Tulku

by Peter Dickinson

  ‘Go to your room, Theodore,’ he whispered. ‘Go to your room and wait.’

  The voice was not human, a rasping sigh coming from a great distance, but it seemed to Theodore as he flinched back that the words were English. Once only in his life, when Theodore had offended, Father had used those exact words; and the voice, through all the distortion of distance, spoke with Father’s exact tone.

  Theodore’s cringeing movement away from the swollen creature became a stagger and collapse as the shock struck him. He picked himself up and scuttled, cowering, until he collided with the back wall of the gallery. There he turned and ran, hunching his shoulders, not daring to look behind him; he twisted through a dark opening, scuttled down a corridor and out on to the gallery of a small courtyard, thronging with folk below him. Two more turns and he was lost. Yesterday he had known almost every winding of this maze, but suddenly all that knowledge was wiped away; his flight became like a journey in a dream, a panic rush through familiar country whose parts no longer fit together. He stopped at the entrance to another dark corridor and stood shaking his head, as though trying to clear the chaos from it, but all the time he heard the rasping whispered words. A monk glided out of the dark and spoke to him in Tibetan.

  ‘My room. My room,’ whispered Theodore.

  He spoke in English, but the monk seemed to guess his need and took him gently by the elbow and guided him like a blind man through the maze until they reached a familiar gallery and a familiar door. At the touch of the latch Theodore’s wits came back to him, enough to make him mutter his thanks to his guide before darting through the door and heaving it shut. He drew a deep breath and turned to face Lung, but the room was empty.

  Perhaps even in his terror Theodore had been unconsciously bracing himself to face his friend’s snarl of fury and rejection, and now, finding there was no need, he let a long sigh shake his body as that strand of tension slid away. The process did not stop, but ran on and on all through the web of fear, and self-pity, and self-distrust, loosing first the tautness of the morning’s nightmare and then ravelling on through ancient knots and cords that had shaped his nature.

  The process was timeless, his whole life, two or three breaths drawn a pace inside the door. There had been a pool in the ravine in which Father baptized his converts. Out of a place like that Theodore stepped into the middle of the room, where he stretched and sighed, as if waking from a dream.

  I am re-born, he thought. He said the words aloud.

  ‘I am re-born.’

  Ideas came to him, fully shaped, not needing to be thought out but already solid in their rightness, things he could hold in his mind and inspect and accept like an object held in the hand. The words which the oracle had spoken had been Father’s, but they had not been spoken in anger. He had been sent back to this place to receive this blessing. The whole prodigious landscape centred on this point, this hidden room. Mountain, forest, meadow, the packed maze of the monastery, the Lama Amchi, Mrs Jones – they were all waiting for a birth, and perhaps it would come. But for Theodore it had happened now and here. If only he had had more faith he would have known it would be so – he too had been given signs, but he had failed to read them, confused by his own fears and longings, and the passions and expectations around him. Only a few days back, when he had given that vehement ‘yes’ to the Major’s question about the gods he had at once felt that it had meant much more than he could grasp; no wonder, since it had been a signal as sudden and strong as the kick Mrs Jones had felt from the child in her womb . . . He remembered the many times in the past weeks when he had been conscious of the hovering presence of the expected soul, the being for whom the peasants and the monks, Lama Amchi and Mrs Jones all waited. Perhaps it had been the weight of their longing which had made him aware of it; but all the time the soul had been his own. The birth had happened here.

  Theodore didn’t for a moment think or hope or fear that he might himself be after all the Tulku of the Siddha Asara. That other birth might or might not happen, with results which those who longed for it might or might not expect. That was something else. But now, here, he was fiercely conscious of himself as Theodore, of the central numbness flooding with life, the broken roof rebuilt and the cold hearth glowing. He had heard Lama Amchi talk of those moments on the path to enlightenment when the soul seems to leave the body and soar free, and of the agony of its return to clogging flesh. Theodore felt the exact opposite. The return was the ecstasy. He was whole, and body and mind and soul sang at their healing.

