He fell back another step.
“Yes, Mara, there is a deathgod,” said Yama between clenched teeth. “Fallen or no, the real death dwells in my eyes. You must meet them. When you reach the wall you can back no farther. Feel the strength go out of your limbs. Feel the coldness begin in your hands and your feet.”
Mara’s teeth bared in a snarl. His neck was as thick as a bull’s. His biceps were as big about as a man’s thighs. His chest was a barrel of strength and his legs were like great trees of the forest.
“Coldness?” he asked, extending his arms. “I can break a giant with these hands, Yama. What are you but a banished carrion god? Your frown may claim the aged and the infirm. Your eyes may chill dumb animals and those of the lower classes of men. I stand as high above you as a star above the ocean’s bottom.”
Yama’s red-gloved hands fell like a pair of cobras upon his throat. “Then try that strength which you so mock. Dreamer. You have taken on the appearance of power. Use it! Best me not with words!”
His cheeks and forehead bloomed scarlet as Yama’s hands tightened upon his throat. His eye seemed to leap, a green search-light sweeping the world.
Mara fell to his knees. “Enough, Lord Yama!” he gasped. “Wouldst slay thyself?”
He changed. His features flowed, as though he lay beneath restless waters.
Yama looked down upon his own face, saw his own red hands plucking at his wrists.
“You grow desperate now, Mara, as the life leaves you. But Yama is no child, that he fears breaking the mirror you have become. Try your last, or die like a man, it is all the same in the end.”
But once more there was a flowing and a change.
This time Yama hesitated, breaking his strength.
Her bronze hair fell upon his hands. Her pale eyes pleaded with him. Caught about her throat was a necklace of ivory skulls, but slightly paler than her flesh. Her sari was the color of blood. Her hands rested upon his own, almost caressing. . .
“Goddess!” he hissed.
“You would not slay Kali . . .? Durga . . .?” she choked.
“Wrong again, Mara,” he whispered. “Did you not know that each man kills the thing he loved?” and with this his hands twisted, and there was a sound of breaking bones.
“Tenfold be your damnation,” he said, his eyes tightly closed. “There shall be no rebirth.”
His hands came open then. A tall, nobly proportioned man lay upon the floor at his feet, his head resting upon his right shoulder.
His eye had finally closed.
Yama turned the corpse with the toe of his boot. “Build a pyre and burn this body,” he said to the monks, not turning toward them. “Spare none of the rites. One of the highest has died this day.”
Then he removed his eyes from this work of his hands, turned upon his heel and left the room.
That evening the lightnings fled across the skies and the rain came down like bullets from Heaven.
The four of them sat in the chamber in the high tower that rose from the northeast corner of the monastery.
Yama paced the room, stopping at the window each time he came to it.
The others sat watching him, listening.
“They suspect,” he told them, “but they do not know. They would not ravage the monastery of a fellow god, displaying before men the division of their ranks — not unless they were certain. They were not certain, so they investigated. This means that time is still with us.”
They nodded.
“A Brahmin who renounced the world to find his soul passed this way, suffered an accident, died here the real death. His body was burnt and his ashes cast into the river that leads to the sea. This is what occurred. . . . The wandering monks of the Enlightened One were visiting at the time. They moved on shortly after this occurrence. Who knows where they went?”
Tak stood as nearly erect as he could.
“Lord Yama,” he stated, “while it may hold for a week, a month — possibly even longer — this story will come apart in the hands of the Master to judge the first of any of those here present in this monastery who pass within the Halls of Karma. Under the circumstances, I believe some of them may achieve early judgment for just this reason. What then?”
Yama rolled a cigarette with care and precision. “It must be arranged that what I said is what actually occurred.”
“How can that be? When a man’s brain is subject to karmic play-back, all the events he has witnessed in his most recent cycle of life are laid out before his judge and the machine, like a scroll.”
“That is correct,” said Yama. “And have you,goddess of the Night Tak of the Archives, never heard of a palimpsest — a scroll which has been used previously, cleaned, and then used again?”
“Of course, but the mind is not a scroll.”
“No?” Yama smiled. “Well, it was your simile to begin with, not mine. What’s truth, anyway? Truth is what you make it.”
He lit his cigarette. “These monks have witnessed a strange and terrible thing,” he continued. “They saw me take on my Aspect and wield an Attribute. They saw Mara do the same — here, in this monastery where we have revived the principle of ahimsa. They are aware that a god may do such things without karmic burden, but the shock was great and the impression vivid. And the final burning is still to come. By the time of that burning, the tale I have told you must be true in their minds.”
“How?” asked Ratri.
“This very night, this very hour,” he said, “while the image of the act flames within their consciousness and their thoughts are troubled, the new truth will be forged and nailed into place. . . . Sam, you have rested long enough. This thing is now yours to do. You must preach them a sermon. You must call forth within them those nobler sentiments and higher qualities of spirit which make men subject to divine meddling. Ratri and I will then combine our powers and a new truth will be born.”
Sam shifted and dropped his eyes. “I don’t know if I can do it. It’s been so long. . .”
“Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes.”
Sam held out his hand. “Give me some tobacco and a paper.”
He accepted the package, rolled himself a cigarette. “Light? . . . Thanks.”
He drew in deeply, exhaled, coughed. “I’m tired of lying to them,” he finally said. “I guess that’s what it really is.”
“Lying?” asked Yama. “Who asked you to lie about anything? Quote them the Sermon on the Mount, if you want. Or something from the Popul Voh, or the Iliad. I don’t care what you say. Just stir them a bit, soothe them a little. That’s all I ask.”
“Then what?”
“Then? Then I shall proceed to save them — and us!”
Sam nodded slowly. “When you put it that way . . . but I’m a little out of shape when it comes to this sort of thing. Sure, I’ll find me a couple truths and throw in a few pieties — but make it twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes, then. And afterward we pack. Tomorrow we leave for Khaipur.”
“So soon?” asked Tak.
Yama shook his head. “So late,” he said.
The monks were seated upon the floor of the refectory. The tables had been moved back against the walls. The insects had vanished. Outside, the rain continued to fall.
Great-Souled Sam, the Enlightened One, entered and seated himself before them.
Ratri came in dressed as a Buddhist nun, and veiled.
Yama and Ratri moved to the back of the room and settled to the floor. Somewhere, Tak too, was listening.
Sam sat with his eyes closed for several minutes, then said softly: