The Prince and the Zombie (7 page)

Once again the prince was left all alone in this desolate place, experiencing an immense feeling of remorse and failure. But neither his anger nor his tears could change the situation in the least. At last Prince Dechö Zangpo regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. With the firm intention to remain vigilant the next time, he set off again to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

13

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

N
OW ONCE AGAIN
Prince Dechö Zangpo traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom in order to get back to India and the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “
Halala!
” and “
Hululu!
” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

Without giving in to his fatigue and again following the guru's instructions, he touched their heads with the cone-shaped red object the guru had given him, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

After a moment, looking around him he spotted the quite distinctive body of Ngödrup Dorje. The top of the zombie was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. Strangely, this zombie fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” But the prince, just as he had the previous times, touched the trunk of the tree with the magic ax. The zombie came down of his own free will, then the prince shut him up in the sack, carefully tied it up with the magic rope, and rapidly left the place. He was in a hurry to place his burden before the guru, and for several days he kept walking in complete silence, the sack quite heavy on his back.

But then, on the eighteenth day, as the prince was crossing the great barren plain that by now was so familiar, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince successfully refrained from saying anything, and without delay the zombie began telling him of the beggar's further adventures.

14

The Beggar Gets Married

A
GAIN ALONE,
the beggar traveled from village to village and continued to lead a life of total freedom. In spite of the new powers he possessed owing to the objects he had taken away from the very naive people he had met along his way, his lifestyle remained simple and modest.

One afternoon, he was passing through a beautiful green valley where a small river ran. All along the banks of this river, very pretty red and yellow flowers were growing. Since it was getting hotter and hotter, he stopped for a while in this pleasant place and drank directly from the very clear and refreshing waters of the river. Being somewhat tired, he stretched out on the ground and closed his eyes so he could take a little rest. Suddenly he heard the wing beats of two crows, who landed near the river where there were always plenty of insects for them. As they pecked around here and there, the birds began to tell each other their little secrets. One of them said to the other, “Human beings don't know this, but if you touch somebody with one of these red flowers, he will immediately be changed into a monkey.”

The other, in his turn, shared his secret: “Nobody knows this, but in order to change the monkey back into a human being, all you have to do is touch it with this yellow flower.”

“Right you are,” replied the first crow, “and these things will remain forever secret.”

Having had enough to eat, the crows flew away.

The beggar had heard and understood every word. He was very excited and happy about what he had just heard, and he picked a red flower and a yellow flower and took them with him.

And so he continued on his path across the high Tibetan plateau until he came to a village where the only daughter of a well-to-do family fell madly in love with this young beggar who led such a carefree and adventurous life. In spite of the great sorrow they felt at parting with the apple of their eye, the parents could refuse their daughter nothing. After a big wedding feast celebrated with the whole village, a feast that lasted seven days and seven nights, the beggar promised his young bride to take her somewhere far away. In fact he promised to take her to a magnificent uninhabited island whose shores were washed by the sea.

One evening he had her climb with him onto the magic stick, and almost instantly they arrived at the promised island. The young woman was quite intrigued and very curious about their mode of travel and she asked her husband a lot of questions, but he restrained himself from revealing his secret. In this place, they led a very good life, because they lacked for nothing. They always had enough to eat and drink, whatever they might want. To keep his wife from getting bored, the beggar regularly brought her beautiful new clothes.

One day, the wife began again to ask questions: “My dear husband, what secret are you hiding from me? Where does all of our wealth come from, and what are the powers of the magic stick?”

On his guard, her husband told her nothing then and there, but faced with his wife's insistence, he promised he would share his secret with her at the right moment.

Then the wife became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful little girl. The former beggar was very happy and proud of his beautiful baby, and he became careless. His wife took advantage of this to pry from him his secrets about the powers of the stick and the sack. But a small inner voice warned the young man to say nothing about the hat that brought invisibility or about the two magical flowers.

