Lord of Light

by Roger Zelazny

  The Buddha raised the crimson strangling cord, which was a thing borne only by the holy executioners of the goddess Kali. He fingered its silken length, and it passed like a serpent through his hand, clinging slightly. He did not doubt but that it was intended to move in such a manner about his throat. Almost unconsciously, he held it and twisted his hands through the necessary movements.

  Then he looked up at the wide-eyed monk who had watched him, smiled his imperturbable smile and laid the cord aside. With a damp cloth, the monk wiped the perspiration from the pale brow.

  The man on the sleeping mat shuddered at the contact, and his eyes snapped open. The madness of the fever was in them and they did not truly see, but Tathagatha felt a sudden jolt at their contact.

  Dark, so dark they were almost jet, and it was impossible to tell where the pupil ended and the iris began. There was something extremely unsettling about eyes of such power in a body so frail and effete.

  He reached out and stroked the man's hands, and it was like touching steel, cold and impervious. He drew his fingernail sharply across the back of the right hand. No scratch or indentation marked its passage, and his nail fairly slid, as though across a pane of glass. He squeezed the man's thumbnail and released it. There was no sudden change of color. It was as though these hands were dead or mechanical things.

  He continued his examination. The phenomenon ended somewhat above the wrists, occurred again in other places. His hands, breast, abdomen, neck and portions of his back had soaked within the death bath, which gave this special unyielding power. Total immersion would, of course, have proved fatal; but as it was, the man had traded some of his tactile sensitivity for the equivalent of invisible gauntlets, breastplate, neckpiece and back armor of steel. He was indeed one of the select assassins of the terrible goddess.

  "Who else knows of this man?" asked the Buddha.

  "The monk Simha," replied the other, "who helped me bear him here."

  "Did he see"—Tathagatha gestured with his eyes toward the crimson cord—that?" he inquired.

  The monk nodded.

  "Then go fetch him. Bring him to me at once. Do not mention anything of this to anyone, other than that a pilgrim was taken ill and we are tending him here. I will personally take over his care and minister to his illness."

  "Yes, Illustrious One."

  The monk hurried forth from the pavilion.

  Tathagatha seated himself beside the sleeping mat and waited.

  It was two days before the fever broke and intelligence returned to those dark eyes. But during those two days, anyone who passed by the pavilion might have heard the voice of the Enlightened One droning on and on, as though he addressed his sleeping charge. Occasionally, the man himself mumbled and spoke loudly, as those in a fever often do.

  On the second day, the man opened his eyes suddenly and stared upward. Then he frowned and turned his bead.

  "Good morning, Rild," said Tathagatha.

  "You are . . . ?" asked the other, in an unexpected baritone.

  "One who teaches the way of liberation," he replied.

  "The Buddha?"

  "I have been called such."

  "Tathagatha?"

  "This name, too, have I been given."

  The other attempted to rise, failed, settled back. His eyes never left the placid countenance. "How is it that you know my name?" he finally asked.

  "In your fever you spoke considerably."

  "Yes, I was very sick, and doubtless babbling. It was in that cursed swamp that I took the chill."

  Tathagatha smiled. "One of the disadvantages of traveling alone is that when you fall there is none to assist you."

  "True," acknowledged the other, and his eyes closed once more and his breathing deepened.

  Tathagatha remained in the lotus posture, waiting.

  When Rild awakened again, it was evening. "Thirsty," he said.

  Tathagatha gave him water. "Hungry?" he asked.

  "No, not yet. My stomach would rebel."

  He raised himself up onto his elbows and stared at his attendant. Then he sank back upon the mat. "You are the one," he announced.

  "Yes," replied the other.

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Feed you, when you say you are hungry."

  "I mean, after that."

  "Watch as you sleep, lest you lapse again into the fever."

  "That is not what I meant."

  "I know."

  "After I have eaten and rested and recovered my strength—what then?"

  Tathagatha smiled as he drew the silken cord from somewhere beneath his robe. "Nothing," he replied, "nothing at all," and he draped the cord across Rild's shoulder and withdrew his hand.

  The other shook his head and leaned back. He reached up and fingered the length of crimson. He twined it about his fingers and then about his wrist. He stroked it.

  "It is holy," he said, after a time.

  "So it would seem."

  "You know its use, and its purpose?"

  "Of course."

  "Why then will you do nothing at all?"

  "I have no need to move or to act. All things come to me. If anything is to be done, it is you who will do it."

  "I do not understand."

  "I know that, too."

  The man stared into the shadows overhead. "I will attempt to eat now," he announced.

  Tathagatha gave him broth and bread, which he managed to keep down. Then he drank more water, and when he had finished he was breathing heavily.

  "You have offended Heaven," he stated.

  "Of that, I am aware."

  "And you have detracted from the glory of a goddess, whose supremacy here has always been undisputed."

  "I know."

  "But I owe you my life, and I have eaten your bread."

  There was no reply.

  "Because of this, I must break a most holy vow," finished Rild. "I cannot kill you, Tathagatha."

