"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:
We are the legions of Hellwell, damned,
The banished ones of fallen flame.
We are the race undone by man.
So man we curse. Forget his name!
This world was ours before the gods,
In days before the race of men.
And when the men and gods have gone,
This world will then be ours again.
The mountains fall, the seas dry out,
The moons shall vanish from the sky.
The Bridge of Gold will one day fall,
And all that breathes must one day die.
But we of Hellwell shall prevail,
When fail the gods, when fail the men.
The legions of the damned die not.
We wait, we wait, to rise again!
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 o
f 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."
But there came no singing, or movement. About them was the stillness of time that had no objects upon which to wear.
"How long have we waited?"
"I do not know. Long."
"I feel that all is not well."
"You may be right. Shall we rise a few levels and investigate, or shall I bear you to your freedom now?"
"Let us wait awhile longer."
"Very well."
Again, there was silence. They paced within it.
"What was that?"
"What?"
"A sound."
"I heard nothing and we are using the same ears."
"Not with the ears of the body—there it is again!"
&
nbsp; "I heard nothing, Taraka."
"It continues. It is like a scream, but it does not end."
"Far?"
"Yes, quite distant. Listen my way."
"Yes! I believe it is the scepter of Kali. The battle, then, goes on."
"This long? Then the gods are stronger than I had supposed."
"No, the Rakasha are stronger than I had supposed."
"Whether we win or lose, Siddhartha, the gods are presently engaged. If we can get by them, their vessel may be unattended. Do you want it?"
"Steal the thunder chariot? That is a thought. . . . It is a mighty weapon, as well as transportation. What might our chances be?"
"I am certain the Rakasha can hold them for as long as is necessary—and it is a long climb up Hellwell. We need not use the trail ourself. I grow tired, but I can still bear us across the air."
"Let us rise a few levels and investigate."
They left their ledge by the black pool, and time beat again about them as they passed upward.
As they advanced, a globe of light moved to meet them. It settled upon the floor of the cavern and grew into a tree of green fire.
"How goes the battle?" asked Taraka.
"We hold them," it reported, "but we cannot close with them."
"Why not?"
"There is that about them which repels. I do not know how to call it, but we cannot draw too near."
"How then do you fight?"
"A steady storm of rocks rages about them. We hurl fire and water and great spinning winds, also."
"And how do they respond to this?"
"The trident of Shiva cuts a path through everything. But no matter how much he destroys, we raise up more against him. So he stands like a statue, uncreating storms we will not let end. Occasionally, he swerves to kill, while the Lord of Fires holds back the attack. The scepter of the goddess slows those who face upon it. Once slowed, they meet the trident or the hand or the eyes of Death."
Lord of Light Page 16
