Lord of Light(33)

"Perhaps you can try recouping your losses. We're halfway to Heaven."

"Think I'd have a chance?"

"You just might. Times change. Brahma could be a merciful god this week."

"My occupational therapist told me to specialize in lost causes."

Yama shrugged.

"What of the demon?" Sam asked. "The one who was with me?"

"I touched it," said Yama, "hard. I don't know whether I finished it or just drove it away. But you needn't worry about it again. I doused you with demon repellant. If the creature still lives, it will be a long time before it recovers from our contact. Maybe never. How did it happen in the first place? I thought you were the one man immune to demonic possession."

"So did I. What's demon repellant?"

"I found a chemical agent, harmless to us, which none of the energy beings can stand."

"Handy item. Could've used it in the days of the binding."

"Yes. We wore it into Hellwell."

"That was quite a battle, from what I saw of it."

"Yes," said Yama. "What is it like-demonic possession? What does it feel like to have another will overriding your own?"   





 

"It is strange," said Sam, "and frightening, and rather educating at the same time."

"In what ways?"

"It was their world first," said Sam. "We took it away from them. Why shouldn't they be everything we hate them for being? To them, we are the demons."

"But what does it feel like?"

"To have one's will overridden by that of another?

You should know."

Yama's smile vanished, then returned. "You would like me to strike you, wouldn't you, Buddha? It would make you feel superior. Unfortunately, I'm a sadist and will not do it."

Sam laughed.

"Touché, Death," he said.

They sat in silence for a time.

"Can you spare me a cigarette?"

Yama passed him one, lit it.

"What's First Base like these days?"

"You'll hardly recognize the place," said Yama. "If everyone in it were to die at this moment, it would still be perfect ten thousand years from now. The flowers would still bloom and the music would play and the fountains would ripple the length of the spectrum. Warm meals would still be laid within the garden pavilions. The City itself is immortal."

"A fitting abode, I suppose, for those who call themselves gods."

"Call themselves?" asked Yama. "You are wrong, Sam, Godhood is more than a name. It is a condition of being. One does not achieve it merely by being immortal, for even the lowliest laborer in the fields may achieve continuity of existence. Is it then the conditioning of an Aspect? No. Any competent hypnotist can play games with the self-image. Is it the raising up of an Attribute? Of course not. I can design machines more powerful and more accurate than any faculty a man may cultivate. Being a god is the quality of being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond with the forces of the universe, so that those who look upon you know this without hearing your name spoken. Some ancient poet said that the world is full of echoes and correspondences. Another wrote a long poem of an inferno, wherein each man suffered a torture which coincided in nature with those forces which had ruled his life. Being a god is being able to recognize within one's self these things that are important, and then to strike the single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one's ruling passions. Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them."

"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"

"You choose the wrong adjective."

"You've already used up all the others."

"It appears that our minds will never meet on this subject."

"If someone asks you why you're oppressing a world and you reply with a lot of poetic crap, no. I guess there can't be a meeting of minds."

"Then let us choose another subject for conversation."

"I do look upon you, though, and say, 'He is Death.'"

Yama did not reply.

"Odd ruling passion. I've heard that you were old before you were young . . ."

"You know that is true."

"You were a mechanical prodigy and a weapons master. You lost your boyhood in a burst of flame, and you became an old man that same day. Did death become your ruling passion in that moment? Or was it earlier? Or later?"

"It does not matter," said Yama.

"Do you serve the gods because you believe what you have said to me-or because you hate the larger portion of humanity?"

"I did not lie to you."

"Then Death is an idealist. Amusing."

"Not so."

"Or could it be. Lord Yama, that neither guess is correct? That your ruling passion-"

"You've mentioned her name before," said Yama, "in the same speech wherein you likened her to a disease. You were wrong then and you are still wrong. I do not care to hear that sermon over again, and since I am not at the moment sinking in quicksand, I will not."

"Peace," said Sam. "But tell me, do the ruling passions of the gods ever change?"

Yama smiled. "The goddess of dance was once the god of war. So it would seem that anything can change."

"When I have died the real death," said Sam, "then will I be changed. But until that moment I will hate Heaven with every breath that I draw. If Brahma has me burnt, I will spit into the flames. If he has me strangled, I will attempt to bite the executioner's hand. If my throat is cut, may my blood rust the blade that does it. Is that a ruling passion?"   





 

"You are good god material," said Yama.

"Good god!" said Sam.

"Before whatever may happen happens," said Yama, "I have been assured that you will be permitted to attend the wedding."

"Wedding? You and Kali? Soon?"

"At the full of the lesser moon," Yama replied. "So, whatever Brahma decides, at least I can buy you a drink before it occurs."

"For that I thank you, deathgod. But it has always been my understanding that weddings are not made in Heaven."

"That tradition is about to be broken," said Yama. "No tradition is sacred."

"Then good luck," said Sam.

Yama nodded, yawned, lit another cigarette.

"By the way," said Sam, "what is the latest vogue in celestial executions? I ask purely for informational purposes."

"Executions are not held in Heaven," said Yama, opening a cabinet and removing a chessboard.





V





Girt about with lightnings, standard-bearer, armed with the sword, the wheel, the bow,

devourer, sustainer. Kali, night of destruction at Worldsend, who walketh the world by night,

protectress, deceiver, serene one, loved and lovely, Brahmani, Mother of the Vedas, dweller in the silent and most secret places,

well-omened, and gentle, all-knowing, swift as thought, wearer of skulls, possessed of power, the twilight, invincible leader, pitiful one,

opener of the way before those lost, granter of favors, teacher, valor in the form of woman,

chameleon-hearted, practitioner of austerities, magician, pariah, deathless and eternal ...

ryatârâbhattârikânâmâshtottarásatakastotra (36-40)



From Hellwell to Heaven he went, there to commune with the gods. The Celestial City holds many mysteries, including some of the keys to his own past. Not all that transpired during the time he dwelled there is known. It is known, however, that he petitioned the gods on behalf of the world, obtaining the sympathy of some, the enmity of others. Had he chosen to betray humanity and accept the proffers of the gods, it is said by some that he might have dwelled forever as a Lord of the City and not have met his death beneath the claws of the phantom cats of Kaniburrha. It is said by his detractors, though, that he did accept these proffers, but was later betrayed himself, so giving his sympathies back to suffering mankind for the rest of his days, which were few...



Then, as so often in the past, her snowy fur was sleeked by the wind.

She walked where the lemon-colored grasses stirred. She walked a winding track under dark trees and jungle flowers, crags of jasper rising to her right, veins of milk-white rock, shot through with orange streaks, open about her.

Then, as so often before, she moved on the great cushions of her feet, the wind sleeking her fur, white as marble, and the ten thousand fragrances of the jungle and the plain stirring about her; there, in the twilight of the place that only half existed.

Alone, she followed the ageless trail through the jungle that was part illusion. The white tiger is a solitary hunter. If others moved along a similar course, none cared for company.

Then, as so often before, she looked up at the smooth, gray shell of the sky and the stars that glistened there like shards of ice. Her crescent eyes widened, and she stopped and sat upon her haunches, staring upward.

What was it she was hunting?