Siddhartha did not answer him.
"My pleasures diminish by the day! Do you know why this is, Siddhartha? Can you tell me why strange feelings now come over me, dampening my strongest moments, weakening me and casting me down when I should be elated, when I should be filled with joy? Is this the curse of the Buddha?"
"Yes," said Siddhartha.
"Then lift your curse, Binder, and I will depart this very day. I will give you back this cloak of flesh. I long again for the cold, clean winds of the heights! Will you free me now?"
"It is too late, oh chief of the Rakasha. You have brought this thing upon yourself."
"What thing? How have you bound me this time?"
"Do you recall how, when we strove upon the balcony, you mocked me? You told me that I, too, took pleasure in the ways of the pain which you work. You were correct, for all men have within them both that which is dark and that which is light. A man is a thing of many divisions, not a pure, clear flame such as you once were. His intellect often wars with his emotions, his will with his desires . . . his ideals are at odds with his environment, and if he follows them, he knows keenly the loss of that which was old-but if he does not follow them, he feels the pain of having forsaken a new and noble dream. Whatever he does represents both a gain and a loss, an arrival and a departure. Always he mourns that which is gone and fears some part of that which is new. Reason opposes tradition. Emotions oppose the restrictions his fellow men lay upon him. Always, from the friction of these things, there arises the thing you called the curse of man and mocked-guilt!
"Know then, that as we existed together in the same body and I partook of your ways, not always unwillingly, the road we followed was not one upon which all the traffic moved in a single direction. As you twisted my will to your workings, so was your will twisted, in turn, by my revulsion at some of your deeds. You have learned the thing called guilt, and it will ever fall as a shadow across your meat and your drink. This is why your pleasure has been broken. This is why you seek now to flee. But it will do you no good. It will follow you across the world. It will rise with you into the realms of the cold, clean winds. It will pursue you wherever you go. This is the curse of the Buddha."
Taraka covered his face with his hands. "So this is what it is like to weep," he said, after a time.
Siddhartha did not reply.
"Curse you, Siddhartha," he said. "You have bound me again, to an even more terrible prison than Hellwell."
"You have bound yourself. It is you who broke our pact. I kept it."
"Men suffer when they break pacts with demons," said Taraka, "but no Rakasha has ever suffered so before."
Siddhartha did not reply.
On the following morning, as he sat to breakfast, there came a banging upon the door of his chambers.
"Who dares?" he cried out, and the door burst inward, its hinges tearing free of the wall, its bar snapping like a dry stick.
The head of a horned tiger upon the shoulders of an ape, great hooves for feet, talons for hands, the Rakasha fell forward into the room, smoke emerging from his mouth as he became transparent for a moment, returned to full visibility, faded once more, returned again. His talons were dripping something that was not blood and a wide burn lay across his chest. The air was filled with the odor of singed hair and charred flesh.
"Master!" it cried. "A stranger has come, asking audience of thee!"
"And you did not succeed in convincing him that I was not available?"
"Lord, a score of human guardsmen fell upon him, and he gestured. . . . He waved his hand at them, and there was a flash of light so bright that even the Rakasha might not look upon it. For an instant only it lasted-and they were all of them vanished, as if they had never existed. . . . There was also a large hole in the wall behind where they had stood. . . . There was no rubble. Only a smooth, clean hole."
"And then you fell upon him?"
"Many of the Rakasha sprang for him-but there is that about him which repels us. He gestured again and three of our own kind were gone, vanished in the light he hurls. . . . I did not take the full force of it, but was only grazed by his power. He sent me, therefore, to deliver his message. . . . I can no longer hold myself together-"
With that he vanished, and a globe of fire hung where the creature had lain. Now his words came into the mind, rather than being spoken across the air.
"He bids you come to him without delay. Else, he says he will destroy this palace."
"Did the three whom he burnt also take on again their own forms?"
"No," replied the Rakasha. "They are no more . . ."
"Describe this stranger!" ordered Siddhartha, forcing the words through his own lips.
