it recovers from our contact. Maybe never. How did it happen in the first
place? I thought you were the one man immune to demonic possession."
"So did I. What's demon repellant?"
"I found a chemical agent, harmless to us, which none of the energy
beings can stand."
"Handy item. Could've used it in the days of the binding."
"Yes. We wore it into Hellwell."
"That was quite a battle, from what I saw of it."
"Yes," said Yama. "What is it like-- demonic possession? What does it
feel like to have another will overriding your own?"
"It is strange," said Sam, "and frightening, and rather educating at
the same time."
"In what ways?"
"It was their world first," said Sam. "We took it away from them. Why
shouldn't they be everything we hate them for being? To them, we are the
demons."
"But what does it feel like?"
"To have one's will overridden by that of another?
You should know."
Yama's smile vanished, then returned. "You would like me to strike you,
wouldn't you, Buddha? It would make you feel superior. Unfortunately, I'm a
sadist and will not do it."
Sam laughed.
"Touché, Death," he said.
They sat in silence for a time.
"Can you spare me a cigarette?"
Yama passed him one, lit it.
"What's First Base like these days?"
"You'll hardly recognize the place," said Yama. "If everyone in it were
to die at this moment, it would still be perfect ten thousand years from
now. The flowers would still bloom and the music would play and the
fountains would ripple the length of the spectrum. Warm meals would still be
laid within the garden pavilions. The City itself is immortal."
"A fitting abode, I suppose, for those who call themselves gods."
"Call themselves?" asked Yama. "You are wrong, Sam, Godhood is more
than a name. It is a condition of being. One does not achieve it merely by
being immortal, for even the lowliest laborer in the fields may achieve
continuity of existence. Is it then the conditioning of an Aspect? No. Any
competent hypnotist can play games with the self-image. Is it the raising up
of an Attribute? Of course not. I can design machines more powerful and more
accurate than any faculty a man may cultivate. Being a god is the quality of
being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond
with the forces of the universe, so that those who look upon you know this
without hearing your name spoken. Some ancient poet said that the world is
full of echoes and correspondences. Another wrote a long poem of an inferno,
wherein each man suffered a torture which coincided in nature with those
forces which had ruled his life. Being a god is being able to recognize
within one's self these things that are important, and then to strike the
single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that
exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the
sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the
end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one's ruling passions.
Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is
Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your
statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though,
everyone who beholds them."
"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"
"You choose the wrong adjective."
"You've already used up all the others."
"It appears that our minds will never meet on this subject."
"If someone asks you why you're oppressing a world and you reply with a
lot of poetic crap, no. I guess there can't be a meeting of minds."
"Then let us choose another subject for conversation."
"I do look upon you, though, and say, 'He is Death.'"
Yama did not reply.
"Odd ruling passion. I've heard that you were old before you were young
. . ."
"You know that is true."
"You were a mechanical prodigy and a weapons master. You lost your
boyhood in a burst of flame, and you became an old man that same day. Did
death become your ruling passion in that moment? Or was it earlier? Or
later?"
"It does not matter," said Yama.
"Do you serve the gods because you believe what you have said to me--
or because you hate the larger portion of humanity?"
"I did not lie to you."
"Then Death is an idealist. Amusing."
"Not so."
"Or could it be. Lord Yama, that neither guess is correct? That your
ruling passion-- "
"You've mentioned her name before," said Yama, "in the same speech
wherein you likened her to a disease. You were wrong then and you are still
wrong. I do not care to hear that sermon over again, and since I am not at
the moment sinking in quicksand, I will not."
"Peace," said Sam. "But tell me, do the ruling passions of the gods
ever change?"
Yama smiled. "The goddess of dance was once the god of war. So it would
seem that anything can change."
"When I have died the real death," said Sam, "then will I be changed.
But until that moment I will hate Heaven with every breath that I draw. If
Brahma has me burnt, I will spit into the flames. If he has me strangled, I
will attempt to bite the executioner's hand. If my throat is cut, may my
blood rust the blade that does it. Is that a ruling passion?"
"You are good god material," said Yama.
"Good god!" said Sam.
"Before whatever may happen happens," said Yama, "I have been assured
that you will be permitted to attend the wedding."
"Wedding? You and Kali? Soon?"
"At the full of the lesser moon," Yama replied. "So, whatever Brahma
decides, at least I can buy you a drink before it occurs."
"For that I thank you, deathgod. But it has always been my
understanding that weddings are not made in Heaven."
"That tradition is about to be broken," said Yama. "No tradition is
sacred."
"Then good luck," said Sam.
Yama nodded, yawned, lit another cigarette.
"By the way," said Sam, "what is the latest vogue in celestial
executions? I ask purely for informational purposes."
"Executions are not held in Heaven," said Yama, opening a cabinet and
removing a chessboard.
From Hellwell to Heaven he went, there to commune with the gods. The
Celestial City holds many mysteries, including some of the keys to his own
past. Not all that transpired during the time he dwelled there is known. It
is known, however, that he petitioned the gods on behalf of the world,
obtaining the sympathy of some, the enmity of others. Had he chosen to
betray humanity and accept the proffers of the gods, it is said by some that
he might have dwelled forever as a Lord of the City and not have met his
death beneath the claws of the phantom cats of Kaniburrha. It is said by his
detractors, though, that he did accept these proffers, but was later
betrayed himself, so giving his sympathies back to suffering mankind for the
rest of his days, which were few. . . .
Girt about with lightnings, standard-bearer, armed with the sword, the
wheel, the bow,
devourer, sustainer. Kali, night of destruction at Worldsend, who
walketh the world by night,
protectress, deceiver, serene one, loved and lovely, Brahmani, Mother
of the Vedas, dweller in the silent and most secret places,
well-omened, and gentle, all-knowing, swift as thought, wearer of
skulls, possessed of power, the twilight, invincible leader, pitiful one,
opener of the way before those lost, granter of favors, teacher, valor
in the form of woman,
chameleon-hearted, practitioner of austerities, magician, pariah,
deathless and eternal. . ..
Âryatârâbhattârikânâmâshtottarásatakastotra (36-40)
Then, as so often in the past, her snowy fur was sleeked by the wind.