One sad day when he had gone out, his wife stole the sack, mounted on the stick with their little girl, and returned to her home village, leaving her husband all alone on the uninhabited island. Coming back home, the former beggar found the house empty and realized that his wife had fled with their daughter, taking the stick and the sack with her. All the regrets he felt about revealing his secret to his wife and all his anger toward her and toward himself accomplished nothing. He remained alone, very alone, on this uninhabited island in the middle of the sea. He was profoundly unhappy at having been so brazenly deceived by his beloved.

He pondered and pondered how he might leave the island, but no solution presented itself, not even an idea. He was devastated. He lost all hope and thought of ending his life. He climbed up to a high point on top of the cliffs from where he could throw himself into the sea. Suddenly he heard the anguished cries of newly hatched birds coming from just below him. The cries were coming from a nest built into the rocky cliff face. At the same moment he saw a big snake who was about to attack the little ones and devour them. Forgetting his despair, the former beggar could think of nothing else but how he might be able to help these poor little defenseless creatures. He picked up a big stone and threw it hard. He was on the mark! He hit the snake and the force of his throw pitched it out into space. It tumbled into the deep waters below.

The former beggar was relieved and happy that he had managed to protect the little birds. But then he heard a strange noise in the sky, and the next thing he knew a huge bird was attacking him viciously with its claws. What a shock! His heart almost stopped beating. This creature must be the mother, who had mistakenly presumed that he was the one who had threatened her babies.

“Mama, Mama, leave that man alone! He was the one who saved us. He killed the wicked snake who was trying to eat us!” the little ones cried out all together. The mother bird quickly calmed down and went and perched by her young ones, the better to listen to their account of the snake attack. In the end she understood what had taken place and flew back to the young man, who was still in a state of shock. The mother bird asked his forgiveness for the mistake she had made and thanked him profusely. As a proof of her profound gratitude, she promised to fulfill his dearest wish. The young man, victimized by his unfaithful wife, did not take long to think of what his wish should be. He asked to be taken to the region where his parents-in-law lived. That is where he fully expected to find his wife and daughter.

He had barely finished expressing his wish when the bird took her babies' savior on her back and rose majestically up into the air. In no time at all, she had crossed the sea and reached their destination. Before leaving the young man, the bird gave him several of her beautiful feathers with the following words: “My dear friend, if someday you find yourself in great peril, all you have to do is burn one of these feathers and I will immediately fly to your rescue.”

Deeply touched, he accepted this gift, and thus the two separated on very good terms.

The young man put the magic hat on his head, and having become invisible, he entered his in-laws' house. There he saw his faithless wife. Without delay, he touched her with the red flower and without the slightest compunction transformed her into a monkey. Then he departed, still invisible. Terrified by what had happened to her, the young woman who had become a monkey cried horribly, jumped all around the house, and in a rampage broke everything she came across and even injured some members of her family. She was soon shut up in a cage to prevent further ravages.

“Oh, what a cruel revenge!” the prince cried out, so taken with this incredible story that yet again he had thrown all restraint to the winds.

Alas, the sack on the prince's back opened up by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here's the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

The prince was left all alone in this desolate place with an immense feeling of remorse and failure. “
Nga kugpa!
What an idiot I am!” he cried out, filled with anger toward himself. But neither his anger nor his tears could change the situation in the least. After a long time he regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. With the firm resolve never to let his vigilance lapse again, he returned to Silwaytsal to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

15

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

T
HUS IT WAS
that Prince Dechö Zangpo yet again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom and finally arrived in India at the dwelling place of the dead. Making use of the cone-shaped red object given him by the guru, he continually forced aside the numerous dead beings who were attempting to speak to him until the moment he finally saw a zombie different from all the others. The top of the zombie was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. This zombie fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, but the prince, employing the persuasive power of the magic ax, easily managed to get hold of the zombie Ngödrup Dorje—because it was indeed him. This time the prince had resolutely determined to hold his tongue the entire length of the return journey no matter what story the sly spirit might relate to him.