Lord of Light (6 page)
Authors: Roger Zelazny
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Space colonies, #Hindu gods, #Gods; Hindu
"This is true."
"For a spur of the moment thing, you came up with a fairly engaging sermon."
"Thanks."
"Do you really believe what you preached?"
Sam laughed. "I'm very gullible when it comes to my own words. I believe everything I say, though I know I'm a liar."
Yama snorted. "The rod of Trimurti still falls upon the backs of men. Nirriti stirs within his dark lair; he harasses the seaways of the south. Do you plan on spending another lifetime indulging in metaphysics—to find new justification for opposing your enemies? Your talk last night sounded as if you have reverted to considering
why
again, rather than
how
."
"No," said Sam, "I just wanted to try another line on the audience. It is difficult to stir rebellion among those to whom all things are good. There is no room for evil in their minds, despite the fact that they suffer it constantly. The slave upon the rack who knows that he will be born again—perhaps as a fat merchant — if he suffers willingly—his outlook is not the same as that of a man with but one life to live. He can bear anything, knowing that great as his present pain may be, his future pleasure will rise higher. If such a one does not choose to believe in good or evil, perhaps then beauty and ugliness can be made to serve him as well. Only the names have been changed."
"This, then, is the new, official party line?" asked Yama.
"It is," said Sam.
Yama's hand passed through an invisible slit in his robe and emerged with a dagger, which he raised in salute.
"To beauty," he said. "Down with ugliness!"
A wave of silence passed across the jungle. All the life-sounds about them ceased.
Yama raised one hand, returning the dagger to its hidden sheath with the other.
"Halt!" he cried out.
He looked upward, squinting against the sun, head cocked to his right.
"Off the trail! Into the brush!" he called.
They moved. Saffron-cloaked bodies flashed from off the trail. Ratri's litter was borne in among the trees. She now stood at Yama's side.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Listen!"
It came then, riding down the sky on a blast of sound. It flashed above the peaks of the mountains, crossed over the monastery, whipping the smokes into invisibility. Explosions of sound trumpeted its coming, and the air quaked as it cut its way through the wind and the light.
It was a great-looped tau cross, a tail of fire streaming behind it.
"Destroyer come a-hunting," said Yama.
"Thunder chariot!" cried one of the mercenaries, making a sign with his hand.
"Shiva passes," said a monk, eyes wide with fear. "The Destroyer . . ."
"Had I known at the time how well I wrought," said Yama, "I might have numbered its days intentionally. Occasionally, do I regret my genius."
It passed beneath the Bridge of the Gods, swung above the jungle, fell away to the south. Its roar gradually diminished as it departed in that direction. Then there was silence.
A bird made a brief piping noise. Another replied to it. Then all the sounds of life began again and the travelers returned to their trail.
"He will be back," said Yama, and this was true. Twice more that day did they have to leave the trail as the thunder chariot passed above their heads. On the last occasion, it circled the monastery, possibly observing the funeral rites being conducted there. Then it crossed over the mountains and was gone.
That night they made camp under the stars, and on the second night they did the same.
The third day brought them to the river Deeva and the small port city of Koona. It was there that they found the transportation they wished, and they set forth that same evening, heading south by bark to where the Deeva joined with the mighty Vedra, and then proceeded onward to pass at last the wharves of Khaipur, their destination.
As they flowed with the river, Sam listened to its sounds. He stood upon the dark deck, his hands resting on the rail. He stared out across the waters where the bright heavens rose and fell, star bending back upon star. It was then that the night addressed him in the voice of Ratri, from somewhere nearby.
"You have passed this way before, Tathagatha."
"Many times," he replied. "The Deeva is a thing of beauty under the stars, in its rippling and its folding."
"Indeed."
"We go now to Khaipur and the Palace of Kama. What will you do when we arrive?"
"I will spend some time in meditation, goddess."
"Upon what shall you meditate?"
"Upon my past lives and the mistakes they each contained. I must review my own tactics as well as those of the enemy."
"Yama thinks the Golden Cloud to have changed you."