  He sat on the edge of his cot, staring at a patch of brilliant green and absorbing the greenness of it. There was no need to say prayers – it was better to sit with mind and soul spread out and relaxed, like a bather after a long swim who lies on a smooth rock and lets the sun dry him while its warmth purrs through nerve and muscle. Though he could have sat like that for hours, he felt the nature of his inner peace altering as his energies gathered to meet some as yet unknown need. The green patch stopped being only an embodiment of green and became a scroll-like leaf at the edge of a painting of the sacred lotus; the room took shape in detail so clear that to look at any object was to accept a blast of vision. He found himself staring at a few crumbs and a still-damp tea-stain on Lung’s cot, seeing them in a way that let him experience, without any pain but with total understanding, the depth of Lung’s desolation. Lung’s absence built itself into his vision, an emptiness as strong as if it had been a presence. With a shock of sadness he remembered that Lung needed help far more than he did. At the same moment he was aware of another absence. The hunched outline of the robe, pinned by Lung’s sword to the far wall, was no longer there. The sword had gone too.

  His mind accepted the meaning of this with the same clarity as that with which his eyes were seeing. Lung was wearing the robe and carrying the sword. He had eaten that morning for the first time for three days, and as if it were a duty. He had driven Theodore from the room. Then he had disguised himself as a monk, and now he was walking through the maze of the monastery with his sword hidden beneath his robe. He was going to kill somebody. The Lama Amchi? Mrs Jones? Himself?

  So Theodore must find him. Where? How? Ordinary reason began to work with agonizing slowness, but in his new calm Theodore accepted that there was no point in rushing from the room until he had made some plan. As if to appease his body’s itch for action he rose and crossed the room to inspect the place where the robe had hung, but as he passed Lung’s cot his foot touched something solid, hidden under the tumbled bedclothes; he scuffed them aside and saw the sword, and beside it the little embroidered cap Lung always wore.

  Relief lasted only for an instant. He picked the sword up, and as he stood weighing the lean, dark blade in his hands an image sprang into his mind – this blade hanging on the wall of the guest-house, where Lung had hung it, with Mrs Jones’s rifle slung crosswise over it.

  His calm was chillier as he turned to the pile of baggage. The flat rifle-case was there beneath a blanket roll. It was fastened, but as soon as he pulled it clear he knew by its weight that it was empty. Yes. A rifle could be hidden under a robe almost as easily as a sword. It was a much more dangerous weapon. There was no question now of Theodore risking lives by looking for Lung on his own. He must warn the monks. But they were all busy with the festival. The oracle-priest . . .

  Theodore hurried along the galleries and corridors. His shock-trance was gone, his nightmare over, and the monastery had reassembled itself into known shapes and routes. By now the courtyards were almost empty as the promised appearance of the Lama Amchi and the dance of Yidam Yamantaka drew the inhabitants towards the central arena. He could hear drums and bells without accompanying voices, which meant that a dance or play was being performed. He had no way of measuring how long he had spent in his room – the enormous change had happened in a sphere in which time had no meaning – it could have been minutes or hours. Singing, the oracle-priest had said, then another play, then more singing, and then Lama Amchi would come do
wn the steps to watch the Lord of Death slaying the dough-giant.

  The gallery above the great courtyard was fuller now, with massed ranks of choristers lining the balustrade, but leaving a narrow passage where one could pass behind them. Theodore strode along, studying the robed backs, looking for a close-cropped dark head which wasn’t wearing one of the gold cockscomb helmets. It had been under this arch, surely. None of the backs was right. He tapped a shoulder. The monk turned, patient and unsurprised.

  ‘Where is the oracle-priest?’ Theodore said in Mandarin.

  The monk answerd in Tibetan, then pulled at a sleeve beside him. An older monk turned and Theodore repeated his question. The monk frowned, shrugged and said, ‘I will ask.’ More heads turned. There was a brief discussion in Tibetan. ‘Gone,’ said the old monk. ‘That way. Down.’ His hands made the movements of feet descending a stair. The other monks were smiling and nodding and echoing the gesture when from the courtyard below one of the long horns began to snore, a chime of bells rippled along an erratic scale and a drum thudded. The monks turned from Theodore. He saw their backs swell as they drew breath for the first crashing syllable of the chant. So the play was over and the second lot of singing had begun.

