Lord of Light

"He does not wait within," Taraka announced. "I would even now be contacted by those who wait, bound, if any but the Rakasha had passed this way."

"He will come," said Sam, "and when the Red One comes to Hellwell, he will not be stayed in his course."

"But many will try," said Taraka. "There is the first."

The first flame came into view, in its niche beside the trail.

As they passed by, Sam freed it, and it sprang into the air like a bright bird and spiraled down the well.

Step by step they descended, and from each niche fire spilled forth and flowed outward. At Taraka's bidding, some rose and vanished over the edge of the well, departing through the mighty door which bore the words of the gods upon its outer face.

When they reached the bottom of the well, Taraka said, "Let us free those who lie locked in the caverns, also."

So they made their way through the passages and deep caverns, freeing the demons locked therein.

Then, after a time—how much time, he could never tell—they had all been freed.

The Rakasha assembled then about the cavern, standing in great phalanxes of flame, and their cries all came together into one steady, ringing note which rolled and rolled and beat within his head, until he realized, startled at the thought, that they were singing.

"Yes," said Taraka, "it is the first time in ages that they have done so."

Sam listened to the vibrations within his skull, catching something of the meaning behind the hiss and the blaze, the feelings that accompanied it falling into words and stresses that were more familiar to his own mind:

We are the legions of Hellwell, damned,

The banished ones of fallen flame.

We are the race undone by man.

So man we curse. Forget his name!

This world was ours before the gods,

In days before the race of men.

And when the men and gods have gone,

This world will then be ours again.

The mountains fall, the seas dry out,

The moons shall vanish from the sky.

The Bridge of Gold will one day fall,

And all that breathes must one day die.

But we of Hellwell shall prevail,

When fail the gods, when fail the men.

The legions of the damned die not.

We wait, we wait, to rise again!

Sam shuddered as they sang on and on, recounting their vanished glories, confident of their ability to outlast any circumstance, to meet any force with the cosmic judo of a push and a tug and a long wait, watching anything of which they disapproved turn its strength upon itself and pass. Almost, in that moment, he believed that what they sang was truth, and that one day there would be none but the Rakasha, flitting above the peeked landscape of a dead world.

Then he turned his mind to other matters and forced the mood from him. But in the days that followed, and even, on occasion, years afterward, it returned to plague his efforts and mock his joys, to make him wonder, know guilt, feel sadness and so be humbled.

After a time, one of the Rakasha who had left earlier re-entered and descended the well. He hovered in the air and reported what he had seen. As he spoke, his fires flowed into the shape of a tau cross.

"This is the form of that chariot," he said, "which blazed through the sky and then fell, coming to rest in the valley beyond Southpeak."

"Binder, do you know this vessel?" asked Taraka.

"I have heard it described before," said Sam. "It is the thunder chariot of Lord Shiva.

"Describe its occupant," he said to the demon.

"There were four. Lord."

"Four?"

"Yes. There is the one you have described as Agni, Lord of the Fires. With him is one who wears the horns of a bull set upon a burnished helm—his armor shows like aged bronze, but it is not bronze; it is worked about with the forms of many serpents, and it does not seem to burden him as he moves. In his one hand he holds a gleaming trident, and he bears no shield before his body."

"This one is Shiva," said Sam.

"And walking with these two there comes one all in red, whose gaze is dark. This one does not speak, but occasionally his glances fall upon the woman who walks by his side, to his left. She is fair of hair and complexion, and her armor matches his red. Her eyes are like the sea, and she smiles often with lips the color of the blood of men. About her throat she wears a necklace of skulls. She bears a bow, and upon her belt is a short sword. She holds in her hands a strange instrument, like a black scepter ending in a silver skull that is also a wheel."