  "Then I owe my life to the fact that you owe me yours. Let us consider the life-owing balanced."

  Rild uttered a short chuckle. "So be it," he said.

  "What will you do, now that you have abandoned your mission?"

  "I do not know. My sin is too great to permit me to return. Now I, too, have offended against Heaven, and the goddess will turn away her face from my prayers. I have failed her."

  "Such being the case, remain here. You will at least have company in damnation."

  "Very well," agreed Rild. "There is nothing else left to me."

  He slept once again, and the Buddha smiled.

  In the days that followed, as the festival wore on, the Enlightened One preached to the crowds who passed through the purple grove. He spoke of the unity of all things, great and small, of the law of cause, of becoming and dying, of the illusion of the world, of the spark of the atman, of the way of salvation through renunciation of the self and union with the whole; he spoke of realization and enlightenment, of the meaninglessness of the Brahmins' rituals, comparing their forms to vessels empty of content. Many listened, a few heard and some remained in the purple grove to take up the saffron robe of the seeker.

  And each time he taught, the man Rild sat nearby, wearing his black garments and leather harness, his strange dark eyes ever upon the Enlightened One.

  Two weeks after his recovery, Rild came upon the teacher as he walked through the grove in meditation. He fell into step beside him, and after a time he spoke.

  "Enlightened One, I have listened to your teachings, and I have listened well. Much have I thought upon your words."

  The other nodded.

  "I have always been a religious man," he stated, "or I would not have been selected for the post I once occupied. After it became impossible for me to fulfill my mission, I felt a great emptiness. I had failed my goddess, and life was without meaning for me."

  The other listened, silently.

  "But I have heard your words," he said, "and they have filled me with a kind of joy. They have shown me a
nother way to salvation, a way which I feel to be superior to the one I previously followed."

  The Buddha studied his face as he spoke.

  "Your way of renunciation is a strict one, which I feel to be good. It suits my needs. Therefore, I request permission to be taken into your community of seekers, and to follow your path."

  "Are you certain," asked the Enlightened One, "that you do not seek merely to punish yourself for what has been weighing upon your conscience as a failure, or a sin?"

  "Of that I am certain," said Rild. "I have held your words within me and felt the truth which they contain. In the service of the goddess have I slain more men than purple fronds upon yonder bough. I am not even counting women and children. So I am not easily taken in by words, having heard too many, voiced in all tones of speech—words pleading, arguing, cursing. But your words move me, and they are superior to the teachings of the Brahmins. Gladly would I become your executioner, dispatching for you your enemies with a saffron cord—or with a blade, or pike, or with my hands, for I am proficient with all weapons, having spent three lifetimes learning their use—but I know that such is not your way. Death and life are as one to you, and you do not seek the destruction of your enemies. So I request entrance to your Order. For me, it is not so difficult a thing as it would be for another. One must renounce home and family, origin and property. I lack these things. One must renounce one's own will, which I have already done. All I need now is the yellow robe."

  "It is yours," said Tathagatha, "with my blessing."

  Rild donned the robe of a buddhist monk and took to fasting and meditating. After a week, when the festival was near to its close, he departed into the town with his begging bowl, in the company of the other monks. He did not return with them, however. The day wore on into evening, the evening into darkness. The horns of the Temple had already sounded the last notes of the nagaswaram, and many of the travelers had since departed the festival.

  For a long while, the Enlightened One walked the woods, meditating. Then he, too, vanished.

  Down from the grove, with the marshes at its back, toward the town of Alundil, above which lurked the hills of rock and around which lay the blue-green fields, into the town of Alundil, still astir with travelers, many of them at the height of their revelry, up the streets of Alundil toward the hill with its Temple, walked the Buddha.

  He entered the first courtyard, and it was quiet there. The dogs and children and beggars had gone away. The priests slept. One drowsing attendant sat behind a bench at the bazaar. Many of the shrines were now empty, the statues having been borne within. Before several of the others, worshipers knelt in late prayer.

  He entered the inner courtyard. An ascetic was seated on a prayer mat before the statue of Ganesha. He, too, seemed to qualify as a statue, making no visible movements. Four oil lamps flickered about the yard, their dancing light serving primarily to accentuate the shadows that lay upon most of the shrines. Small votive lights cast a faint illumination upon some of the statues.

  Tathagatha crossed the yard and stood facing the towering figure of Kali, at whose feet a tiny lamp blinked. Her smile seemed a plastic and moving thing, as she regarded the man before her.

  Draped across her outstretched hand, looped once about the point of her dagger, lay a crimson strangling cord.

  Tathagatha smiled back at her, and she seemed almost to frown at that moment.

  "It is a resignation, my dear," he stated. "You have lost this round."

  She seemed to nod in agreement.

  "I am pleased to have achieved such a height of recognition in so short a period of time," he continued. "But even if you had succeeded, old girl, it would have done you little good. It is too late now. I have started something which you cannot undo. Too many have heard the ancient words. You had thought they were lost, and so did I. But we were both wrong. The religion by which you rule is very ancient, goddess, but my protest is also that of a venerable tradition. So call me a protestant, and remember—now I am more than a man. Good night."

