"Tak," he told her.
She touched her brow. "I once knew a Tak," she said, "in a bygone day, a distant place. . ."
"I am that Tak, madam."
She seated herself upon the sill. After a time, he realized that she was weeping, within her veil.
"Don't cry, goddess. Tak is here. Remember Tak, of the Archives? Of the Bright Spear? He stands yet ready to do thy bidding."
"Tak. . ." she said. "Oh, Tak! You, too? I did not know, I never heard. . ."
"Another turning of the wheel, madam, and who knows? Things may yet be better than even once they were."
Her shoulders shook. He reached out, drew back his hand.
She turned and took it.
After an age, she spoke: "Not by the normal course of events shall we be restored or matters settled, Tak of the Bright Spear. We must beat our own path."
"What mean you?" he inquired; then, "Sam?"
She nodded.
"He is the one. He is our hope against Heaven, dear Tak. If he can be recalled, we have a chance to live again."
"This is why you have taken this chance, why you yourself sit within the jaws of the tiger?"
"Why else? When there is no real hope we must mint our own. If the coin be counterfeit it still may be passed."
"Counterfeit? You do not believe he was the Buddha?"
She laughed, briefly. "Sam was the greatest charlatan in the memory of god or man. He was also the worthiest opponent Trimurti ever faced. Don't look so shocked at my saying it. Archivist! You know that he stole the fabric of his doctrine, path and attainment, the whole robe, from prehistorical forbidden sources. It was a weapon, nothing more. His greatest strength was his insincerity. If we could have him back . . ."
"Lady, saint or charlatan, he is returned."
"Do not jest with me, Tak."
"Goddess and Lady, I just left the Lord Yama shutting down the pray-machine, frowning his frown of success."
"The venture was against such mighty odds. . . . Lord Agni once said that no such thing could ever be done."
Tak stood.
"Goddess Ratri," he said, "who, be he god or man, or anything between, knows more of such matters than Yama?"
"I have no answer for that question, Tak, because there is none. But how can you say of a certainty that he has netted us our fish?"
"Because he is Yama."
"Then take my arm, Tak. Escort me again, as once you did. Let us view the sleeping Boddhisatva."
He led her out the door, down the stairs, and into the chambers below.
Light, born not of torches but of the generators of Yama, filled the cavern. The bed, set upon a platform, was closed about on three sides by screens. Most of the machinery was also masked by screens and hangings. The saffron-robed monks who were in attendance moved silently about the great chamber. Yama, master artificer, stood at the bedside.
As they approached, several of the well-disciplined, imperturbable monks uttered brief exclamations. Tak then turned to the woman at his side and drew back a pace, his breath catching in his throat.
She was no longer the dumpy little matron with whom he had spoken. Once again did he stand at the side of Night Immortal, of whom it has been written, "The goddess has filled wide space, to its depths and its heights. Her radiance drives out the dark."
He looked but a moment and covered his eyes. She still had this trace of her distant Aspect about her.
"Goddess. . ." he began.
"To the sleeper," she stated. "He stirs."
They advanced to the bedstead.
Thereafter to be portrayed in murals at the ends of countless corridors, carved upon the walls of Temples and painted onto the ceilings of numerous palaces, came the awakening of he who was variously known as Mahasamatman, Kalkin, Manjusri, Siddhartha, Tathagatha, Binder, Maitreya, the Enlightened One, Buddha and Sam. At his left was the goddess of Night; to his right stood Death; Tak, the ape, was crouched at the foot of the bed, eternal comment upon the coexistence of the animal and the divine.
He wore an ordinary, darkish body of medium height and age; his features were regular and undistinguished; when his eyes opened, they were dark.
"Hail, Lord of Light!" It was Ratri who spoke these words.
The eyes blinked. They did not focus. Nowhere in the chamber was there any movement.
"Hail, Mahasamatman - Buddha!" said Yama.
The eyes stared ahead, unseeing.
"Hello, Sam," said Tak.
The forehead creased slightly, the eyes squinted, fell upon Tak, moved on to the others.
"Where . . . ?" he asked, in a whisper.
"My monastery," answered Ratri.
