The Scourge of God c-2

by S. M. Stirling

  "You have chosen a hard path, my son," the monk said. "One that will test your courage; and the risk of pain to yourself and the death of your body are the least of its trials. But be sure, if you have courage it shall certainly be tested; because no quality in this universe goes unused. Walk the Way you have chosen in its fullness; when you have reached its end, you will find that it is the beginning of another path."

  "You don't think killing is the worst of sins, then?" he said curiously.

  Dorje sighed. "No; but considered rightly, it is… foolish. It is easy to kill. It is equally easy to destroy glass windows. Any fool can do either. Why is it only the wise who perceive that it is wisdom to let live, when even lunatics can sometimes understand that it is better to open a window than to smash the glass? But this world is mired in illusion, which is folly. As followers of the Way, we deplore the taking of life…"

  Then he chuckled, slapping his knees. "Including our own! And more important, we deplore greedy or evil men taking the lives of those who look to us for instruction. There are few surviving pacifists in the world twenty-two years after the Change. A desire for peace does not imply submission to those who chose to be violent as their first resort."

  He sighed again. "Yet if men were truly wise… Within our valley here, at least, there is little bloodshed."

  "You rule here, then?"

  Dorje's eyes sought the heights. "We were here-many monks, from many countries-for a… conference, they called it."

  His voice turned dry: "If I remember correctly, the subject was to be Buddhism on the World Wide Web, with many learned panels on how the Internet might be used to transmit the Noble Eightfold Path. The hotel here gave us a reduced rate because the season for winter sports was nearly past. Then we experienced the… as one of our hosts put it

  … the 'mother of all service interruptions.' "

  He chuckled again, though Rudi couldn't see why; but the young clansman knew a man in touch with the Otherworld when he saw one, he who'd grown up in Juniper Mackenzie's household. It took some this way, a bubbling current of joy.

  "And the people here turned to you for wisdom after the Change?" Rudi said.

  Certainly the ones I've seen are happy with their arrangements, the which would be unlikely if you were a bad man, to be sure. Also I still have some confidence in my judgment, despite Picabo.

  "That most of us grew up scratching a living out of highland farms was more useful at first!" Dorje said. "And that hardship was nothing new to us. There were even yaks here! The Ranchers found our help useful, when their machines died, and many of the people here were tourists from the cities, or those who made their livings by serving them, and they were utterly lost. We helped as we could, and one thing led to another."

  Rudi nodded. He'd seen before that… unusual folk had often had an advantage after the Change; his mother and her coven and friends not least.

  "I have heard a little of your mother, the Juniper Lady," Dorje said. "Before the Change I studied your Old Religion somewhat. It, ah, borrowed much from ours, and from the Hindus in the land where the Way was first preached."

  "Meaning Gardner stole your doctrines like a bandit loose in a treasure house," Rudi said cheerfully; Juniper Mackenzie tended to shock her co-religionists with her frank assessment of the origins of their faith. "And from many others!"

  Dorje made a tsk sound. "To say that you stole would imply that we owned the truths of the Way!" he said. "But the reverse is the case, if anything. Let the truths that Gautama Buddha first sought go forth and lead those who hear them towards the Buddha nature that all carry within, however they call it."

  Rudi nodded; that was enough like his own faith's teaching of many paths to the same goal that he was easy with it. Then he smiled wryly, thinking of things he'd heard from Matti and her countrymen.

  "You'll find Christians a little more proprietary about their doctrines, I think."

  Dorje laughed. "Your Father Ignatius has been extremely polite," he said. "There is a young man earnest in his search for virtue, I think. Indeed, the greatest threat he will face is his own virtue, lest he become too much in love with it. He and the others have told me much of your journey and its purpose, and its enemies. We here have been troubled by the Cutter cult as well."

  He looked up towards the eastern peaks. "That something extraordinary occurred on Nantucket has long been rumored. Fascinating!"

  "It's more than that," Rudi said grimly. "The gods are taking a hand in these matters. Ah… I'm not sure how to put that-"

  Dorje shrugged, in a manner that showed he'd been raised in the East.

  "Are you familiar with the word Bodhisattva? No? These are beings who have achieved enlightenment, and with it great powers, but who from compassion for those still mired in illusion return to help them."

  He indicated the statue. "That is an image of Chenrezi, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Who may be viewed as a god, an aspect of the Buddha nature, a personified idea, or a focus for meditation… and all these are true. This"-he pointed to a painting on the wall behind them, of a man with one hand held up in the stop gesture and the other bestowing a blessing-"is Amitabha, the Buddha of Pure Light, who dwells in the West and is of the element of Fire, and assists in overcoming fear."