She walked where the lemon-colored grasses stirred. She walked a
winding track under dark trees and jungle flowers, crags of jasper rising to
her right, veins of milk-white rock, shot through with orange streaks, open
about her.
Then, as so often before, she moved on the great cushions of her feet,
the wind sleeking her fur, white as marble, and the ten thousand fragrances
of the jungle and the plain stirring about her; there, in the twilight of
the place that only half existed.
Alone, she followed the ageless trail through the jungle that was part
illusion. The white tiger is a solitary hunter. If others moved along a
similar course, none cared for company.
Then, as so often before, she looked up at the smooth, gray shell of
the sky and the stars that glistened there like shards of ice. Her crescent
eyes widened, and she stopped and sat upon her haunches, staring upward.
What was it she was hunting?
A deep sound, like a chuckle ending in a cough, came from her throat.
She sprang then suddenly to the top of a high rock, and sat there licking
her shoulders. When a moon moved into view, she watched it. She seemed a
figure molded of unmelting snow, topaz flames gleaming beneath her brows.
Then, as before, she wondered whether this was the true jungle of
Kaniburrha in which she sat. She felt that she was still within the confines
of the actual forest. But she could not really know.
What was it she was hunting?
Heaven exists upon a plateau that was once a range of mountains. These
mountains were fused and smoothed to provide a level base. Topsoil was
transported from the verdant south, to give it the growth that fleshed over
this bony structure. Cupping the entire area is a transparent dome,
protecting it against the polar cold and anything else unwanted within.
Heaven stands high and temperate and enjoys a long twilight and long,
lazy days. Fresh airs, warmed as they are drawn within, circulate through
the City and the forest. Within the dome itself, clouds can be generated.
From within the clouds rains can be called forth, to fall upon almost any
area. A snowfall could even be brought down in this manner, although this
thing has never been done. It has always been summer in Heaven.
Within the summer of Heaven stands the Celestial City.
The Celestial City did not grow up as the cities of men grow up, about
a port or near to good farmland, pasturage, hunting country, trade routes or
a region rich in some natural resource that men desired and so settled
beside. The Celestial City sprang from a conception in the minds of its
first dwellers. Its growth was not slow and haphazard, a building added
here, a thoroughfare rerouted there, one structure torn down to make way for
another, and all parts coming together into an irregular and unseemly whole.
No. Every demand of utility was considered and every inch of magnificence
calculated by the first planners and the design-augmentation machines. These
plans were coordinated and brought to fruition by an architectural artist
without peer. Vishnu, the Preserver, held the entire Celestial City within
his mind, until the day he circled Milehigh Spire on the back of the Garuda
Bird, stared downward and the City was captured perfect in a drop of
perspiration on his brow.
So Heaven sprang from the mind of a god, its conception stimulated by
the desires of his fellows. It was laid by choice, rather than necessity, in
a wilderness of ice and snow and rock, at the timeless Pole of the world,
where only the mighty might make their home.
(What was it she was hunting?)
Beneath the dome of Heaven there stood, beside the Celestial City, the
great forest of Kaniburrha. Vishnu, in his wisdom, had seen that there must
be a balance between the metropolis and the wilderness. While wilderness can
exist independent of cities, that which dwells within a city requires more
than the tamed plants of a pleasance. If the world were all city, he had
reasoned, the dwellers within it would turn a portion of it into a
wilderness, for there is that within them all which desires that somewhere
there be an end to order and a beginning of chaos. So, within his mind there
had grown up a forest, pumping forth streams and the smells of growth and
decay, uttering the cries of the uncitied creatures who dwelled within its
shadows, shrugging in the wind and glistening in the rain, falling down and
growing up again.
The wilderness came to the edge of the City and stopped. It was
forbidden to enter there, just as the City kept to its bounds.
But of the creatures who dwelled within the forest, some were
predators; these knew no boundaries of limits, coming and going as they
chose. Chief among these were the albino tigers. So it was written by the
gods that the phantom cats might not look upon the Celestial City; and so it
was laid upon their eyes, through the nervous systems that lay behind them,
that there was no City. Within their white-cat brains, the world was only
the forest of Kaniburrha. They walked the streets of Heaven, and it was a
jungle trail they trod. If the gods stroked their fur as they passed them
by, it was as the wind laying hands upon them. Should they climb a broad
stairway, it was a rocky slope they mounted. The buildings were cliffs and
the statues were trees; the passers-by were invisible.
Should one from the City enter the true forest, however, cat and god
then dwelled upon the same plane of existence-- the wilderness, the
balancer.
She coughed again, as she had so often before, and her snowy fur was
sleeked by the wind. She was a phantom cat, who for three days had stalked
about the wilderness of Kaniburrha, slaying and eating the raw red flesh of
her kill, crying out her great-throated cat-challenge, licking her fur with
her broad, pink tongue, feeling the rain fall down upon her back, dripping
from off the high, hanging fronds, coming in torrents down from the clouds,
which coalesced, miraculously, in the center of the sky; moving with fire in
her loins, having mated the night before with an avalanche of death-colored
fur, whose claws had raked her shoulders, the smell of the blood driving
them both into a great frenzy; purring, as the cool twilight came over her,
bringing with it the moons, like the changing crescents of her eyes, golden
and silver and dun. She sat upon the rock, licking her paws and wondering
what it was she had hunted.
Lakshmi, in the Garden of the Lokapalas, lay with Kubera, fourth keeper
of the world, upon a scented couch set beside the pool in which the
Apsarases played. The other three of the Lokapalas were absent this evening.
. . . Giggling, the Apsarases splashed the perfumed waters toward the couch.
Lord Krishna the Dark, however, chose that moment to blow upon his pipes.
The girls then turned away from Kubera the Fat and Lakshmi the Lovely, to
rest their elbows upon the edges of the pool and stare at him, there beneath
the flowering tree where he lay sprawled amid wineskins and the remains of
several meals.
He ran up and down the scale and produced one long wailing note and a
series of goatlike bleats. Guari the Fair, whom he had spent an hour
undressing and then had apparently forgotten, rose up from his side, dove
into the pool and vanished into one of the many subaquaean caves. He
hiccupped, began a tune, stopped, began another.
"Is it true what they say about Kali?" asked Lakshmi.
"What do they say?" grunted Kubera, reaching for a bowl of soma.
