"Why did he do this thing?"
"Yama and Agni say that he had made a pact with their leader. They suspect he offered this one a lease on his body in return for the promise of demon troops to war against us."
"May we be attacked?"
"I doubt it. The demons are not stupid. If they could not defeat four of us in Hellwell, I doubt they would attack us all here in Heaven. And even now, Yama is in the Vasty Hall of Death designing special weapons."
"And where is his bride-to-be?"
"Who knows?" said Rudra. "And who cares?"
Murugan smiled.
"I once thought you more than passing fond of her yourself."
"Too cold, too mocking," said Rudra,
"She repulsed you?"
Rudra turned his dark face, which never smiled, upon the fair god of youth.
"You fertility deities are worse than Marxists," he said. "You think that's all that goes on between people. We were just friends for a time, but she is too hard on her friends and so loses them."
"She did repulse you?"
"I suppose so."
"And when she took Morgan, the poet of the plains, as her lover - he who one day incarnated as a jackbird and flew away-you then hunted jackbirds, until inside a month with your arrows you had slain near every one in Heaven."
"And I still hunt jackbirds."
"Why is that?"
"I do not care for their singing."
"She is too cold, too mocking," agreed Murugan.
"I do not like being mocked by anyone, youthgod. Could you outrun the arrows of Rudra?"
Murugan smiled again. "No," said he, "nor could my friends the Lokapalas-nor would they need to."
"When I assume my Aspect," said Rudra, "and take up my great bow, which was given me by Death himself, then can I send a heat-tracking arrow whistling down the miles to pursue a moving target and strike it like a thunderbolt, dead."
"Let us then talk of other matters," said Murugan, suddenly interested in the target. "I gather that our guest mocked Brahma some years ago in Mahartha and did violence in holy places. I understand, though, that he is the same one who founded the religion of peace and enlightenment."
"The same."
"Interesting."
"An understatement."
"What will Brahma do."
Rudra shrugged. "Brahma only knows," he replied.
At the place called Worldsend, where there is nothing beyond the edge of Heaven but the distant flicker of the dome and, far below, the blank ground, hidden beneath a smoke-white mist, there stands the open-sided Pavilion of Silence, upon whose round, gray roof the rains never fall, and across whose balconies and balustrades the fog boils in the morning and the winds walk at twilight, and within whose airy chambers, seated upon the stark, dark furniture, or pacing among the gray columns, are sometimes to be found the gods contemplative, the broken warriors or those injured in love, who come to consider there all things hurtful or futile, beneath a sky that is beyond the Bridge of the Gods, in the midst of a place of stone where the colors are few and the only sound is the wind - there, since slightly after the days of the First, have sat the philosopher and the sorceress, the sage and the magus, the suicide, and the ascetic freed from the desire for rebirth or renewal; there, in the center of renunciation and abandonment, withdrawal and departure, are the five rooms named Memory, Fear, Heartbreak, Dust and Despair; and this place was built by Kubera the Fat, who cared not a tittle for any of these sentiments, but who, as a friend of Lord Kalkin, had done this construction at the behest of Candi the Fierce, sometimes known as Durga and as Kali, for he alone of all the gods possessed the Attribute of inanimate correspondence, whereby he could invest the works of his hands with feelings and passions to be experienced by those who dwelled among them.
They sat in the room called Heartbreak, and they drank of the soma but they were never drunken.
It was twilight all about the Pavilion of Silence, and the winds that circled through Heaven flowed past them.
They sat within black robes upon the dark seats, and his hand lay atop hers, there on the table that stood between them; and the horoscopes of all their days moved past them on the wall that separated Heaven from the heavens; and they were silent as they considered the pages of their centuries.
"Sam," she finally said, "were they not good?"
"Yes," he replied.
"And in those ancient days, before you left Heaven to dwell among men-did you love me then?"
"I do not really remember," he said. "It was so very long ago. We were both different people then-different minds, different bodies. Probably those two, whoever they were, loved one another. I cannot remember."
