Lord of Light

"Then know that I did but bring you here to this place to torment you, and that you are correct—I spit upon your Accelerationism, and I have already numbered your days. I sought to give you false hopes, that you may be cast down from a greater height. It is only your stupidity and your weakness that have saved you from this."

"I am sorry. Kali—"

"I do not want your apology! I would have liked your love, though, so that I might have used it against you at the end of your days, to make them pass the harder. But, as you say, we have changed too much—and you are no longer worth the trouble. Do not think that I could not have made you love me again, either, with smiles and with caresses as of old. For I feel the heat within you, and it is an easy thing for me to fan it in a man. You are not worth a mighty death, however, falling from the heights of passion to the depths of despair. I do not have the time to give you more than my contempt."

The stars wheeled about them, frictionless and fiery, and her hand was gone from beneath his own, as she poured two more cups of soma to warm them against the night.

"Kali?"

"Yes?"

"If it will give you any satisfaction in the end, I still care for you. Either there is no such thing as love, or the word does not mean what I have thought it to mean on many different occasions. It is a feeling without a name, really—better to leave it at that. So take it and go away and have your fun with it. You know that we would both be at one another's throats again one day, as soon as we had run out of common enemies. We had many fine reconciliations, but were they ever worth the pain that preceded them? Know that you have won and that you are the goddess I worship — for are not worship and religious awe a combination of love and hate, desire and fear?"

They drank their soma in the room called Heartbreak, and the spell of Kubera lay about them.

Kali spoke:

"Shall I fall upon you and kiss you now, saying that I lied when I said I lied—so that you may laugh and say you lied, to achieve a final revenge? Go to, Lord Siddhartha! Better one of us died in Hellwell, for great is the pride of the First. We should not have come here—to this place."

"No."

"Shall we then depart?"

"No."

"In this, I agree. Let us sit here and worship one another for a time."

Her hand fell upon his own, caressed it. "Sam?"

"Yes?"

"Would you like to make love to me?"

"And so seal my doom? Of course."

"Then let us go into the room called Despair, where the winds stand stilled and where there is a couch . . ."

He followed her from Heartbreak to Despair, his pulse quickening in his throat, and when he had laid her bare on the couch and placed his hand upon the soft whiteness of her belly, he knew that Kubera was indeed the mightiest of the Lokapalas—for the feeling to which that room had been dedicated filled him, even as his desires mounted within him and he upon her—there came a loosening, a tightening, a sigh, and the ultimate tears burning to be shed.

"What is it you wish, Mistress Maya?"

"Tell me of Accelerationism, Tak of the Archives."

Tak stretched his great lean frame and his chair adjusted backward with a creak.

Behind him, the data banks were still, and certain rare records filled the long, high bookshelves with their colorful bindings and the air with their musty smells.

He handled the lady before him with his eyes, smiled and shook his head. She wore green, tightly, and an impatient look; her hair was an insolent red, and faint freckles flecked her nose and the hemispheres of her cheeks. Her hips and shoulders were wide, and her narrow waist tightly disciplined against this tendency.

"Why do you shake your head? Everyone comes to you for information."

"You are young, mistress. Three avatars, if I am not mistaken. lie behind you. At this point in your career, I am certain that you do not really wish to have your name placed upon the special list of those younger ones who seek this knowledge."

"List?"

"List."

"Why should there be a list of such inquirers?"

Tak shrugged. "Gods collect the strangest things, and certain among them save lists."

"I have always heard Accelerationism mentioned as a completely dead issue."

"So why this sudden interest in the dead?"

She laughed, and her green eyes bored into his gray ones.