then, that as we existed together in the same  body and I partook
of your ways, not always unwillingly, the road we followed  was not one upon
which all the traffic moved in a single direction. As you twisted my will to
your workings, so was your will twisted, in turn, by my revulsion at some of
your deeds. You have learned the thing called guilt, and it will  ever  fall
as a shadow  across your meat and your drink. This is why your pleasure  has
been broken. This is why you seek now to flee. But it will do you  no  good.
It will follow you across the world. It will rise with  you into  the realms
of  the cold, clean winds. It will pursue you  wherever you  go. This is the
curse of the Buddha."
     Taraka covered his face with his hands. "So this is what it is  like to
weep," he said, after a time.
     Siddhartha did not reply.
     "Curse  you, Siddhartha," he said. "You have bound me again, to an even
more terrible prison than Hellwell."
     "You have bound yourself. It is you who broke our pact. I kept it."
     "Men suffer  when they break pacts  with demons," said Taraka,  "but no
Rakasha has ever suffered so before."
     Siddhartha did not reply.

     On the following morning, as he sat to breakfast,  there came a banging
upon the door of his chambers.
     "Who dares?"  he cried  out,  and  the  door  burst  inward, its hinges
tearing free of the wall, its bar snapping like a dry stick.
     The head of  a horned tiger  upon the shoulders of an ape, great hooves
for feet, talons for hands,  the Rakasha fell forward into  the  room, smoke
emerging from his mouth as he became transparent for a moment,  returned  to
full visibility, faded once more, returned again.  His talons  were dripping
something  that was not blood and a wide burn lay across  his chest. The air
was filled with the odor of singed hair and charred flesh.
     "Master!" it cried. "A stranger has come, asking audience of thee!"
     "And you did not succeed in convincing him that I was not available?"
     "Lord, a score of human guardsmen fell upon him, and he gestured. . . .
He waved his hand at  them, and there was a  flash of light  so  bright that
even the Rakasha might not look upon it. For an instant only it lasted-- and
they were all of them vanished, as if they had  never  existed. . . .  There
was also a large hole  in the wall behind where they had stood.  . . . There
was no rubble. Only a smooth, clean hole."
     "And then you fell upon him?"
     "Many of the Rakasha sprang for him-- but there is that about him which
repels us. He gestured again and three  of our own  kind were gone, vanished
in  the light he hurls. . . . I did  not take the full force of  it, but was
only grazed by his power. He sent me, therefore, to deliver his message. . .
. I can no longer hold myself together-- "
     With that he vanished, and a globe of fire hung  where the creature had
lain.  Now his words came into the mind, rather than being spoken across the
air.
     "He  bids you come to him without delay. Else, he says  he will destroy
this palace."
     "Did the three whom he burnt also take on again their own forms?"
     "No," replied the Rakasha. "They are no more . . ."
     "Describe this stranger!" ordered Siddhartha, forcing the words through
his own lips.
     "He stands very tall," said the demon, "and he wears black breeches and
boots.  Above  the waist  he  has on him  a  strange  garment. It is like  a
seamless white glove, upon his right hand only, which extends all the way up
his arm and across  his  shoulders, wrapping his neck  and rising  tight and
smooth  about his  entire  head. Only the lower part of his face is visible,
for  he  wears over his eyes  large black lenses  which extend  half a  span
outward from his face. At his belt he wears a short sheath of the same white
material as  the garment-- not  containing a dagger,  however,  but  a wand.
Beneath the material  of his  garment,  where it  crosses his  shoulders and
comes up upon his neck, there is a hump, as if he wears there a small pack."
     "Lord Agni!" said Siddhartha. "You have described the God of Fire!"
     "Aye,  this  must  be,"  said the Rakasha. "For as I looked beyond  his
flesh, to see the colors  of his true being, I saw there  a blaze like  unto
the heart of the sun. If there be a God of Fire, then this indeed is he."
     "Now must we flee," said Siddhartha, "for there is about to be a  great
burning. We cannot fight with this one, so let us go quickly."
     "I do not fear  the gods," said  Taraka, "and I should like to try  the
power of this one."
     "You cannot  prevail against the Lord of  Flame," said Siddhartha. "His
fire wand is invincible. It was given him by the deathgod."
     "Then I shall wrest it from him and turn it against him."
     "None  may  wield  it  without being  blinded and losing a hand in  the
process! This is  why he  wears that  strange garment. Let us  waste no more
time here!"
     "I must see for myself," said Taraka. "I must."
     "Do  not  let  your  new  found guilt  force  you  into  flirting  with
self-destruction."
     "Guilt?" said Taraka. "That puny, gnawing mind-rat of  which you taught
me? No, it is not guilt, Binder. It is that,  where once I was supreme, save
for yourself,  new powers have arisen in the world. The gods  were not  this
strong  in the old days, and  if they have indeed grown  in power, then that
power must  be tested-- by myself! It is  of my  nature, which is  power, to
fight every  new power  which arises,  and  to either triumph over it or  be
bound by it. I must test the strength of Lord Agni, to win over him."
     "But we are two within this body!"
     "That is true. .  .. If this  body be  destroyed, then will I  bear you
away with me,  I promise. Already have I strengthened your  flames after the
manner of my own land. If  this body  dies, you will continue  to live  as a
Rakasha.  Our  people  once  wore  bodies, too, and  I  remember the art  of
strengthening the flames so that they may burn independent of the body. This
has been done for you, so do not fear."
     "Thanks a lot."
     "Now let us confront the flame, and dampen it!"
     They  left the  royal  chambers  and descended the  stair.  Far  below,
prisoner in his own dungeon. Prince Videgha whimpered in his sleep.

