He paused for a moment, raised his head higher.
"This night the Lord of Illusion passed among you-Mara, mighty among dreamers-mighty for ill. He did come upon another who may work with the stuff of dreams in a different way. He did meet with Dharma, who may expel a dreamer from his dream. They did struggle, and the Lord Mara is no more. Why did they struggle, deathgod against illusionist? You say their ways are incomprehensible, being the ways of gods. This is not the answer.
"The answer, the justification, is the same for men as it is for gods. Good or ill, say the sages, mean nothing for they are of Samsara. Agree with the sages, who have taught our people for as far as the memory of man may reach. Agree, but consider also a thing of which the sages do not speak. This thing is 'beauty,' which is a word-but look behind the word and consider the Way of the Nameless. And what is the way of the Nameless? It is the Way of Dream. And why does the Nameless dream? This thing is not known to any dweller within Samsara. So ask, rather, what does the Nameless dream?
"The Nameless, of which we are all a part, does dream form. And what is the highest attribute any form may possess? It is beauty. The Nameless, then, is an artist. The problem, therefore, is not one of good or evil, but one of esthetics. To struggle against those who are mighty among dreamers and are mighty for ill, or ugliness, is not to struggle for that which the sages have taught us to be meaningless in terms of Samsara or Nirvana, but rather it is to struggle for the symmetrical dreaming of a dream, in terms of the rhythm and the point, the balance and the antithesis which will make it a thing of beauty. Of this, the sages say nothing. This truth is so simple that they have obviously overlooked it. For this reason, I am bound by the esthetics of the situation to call it to your attention. To struggle against the dreamers who dream ugliness, be they men or gods, cannot but be the will of the Nameless. This struggle will also bear suffering, and so one's karmic burden will be lightened thereby, just as it would be by enduring the ugliness; but this suffering is productive of a higher end in the light of the eternal values of which the sages so often speak.
"Therefore, I say unto you, the esthetics of what you have witnessed this evening were of a high order. You may ask me, then, 'How am I to know that which is beautiful and that which is ugly, and be moved to act thereby?' This question, I say, you must answer for yourself. To do this, first forget what I have spoken, for I have said nothing. Dwell now upon the Nameless." He raised his right hand and bowed his head.
Yama stood, Ratri stood, Tak appeared upon a table.
The four of them left together, knowing the machineries of Karma to have been defeated for a time.
They walked through the jagged brilliance of the morning, beneath the Bridge of the Gods. Tall fronds, still wet with the night's rain, glistened at the sides of the trail. The tops of trees and the peaks of the distant mountains rippled beyond the rising vapors. The day was cloudless. The faint breezes of morning still bore a trace of the night's cold. The clicking and buzzing and chirping of the jungle accompanied the monks as they walked. The monastery from which they had departed was only partly visible above the upper reaches of the treetops; high in the air above it, a twisting line of smoke endorsed the heavens.
Ratri's servitors bore her litter in the midst of the moving party of monks, servants and her small guard of warriors. Sam and Yama walked near the head of the band. Silent overhead, Tak followed, passing among leaves and branches, unseen.
"The pyre still blazes," said Yama.
"Yes."
"They burn the wanderer who suffered a heart attack as he took his rest among them."
"This is true."
"For a spur of the moment thing, you came up with a fairly engaging sermon."
"Thanks."
"Do you really believe what you preached?"
Sam laughed. "I'm very gullible when it comes to my own words. I believe everything I say, though I know I'm a liar."
Yama snorted. "The rod of Trimurti still falls upon the backs of men. Nirriti stirs within his dark lair; he harasses the seaways of the south. Do you plan on spending another lifetime indulging in metaphysics-to find new justification for opposing your enemies? Your talk last night sounded as if you have reverted to considering why again, rather than how."
