Dream thief

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Professor Chetti, as his students affectionately called him, settled into an armchair and waved Spence and Adjani to seats on either side facing him. Looking somewhat out of character he took up a pipe and filled it with tobacco and lit it, savoring the first few puffs in silence.

  "It is my English vice," he said at last with a happy chuckle.

  He fished in his pocket and brought out the curiously carved stone charm Adjani had found in Mrs. Zanderson's room.

  "You wish to know what this is, he? I will tell you. It is very interesting. I have not seen one of these in many years and never outside a museum."

  He got up and walked to one of his bookshelves and scanned the rows of books for a moment. He drew out a book and returned to his seat. He thumbed the pages of the book and smoked his pipe and then said, "Ah!" He turned the book around and offered it to them. "You see? Here." He pointed to a picture on one of the pages.

  Spence looked at the picture and saw a carving of the exact figure Adjani had found. It was of smooth black stone and looked like a man with the body of an insect. The one in the book had a tail like a snake and wings partly outstretched. Its arms were drawn up over its head and it held a circular object in its hands.

  "What is it?" asked Spence.

  "It is an arca, an icon, a charm, you might say," answered the professor. "In many places in India it is believed that one keeps a demon away by wearing a charm such as this, representing an even greater demon."

  "Fighting fire with fire," said Adjani.

  "Yes, in a way. This is a Naga, a snake spirit. One of the older of the demons. And this one is itself very old. Look at the fine detail. You can see the eyes and eyelids, the mouth and nostrils, even though it is very small. Even the scales of the tail are individually carved. Yes, this one is very old. Later carvings are simpler, more stylized." He turned it over in his hands, regarding it with keen scrutiny. "Where did you get it?"

  "It was found in the room of a friend," said Adjani vaguely.

  "I see-you do not wish me to know." Chetti shrugged. "All right. But whatever you do, don't lose this. It is a very valuable piece."

  "Tell us about the Nagas," suggested Spence. The scholar's words had struck a responsive chord in him.

  Chetti settled back in his chair and laced his fingers together. "I would happily tell you all I know; the problem is where to start. It is a very long, confusing story. But I will try to make it understandable."

  He launched in at once.

  "India is an ancient country of years beyond counting. The peculiar cultures of many peoples have mingled together over time, like the waters of streams flowing to a central river, and have created what is India today.

  "But it is still possible to take short trips back along some of these tributaries, although many of them are lost to us forever. Such are the Nagas. Little is known now about where the belief came from. It may have originated almost spontaneously among many of the hill tribes of northern India.

  "The mountains of the Himalaya were looked upon by these ancient people as the homes of gods and demons and other strange beings. They believed that in the high hills and among the snowcapped mountain peaks magic cities lay hidden from mortal eyes. The gods lived in these cities and went about their own business, for the most part staying away from men.

  "There were three main groups. The Nagas, or snake spirits, dwelt in an underground city called Bhogavati and there guarded great treasures. They were usually represented as at least half human. They seemed to have special protective powers, possibly owing to their function as guardians.

  "Then there were the Vidyadharas, or heavenly magicians. These created the magic cites of the high Himalayas and could fly through the air and transform themselves at will. Little is known about them; they had little to do with men.

  "But some were more approachable by human beings; they were called the Rsis, or Seers. These were legendary wise men. Some say they were at one time mortals who became so wise that they were translated into heaven to become gods. Other accounts state that they were leaders of the Vidyadharas who could be petitioned by men in times of trouble, or who appeared during special times set aside for the purpose of teaching or instructing men in better ways of living.

  "There have been many Rsis – the word now applies to anyone who is thought to possess great powers of magic or psychic ability. But the original Seven Rsis are thought to be the very ancestors of all the gods, and men too. They are mentioned by name: Marici, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, and Vasistha. They came from heaven and built the magic cities to live in because they liked the Earth, having watched it from afar.