She took the bowl from his hands, sipped at it, returned it to him. He
quaffed it, and a servant refilled it as he placed it back upon the tray.
"That she wants a human sacrifice, to celebrate her wedding?"
"Probably," said Kubera. "Wouldn't put it past her. Bloodthirsty bitch,
that one. Always transmigrating into some vicious animal for a holiday.
Became a fire-hen once and clawed Sitala's face over something she'd said."
"When?"
"Oh, ten-- eleven avatars back. Sitala wore a veil for a devilish long
time, till her new body was ready."
"A strange pair," said Lakshmi into his ear, which she was biting.
"Your friend Yama is probably the only one would live with her. Supposing
she grew angry with a lover and cast her deadly look upon him? Who else
could bear that gaze?"
"Jest not," said Kubera. "Thus did we lose Kartikeya, Lord of the
Battles."
"Oh?"
"Aye. She's a strange one. Like Yama, yet not like him. He is deathgod,
true. But his is the way of the quick, clean kill. Kali is rather like a
cat."
"Does Yama ever speak of this fascination she holds for him?"
"Did you come here to gather gossip or to become some?"
"Both," she replied.
At that moment, Krishna took his Aspect upon him, raising up the
Attribute of divine drunkenness. From his pipes there poured the bitter-dark
sour-sweet melody contagious. The drunkenness within him expanded across the
garden, in alternating waves of joy and sadness. He rose upon his lithe,
dark legs and began to dance. His flat features were expressionless. His
wet, dark hair lay in tight rings, like wire; even his beard was so curled.
As he moved, the Apsarases came forth from the pool to follow him. His pipes
wandered along the trails of the ancient melodies, growing more and more
frenzied as he moved faster and faster, until finally he broke into the
Rasa-lila, the Dance of Lust, and his retinue, hands on their hips, followed
him with increasing speed through its gyrating movements.
Kubera's grip upon Lakshmi tightened.
"Now there is an Attribute," she said.
Rudra the Grim bent his bow and sent an arrow flying. The arrow sped on
and on and finally came to rest in the center of a distant target. At his
side. Lord Murugan chuckled and lowered his bow.
"You win again," he said. "I can't beat that."
They unbraced their bows and moved toward the target after the arrows.
"Have you met him yet?" asked Murugan.
"I knew him a long time ago," said Rudra.
"Accelerationist?"
"He wasn't then. Wasn't much of anything, politically. He was one of
the First, though, one of those who had looked upon Urath."
"Oh?"
"He distinguished himself in the wars against the People-of-the-Sea and
against the Mothers of the Terrible Glow." Here, Rudra made a sign in the
air. "Later," he continued, "this was remembered, and he was given charge of
the northern marches in the wars against the demons. He was known as Kalkin
in those days, and it was there that he came to be called Binder. He
developed an Attribute which he could use against the demons. With it, he
destroyed most of the Yakshas and bound the Rakasha. When Yama and Kali
captured him at Hellwell in Malwa, he had already succeeded in freeing these
latter. Thus, the Rakasha are again abroad in the world."
"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."
"Take care what you say, goddess. Who knows what may be listening?"
"None listens," said she, "for seldom are words spoken within this
place."
"All the more reason for someone to be curious when they are."
She sat for a time in silence, then, "None listens," she said.
"Your powers have grown."
"Yes. What of yours?"
"About the same, I think."
"Then will you accept my sword, my wheel, my bow, in the name of
Accelerationism?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You give your promises too easily. You break them as readily as you
make them, and because of this I can never trust you. If we fight and we win
in the name of Accelerationism, it may also be the last great battle of this
world. This is a thing you could not desire, nor permit to occur."
"You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great
battle is always the next one. Shall I come to you in a more comely shape to
convince you that I speak the truth? Shall I embrace you in a body with the
seal of virginity set upon it? Will this make you to trust my word?"
"Doubt, Lady, is the chastity of the mind, and I bear its seal upon my
own."
"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.
The Archives exploded around him, and he stood in the ballroom halfway
up Milehigh Spire. It was night, so late that it would soon be morning. A
party had obviously been going on for a long while; but now the crowd in
which he stood had come together in the corner of the room. They were
leaning, and they were sitting and reclining, and all of them listening to
the short, dark, husky man who stood beside the goddess Kali and talked.
This was Great-Souled Sam the Buddha, who, with his warden, had just
arrived. He was talking of Buddhism and Accelerationism, and of the days of
the binding, and Hellwell, and the blasphemies of Lord Siddhartha in the
city of Mahartha by the sea. He was talking, and his voice went on and on,
hypnotic, and he radiated power and confidence and warmth, hypnotic, and his
words went on and on and on, as the crowd slowly passed out and fell down
around him. All of the women were quite ugly, except for Maya, who tittered
then and clapped her hands, bringing back the Archives about them, and Tak
again to his chair, his smile still upon his lips.
"So why this sudden interest in the dead?" he repeated.
"He is not dead, that one!"
"No?" said Tak. "He isn't? . . . Mistress Maya, he was dead the moment
he set foot within the Celestial City. Forget him. Forget his words. Let it
be as if he never existed. Leave no trace of him within your mind. One day
you will seek renewal-- so know that the Masters of Karma will seek after
this one within every mind that passes through their halls. The Buddha and
his words are an abomination in the eyes of the gods."
"But why?"
"He is a bomb-throwing anarchist, a hairy-eyed revolutionary. He seeks
to pull down Heaven itself. If you want more scientific information, I'll
have to use the machines to retrieve the data. Would you care to sign an
authorization for this?"
"No . . ."
"Then put him out of your mind and lock the door."
"He is really that bad?"
"He's worse."
"Then why do you smile as you say these things?"
"Because I'm not a very serious person. Character has nothing to do
with my message, however. So heed it."
"You seem to know all about it. Are archivists themselves immune to
these lists?"
"Hardly. My name is first upon it. But this is not because I am an
archivist. He is my father."
"That one? Your father?"
"Yes. You speak as one quite young, however. I doubt that he is even
aware that he fathered me. What is paternity to the gods, who inhabit a
succession of bodies, begetting scores of offspring by others who also
change bodies four or five times a century? I am the son of a body he once
inhabited, born of another who also passed through many, and I myself no
longer live in the same body I was born into. The relationship, therefore,
is quite intangible, and interesting primarily on levels of speculative
metaphysics. What is the true father of a man? The circumstances which
brought together the two bodies which begat him? Was it the fact that, for
some reason, at one moment in time, these two pleased one another beyond any
possible alternatives? If so, why? Was it the simple hunger of the flesh, or
was it curiosity, or the will? Or was it something else? Pity? Loneliness?