"Perhaps it has."
"He believes it to have softened you, weakened you. You have always posed as a mystic, but now he believes you have become one — to your own undoing, to our undoing."
He shook his head, turned around. But he did not see her. Stood she there invisible, or had she withdrawn? He spoke softly and without inflection:
"I shall tear these stars from out the heavens," he stated, "and hurl them in the faces of the gods, if this be necessary. I shall blaspheme in every Temple throughout the land. I shall take lives as a fisherman takes fish, by the net, if this be necessary. I shall mount me again up to the Celestial City, though every step be a flame or a naked sword and the way be guarded by tigers. One day will the gods look down from Heaven and see me upon the stair, bringing them the gift they fear most. That day will the new Yuga begin.
"But first I must meditate for a time," he finished.
He turned back again and stared out over the waters.
A shooting star burnt its way across the heavens. The ship moved on. The night sighed about him.
Sam stared ahead, remembering.
ii
One time a minor rajah from a minor principality came with his retinue into Mahartha, the city that is called Gateway of the South and Capital of the Dawn, there to purchase him a new body. This was in the days when the thread of destiny might yet be plucked from out a gutter, the gods were less formal, the demons still bound, and the Celestial City yet occasionally open to men. This is the story of how the prince did bait the one-armed receiver of devotions before the Temple, incurring the disfavor of Heaven for his presumption. . .
Few are the beings born again among men; more
numerous are those born again elsewhere.
Anguttara-nikaya (I, 35)
Riding into the capital of dawn at mid-afternoon, the prince, mounted upon a white mare, passed up the broad avenue of Surya, his hundred retainers massed at his back, his adviser Strake at his left hand, his scimitar in his sash, and a portion of his wealth in the bags his pack horses bore.
The heat crashed down upon the turbans of the men, washed past them, came up again from the roadway.
A chariot moved slowly by, headed in the opposite direction, its driver squinting up at the banner the chief retainer bore; a courtesan stood at the gateway to her pavilion, studying the traffic; and a pack of mongrel dogs followed at the heels of the horses, barking.
The prince was tall, and his mustaches were the color of smoke. His hands, dark as coffee, were marked with the stiff ridges of his veins. Still, his posture was erect, and his eyes were like the eyes of an ancient bird, electric and clear.
Ahead, a crowd gathered to watch the passing troop. Horses were ridden only by those who could afford them, and few were that wealthy. The slizzard was the common mount—a scaled creature with snakelike neck, many teeth, dubious lineage, brief life span and a vicious temperament; the horse, for some reason, having grown barren in recent generations.
The prince rode on, into the capital of dawn, the watchers watching.
Passing, they turned off the avenue of the sun and headed up a narrower thoroughfare. They moved by the low buildings of commerce, the great shops of the great merchants, the banks, the Temples, the inns, the brothels. They passed on, until at the fringe of the business district they came upon the princely hostel of Hawkana, the Most Perfect Host. They drew rein at the gate, for Hawkana himself stood outside the walls, simply dressed, fashionably corpulent and smiling, waiting to personally conduct the white mare within.
"Welcome, Lord Siddhartha!" he called in a loud voice, so that all within earshot might know the identity of his guest. "Welcome to this well-nightingaled vicinity, and to the perfumed gardens and marble halls of this humble establishment! To your riders welcome also, who have ridden a goodly ride with you and no doubt seek subtle refreshment and dignified ease as well as yourself. Within, you will find all things to your liking, I trust, as you have upon the many occasions in the past when you have tarried within these halls in the company of other princely guests and noble visitors, too numerous to mention, such as —"
"And a good afternoon to you also, Hawkana!" cried the prince, for the day was hot and the innkeeper's speeches, like rivers, always threatened to flow on forever. "Let us enter quickly within your walls, where, among their other virtues too numerous to mention, it is also cool."
Hawkana nodded briskly, and taking the mare by the bridle led her through the gateway and into his courtyard; there, he held the stirrup while the prince dismounted, then gave the horses into the keeping of his stable hands and dispatched a small boy through the gateway to clean the street where they had waited.
