Lord of Light

As they sped from chamber to vaulted chamber, down tunnels and chasms and wells, through labyrinths and grottoes and corridors of stone, Sam set his mind adrift, to move down the ways of memory and back. He thought upon the days of his recent ministry, when he had sought to graft the teachings of Gotama upon the stock of the religion by which the world was ruled, He thought upon the strange one, Sugata, whose hands had held both death and benediction. Over the years, their names would merge and their deeds would be mingled. He had lived too long not to know how time stirred the pots of legend. There had been a real Buddha, he knew that now. The teaching he had offered, no matter how spuriously, had attracted this true believer, this one who had somehow achieved enlightenment, marked men's minds with his sainthood, and then gone willingly into the hands of Death himself. Tathagatha and Sugata would be part of a single legend, he knew, and Tathagatha would shine in the light shed by his disciple. Only the one Dhamma would survive. Then his mind went back to the battle at the Hall of Karma, and to the machinery still cached in a secret place. And he thought then upon the countless transfers he had undergone before that time, of the battles he had fought, of the women he had loved across the ages; he thought upon what a world could be and what this world was, and why. Then he was taken again with his rage against the gods. He thought upon the days when a handful of them had fought the Rakasha and the Nagas, the Gandharvas and the People-of-the-Sea, the Kataputna demons and the Mothers of the Terrible Glow, the Dakshinis and the Pretas, the Skandas and the Pisakas, and had won, tearing a world loose from chaos and building its first city of men. He had seen that city pass through all the stages through which a city can pass, until now it was inhabited by those who could spin their minds for a moment and transform themselves into gods, taking upon them an Aspect that strengthened their bodies and intensified their wills and extended the power of their desires into Attributes, which fell with a force like magic upon those against whom they turned them. He thought upon this city and these gods, and he knew of its beauty and its tightness, its ugliness and its wrongness. He thought of its splendor and its color, in contrast to that of the rest of the world, and he wept as he raged, for he knew that he could never feel either wholly right or wholly wrong in opposing it. This was why he had waited as long as he had, doing nothing. Now, whatever he did would result in both victory and defeat, a success and a failure; and whether the outcome of all his actions would be the passing or the continuance of the dream of the city, the burden of the guilt would be his.

They waited in darkness.

For a long, silent while they waited. Time passed like an old man climbing a hill. They stood upon a ledge above a black pool, and waited.

"Should we not have heard by now?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"What shall we do?"

"What do you mean?"

"If they do not come at all. How long shall we wait here?"

"They will come, singing."

"I hope so."

But there came no singing, or movement. About them was the stillness of time that had no objects upon which to wear.

"How long have we waited?"

"I do not know. Long."

"I feel that all is not well."

"You may be right. Shall we rise a few levels and investigate, or shall I bear you to your freedom now?"

"Let us wait awhile longer."

"Very well."

Again, there was silence. They paced within it.

"What was that?"

"What?"

"A sound."

"I heard nothing and we are using the same ears."

"Not with the ears of the body—there it is again!"

"I heard nothing, Taraka."

"It continues. It is like a scream, but it does not end."

"Far?"

"Yes, quite distant. Listen my way."

"Yes! I believe it is the scepter of Kali. The battle, then, goes on."

"This long? Then the gods are stronger than I had supposed."

"No, the Rakasha are stronger than I had supposed."

"Whether we win or lose, Siddhartha, the gods are presently engaged. If we can get by them, their vessel may be unattended. Do you want it?"

"Steal the thunder chariot? That is a thought. . . . It is a mighty weapon, as well as transportation. What might our chances be?"

"I am certain the Rakasha can hold them for as long as is necessary—and it is a long climb up Hellwell. We need not use the trail ourself. I grow tired, but I can still bear us across the air."

"Let us rise a few levels and investigate."

They left their ledge by the black pool, and time beat again about them as they passed upward.

As they advanced, a globe of light moved to meet them. It settled upon the floor of the cavern and grew into a tree of green fire.

"How goes the battle?" asked Taraka.

"We hold them," it reported, "but we cannot close with them."

"Why not?"

"There is that about them which repels. I do not know how to call it, but we cannot draw too near."

"How then do you fight?"