The desire to dominate? What feeling, or what thought was father to the body
in which I first came into consciousness? I know that the man who inhabited
that particular father-body at that particular instant of time is a
complicated and powerful personality. Chromosomes mean nothing to us, not
really. If we live, we do not carry these hallmarks down through the ages.
We really inherit nothing at all, save for occasional endowments of property
and cash. The bodies mean so little in the long run that it is far more
interesting to speculate as to the mental processes which plucked us forth
from chaos. I am pleased that it was he who called me to life, and I often
conjecture as to the reasons. I see that your face is suddenly lacking in
color, mistress. I did not mean to upset you with this talk, simply to
satisfy your curiosity somewhat, and to lay upon your mind some of the
thinking we old ones do upon these matters. One day you, too, will look upon
it in this light, I am certain. But I am sorry to see you looking so
distressed. Pray sit down. Forgive my prattle. You are the Mistress of
Illusion. Are not the things of which I have spoken akin to the very stuff
with which you work? I am certain that you can tell from the manner in which
I speak why my name is first upon the list I mentioned. It is a case of hero
worship, I suppose. My creator is quite distinguished. . . . Now you are
looking somewhat flushed. Would you care for a cool drink? Wait here a
moment. . . . There. Sip this. Now then, about Accelerationism-- it is a
simple doctrine of sharing. It proposes that we of Heaven give unto those
who dwell below of our knowledge and powers and substance. This act of
charity would be directed to the end of raising their condition of existence
to a higher level, akin to that which we ourselves occupy. Then every man
would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that
there would no longer be any gods, only men. We would give them knowledge of
the sciences and the arts, which we possess, and in so doing we would
destroy their simple faith and remove all basis for their hoping that things
will be better-- for the best way to destroy faith or hope is to let it be
realized. Why should we permit men to suffer this burden of godhood
collectively, as the Accelerationists wished, when we do grant it to them
individually when they come to deserve it? In his sixtieth year a man passes
through the Halls of Karma. He is judged, and if he has done well, observing
the rules and restrictions of his caste, paying the proper observances to
Heaven, advancing himself intellectually and morally, then this man will be
incarnated into a higher caste, eventually achieving godhood itself and
coming to dwell here in the City. Each man eventually receives his just
desserts-- barring unfortunate accidents, of course-- and so each man,
rather than society as a sudden whole, may come into the divine inheritance
which the ambitious Accelerationists wished to scatter wholesale before
everyone, even those who were unready. You can see that this attitude was
dreadfully unfair and proletarian-oriented. What they really wanted to do
was to lower the requirements for godhood. These requirements are
necessarily strict. Would you give the power of Shiva, of Yama, or of Agni
into the hands of an infant? Not unless you are a fool, you wouldn't Not
unless you wished to wake up one morning and see that the world no longer
existed. This is what the Accelerationists would have wrought, though, and
this is why they were stopped. Now you know all about Accelerationism. . . .
My, you look awfully warm. May I hang your garment while I get you another
drink? . . . Very good. . . . Now, where were we, Maya? Oh yes-- the beetles
in the pudding. . . . Well, the Accelerationists claimed that everything I
have just said would be true, excepting for the fact that the system is
corrupt. They cast aspersions upon the probity of those who authorized
incarnation. Some even dared claim that Heaven was comprised of an immortal
aristocracy of wilful hedonists who played games with the world. Others
dared to say that the best of men never achieve godhood, but meet ultimately
with the real death or incarnation into a lower life form. Some others would
even say that one such as yourself had been chosen for deification only
because your original form and attitude struck the fancy of some lustful
divinity, rather than for your other obvious virtues, my dear. .. . My,
you're full of freckles, aren't you? . . . Yes, these are the things those
thrice-damned Accelerationists preached. These are the things, the
accusations, that the father of my spirit stands for, I am ashamed to say.
What can one do with such a heritage but wonder at it? He rides a cycle of
mighty days, and he represents the last great schism among the gods. Evil
though he obviously is, he is a mighty figure, this father of my spirit, and
I respect him as the sons of old did the fathers of their bodies. . . . Are
you cold now? Here, let me. . . . There. . . . There. . . . There. . . .
Come, now weave us an illusion, my lovely, where we walk in a world that is
free of such foolishness. . . . This way now. Turn here. . .. Now let there
be a new Eden within this bunker, my moist-lipped one of the green eyes. . .
. What is that? . . . What is it that is paramount within me at this instant
of time? . . . Truth, my love-- and sincerity-- and the desire to share . .
."
Ganesha the god-maker walked with Shiva in the forest of Kaniburrha.
"Lord of Destruction," he said, "I understand that you already seek
reprisal against those here in the City who mark the words of Siddhartha
with more than a smirk of dismissal."
"Of course," said Shiva.
"By so doing, you destroy his effectiveness."
"'Effectiveness'? Explain what you mean."
"Kill me that green bird on yonder limb."
Shiva gestured with his trident and the bird fell.
"Now kill me its mate."
"I do not see her."
"Then kill me any other from among its flock."
"I see none."
"And now that it lies dead, you will not. So, if you wish, strike at
the first who harken to the words of Siddhartha."
"I gather your meaning, Ganesha. He shall walk free, for a time. He
shall."
Ganesha the god-maker regarded the jungle about him. Though he walked
through the realm of the phantom cats, he feared no evil. For the Lord of
Chaos walked by his side, and the Trident of Destruction comforted him.
Vishnu Vishnu Vishnu regarded regarded regarded Brahma Brahma Brahma .
. .
They sat in the Hall of Mirrors.
Brahma held forth upon the Eightfold Path and the glory that is
Nirvana.
After the space of three cigarettes, Vishnu cleared his throat.
"Yes, Lord?" asked Brahma.
"Why, may I inquire, this Buddhist tract?"
"Do you not find it fascinating?"
"Not particularly."
"That is indeed hypocritical of you."
"What do you mean?"