"But I recall the springtime of the world as though it were yesterday-those days when we rode together to battle, and those nights when we shook the stars loose from the fresh-painted skies! The world was so new and different then, with a menace lurking within every flower and a bomb behind every sunrise. Together we beat a world, you and I, for nothing really wanted us here and everything disputed our coming. We cut and burnt our way across the land and over the seas, and we fought under the seas and in the skies, until there was nothing left to oppose us. Then cities were built, and kingdoms, and we raised up those whom we chose to rule over them, until they ceased to amuse us and we cast them down again. What do the younger gods know of those days? How can they understand the power we knew, who were First?"
"They cannot," he replied.
"When we held court in our palace by the sea and I gave you many sons, and our fleets swept out to conquer the islands, were those days not fair and full of grace? And the nights things of fire and perfume and wine? . . . Did you not love me then?"
"I believe those two loved one another, yes."
"Those two? We are not that different. We are not that changed. Though ages slip away, there are some things within one's being which do not change, which do not alter, no matter how many bodies one puts upon oneself, no matter how many lovers one takes, no matter how many things of beauty and ugliness one looks upon or does, no matter how many thoughts one thinks or feelings one feels. One's self stands at the center of all this and watches."
"Open a fruit and there is a seed within it. Is that the center? Open the seed and there is nothing within it. Is that the center? We are two different persons from the master and the mistress of battles. It was good to have known those two, but that is all."
"Did you go to dwell outside of Heaven because you were tired of me?"
"I wanted a change of perspective."
"There have been long years over which I have hated you for departing. Then there have been times when I sat in the room called Despair, but was too much of a coward to walk beyond Worldsend. Then again, there have been times when I have forgiven you and invoked the seven Rishi to bring your image before me, so that I looked upon you as you went about your day, and it was almost as though we walked together once again. Other times I have desired your death, but you turned my executioner into a friend as you turn my wrath into forgiveness. Do you mean to say that you feel nothing for me?"
"I mean to say that I no longer love you. It would be nice if there were some one thing constant and unchanging in the universe. If there is such a thing, then it is a thing which would have to be stronger than love, and it is a thing which I do not know."
"I have not changed, Sam."
"Think carefully. Lady, over all that you have said, over all that you have recalled for me this day. It is not really the man whom you have been remembering. It is the days of carnage through which the two of you rode together. The world is come into a tamer age now. You long for the fire and the steel of old. You think it is the man, but it is the destiny the two of you shared for a time, the destiny which is past, that stirs your mind, and you call it love."
"Whatever I call it, it has not changed! Its days are not past. It is a constant thing within the universe, and I call you to come share it with me once again!"
"What of Lord Yama?"
"What of him? You have dealt with those who would be numbered as his peers, did they still live."
"I take it, then, that it is his Aspect for which you care?"
She smiled, within the shadows and the wind.
"Of course."
"Lady, Lady, Lady, forget me! Go live with Yama and be his love. Our days are past, and I do not wish to recall them. They were good, but they are past. As there is a time for everything, there is a time also for the end of anything. This is an age for the consolidation of man's gains upon this world. This is a time for the sharing of knowledge, not the crossing of blades."
"Would you fight Heaven for this knowledge? Would you attempt to break the Celestial City, to open its vaults to the world?"
"You know that I would."
"Then we may yet have a common cause."
"No, Lady, do not deceive yourself. Your allegiance lies with Heaven, not with the world. You know that. If I won my freedom and you joined with me and we fought, perhaps you would be happy for a time. But win or lose, in the end I fear you would be unhappier than before."
"Hear me, soft-hearted saint of the purple grove. It is quite kind of you to anticipate my feelings, but Kali casts her allegiances where she will, owing nothing to anyone, but as she chooses. She is the mercenary goddess, remember that! Perhaps all that you have said is true, and she lies when she tells you she loves you still. Being ruthless and full of the battle lust, however, she follows the smell of blood. I feel that she may yet become an Accelerationist."