     They emerged from the door that  lay behind the hangings at the back of
the throne.  When they pushed aside these hangings, they  saw that the great
hall was empty, save for the sleepers  within the dark grove and the one who
stood in the  middle of the floor, white arm  folded over bare arm, a silver
wand caught between the fingers of his gloved hand.
     "See  how he  stands?" said Siddhartha. "He is  confident of his power,
and  justly  so. He  is Agni of the Lokapalas.  He  can see  to the farthest
unobstructed horizon, as though it lies at his fingertips. And  he can reach
that far. He is said one night to have scored the moons themselves with that
wand.  If  he  but touch  its base  against a  contact within his glove, the
Universal Fire  will leap  forward with a  blinding brilliance, obliterating
matter  and dispersing energies which lie in its  path. It is still not  too
late to withdraw-- "
     "Agni!" he heard his mouth  cry out. "You have requested audience  with
the one who rules here?"
     The  black lenses turned toward him. Agni's  lips curled back to vanish
into a smile which dissolved into words:
     "I  thought  I'd   find  you  here,"  he  said,  his  voice  nasal  and
penetrating. "All that holiness got to be too much and you had to cut loose,
eh? Shall  I  call you Siddhartha,  or Tathagatha, or Mahasamatman-- or just
plain Sam?"
     "You  fool," he replied. "The one who was known to you as the Binder of
Demons-- by all or any of those  names-- is bound now himself. You  have the
privilege of addressing Taraka of the Rakasha, Lord of Hellwell!"
     There was a click, and the lenses became red.
     "Yes, I  perceive  the truth  of what  you say," answered the other. "I
look  upon  a case of  demonic possession.  Interesting.  Doubtless cramped,
also."  He shrugged, and  then added, "But I can  destroy two  as readily as
one."
     "Think you so?" inquired Taraka, raising both arms before him.
     As he did, there was a rumbling and the black wood spread in an instant
across  the floor, engulfing  the  one who stood  there,  its dark  branches
writhing  about him. The rumbling  continued,  and the  floor  moved several
inches  beneath  their feet. From overhead,  there came  a  creaking and the
sound of snapping stone. Dust and gravel began to fall.
     Then  there was  a  blinding flash  of  light  and the trees were gone,
leaving short stumps and blackened smudges upon the floor.
     With a groan and a mighty crash, the ceiling fell.
     As they stepped back through the  door that lay behind the throne, they
saw the figure, which still stood in the  center of the hall, raise his wand
directly above his head and move it in a tiny circle.
     A cone  of brilliance shot upward, dissolving everything it  touched. A
smile still lay  upon  Agni's lips  as  the  great stones rained  down, none
falling anywhere near him.
     The rumbling continued, and  the floor cracked  and the  walls began to
sway.
     They slammed the door and Sam felt a rushing  giddiness as  the window,
which  a moment before had lain at the far end of the corridor, flashed past
him.
     They coursed  upward  and outward through  the heavens, and a tingling,
bubbling feeling  filled  his  body,  as though he  were a  being of  liquid
through whom an electrical current was passing.
     Looking back, with the sight of the demon who saw in all directions, he
beheld  Palamaidsu, already  so distant  that  it could have been framed and
hung  upon the wall as a painting.  On  the high  hill at the  center of the
town, the palace of Videgha was falling in upon itself, and great streaks of
brilliance, like reversed  lightning bolts, were leaping from  the ruin into
the heavens.
     "That is your  answer, Taraka," he  said. "Shall we go back and try his
power again?"
     "I had to find out," said the demon.
     "Now let me warn you  further.  I did not jest  when I said that he can
see  to  the farthest  horizon. If  he should free himself soon and turn his
glance  in  this direction, he will detect  us. I  do not think you can move
faster than  light, so  I suggest you fly  lower and utilize the terrain for
cover."
     "I have rendered us invisible, Sam."
     "The  eyes of Agni can see  deeper into the  red  and farther  into the
violet ranges than can those of a man."
     They  lost altitude then, rapidly. Before Palamaidsu,  however, Sam saw
that the only evidence  which remained of  the palace of Videgha was a cloud
of dust upon a gray hillside.