Without expression, he looked upon her beauty.
Then he shut his eyes and held them tightly closed, wrinkles forming at their corners. A grin of pain made his mouth a bow, his teeth the arrows, clenched.
"Are you truly he whom we have named?" asked Yama.
He did not answer.
"Are you he who fought the army of Heaven to a standstill on the banks of the Vedra?"
The mouth slackened.
"Are you he who loved the goddess of Death?"
The eyes flickered. A faint smile came and went across the lips.
"It is he," said Yama; then, "Who are you, man?"
"I? I am nothing," replied the other. "A leaf caught in a whirlpool, perhaps. A feather in the wind. . ."
"Too bad," said Yama, "for there are leaves and feathers enough in the world for me to have labored so long only to increase their number. I wanted me a man, one who might continue a war interrupted by his absence - a man of power who could oppose with that power the will of gods. I thought you were he."
"I am"-he squinted again"-Sam. I am Sam. Once-long ago . . . I did fight, didn't I? Many times . . ."
"You were Great-Souled Sam, the Buddha. Do you remember?"
"Maybe I was . . ." A slow fire was kindled in his eyes.
"Yes," he said then. "Yes, I was. Humblest of the proud, proudest of the humble. I fought. I taught the Way for a time. I fought again, taught again, tried politics, magic, poison . . . I fought one great battle so terrible the sun itself hid its face from the slaughter-with men and gods, with animals and demons, with spirits of the earth and air, of fire and water, with slizzards and horses, swords and chariots-"
"And you lost," said Yama.
"Yes, I did, didn't I? But it was quite a showing we gave them, wasn't it? You, deathgod, were my charioteer. It all comes back to me now. We were taken prisoner and the Lords of Karma were to be our judges. You escaped them by the will-death and the Way of the Black Wheel. I could not."
"That is correct. Your past was laid out before them. You were judged." Yama regarded the monks who now sat upon the floor, their heads bowed, and he lowered his voice. "To have you to die the real death would have made you a martyr. To have permitted you to walk the world, in any form, would have left the door open for your return. So, as you stole your teachings from the Gottama of another place and time, did they steal the tale of the end of that one's days among men. You were judged worthy of Nirvana. Your atman was projected, not into another body, but into the great magnetic cloud that encircles this planet. That was over half a century ago. You are now officially an avatar of Vishnu, whose teachings were misinterpreted by some of his more zealous followers. You, personally, continued to exist only in the form of self-perpetuating wavelengths, which I succeeded in capturing."
Sam closed his eyes.
"And you dared to bring me back?"
"That is correct."
"I was aware of my condition the entire time."
"I suspected as much."
His eyes opened, blazing. "Yet you dared recall me from that?"
"Yes."
Sam bowed his head. "Rightly are you called deathgod, Yama-Dharma. You have snatched away from me the ultimate experience. You have broken upon the dark stone of your will that which is beyond all comprehension and mortal splendor. Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?"
"Because a world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming."
"Yama, I'm old," he said. "I'm as old as man upon this world. I was one of the First, you know. One of the very first to come here, to build, to settle. All of the others are dead now, or are gods - dei ex machini. . . The chance was mine also, but I let it go by. Many times. I never wanted to be a god, Yama. Not really. It was only later, only when I saw what they were doing, that I began to gather what power I could to me. It was too late, though. They were too strong. Now I just want to sleep the sleep of ages, to know again the Great Rest, the perpetual bliss, to hear the songs the stars sing on the shores of the great sea."
Ratri leaned forward and looked into his eyes. "We need you, Sam," she said.
"I know, I know," he told her. "It's the eternal recurrence of the anecdote. You've a willing horse, so flog him another mile." But he smiled as he said it, and she kissed his brow.
Tak leaped into the air and bounced upon the bed.
"Mankind rejoices," observed the Buddha.
Yama handed him a robe and Ratri fitted him with slippers.
Recovering from the peace which passeth understanding takes time. Sam slept. Sleeping, he dreamed; dreaming, he cried out, or just cried. He had no appetite; but Yama had found him a body both sturdy and in perfect health, one well able to bear the psychosomatic conversion from divine withdrawal.