  He left the Temple and the shrine of Kali, where the eyes of Yama had been fixed upon his back.

  It was many months before the miracle occurred, and when it did, it did not seem a miracle, for it had grown up slowly about them.

  Rild, who had come out of the north as the winds of spring blew across the land, wearing death upon his arm and the black fire within his eyes—Rild, of the white brows and pointed ears—spoke one afternoon, after the spring had passed, when the long days of summer hung warm beneath the Bridge of the Gods. He spoke, in that unexpected baritone, to answer a question asked him by a traveler.

  The man asked him a second question, and then a third.

  He continued to speak, and some of the other monks and several pilgrims gathered about him. The answers following the questions, which now came from all of them, grew longer and longer, for they became parables, examples, allegories.

  Then they were seated at his feet, and his dark eyes became strange pools, and his voice came down as from Heaven, clear and soft, melodic and persuasive.

  They listened, and then the travelers went their way. But they met and spoke with other travelers upon the road, so that, before the summer had passed, pilgrims coming to the purple grove were asking to meet this disciple of the Buddha's, and to hear his words also.

  Tathagatha shared the preaching with him. Together, they taught of the Way of the Eightfold Path, the glory of Nirvana, the illusion of the world and the chains that the world lays upon a man.

  And then there were times when even the soft-spoken Tathagatha listened to the words of his disciple, who had digested all of the things he had preached, had meditated long and fully upon them and now, as though he had found entrance to a secret sea, dipped with his steel-hard hand into places of hidden waters, and then sprinkled a thing of truth and beauty upon the heads of the hearers.

  Summer passed. There was no doubt now that there were two who had received enlightenment: Tathagatha and his small disciple, whom they called Sugata. It was even said that Sugata was a healer, and that when his eyes shone strangely and the icy touch of his hands came upon a twisted limb, that limb grew straight again. It was said that a blind man's vision had suddenly returned to him during one of Sugata's sermons.

  There were two things in which Sugata believed: the Way of Salvation and Tathagatha, the Buddha.

  "Illustrious One," he said to him one day, "my life was empty until you revealed to me the True Path. When you received your enlightenment, before you began your teaching, was it like a rush of fire and the roaring of water and you everywhere and a part of everything—the clouds and the trees, the animals in the forest, all people, the snow on the mountaintop and the bones in the field?"

  "Yes," said Tathagatha.

  "I, also, know the joy of all things," said Sugata.

  "Yes, I know," said Tathagatha.

  "I see now why once you said that all things come to you. To have brought such a doctrine into the world—I can see why the gods were envious. Poor gods! They are to be pitied. But you know. You know all things."

  Tathagatha did not reply.

  When the winds of spring blew again across the land, the year having gone full cycle since the arrival of the second Buddha, there came one day from out of the heavens a fearful shrieking.

  The citizens of Alundil turned out into their streets to stare up at the sky. The Sudras in the fields put by their work and looked upward. In the great Temple on the hill there was a sudden silence. In the purple grove beyond the town, the monks turned their heads.

  It paced the heavens, the one who was born to rule the wind. . . . From out of the north it came—green and red, yellow and brown. . . . Its glide was a dance, its way was the air. . . .

  There came another shriek, and then the beating of mighty pinions as it climbed past clouds to become a tiny dot of black.

  And then it fell, like a meteor, bursting into flame, all of its colors blazing and burning bright, as it grew
and grew, beyond all belief that anything could live at that size, that pace, that magnificence. . . .

  Half spirit, half bird, legend darkening the sky.

  Mount of Vishnu, whose beak smashes chariots.

  The Garuda Bird circled above Alundil.

  Circled, and passed beyond the hills of rock that stood behind the city.

  "Garuda!" The word ran through the town, the fields, the Temple, the grove.

  If he did not fly alone; it was known that only a god could use the Garuda Bird for a mount.

  There was silence. After those shrieks and that thunder of pinions, voices seemed naturally to drop to a whisper.

  The Enlightened One stood upon the road before the grove, his monks moving about him, facing in the direction of the hills of rock.

  Sugata came to his side and stood there. "It was but a spring ago . . ." he said.

  Tathagatha nodded.

  "Rild failed," said Sugata. "What new thing comes from Heaven?"

  The Buddha shrugged.

  "I fear for you, my teacher," he said. "In all my lifetimes, you have been my only friend. Your teaching has given me peace. Why can they not leave you alone? You are the most harmless of men, and your doctrine the gentlest. What ill could you possibly bear them?"

  The other turned away.

  At that moment, with a mighty beating of the air and a jagged cry from its opened beak, the Garuda Bird rose once more above the hills. This time, it did not circle over the town, but climbed to a great height in the heavens and swept off to the north. Such was the speed of its passing that it was gone in a matter of moments.

  "Its passenger has dismounted and remains behind," suggested Sugata.

  The Buddha walked within the purple grove.

  He came from beyond the hills of stone, walking. He came to a passing place through stone, and he followed this trail, his red leather boots silent on the rocky path.