"One time again, Siddhartha. Twice, or not at all."
The rains let up for a moment, and, in the great blaze from the host on the hillside, Tak saw that the one called Raltariki had the head of a water buffalo and an extra pair of arms.
He shivered.
He covered his eyes and ears and clenched his teeth, waiting. After a time, it happened. It roared and blazed, going on and on until finally he lost consciousness.
When he recovered his senses, there was only a grayness and a gentle rain between himself and the sheltering rock. At its base only one figure sat, and it did not wear horns or appear to possess more arms than the customary two.
Tak did not move. He waited.
"This," said Yama, handing him an aerosol, "is demon repellent. In the future, I suggest you annoint yourself thoroughly if you intend venturing very far from the monastery. I had thought this region free of the Rakasha, or I would have given it to you sooner."
Tak accepted the container, placed it on the table before him.
They sat in Yama's chambers, having taken a light meal there. Yama leaned back in his chair, a glass of the Buddha's wine in his left hand, a half-filled decanter in his right.
"Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.
"Yesand no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shapethen the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect."
"Oh? And what may that be?"
"It is not a supernatural creature."
"But it is all those other things?"
"Yes."
"Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or notso long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will."
"Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasyit is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either."
Tak shrugged and sipped his wine. "But of the demons. . . ?"
"Knowable. I did experiment with them for many years, and I was one of the Four who descended into Hellwell, if you recall, after Taraka fled Lord Agni at Palamaidsu. Are you not Tak of the Archives?"
"I was."
"Did you read then of the earliest recorded contacts with the Rakasha?"
"I read the accounts of the days of their binding. . . "
"Then you know that they are the native inhabitants of this world, that they were present here before the arrival of Man from vanished Urath."
"Yes."
"They are creatures of energy, rather than matter. Their own traditions have it that once they wore bodies, lived in cities. Their quest for personal immortality, however, led them along a different path from that which Man followed. They found a way to perpetuate themselves as stable fields of energy. They abandoned their bodies to live forever as vortices of force. But pure intellect they are not. They carried with them their complete egos, and born of matter they do ever lust after the flesh. Though they can assume its appearance for a time, they cannot return to it unassisted. For ages they did drift aimlessly about this world. Then the arrival of Man stirred them from their quiescence. They took on the shapes of his nightmares to devil him. This is why they had to be defeated and bound, far beneath the Ratnagaris. We could not destroy them all. We could not permit them to continue their attempts to possess the machines of incarnation and the bodies of men. So they were trapped and contained in great magnetic bottles."
"Yet Sam freed many to do his will," said Tak.
"Aye. He made and kept a nightmare pact, so that some of them do still walk the world. Of all men, they respect perhaps only Siddhartha. And with all men do they share one great vice."
"That being. . .?"
"They do dearly love to gamble. . . . They will make game for any stakes, and gambling debts are their only point
of honor. This must be so, or they would not hold the confidence of other gamesters and would so lose that which is perhaps their only pleasure. Their powers being great, even princes will make game with them, hoping to win their services. Kingdoms have been lost in this fashion."
"If," said Tak, "as you feel, Sam was playing one of the ancient games with Raltariki, what could the stakes have been?"
Yama finished his wine, refilled the glass. "Sam is a fool. No, he is not. He is a gambler. There is a difference. The Rakasha do control lesser orders of energy beings. Sam, through that ring he wears, does now command a guard of fire elementals, which he won from Raltariki. These are deadly, mindless creaturesand each bears the force of a thunderbolt."