"A teacher should display at least a modicum of interest in his own
place? I thought you were the one man immune to demonic possession."
"So did I. What's demon repellant?"
"I found a chemical agent, harmless to us, which none of the energy
beings can stand."
"Handy item. Could've used it in the days of the binding."
"Yes. We wore it into Hellwell."
"That was quite a battle, from what I saw of it."
"Yes," said Yama. "What is it like-- demonic possession? What does it
feel like to have another will overriding your own?"
"It is strange," said Sam, "and frightening, and rather educating at
the same time."
"In what ways?"
"It was their world first," said Sam. "We took it away from them. Why
shouldn't they be everything we hate them for being? To them, we are the
demons."
"But what does it feel like?"
"To have one's will overridden by that of another?
You should know."
Yama's smile vanished, then returned. "You would like me to strike you,
wouldn't you, Buddha? It would make you feel superior. Unfortunately, I'm a
sadist and will not do it."
Sam laughed.
"Touché, Death," he said.
They sat in silence for a time.
"Can you spare me a cigarette?"
Yama passed him one, lit it.
"What's First Base like these days?"
"You'll hardly recognize the place," said Yama. "If everyone in it were
to die at this moment, it would still be perfect ten thousand years from
now. The flowers would still bloom and the music would play and the
fountains would ripple the length of the spectrum. Warm meals would still be
laid within the garden pavilions. The City itself is immortal."
"A fitting abode, I suppose, for those who call themselves gods."
"Call themselves?" asked Yama. "You are wrong, Sam, Godhood is more
than a name. It is a condition of being. One does not achieve it merely by
being immortal, for even the lowliest laborer in the fields may achieve
continuity of existence. Is it then the conditioning of an Aspect? No. Any
competent hypnotist can play games with the self-image. Is it the raising up
of an Attribute? Of course not. I can design machines more powerful and more
accurate than any faculty a man may cultivate. Being a god is the quality of
being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond
with the forces of the universe, so that those who look upon you know this
without hearing your name spoken. Some ancient poet said that the world is
full of echoes and correspondences. Another wrote a long poem of an inferno,
wherein each man suffered a torture which coincided in nature with those
forces which had ruled his life. Being a god is being able to recognize
within one's self these things that are important, and then to strike the
single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that
exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the
sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the
end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one's ruling passions.
Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is
Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your
statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though,
everyone who beholds them."
"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"
"You choose the wrong adjective."
"You've already used up all the others."
"It appears that our minds will never meet on this subject."
"If someone asks you why you're oppressing a world and you reply with a
lot of poetic crap, no. I guess there can't be a meeting of minds."
"Then let us choose another subject for conversation."
"I do look upon you, though, and say, 'He is Death.'"
Yama did not reply.
"Odd ruling passion. I've heard that you were old before you were young
. . ."
"You know that is true."
"You were a mechanical prodigy and a weapons master. You lost your
boyhood in a burst of flame, and you became an old man that same day. Did
death become your ruling passion in that moment? Or was it earlier? Or
later?"
"It does not matter," said Yama.
"Do you serve the gods because you believe what you have said to me--
or because you hate the larger portion of humanity?"
"I did not lie to you."
"Then Death is an idealist. Amusing."
"Not so."
"Or could it be. Lord Yama, that neither guess is correct? That your
ruling passion-- "
"You've mentioned her name before," said Yama, "in the same speech
wherein you likened her to a disease. You were wrong then and you are still
wrong. I do not care to hear that sermon over again, and since I am not at
the moment sinking in quicksand, I will not."
"Peace," said Sam. "But tell me, do the ruling passions of the gods
ever change?"
Yama smiled. "The goddess of dance was once the god of war. So it would
seem that anything can change."
"When I have died the real death," said Sam, "then will I be changed.
But until that moment I will hate Heaven with every breath that I draw. If
Brahma has me burnt, I will spit into the flames. If he has me strangled, I
will attempt to bite the executioner's hand. If my throat is cut, may my
blood rust the blade that does it. Is that a ruling passion?"
"You are good god material," said Yama.
"Good god!" said Sam.
"Before whatever may happen happens," said Yama, "I have been assured
that you will be permitted to attend the wedding."
"Wedding? You and Kali? Soon?"
"At the full of the lesser moon," Yama replied. "So, whatever Brahma
decides, at least I can buy you a drink before it occurs."
"For that I thank you, deathgod. But it has always been my
understanding that weddings are not made in Heaven."
"That tradition is about to be broken," said Yama. "No tradition is
sacred."
"Then good luck," said Sam.
Yama nodded, yawned, lit another cigarette.
"By the way," said Sam, "what is the latest vogue in celestial
executions? I ask purely for informational purposes."
"Executions are not held in Heaven," said Yama, opening a cabinet and
removing a chessboard.
From Hellwell to Heaven he went, there to commune with the gods. The
Celestial City holds many mysteries, including some of the keys to his own
past. Not all that transpired during the time he dwelled there is known. It
is known, however, that he petitioned the gods on behalf of the world,
obtaining the sympathy of some, the enmity of others. Had he chosen to
betray humanity and accept the proffers of the gods, it is said by some that
he might have dwelled forever as a Lord of the City and not have met his
death beneath the claws of the phantom cats of Kaniburrha. It is said by his
detractors, though, that he did accept these proffers, but was later
betrayed himself, so giving his sympathies back to suffering mankind for the
rest of his days, which were few. . . .
Girt about with lightnings, standard-bearer, armed with the sword, the
wheel, the bow,
devourer, sustainer. Kali, night of destruction at Worldsend, who
walketh the world by night,
protectress, deceiver, serene one, loved and lovely, Brahmani, Mother
of the Vedas, dweller in the silent and most secret places,
well-omened, and gentle, all-knowing, swift as thought, wearer of
skulls, possessed of power, the twilight, invincible leader, pitiful one,
opener of the way before those lost, granter of favors, teacher, valor
in the form of woman,
chameleon-hearted, practitioner of austerities, magician, pariah,
deathless and eternal. . ..
Âryatârâbhattârikânâmâshtottarásatakastotra (36-40)
Then, as so often in the past, her snowy fur was sleeked by the wind.
She walked where the lemon-colored grasses stirred. She walked a
winding track under dark trees and jungle flowers, crags of jasper rising to
her right, veins of milk-white rock, shot through with orange streaks, open
about her.
Then, as so often before, she moved on the great cushions of her feet,
the wind sleeking her fur, white as marble, and the ten thousand fragrances
of the jungle and the plain stirring about her; there, in the twilight of
the place that only half existed.
Alone, she followed the ageless trail through the jungle that was part
illusion. The white tiger is a solitary hunter. If others moved along a
similar course, none cared for company.
Then, as so often before, she looked up at the smooth, gray shell of
the sky and the stars that glistened there like shards of ice. Her crescent
eyes widened, and she stopped and sat upon her haunches, staring upward.
What was it she was hunting?
A deep sound, like a chuckle ending in a cough, came from her throat.
She sprang then suddenly to the top of a high rock, and sat there licking
her shoulders. When a moon moved into view, she watched it. She seemed a
figure molded of unmelting snow, topaz flames gleaming beneath her brows.
Then, as before, she wondered whether this was the true jungle of
Kaniburrha in which she sat. She felt that she was still within the confines
of the actual forest. But she could not really know.
What was it she was hunting?
Heaven exists upon a plateau that was once a range of mountains. These
mountains were fused and smoothed to provide a level base. Topsoil was
transported from the verdant south, to give it the growth that fleshed over
this bony structure. Cupping the entire area is a transparent dome,
protecting it against the polar cold and anything else unwanted within.
Heaven stands high and temperate and enjoys a long twilight and long,
lazy days. Fresh airs, warmed as they are drawn within, circulate through
the City and the forest. Within the dome itself, clouds can be generated.
From within the clouds rains can be called forth, to fall upon almost any
area. A snowfall could even be brought down in this manner, although this
thing has never been done. It has always been summer in Heaven.
Within the summer of Heaven stands the Celestial City.
The Celestial City did not grow up as the cities of men grow up, about
a port or near to good farmland, pasturage, hunting country, trade routes or
a region rich in some natural resource that men desired and so settled
beside. The Celestial City sprang from a conception in the minds of its
first dwellers. Its growth was not slow and haphazard, a building added
here, a thoroughfare rerouted there, one structure torn down to make way for
another, and all parts coming together into an irregular and unseemly whole.
No. Every demand of utility was considered and every inch of magnificence
calculated by the first planners and the design-augmentation machines. These
plans were coordinated and brought to fruition by an architectural artist
without peer. Vishnu, the Preserver, held the entire Celestial City within
his mind, until the day he circled Milehigh Spire on the back of the Garuda
Bird, stared downward and the City was captured perfect in a drop of
perspiration on his brow.
So Heaven sprang from the mind of a god, its conception stimulated by
the desires of his fellows. It was laid by choice, rather than necessity, in
a wilderness of ice and snow and rock, at the timeless Pole of the world,
where only the mighty might make their home.
(What was it she was hunting?)
Beneath the dome of Heaven there stood, beside the Celestial City, the
great forest of Kaniburrha. Vishnu, in his wisdom, had seen that there must
be a balance between the metropolis and the wilderness. While wilderness can
exist independent of cities, that which dwells within a city requires more
than the tamed plants of a pleasance. If the world were all city, he had
reasoned, the dwellers within it would turn a portion of it into a
wilderness, for there is that within them all which desires that somewhere
there be an end to order and a beginning of chaos. So, within his mind there
had grown up a forest, pumping forth streams and the smells of growth and
decay, uttering the cries of the uncitied creatures who dwelled within its
shadows, shrugging in the wind and glistening in the rain, falling down and
growing up again.
The wilderness came to the edge of the City and stopped. It was
forbidden to enter there, just as the City kept to its bounds.
But of the creatures who dwelled within the forest, some were
predators; these knew no boundaries of limits, coming and going as they
chose. Chief among these were the albino tigers. So it was written by the
gods that the phantom cats might not look upon the Celestial City; and so it
was laid upon their eyes, through the nervous systems that lay behind them,
that there was no City. Within their white-cat brains, the world was only
the forest of Kaniburrha. They walked the streets of Heaven, and it was a
jungle trail they trod. If the gods stroked their fur as they passed them
by, it was as the wind laying hands upon them. Should they climb a broad
stairway, it was a rocky slope they mounted. The buildings were cliffs and
the statues were trees; the passers-by were invisible.
Should one from the City enter the true forest, however, cat and god
then dwelled upon the same plane of existence-- the wilderness, the
balancer.
She coughed again, as she had so often before, and her snowy fur was
sleeked by the wind. She was a phantom cat, who for three days had stalked
about the wilderness of Kaniburrha, slaying and eating the raw red flesh of
her kill, crying out her great-throated cat-challenge, licking her fur with
her broad, pink tongue, feeling the rain fall down upon her back, dripping
from off the high, hanging fronds, coming in torrents down from the clouds,
which coalesced, miraculously, in the center of the sky; moving with fire in
her loins, having mated the night before with an avalanche of death-colored
fur, whose claws had raked her shoulders, the smell of the blood driving
them both into a great frenzy; purring, as the cool twilight came over her,
bringing with it the moons, like the changing crescents of her eyes, golden
and silver and dun. She sat upon the rock, licking her paws and wondering
what it was she had hunted.
Lakshmi, in the Garden of the Lokapalas, lay with Kubera, fourth keeper
of the world, upon a scented couch set beside the pool in which the
Apsarases played. The other three of the Lokapalas were absent this evening.
. . . Giggling, the Apsarases splashed the perfumed waters toward the couch.
Lord Krishna the Dark, however, chose that moment to blow upon his pipes.
The girls then turned away from Kubera the Fat and Lakshmi the Lovely, to
rest their elbows upon the edges of the pool and stare at him, there beneath
the flowering tree where he lay sprawled amid wineskins and the remains of
several meals.
He ran up and down the scale and produced one long wailing note and a
series of goatlike bleats. Guari the Fair, whom he had spent an hour
undressing and then had apparently forgotten, rose up from his side, dove
into the pool and vanished into one of the many subaquaean caves. He
hiccupped, began a tune, stopped, began another.
"Is it true what they say about Kali?" asked Lakshmi.
"What do they say?" grunted Kubera, reaching for a bowl of soma.
She took the bowl from his hands, sipped at it, returned it to him. He
quaffed it, and a servant refilled it as he placed it back upon the tray.