  "The leader of the Wise Ones was a Rsi called Brasputi. He is a strange figure in the old legends-almost never represented in carvings or painting, and then in an odd, misshapen way – long arms and three-fingered hands. It was he who led the gods to the high mountains-they came in the fantastic vimana; that is, their aerial car-and who founded the philosophy of their civilization. That is to say he handed down the laws of government among the gods. He is the only one to be identified by a sign in the sky-one of the planets. Probably Jupiter or Mars. And Brasputi it is who rules the demons of the hills, although this was added perhaps much later."

  Spence sat spellbound as Adjani's father talked. The names fell to his ear with an exotic, otherworldy ring. He visualized a time back in the dim and misty past of a newborn world where these beings walked and held commerce with men who worshiped them as gods. But there was also a strong suggestion of something else in his mind, which Chetti's words called up from his own, more recent past.

  "What's the matter?" asked Adjani, studying his friend closely. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

  "Not a ghost-a god." Spence shook himself out of his thought. The next instant he was standing before them, eyes burning with excitement. "It fits! It all fits! How could I have missed it?"

  "Missed what?"

  "Adjani, I have something to tell you. If I had told you sooner, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess right now. I haven't told you all that happened to me on Mars."

  "Oh? There's more?"

  "Adjani, you haven't heard the half of it."

  … … ..KALITRI.. … …

  1

  …

  SPENCE FELT AS IF he had entered The Land That Time Forgot. India, apart from the glassy modern cities of the western coast and southern interior, was largely a country where poverty and population had united to halt the wheels of progress and even rock them backward a few paces.

  It was a land retreating back into the past-almost as fast as the rest of the world advanced.

  Spence found the contrast between the crumbling cities and ragged people and his own ultra-advanced space station too hard to reconcile. The foreignness astounded him, numbed him. He resented it, resented the screaming populace that reeked of stale sweat, urine, and other basic human smells. He resented their poverty and blamed them for their lack, although intellectually he admitted that one could not blame the patient for the effects of his disease. Still, his first reaction was a smoldering malice against a people who could allow themselves to sink so far.

  In this reaction he was no different from the millions who had gone before him, and millions more who still held the blight of India against India herself.

  The rocketplane ride into Calcutta had not prepared him for the scene that would greet him upon landing. He had felt the thrust of the rocket engines and endured the g-forces of takeoff. The plane rose to its peak altitude within ten minutes and began its gliding descent. Out of the small round window he saw the blue-black sky devoid of clouds above him and the crisp crescent curve of the Earth's turquoise horizon. He had placed his palm against the window and felt the heat from the friction of the air moving over the skin of the plane. Then they dropped out of the sky in the steep landing glide to roll to a stop outside a skyport like any other skyport the world over.

  Upon emerging from the boarding tube the shock of India hit him har
d. One moment Spence had been comfortable amid familIar surroundings, the next plunged into a churning mass of backward humanity. The effect could not have been more startling if he stepped out of a time machine into the Stone Age.

  "What now?" he asked Adjani in a bewildered tone.

  "Are you all right, my friend?"

  "No, but I'll get used to it." Spence stared dully at the chaos around him-diminutive travelers scurried like cockroaches all over the dilapidated terminal. The din was a muffled roar.

  "Follow me," instructed Adjani. He began plowing through the crush as a man wading through floodwaters. "I'll get us out here."

  "In one piece, I hope," said Spence. His remark was lost in the havoc.

  Adjani hailed a rickshaw outside the terminal and bundled Spence into it. He yelled something unintelligible to the driver and, with a creak and a sway and a clang of a bell, they were off, worming through the snarled traffic around the skyport.

  If Spence's first glimpse of India shocked him, the view from the rickshaw crawling along the rutted streets sickened him.