     Moving like a whirlwind, they  sped far  into the north,  until at last
the  Ratnagaris  lay beneath  them.  When they  came to  the mountain called
Channa, they drifted down past its peak and came to a landing upon the ledge
before the opened entrance to Hellwell.
     They stepped within and closed the door.
     "Pursuit  will  follow," said  Sam,  "and even  Hellwell will not stand
against it."
     "How confident they are  of  their  power," said  Taraka, "to send only
one!"
     "Do you feel that confidence to be unwarranted?"
     "No,"  said Taraka. "But what of the One in Red  of whom you spoke, who
drinks  life with  his eyes? Did  you not think they would  send  Lord Yama,
rather than Agni?"
     "Yes," said Sam, as they moved back toward the  well, "I  was sure that
he would follow,  and I still feel that  he will.  When last  I  saw him,  I
caused him some  distress. I  feel he would hunt me anywhere. Who knows,  he
may even now be lying in ambush at the bottom of Hellwell itself."
     They came to the lip of the well and entered upon the trail.
     "He  does not  wait within,"  Taraka  announced. "I  would even now  be
contacted by those who wait, bound, if any  but  the Rakasha had passed this
way."
     "He will  come," said Sam, "and when  the Red One comes to Hellwell, he
will not be stayed in his course."
     "But many will try," said Taraka. "There is the first."
     The first flame came into view, in its niche beside the trail.
     As they passed  by, Sam freed  it,  and it sprang into  the air  like a
bright bird and spiraled down the well.
     Step by step they descended, and from each niche fire spilled forth and
flowed outward. At Taraka's bidding, some rose and vanished over the edge of
the well, departing through the mighty door which bore the words of the gods
upon its outer face.
     When they  reached the  bottom of the well,  Taraka said, "Let  us free
those who lie locked in the caverns, also."
     So  they made their way  through the passages and deep caverns, freeing
the demons locked therein.
     Then, after a time-- how much  time, he could never tell-- they had all
been freed.
     The  Rakasha  assembled  then  about  the  cavern,  standing  in  great
phalanxes of  flame,  and  their cries  all came  together into one  steady,
ringing note  which rolled and  rolled  and beat  within his head, until  he
realized, startled at the thought, that they were singing.
     "Yes,"  said Taraka, "it  is the first time in ages that they have done
so."
     Sam listened to the vibrations within his skull,  catching something of
the meaning behind the hiss  and the blaze, the feelings that accompanied it
falling into words and stresses that were more familiar to his own mind:

     <i>We are the legions of Hellwell, damned,</i>
     <i>The banished ones of fallen flame.</i>
     <i>We are the race undone by man.</i>
     <i>So man we curse. Forget his name!</i>

     <i>This world was ours before the gods,</i>
     <i>In days before the race of men.</i>
     <i>And when the men and gods have gone,</i>
     <i>This world will then be ours again.</i>