"That she wants a human sacrifice, to celebrate her wedding?"
"Probably," said Kubera. "Wouldn't put it past her. Bloodthirsty bitch,
that one. Always transmigrating into some vicious animal for a holiday.
Became a fire-hen once and clawed Sitala's face over something she'd said."
"When?"
"Oh, ten-- eleven avatars back. Sitala wore a veil for a devilish long
time, till her new body was ready."
"A strange pair," said Lakshmi into his ear, which she was biting.
"Your friend Yama is probably the only one would live with her. Supposing
she grew angry with a lover and cast her deadly look upon him? Who else
could bear that gaze?"
"Jest not," said Kubera. "Thus did we lose Kartikeya, Lord of the
Battles."
"Oh?"
"Aye. She's a strange one. Like Yama, yet not like him. He is deathgod,
true. But his is the way of the quick, clean kill. Kali is rather like a
cat."
"Does Yama ever speak of this fascination she holds for him?"
"Did you come here to gather gossip or to become some?"
"Both," she replied.
At that moment, Krishna took his Aspect upon him, raising up the
Attribute of divine drunkenness. From his pipes there poured the bitter-dark
sour-sweet melody contagious. The drunkenness within him expanded across the
garden, in alternating waves of joy and sadness. He rose upon his lithe,
dark legs and began to dance. His flat features were expressionless. His
wet, dark hair lay in tight rings, like wire; even his beard was so curled.
As he moved, the Apsarases came forth from the pool to follow him. His pipes
wandered along the trails of the ancient melodies, growing more and more
frenzied as he moved faster and faster, until finally he broke into the
Rasa-lila, the Dance of Lust, and his retinue, hands on their hips, followed
him with increasing speed through its gyrating movements.
Kubera's grip upon Lakshmi tightened.
"Now there is an Attribute," she said.
Rudra the Grim bent his bow and sent an arrow flying. The arrow sped on
and on and finally came to rest in the center of a distant target. At his
side. Lord Murugan chuckled and lowered his bow.
"You win again," he said. "I can't beat that."
They unbraced their bows and moved toward the target after the arrows.
"Have you met him yet?" asked Murugan.
"I knew him a long time ago," said Rudra.
"Accelerationist?"
"He wasn't then. Wasn't much of anything, politically. He was one of
the First, though, one of those who had looked upon Urath."
"Oh?"
"He distinguished himself in the wars against the People-of-the-Sea and
against the Mothers of the Terrible Glow." Here, Rudra made a sign in the
air. "Later," he continued, "this was remembered, and he was given charge of
the northern marches in the wars against the demons. He was known as Kalkin
in those days, and it was there that he came to be called Binder. He
developed an Attribute which he could use against the demons. With it, he
destroyed most of the Yakshas and bound the Rakasha. When Yama and Kali
captured him at Hellwell in Malwa, he had already succeeded in freeing these
latter. Thus, the Rakasha are again abroad in the world."
"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."
"Take care what you say, goddess. Who knows what may be listening?"
"None listens," said she, "for seldom are words spoken within this
place."
"All the more reason for someone to be curious when they are."
She sat for a time in silence, then, "None listens," she said.
"Your powers have grown."
"Yes. What of yours?"
"About the same, I think."
"Then will you accept my sword, my wheel, my bow, in the name of
Accelerationism?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You give your promises too easily. You break them as readily as you
make them, and because of this I can never trust you. If we fight and we win
in the name of Accelerationism, it may also be the last great battle of this
world. This is a thing you could not desire, nor permit to occur."
"You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great
battle is always the next one. Shall I come to you in a more comely shape to
convince you that I speak the truth? Shall I embrace you in a body with the
seal of virginity set upon it? Will this make you to trust my word?"
"Doubt, Lady, is the chastity of the mind, and I bear its seal upon my
own."
"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.
The Archives exploded around him, and he stood in the ballroom halfway
up Milehigh Spire. It was night, so late that it would soon be morning. A
party had obviously been going on for a long while; but now the crowd in
which he stood had come together in the corner of the room. They were
leaning, and they were sitting and reclining, and all of them listening to
the short, dark, husky man who stood beside the goddess Kali and talked.
This was Great-Souled Sam the Buddha, who, with his warden, had just
arrived. He was talking of Buddhism and Accelerationism, and of the days of
the binding, and Hellwell, and the blasphemies of Lord Siddhartha in the
city of Mahartha by the sea. He was talking, and his voice went on and on,
hypnotic, and he radiated power and confidence and warmth, hypnotic, and his
words went on and on and on, as the crowd slowly passed out and fell down
around him. All of the women were quite ugly, except for Maya, who tittered
then and clapped her hands, bringing back the Archives about them, and Tak
again to his chair, his smile still upon his lips.
"So why this sudden interest in the dead?" he repeated.
"He is not dead, that one!"
"No?" said Tak. "He isn't? . . . Mistress Maya, he was dead the moment
he set foot within the Celestial City. Forget him. Forget his words. Let it
be as if he never existed. Leave no trace of him within your mind. One day
you will seek renewal-- so know that the Masters of Karma will seek after
this one within every mind that passes through their halls. The Buddha and
his words are an abomination in the eyes of the gods."
"But why?"
"He is a bomb-throwing anarchist, a hairy-eyed revolutionary. He seeks
to pull down Heaven itself. If you want more scientific information, I'll
have to use the machines to retrieve the data. Would you care to sign an
authorization for this?"
"No . . ."
"Then put him out of your mind and lock the door."
"He is really that bad?"
"He's worse."
"Then why do you smile as you say these things?"
"Because I'm not a very serious person. Character has nothing to do
with my message, however. So heed it."
"You seem to know all about it. Are archivists themselves immune to
these lists?"
"Hardly. My name is first upon it. But this is not because I am an
archivist. He is my father."
"That one? Your father?"
"Yes. You speak as one quite young, however. I doubt that he is even
aware that he fathered me. What is paternity to the gods, who inhabit a
succession of bodies, begetting scores of offspring by others who also
change bodies four or five times a century? I am the son of a body he once
inhabited, born of another who also passed through many, and I myself no
longer live in the same body I was born into. The relationship, therefore,
is quite intangible, and interesting primarily on levels of speculative
metaphysics. What is the true father of a man? The circumstances which
brought together the two bodies which begat him? Was it the fact that, for
some reason, at one moment in time, these two pleased one another beyond any
possible alternatives? If so, why? Was it the simple hunger of the flesh, or
was it curiosity, or the will? Or was it something else? Pity? Loneliness?