Within the hostel, the men were bathed, standing in the marble bath hall while servants poured water over their shoulders. Then did they annoint themselves after the custom of the warrior caste, put on fresh garments and passed into the hall of dining.
The meal lasted the entire afternoon, until the warriors lost count of the courses. At the right hand of the prince, who sat at the head of the long, low, serving board, three dancers wove their way through an intricate pattern, finger cymbals clicking, faces bearing the proper expressions for the proper moments of the dance, as four veiled musicians played the traditional music of the hours. The table was covered with a richly woven tapestry of blue, brown, yellow, red and green, wherein was worked a series of hunting and battle scenes: riders mounted on slizzard and horse met with lance and bow the charges of feather-panda, fire-rooster and jewel-podded command plant; green apes wrestled in the tops of trees; the Garuda Bird clutched a sky demon in its talons, assailing it with beak and pinions; from the depths of the sea crawled an army of horned fish, clutching spikes of pink coral in their jointed fins, facing a row of kirtled and helmeted men who bore lances and torches to oppose their way upon the land.
The prince ate but sparingly. He toyed with his food, listened to the music, laughed occasionally at the jesting of one of his men. He sipped a sherbet, his rings clicking against the sides of the glass.
Hawkana appeared beside him. "Goes all well with you, Lord?" he inquired.
"Yes, good Hawkana, all is well," he replied.
"You do not eat as do your men. Does the meal displease you?"
"It is not the food, which is excellent, nor its preparation, which is faultless, worthy Hawkana. Rather, it is my appetite, which has not been high of late."
"Ah!" said Hawkana, knowingly. "I have the thing, the very thing! Only one such as yourself may truly appreciate it. Long has it rested upon the special shelf of my cellar. The god Krishna had somehow preserved it against the ages. He gave it to me many years ago because the accommodations here did not displease him. I shall fetch it for you."
He bowed then, and backed from the hall.
When he returned he bore a bottle. Before he saw the paper upon its side, the prince recognized the shape of that bottle.
"Burgundy!" he exclaimed.
"Just so," said Hawkana. "Brought from vanished Uratha, long ago."
He sniffed at it and smiled. Then he poured a small quantity into a pear-shaped goblet and set it before his guest.
The prince raised it and inhaled of its bouquet. He took a slow sip. He closed his eyes.
There was a silence in the room, in respect of his pleasure.
Then he lowered the glass, and Hawkana poured into it once again the product of the
pinot noir
grape, which could not be cultivated in this land.
The prince did not touch the glass. Instead, he turned to Hawkana, saying, "Who is the oldest musician in this house?"
"Mankara, here," said his host, gesturing toward the white-haired man who took his rest at the serving table in the comer.
"Old not in body, but in years," said the prince.
"Oh, that would be Dele," said Hawkana, "if he is to be counted as a musician at all. He says that once he was such a one."
"Dele?"
"The boy who keeps the stables."
"Ah, I see. . .. Send for him." Hawkana clapped his hands and ordered the servant who appeared to go into the stables, make the horse-boy presentable and fetch him with dispatch into the presence of the diners.
"Pray, do not bother making him presentable, but simply bring him here," said the prince.
He leaned back and waited then, his eyes closed.
When the horse-boy stood before him, he asked:
"Tell me. Dele, what music do you play?"
"That which no longer finds favor in the hearing of Brahmins," said the boy.
"What was your instrument?"
"Piano," said Dele.
"Can you play upon any of these?" He gestured at those instruments that stood, unused now, upon the small platform beside the wall.
The boy cocked his head at them. "I suppose I could manage on the flute, if I had to."
"Do you know any waltzes?"
"Yes."
"Will you play me 'The Blue Danube'?"
The boy's sullen expression vanished, to be replaced by one of uneasiness. He cast a quick glance back at Hawkana, who nodded.
"Siddhartha is a prince among men, being of the First," stated the host.
"'The Blue Danube,' on one of these flutes?"