     <i>The mountains fall, the seas dry out,</i>
     <i>The moons shall vanish from the sky.</i>
     <i>The Bridge of Gold will one day fall,</i>
     <i>And all that breathes must one day die.</i>

     <i>But we of Hellwell shall prevail,</i>
     <i>When fail the gods, when fail the men.</i>
     <i>The legions of the damned die not.</i>
     <i>We wait, we wait, to rise again!</i>

     Sam shuddered  as  they  sang  on  and  on, recounting  their  vanished
glories, confident of their ability to outlast any circumstance, to meet any
force with the cosmic  judo of  a  push and a tug and a long  wait, watching
anything  of which they disapproved turn its  strength upon itself and pass.
Almost, in that moment, he believed that what  they sang was truth, and that
one  day there  would be  none but  the  Rakasha, flitting  above the peeked
landscape of a dead world.
     Then he turned his mind to other matters  and forced the mood from him.
But in the days  that followed, and even,  on occasion,  years afterward, it
returned to plague  his efforts and mock  his joys, to make him wonder, know
guilt, feel sadness and so be humbled.

     After  a time, one of  the Rakasha who  had left earlier re-entered and
descended the well. He hovered in the air and reported what he  had seen. As
he spoke, his fires flowed into the shape of a tau cross.
     "This is  the form of that chariot," he said, "which blazed through the
sky and then fell, coming to rest in the valley beyond Southpeak."
     "Binder, do you know this vessel?" asked Taraka.
     "I  have  heard  it  described before,"  said Sam. "It is  the  thunder
chariot of Lord Shiva.
     "Describe its occupant," he said to the demon.
     "There were four. Lord."
     "Four?"
     "Yes.  There is the one you have described as Agni, Lord of the  Fires.
With him is one  who wears  the horns of  a bull set upon a burnished helm--
his armor shows like aged  bronze, but it is not  bronze; it is worked about
with the  forms of  many serpents,  and it does not seem to burden him as he
moves.  In his one hand he holds a gleaming trident, and  he bears no shield
before his body."
     "This one is Shiva," said Sam.
     "And walking with these two there comes  one all in red,  whose gaze is
dark. This one  does not speak, but occasionally his glances fall  upon  the
woman  who walks  by  his  side, to his  left.  She  is  fair  of  hair  and
complexion,  and her armor  matches his red. Her eyes  are like the sea, and
she smiles  often with  lips the color of the blood of men. About her throat
she wears  a  necklace of skulls.  She bears a  bow, and upon  her belt is a
short  sword.  She holds in  her  hands  a strange  instrument, like a black
scepter ending in a silver skull that is also a wheel."
     "These two be Yama and Kali," said Sam. "Now hear me, Taraka, mightiest
of the Rakasha,  while I  tell you what moves against us. The  power of Agni
you know full well, and of  the One in Red have  I already  spoken. Now, she
who walks at the left hand of Death bears also the gaze that drinks the life
it beholds. Her scepter-wheel screams like the trumpets that  signalize  the
ending  of  the Yuga,  and all who come before its wailing are cast down and
confused. She  is  as much to  be  feared as her Lord, who is  ruthless  and
invincible. But the one with the trident is the Lord of Destruction himself.
It is true that Yama is  King of the Dead and  Agni Lord  of the Flames, but
the power of Shiva is  the power of chaos. His is the force which  separates
atom from atom, breaking  down the forms of all  things upon  which he turns
it.  Against these four, the freed might  of  Hellwell itself  cannot stand.
Therefore, let us depart this place immediately, for they are most assuredly
coming here."
     "Did I not promise you, Binder," said Taraka, "that I would help you to
fight the gods?"
     "Yes, but that of which I spoke was to be a surprise attack. These have
taken  upon  themselves  their  Aspects  now,  and  have  raised   up  their
Attributes.  Had they  chosen,  without even  landing the  thunder  chariot,
Channa would no longer exist, but in the place of this mountain there  would
be  a  deep crater, here  in the midst  of the Ratnagaris. We  must flee, to
fight them another day."
     "Do  you remember  the curse  of  the  Buddha?" asked Taraka.  "Do  you
remember  how you  taught me of  guilt, Siddhartha? I remember, and I feel I
owe you this  victory. I owe  you something for  your pains, and I will give
these gods into your hands in payment."
     "No! If  you  would serve me  at all,  do it at another time than this!
Serve me now by bearing me away from this place, far and fast!"
     "Are you afraid of this encounter. Lord Siddhartha?"
     "Yes,  yes I am!  For it is foolhardy! What of your song-- 'We wait, we
wait,  to rise again!'? Where  is the patience  of the  Rakasha? You say you
will wait for the  seas to dry and the mountains  to  fall, for the moons to
vanish from the  sky-- but you cannot  wait for me to  name the time and the
battlefield! I know them far better than you, these gods, for once I was one
of them. Do  not do this rash thing now. If you would serve me, save me from
this meeting!"
     "Very  well. I hear you,  Siddhartha. Your words  move  me,  Sam. But I
would try their strength. So I shall send some of the Rakasha  against them.
But  we shall journey far, you  and I, far down to the roots  of  the world.
There we will await  the report of victory.  If, somehow, the Rakasha should
lose the encounter, then will I bear  you far away from here and restore  to
you  your  body.  I would wear it a few hours  more,  however, to savor your
passions in this fighting."
     Sam bowed his head.
     "Amen,"  he  said, and  with a tingling,  bubbling  sensation, he  felt
himself  lifted from the  floor and borne along vast cavernways uncharted by
men.