The desire to dominate? What feeling, or what thought was father to the body
in which I first came into consciousness? I know that the man who inhabited
that particular father-body at that particular instant of time is a
complicated and powerful personality. Chromosomes mean nothing to us, not
really. If we live, we do not carry these hallmarks down through the ages.
We really inherit nothing at all, save for occasional endowments of property
and cash. The bodies mean so little in the long run that it is far more
interesting to speculate as to the mental processes which plucked us forth
from chaos. I am pleased that it was he who called me to life, and I often
conjecture as to the reasons. I see that your face is suddenly lacking in
color, mistress. I did not mean to upset you with this talk, simply to
satisfy your curiosity somewhat, and to lay upon your mind some of the
thinking we old ones do upon these matters. One day you, too, will look upon
it in this light, I am certain. But I am sorry to see you looking so
distressed. Pray sit down. Forgive my prattle. You are the Mistress of
Illusion. Are not the things of which I have spoken akin to the very stuff
with which you work? I am certain that you can tell from the manner in which
I speak why my name is first upon the list I mentioned. It is a case of hero
worship, I suppose. My creator is quite distinguished. . . . Now you are
looking somewhat flushed. Would you care for a cool drink? Wait here a
moment. . . . There. Sip this. Now then, about Accelerationism-- it is a
simple doctrine of sharing. It proposes that we of Heaven give unto those
who dwell below of our knowledge and powers and substance. This act of
charity would be directed to the end of raising their condition of existence
to a higher level, akin to that which we ourselves occupy. Then every man
would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that
there would no longer be any gods, only men. We would give them knowledge of
the sciences and the arts, which we possess, and in so doing we would
destroy their simple faith and remove all basis for their hoping that things
will be better-- for the best way to destroy faith or hope is to let it be
realized. Why should we permit men to suffer this burden of godhood
collectively, as the Accelerationists wished, when we do grant it to them
individually when they come to deserve it? In his sixtieth year a man passes
through the Halls of Karma. He is judged, and if he has done well, observing
the rules and restrictions of his caste, paying the proper observances to
Heaven, advancing himself intellectually and morally, then this man will be
incarnated into a higher caste, eventually achieving godhood itself and
coming to dwell here in the City. Each man eventually receives his just
desserts-- barring unfortunate accidents, of course-- and so each man,
rather than society as a sudden whole, may come into the divine inheritance
which the ambitious Accelerationists wished to scatter wholesale before
everyone, even those who were unready. You can see that this attitude was
dreadfully unfair and proletarian-oriented. What they really wanted to do
was to lower the requirements for godhood. These requirements are
necessarily strict. Would you give the power of Shiva, of Yama, or of Agni
into the hands of an infant? Not unless you are a fool, you wouldn't Not
unless you wished to wake up one morning and see that the world no longer
existed. This is what the Accelerationists would have wrought, though, and
this is why they were stopped. Now you know all about Accelerationism. . . .
My, you look awfully warm. May I hang your garment while I get you another
drink? . . . Very good. . . . Now, where were we, Maya? Oh yes-- the beetles
in the pudding. . . . Well, the Accelerationists claimed that everything I
have just said would be true, excepting for the fact that the system is
corrupt. They cast aspersions upon the probity of those who authorized
incarnation. Some even dared claim that Heaven was comprised of an immortal
aristocracy of wilful hedonists who played games with the world. Others
dared to say that the best of men never achieve godhood, but meet ultimately
with the real death or incarnation into a lower life form. Some others would
even say that one such as yourself had been chosen for deification only
because your original form and attitude struck the fancy of some lustful
divinity, rather than for your other obvious virtues, my dear. .. . My,
you're full of freckles, aren't you? . . . Yes, these are the things those
thrice-damned Accelerationists preached. These are the things, the
accusations, that the father of my spirit stands for, I am ashamed to say.
What can one do with such a heritage but wonder at it? He rides a cycle of
mighty days, and he represents the last great schism among the gods. Evil
though he obviously is, he is a mighty figure, this father of my spirit, and
I respect him as the sons of old did the fathers of their bodies. . . . Are
you cold now? Here, let me. . . . There. . . . There. . . . There. . . .
Come, now weave us an illusion, my lovely, where we walk in a world that is
free of such foolishness. . . . This way now. Turn here. . .. Now let there
be a new Eden within this bunker, my moist-lipped one of the green eyes. . .
. What is that? . . . What is it that is paramount within me at this instant
of time? . . . Truth, my love-- and sincerity-- and the desire to share . .
."
Ganesha the god-maker walked with Shiva in the forest of Kaniburrha.
"Lord of Destruction," he said, "I understand that you already seek
reprisal against those here in the City who mark the words of Siddhartha
with more than a smirk of dismissal."
"Of course," said Shiva.
"By so doing, you destroy his effectiveness."
"'Effectiveness'? Explain what you mean."
"Kill me that green bird on yonder limb."
Shiva gestured with his trident and the bird fell.
"Now kill me its mate."
"I do not see her."
"Then kill me any other from among its flock."
"I see none."
"And now that it lies dead, you will not. So, if you wish, strike at
the first who harken to the words of Siddhartha."
"I gather your meaning, Ganesha. He shall walk free, for a time. He
shall."
Ganesha the god-maker regarded the jungle about him. Though he walked
through the realm of the phantom cats, he feared no evil. For the Lord of
Chaos walked by his side, and the Trident of Destruction comforted him.
Vishnu Vishnu Vishnu regarded regarded regarded Brahma Brahma Brahma .
. .
They sat in the Hall of Mirrors.
Brahma held forth upon the Eightfold Path and the glory that is
Nirvana.
After the space of three cigarettes, Vishnu cleared his throat.
"Yes, Lord?" asked Brahma.
"Why, may I inquire, this Buddhist tract?"
"Do you not find it fascinating?"
"Not particularly."
"That is indeed hypocritical of you."
"What do you mean?"
"A teacher should display at least a modicum of interest in his own