  Theodore ran now, down the gallery behind the chanting ranks, to the stair that circled down in the corner of the courtyard; he stumbled and almost fell down its dark steepness, but clutched at the railing and caught himself, then picked his way down to the hallway at the bottom. This space, lit only by the archway into the courtyard, was thronged with monsters. The dough-giant, painted and grinning, towered on its sledge by the arch, surrounded by the team of black and scarlet demons who would haul it on to the stage. Beyond them the voice of the solo chanter gargled its strange deep note while the bells tinkled and clanked. The oracle-priest was not here. Urgently Theodore turned to a group by the foot of the stair.

  ‘Who speaks Chinese?’ he said. ‘A man is going to shoot the Lama Amchi.’

  A vast shape wheeled round and the monster Yidam Yamantaka glared down at Theodore. He spoke his question again, almost shouting now, to the eye-slits in the chest. The creature took a pace towards him, making shooing movements with its arms, which protruded roughly from its hips. Several of the demons came crowding round, speaking in hissing whispers, no doubt telling him not to interrupt the ceremony but producing a noise both bloodless and furious, such as a brood of snakes might make if they could talk. Theodore retreated a couple of steps up the stair and made his plea again but was answered with more hisses and gestures of dismissal. Now, round the shoulders of Yidam Yamantaka and over the heads of the demons, he could see the solid crush of watchers in the courtyard – there was no possible way through there to warn the Lama.

  As Theodore climbed the dark stair the image of the monster Yamantaka and the hissing demons was strong in his mind, not as creatures of terror, but as something else, a sign, a warning. He had been appealing for help to the wrong Gods. He must find Lung himself.

  This was not a conscious decision, but as he strode back down the gallery, searching the heedless backs for one that might be the oracle-priest, his reason was asking, Where would Lung go? Where? The pulse of the chant was changing now, with the rise and fall of the deep horn-notes coming faster, like waves clustering closer together; the pitch of the voices and the other instruments held a tension, as if the outward discipline were about to burst under the pressure of the inner excitement and become chaos – a tingle like the fringe of foam that rims a wave just before it breaks. Soon, now, soon the music would end, and then the Lama Amchi would leave his house and glide down the steps to the last platform above the crowd. A perfect target.

  From where?

  The answer formed in the same pulse as the question. Theodore saw the image of the Lama moving down those steps as if floating an inch above them. He heard Lung’s hiss – ‘He is a sorcerer! Look, he is flying!’ The roof of the temple of the oracle, where Lung had turned from mending the windmill and seen the Lama on the steps. There!

  Theodore broke into a run, racing along to the far end of the gallery and hurling down that stair and out into the courtyard. Here, at the furthest corner from the stage, the crowd was not quite so dense and it was possible to shoulder and twist a way through. The people, inured by now to jostling, seemed barely to notice him as they craned towards the steps that led down from the mountain. The soloist was chanting a phrase which Theodore recognized as the regular formula which came at the end of many different chants. In a few seconds the choirs would answer, echoing the phrase seven times, and the chant would be over.

  He came to a barrier. The steps of the temple of the oracle were massed with watchers. They would not, or could not, yield at all when he tried to press through, though still they seemed not to notice him, drugged with the expectation of the Lama’s appearance and the dance of Yidam Yamantaka. He got half on to the lowest step, slipped off and fell, then stayed at that level and squirmed through the forest of legs up the steps and at last to the temple doors. He had half expected to find them closed, but they were open and the pressure of the crowd had pushed a number of spectators right back into the familiar glimmering dark. They made room for him as he rose to his feet and pressed through. He couldn’t see Major Price-Evans, but there was no time now for explanations – and if he could deal with Lung alone, and not let any of the monks know . . . He tried to move fast without attracting attention, reached the door in the far right corner where the sacred books were, opened it and slipped through into the little room beyond. The trap-door in the ceiling was open, but the ladder was gone.

