Dagger Magic

"By this time tomorrow, their agents will be poised to recover their long-hidden prize. If this cannot be prevented, then great will be their victory - perhaps even a victory of Shadow over Light. But in Sinclair-la lies the knowledge and the power to resist the evil ministers, to separate them from their demonic protectors and keep the false Termas from their hands.'''

As Christopher lowered the piece of paper, McLeod was rubbing at his eyes behind his glasses.

"By this time tomorrow," he muttered bleakly. "And he's essentially reiterated what we already knew: that Adam has the power and the knowledge to pull this off - except that we still don't know how to access it. That's why Adam had us come here tonight: to help him bring Tseten's teaching from the unconscious to the conscious."

Julian had leaned across to take Adam's transcription from Christopher, and now began to compare it to the Terma.

"I'm a little surprised that the sage wasn't more forthcoming, then," she murmured. "Obviously, it's intended that we've been given enough information to make it all work. Equally obviously, we're still overlooking some key."

' 'I wonder whether it was form rather than substance Tseten was talking about," Peregrine said after a short pause. "I know something's meant to have happened on the island - that Tseten indicated he'd done something - but what do you suppose he meant when he said he proposed to teach Adam what he knows? "

Julian looked up, one grey eyebrow lifting in inquiry.

"Is that what he said? He proposed to teach Adam what he already knows?"

McLeod nodded, his gaze suddenly intense as he stared at her. "I can quote him verbatim. He said, 'The Western magic resident in your chief is equal to the task, dagger to dagger. Dr. Sinclair knows - though he does not know that he knows.' And then he said to Adam, 'I can teach you to know what you know.' "

Julian nodded, a faint smile touching her withered lips as she laid transcript and translation aside.

"Now I understand," she said. "It's precisely what I might have expected of Rinpoche. All of the world's great spiritual traditions have certain concepts and principles in common - what Jung called archetypes, the conceptual foundation stones of all mythologies, regardless of cultural origin. The power and purpose of ritual is to discover and unlock a psychological doorway that will admit the individual to the primordial realm. Many such doorways have been discovered over the history of man's long and hungry quest for the Divine. The point to remember here is that all of them work by way of analogy and metaphor."

Peregrine shook his head. "I'm glad you understand, because I don't."

"Look at it from another angle," Christopher offered. "The trick is to identify the effective principle at the heart of a ritual, and make a translation based on that recognition."

"You mean, like rubbing two sticks together, as opposed to striking a match?'' Peregrine suggested.

"Precisely," Julian said. "In both instances, the necessary element common to both operations is to generate sufficient heat friction to start a combustion reaction. Once you know that much, you can set up an analogous procedure that will do the same thing yet again."

"Then, what you're saying," Peregrine said, "is that Adam will be able to take what he knows and convert it into a form that will be effective against these black Phurba magicians?''

"More or less," Julian said with a smile. "It's basically a matter of transference - -finding a new method to produce a desired result, possibly by taking a familiar tool and using it in a new way. Yes," she mused, her face suddenly thoughtful. "A familiar tool. And you did say 'dagger to dagger,' didn't you, Noel? Now I know why I got out my Phurba when I brought the Terma over."

So saying, she leaned forward to retrieve the Phurba in its maroon swathings, deftly unwrapping the folds of figured silk until its bulky form was revealed. It was not so fine a specimen as the one on Holy Island, but it radiated something of the same kind of authoritative aura.

"Yes, indeed," Julian breathed, as she took the Phurba in her hands. "The use of ritual blades for the direction of energy is common to many magical traditions. The link between a Phurba and a skean dubh like Adam's is so obvious, I'm amazed I didn't think of it right away. Both are intended for ritual use, and both have blades forged from meteoric iron. I believe Tseten may have intended that we should exploit the analogy, to channel the teaching he had to impart."