     As they sped  from chamber to  vaulted chamber, down tunnels and chasms
and wells, through labyrinths and grottoes and corridors  of stone, Sam  set
his  mind adrift, to  move down the ways of memory and back. He thought upon
the days of his recent ministry,  when he had sought to graft the  teachings
of Gotama upon the stock of  the religion by which the  world was  ruled, He
thought upon the strange one, Sugata,  whose hands had  held  both death and
benediction. Over the years, their names would  merge and their deeds  would
be mingled. He had  lived too long not to know how  time stirred the pots of
legend. There had been a real Buddha, he  knew that now. The teaching he had
offered, no matter how spuriously,  had  attracted this true  believer, this
one  who  had  somehow achieved enlightenment,  marked men's  minds with his
sainthood,  and  then  gone  willingly  into  the hands  of  Death  himself.
Tathagatha  and  Sugata  would  be  part of a single legend,  he  knew,  and
Tathagatha  would shine in  the light shed  by  his  disciple.  Only the one
Dhamma would  survive. Then  his mind went back to the battle at the Hall of
Karma, and to the machinery  still cached in a secret place.  And he thought
then  upon the countless transfers he had undergone before that time, of the
battles he had fought, of the women he had loved across the ages; he thought
upon  what a world  could be and what this world  was,  and why. Then he was
taken again  with his rage against the gods. He thought upon the days when a
handful of them had fought the Rakasha and the Nagas, the Gandharvas and the
People-of-the-Sea,  the  Kataputna demons  and the Mothers of  the  Terrible
Glow, the Dakshinis  and the  Pretas,  the Skandas and  the Pisakas, and had
won, tearing a world loose from chaos and building its first city of men. He
had seen  that city pass through all the  stages through  which  a city  can
pass, until now  it was inhabited by those who  could spin their minds for a
moment and transform  themselves into gods, taking upon them an Aspect  that
strengthened their bodies and intensified their wills and extended the power
of  their desires into Attributes, which fell with  a force  like magic upon
those against whom they turned  them.  He thought  upon  this city and these
gods,  and he knew of  its beauty and  its tightness,  its ugliness and  its
wrongness. He  thought of its splendor and its color, in contrast to that of
the rest of the  world, and he wept as he raged, for he  knew  that he could
never  feel either wholly right or wholly wrong in opposing it. This was why
he  had  waited as long as he had, doing nothing. Now, whatever he did would
result in both  victory and defeat, a success and a failure; and whether the
outcome of  all his actions  would be the passing or the  continuance of the
dream of the city, the burden of the guilt would be his.

     They waited in darkness.
     For  a  long, silent while  they waited. Time  passed  like an old  man
climbing a hill. They stood upon a ledge above a black pool, and waited.
     "Should we not have heard by now?"
     "Perhaps. Perhaps not."
     "What shall we do?"
     "What do you mean?"
     "If they do not come at all. How long shall we wait here?"
     "They will come, singing."
     "I hope so."
     B