  He darted back into the temple and dragged out from the hanging on the back wall the ladder he had used for cleaning the idols; as he took it through the door the swing of the rear end caught a great bronze dish and sent it to the floor, where it landed with a clashing note like a struck gong. The singing in the courtyard was over, and in the silence of expectation the clatter made the people at the temple door turn and stare. A monk among them frowned and started to stride across, but already Theodore was into the little room and using the momentum of his rush to swing the ladder straight up into the trap.

  He scuttled up the rungs, thinking that if Lung had taken all the ladders he would have to pull this one up after him, but he came through the trap and saw one ladder lying across the floor and another still in place. He was already on it when a voice called out in Tibetan and the ladder below rattled as the monk tried it for safety. Then he was through into the third room, rushing up the last ladder and out under the open sky, his lungs gasping for the harsh thin air.

  A solitary monk was standing at the parapet, his cowl over his head, gazing out across the courtyard. The windmills clacked in the silence, perhaps hiding the sound of Theodore’s arrival. But now, drowning all noises, a slow, rumbling gasp rose from below, like the sound of the avalanches they had heard when crossing the highest pass, but which he knew was the sigh from unnumbered throats as expectation was answered and the patience of waiting ended. The Lama Amchi had appeared.

  The monk knelt, lifted the rifle he had been cradling against his robe and settled it into his shoulder, steadying his left wrist on the parapet. Holding his breath Theodore stole towards him. The kneeling figure tensed. Its thumb pushed at the safety catch.

  ‘Lung! Stop!’ Theodore croaked.

  The cowled head turned and Lung’s face, drained grey with tension, stared at him for a moment, almost unrecognizable. It cuddled back to the stock.

  Theodore launched himself at Lung’s shoulders, reaching round at the same time to clutch at the trigger hand. As he struck he heard a shot snap through the humming silence, and then he was half off his feet, staggering against the parapet, grasping the gun-barrel now with the strength of panic as he felt himself beginning to tumble back into space. Lung was yelling and wrenching at the gun with both hands, hauling Theodore back on to the roof as his grasp was breaking. Theodore stumbled to his knees. He found Lung’s leg in front of him, w
rapped his arms round it and pulled. A shot banged as Lung staggered, steadied, and kicked at him with his other foot. A huge blow thudded into the side of his head, making the world black and full of whining pain. Far off he heard screams and yells, and nearer a voice shouting. He lay, conscious only of pain, and then of the slightly tacky surface of the tarred roof, and then he was fully aware, hearing grunts and thuds near by. Wincing at the mountain brightness he opened his eyes to see Lung and a monk wrestling near the parapet. The robes made them seem like a single, threshing figure, but suddenly the monk had the upper hand and was forcing Lung sideways towards the drop. Lung bucked and wriggled ineffectively. Theodore rose and staggered towards the pair, tugging at the monk’s robe and shouting ‘No! No! No!’ Vaguely he saw that the crowd below had changed colour, with every face now staring up at the fight. Distracted by Theodore’s arrival the monk lost his grip for a moment. Lung twisted sideways and clear, then flung himself flat on the roof and lay there, sobbing.

  17

  THE MONASTERY HAD a hospital. Theodore lay on his cot there with his eyes closed, relaxed and waiting for whatever might happen next. His headache was not so bad since he had persuaded the hospital monks to stop saying mantras over him and send somebody to fetch the medicine-tin from the baggage-pile. He had taken two of Mrs Jones’s headache-powders, which seemed to have worked, though their sour-sweet taste hung like vomit in the back of his throat. But in any case he now seemed to have the power to push the pain outside himself, and let it ache away in the void without troubling him. Footsteps shuffled by his bed.

  ‘Are you awake, my friend?’ said the voice of the oracle-priest.

  By the weak light of the butter-lamp at his bedside Theodore looked up at the solemn, sturdy features, half-expecting them to contort into the monster of the morning. The prospect didn’t frighten him any more. He waited.