"No," said Sam, "I just wanted to try another line on the audience. It is difficult to stir rebellion among those to whom all things are good. There is no room for evil in their minds, despite the fact that they suffer it constantly. The slave upon the rack who knows that he will be born again-perhaps as a fat merchant - if he suffers willingly-his outlook is not the same as that of a man with but one life to live. He can bear anything, knowing that great as his present pain may be, his future pleasure will rise higher. If such a one does not choose to believe in good or evil, perhaps then beauty and ugliness can be made to serve him as well. Only the names have been changed."
"This, then, is the new, official party line?" asked Yama.
"It is," said Sam.
Yama's hand passed through an invisible slit in his robe and emerged with a dagger, which he raised in salute.
"To beauty," he said. "Down with ugliness!"
A wave of silence passed across the jungle. All the life-sounds about them ceased.
Yama raised one hand, returning the dagger to its hidden sheath with the other.
"Halt!" he cried out.
He looked upward, squinting against the sun, head cocked to his right.
"Off the trail! Into the brush!" he called.
They moved. Saffron-cloaked bodies flashed from off the trail. Ratri's litter was borne in among the trees. She now stood at Yama's side.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Listen!"
It came then, riding down the sky on a blast of sound. It flashed above the peaks of the mountains, crossed over the monastery, whipping the smokes into invisibility. Explosions of sound trumpeted its coming, and the air quaked as it cut its way through the wind and the light.
It was a great-looped tau cross, a tail of fire streaming behind it.
"Destroyer come a-hunting," said Yama.
"Thunder chariot!" cried one of the mercenaries, making a sign with his hand.
"Shiva passes," said a monk, eyes wide with fear. "The Destroyer . . ."
"Had I known at the time how well I wrought," said Yama, "I might have numbered its days intentionally. Occasionally, do I regret my genius."
It passed beneath the Bridge of the Gods, swung above the jungle, fell away to the south. Its roar gradually diminished as it departed in that direction. Then there was silence.
A bird made a brief piping noise. Another replied to it. Then all the sounds of life began again and the travelers returned to their trail.
"He will be back," said Yama, and this was true. Twice more that day did they have to leave the trail as the thunder chariot passed above their heads. On the last occasion, it circled the monastery, possibly observing the funeral rites being conducted there. Then it crossed over the mountains and was gone.
That night they made camp under the stars, and on the second night they did the same.
The third day brought them to the river Deeva and the small port city of Koona. It was there that they found the transportation they wished, and they set forth that same evening, heading south by bark to where the Deeva joined with the mighty Vedra, and then proceeded onward to pass at last the wharves of Khaipur, their destination.
As they flowed with the river, Sam listened to its sounds. He stood upon the dark deck, his hands resting on the rail. He stared out across the waters where the bright heavens rose and fell, star bending back upon star. It was then that the night addressed him in the voice of Ratri, from somewhere nearby.
"You have passed this way before, Tathagatha."
"Many times," he replied. "The Deeva is a thing of beauty under the stars, in its rippling and its folding."
"Indeed."
"We go now to Khaipur and the Palace of Kama. What will you do when we arrive?"
"I will spend some time in meditation, goddess."
"Upon what shall you meditate?"
"Upon my past lives and the mistakes they each contained. I must review my own tactics as well as those of the enemy."
"Yama thinks the Golden Cloud to have changed you."
"Perhaps it has."
"He believes it to have softened you, weakened you. You have always posed as a mystic, but now he believes you have become one - to your own undoing, to our undoing."
He shook his head, turned around. But he did not see her. Stood she there invisible, or had she withdrawn? He spoke softly and without inflection:
"I shall tear these stars from out the heavens," he stated, "and hurl them in the faces of the gods, if this be necessary. I shall blaspheme in every Temple throughout the land. I shall take lives as a fisherman takes fish, by the net, if this be necessary. I shall mount me again up to the Celestial City, though every step be a flame or a naked sword and the way be guarded by tigers. One day will the gods look down from Heaven and see me upon the stair, bringing them the gift they fear most. That day will the new Yuga begin.
"But first I must meditate for a time," he finished.
He turned back again and stared out over the waters.
A shooting star burnt its way across the heavens. The ship moved on. The night sighed about him.