  Everywhere he looked he saw people, an ocean of people: dirty, poor, ragged, fly-bitten, naked, staring, grasping. He turned his eyes from one dismal scene only to witness another, still more miserable. And there were animals: white and brown cattle, little more than ambulating bags of bones covered with hide, roamed among the streets; horses, their large heads bobbing on bony necks, pulled rude carts; dogs, yapping endlessly, dashed between the wheels of careening vehicles; crows and other birds-even vultures-watched the stinking pavements for any morsel to fall, swooping down in an instant to seize the scrap in their beaks and make off with it before some dog or beggar could grab it.

  At the corners of large intersections were piled great heaps of refuse and garbage containing every kind of filth imaginable, and at least forty kinds of pestilence, thought Spence. On these dung heaps it was commonplace to see a dozen or so of the populace defecating or relieving their bladders while keeping the rats at bay with flailing sticks. Once they saw a huge wagon piled high with carcasses of cattle and horses-the dead scooped off the streets and destined for the rendering plant.

  They passed by a railroad depot where nuns had set up a relief station for mothers with babies. Spence could see the sisters' white scarves moving among a sea of black heads that threatened to overwhelm their feeble effort. The cries of starving babies filled the air.

  Everywhere, along the road, on traffic islands-every square centimeter of space-trash huts were erected; bamboo sticks for a framework, covered with rags. Bricks pulled up from the street or from a nearby wall established a fireplace. Other dwellings consisted of nothing more than a grimy scrap of cloth or blanket with stones to hold down the corners. On such a scrap a whole family might be encamped beside gutters running with raw sewage.

  Billboards depicting smart, well-dressed Indians enjoying soft drinks or cigarettes, or wearing the latest fashion creations, sheltered masses of naked homeless who lay wrapped in rags beneath their cheerful slogans. Roving throngs of orphaned children ran after the buses and wagons and rickshaws, chanting for coins or food or castoff objects.

  The stench of all this-the cooking, rotting, festering, putrefying-hung over the city like a malodorous cloud, reeking in the hot sun. To Spence it smelled like death.

  "The City of Dreadful Night," said Adjani. "Look around you, my friend. You will never forget it. No one who comes here ever does."

  Spence did look around him. He could not help but look. It seemed to him that he had left the world behind and descended into hell. "It's a nightmare," said Spence.

  They passed on through the murky air of Calcutta's human quagmire; past slums and open-air mortuaries with corpses stacked like cordwood, awaiting cremation; past children bathing in the gutters; past beggars collapsed on their haunches in the middle of busy streets; past crumbling facades of once-stately buildings blackened by the cooking fires of the refugees of the streets; past rusting hulks of old automobiles turned into brothels; past squalid, unwashed, infested, decaying habitations of meanest description.

  Spence felt that he had contracted some cancerous disease in his soul and would never be clean again. He shut his eyes and lay back in his seat, but he could not cut out the cries of misery around him.

  They finally rocked to a stop outside a tumbledown, tarnished building in the center of a commercial district. Spence surveyed the rotting structure, its yellow paint flaking off in great patches like skin off a leper.

  "What's this?" asked Spence. The long, tiring ride had made,him surly.

  "Dr. Gita's home, remember?" Adjani jumped out of the taxi and spoke to the driver, offering him coins and asking him questions in a rapid babble of Hindi. "Come on," he called, motioning for Spence to follow as he strode into the disintegrating building.

  Spence followed without attending to his steps and walked into a pile of cow manure laying on the sidewalk. He heard a snicker and scowled in the direction of the sound. A swift movement caught his eye, but he heard only the echo of small feet patter away.

  Fuming, he cleaned his boot off as well as he could and made to enter the building. Just as he was about to disappear into the darkened interior, a loud voice boomed out above him. He looked up to see a dark brown face leaning out an upper window and beaming merrily down on him like an oriental sun; a pudgy little hand waved a cheery greeting.

  "Namastey, Spencer Reston. Welcome to India." …

  DESPITE THE UNPROMISING EXTERIOR and the decrepit stairs swarming with cockroaches and mice, where a family of squatters had taken up residence, Dr. Sundar Gita's rooms were clean and fresh and fairly gleamed with the shining presence of the little man who inhabited them-along with his wife and five daughters. Spence had expected a dingy grimecaked hovel of the kind he had seen on his trip through the decaying city. In his foul mood he was a little disappointed to find the good doctor's rooms light and airy; he almost grumbled at the sight of fresh-cut flowers in a delicate hand-painted vase which brightened the living room.

  "Sit down, my guests. Please, sit. We will drink tea," the round man said as Spence entered a square room which was dominated by a wide bed. "Now you can come out!" called Sundar and, turning to his guests, explained, "They have been waiting all day to meet you. They have never seen visitors from America before."

  There was a titter of female voices and a bead curtain parted and a parade of dark-eyed beauties came into the room, each one bearing a small tray with something to eat upon it. They lined up in stair-step fashion before their guests, and Gita introduced his family.

  "This is Indira, my wife," he said, "and my daughters: Sudhana, Premila, Moti, Chanti, and Baki." As he called their names each bowed demurely and stepped forward with their trays. Spence soon had a plate full of sesame cakes, date cookies, and rice balls balanced precariously on the arm of his low bamboo chair while he held a hot cup of jasmine tea first in one hand and then the other.

  Their service completed, the women disappeared into the next room where Spence could hear their chippering whispers.

  Dr. Sundar Gita was quite dark skinned, much darker than Adjani. He was short, coming only to Spence's shoulder, and almost as broad as he was tall. His full, round face shone with constant good cheer as if he were lit from within by a warm inner glow. His plump form was wrapped in an ivory-colored muslin suit, and, as if to emphasize his overall rotund shape, a bulbous blue turban topped him off.

  As Spence was studying him, there came a loud shout from outside in the street below. Dr. Gita put down his cup and saucer and trotted to the window and leaned out. A quick conversation took place which ended with the doctor shouting, "No patients today. Come back tomorrow!"

  He returned to his guests with a apologetic smile.. "A linguist must make a living," he explained. "I am also the local dentist."

  Spence sipped the rest of the tea and placed his cup on the floor. He felt a light tickle at his wrist and something cool and polished pressed against the inside of
his hand. He looked down and saw an enormous snake curled beside his chair. The great gray and brown speckled creature was pushing its wide angular head into his hand.

  "Ahk!" Spence yelped, jerking his hand away.

  "Rikki! You naughty girl! Come away from there and stop pestering our guests." Gita gave the snake an exasperated look and the reptile slowly uncoiled itself and slithered silently away behind Spence's chair, leaving him with a prickly, queasy sort of feeling. He would almost have preferred having it beside his chair. There, at least, he could have kept an eye on it. Now he did not know when it might jump out at him again.

  "Rats," Dr. Gita was saying. "They are such a problem in the city. But Rikki is a remarkable hunter. They do not bother me at all."

  "Dr. Gita," Adjani began, "we are grateful that-"

  "Please, I am only Gita among you learned men. And the pleasure is mine. When your message came last night I was very much excited to hear of your visit and of course I will help in any way I can. Your father has been my dear friend all these many years, Adjani. I remember our school days fondly.

  "Now." He spread his short hands on his round thigh, "What brings you to Calcutta and to my humble home?"

  "I think I will let Spence tell you his story first, and then 1 will explain."

  Gita turned inquisitive black eyes upon his guest and nodded, settling himself with a sigh onto the wide bed. This piece of furniture took up fully a third of the room. Spence realized that the whole family probably slept in that bed.

  "What I am about to tell you may sound a bit-well, incredible, but I assure you it is true. Every word. And I ask that what I say will never be repeated outside this room," Spence began nervously. "May I have your promise on that?"

  Gita touched his forehead and nodded with an oriental bow of submission. Spence could see the excitement mirrored in the black eyes, though his listener's face had lost all expression.