"He stands very tall," said the demon, "and he wears black breeches and boots. Above the waist he has on him a strange garment. It is like a seamless white glove, upon his right hand only, which extends all the way up his arm and across his shoulders, wrapping his neck and rising tight and smooth about his entire head. Only the lower part of his face is visible, for he wears over his eyes large black lenses which extend half a span outward from his face. At his belt he wears a short sheath of the same white material as the garment-not containing a dagger, however, but a wand. Beneath the material of his garment, where it crosses his shoulders and comes up upon his neck, there is a hump, as if he wears there a small pack."
"Lord Agni!" said Siddhartha. "You have described the God of Fire!"
"Aye, this must be," said the Rakasha. "For as I looked beyond his flesh, to see the colors of his true being, I saw there a blaze like unto the heart of the sun. If there be a God of Fire, then this indeed is he."
"Now must we flee," said Siddhartha, "for there is about to be a great burning. We cannot fight with this one, so let us go quickly."
"I do not fear the gods," said Taraka, "and I should like to try the power of this one."
"You cannot prevail against the Lord of Flame," said Siddhartha. "His fire wand is invincible. It was given him by the deathgod."
"Then I shall wrest it from him and turn it against him."
"None may wield it without being blinded and losing a hand in the process! This is why he wears that strange garment. Let us waste no more time here!"
"I must see for myself," said Taraka. "I must."
"Do not let your new found guilt force you into flirting with self-destruction."
"Guilt?" said Taraka. "That puny, gnawing mind-rat of which you taught me? No, it is not guilt, Binder. It is that, where once I was supreme, save for yourself, new powers have arisen in the world. The gods were not this strong in the old days, and if they have indeed grown in power, then that power must be tested-by myself! It is of my nature, which is power, to fight every new power which arises, and to either triumph over it or be bound by it. I must test the strength of Lord Agni, to win over him."
"But we are two within this body!"
"That is true. . .. If this body be destroyed, then will I bear you away with me, I promise. Already have I strengthened your flames after the manner of my own land. If this body dies, you will continue to live as a Rakasha. Our people once wore bodies, too, and I remember the art of strengthening the flames so that they may burn independent of the body. This has been done for you, so do not fear."
"Thanks a lot."
"Now let us confront the flame, and dampen it!"
They left the royal chambers and descended the stair. Far below, prisoner in his own dungeon. Prince Videgha whimpered in his sleep.
They emerged from the door that lay behind the hangings at the back of the throne. When they pushed aside these hangings, they saw that the great hall was empty, save for the sleepers within the dark grove and the one who stood in the middle of the floor, white arm folded over bare arm, a silver wand caught between the fingers of his gloved hand.
"See how he stands?" said Siddhartha. "He is confident of his power, and justly so. He is Agni of the Lokapalas. He can see to the farthest unobstructed horizon, as though it lies at his fingertips. And he can reach that far. He is said one night to have scored the moons themselves with that wand. If he but touch its base against a contact within his glove, the Universal Fire will leap forward with a blinding brilliance, obliterating matter and dispersing energies which lie in its path. It is still not too late to withdraw-"
"Agni!" he heard his mouth cry out. "You have requested audience with the one who rules here?"
The black lenses turned toward him. Agni's lips curled back to vanish into a smile which dissolved into words:
"I thought I'd find you here," he said, his voice nasal and penetrating. "All that holiness got to be too much and you had to cut loose, eh? Shall I call you Siddhartha, or Tathagatha, or Mahasamatman-or just plain Sam?"
"You fool," he replied. "The one who was known to you as the Binder of Demons-by all or any of those names-is bound now himself. You have the privilege of addressing Taraka of the Rakasha, Lord of Hellwell!"
There was a click, and the lenses became red.
"Yes, I perceive the truth of what you say," answered the other. "I look upon a case of demonic possession. Interesting. Doubtless cramped, also." He shrugged, and then added, "But I can destroy two as readily as one."