  "Ah… immortal, powerful beings who concern themselves with humanity, and I suppose the other kindreds… animals, the world in general… well, sure, and that sounds a good deal like a god to me!"

  Dorje nodded. "We should not split hairs over definitions and forms of words."

  Then he chanted, in a high reedy voice:

  "If the causes are fully ripened,

  Buddhas will appear there and then

  In accordance with the needs of the disciples.

  The place and the time."

  Then he laughed, gleeful as a boy, and clapped his hands together: "But we do split hairs! We do! We split hairs so finely that often there is no hair, only the split! It is… what was the expression

  … a professional deformation of monks."

  Rudi nodded, gathering his strength. I'm as weak as a child, he thought. Worse! I had energy enough for two as a child, or so they tell me. Now I'm tired just from thinking.

  "Then what of devils?" he said aloud. "For I've met… things, forces… on this journey which I'd call by that name, sure."

  "Oh, yes," the abbot said.

  The glee leached out of his face, and he looked truly old for an instant.

  "In the time of the Great Leap, when hunger turned good neighbors into worse than beasts, and later when the Red Guards came to burn our scrolls… then I saw how men could become devils and torment one another. If mere men can do such great evil, how much worse are those with greater powers and insight, when they turn to doing devil's work?"

  The black eyes held his, and the monk's voice went on softly:

  "And only he who has by hard work conquered the devil in himself knows what a devil is, and what a devil he himself might be, and what an army for the devils' use are those who think that devils are delusion."

  "No!" Master Hao said.

  Edain wheezed fury at him from the ground where his shoulders had struck. The monk was at least thirty years older than the Mackenzie clansman, but he looked perfectly comfortable in his loose trousers and singlet, and even more comfortable within his skin. Edain and he were both of medium height, but Hao lacked the younger man's thick shoulders and arms; he was like a stripped-down anatomical diagram of a fighting man, with every muscle showing like a flat band of living oak under his ivory-colored skin. It lacked the ruddy-brown tint of the Rimpoche 's face, and there was a subtle difference in the facial structure; Rudi had the impression they came from different countries.

  "No, you are fighting from anger!" Hao barked at Edain.

  "When I'm trying to kill someone, now wouldn't it be strange if I weren't angry with the bastard?"

  Rudi had been doing a slow, gentle series of exercises with a light fighting staff; today was t
he first he'd been able to do even that. The indoor practice hall was very much like a barn-from the smell, he thought it probably did duty as one from time to time-but the board walls broke the force of the wind, and the dirt floor gave good footing and was passable for falling. His right shoulder twinged again, and he let the end of the quarterstaff fall so that he could lean on it, gripping with his left hand.

  "If you wish to defeat your enemy, you must first defeat yourself. Defeat your anger, defeat your hate, defeat your self. Then your moves will be pure… and you will win. Direct your chi energy; it is more important than your fists or your feet. You already have good technique, you are strong and fearless and young, yet this skinny old man can defeat you again and again. Consider this."

  "Why didn't you say so, Master Hao? If that's what it takes to boot some head, sure and I'll do it."

  He's saying he's so angry he'll overcome anger, Rudi thought. My friend, I think in this case my mother would say your head is not firmly wired to your arse!

  Rudi kept quiet, nonetheless; help with throttled rage was precisely what Edain needed. What had happened in Picabo wasn't going to leave him anytime soon, or easily. Instead he began another of the series of exercises; some of them reminded him of Aunt Judy's methods. Patience, patience…

  But I too, want to boot some head, he thought, and sighed. And right now, I can't even try!

  It was going to be a long winter.

  He racked the staff; a man beckoned from the pathway outside.

  "The most holy Rimpoche Tsewang Dorje would speak with you," the man said.

  His face was schooled to calm, but the censorious blue eyes were obviously rather disapproving that his superior was wasting so much time with this young outland infidel.

  Rudi bowed slightly, keeping the smile off his face. He was reminded of a saying of his mother; that a fanatic was a man who did what he knew in his heart the Gods would do… if only They had all the facts of the matter. And it was a pleasure simply to be able to walk properly again. He was breathing a little hard when they ascended a final flight of stairs, but it was infinite relief after his lead-limbed weakness of a few weeks ago.

  "Come in, come in!" the old abbot's voice said.

  The sanctum was… the phrase that sprang to Rudi's mind was pleasantly bare, even to eyes accustomed to the flamboyant Mackenzie style. There were scrolls on a rack against one wall, and books on another, and an image of a Bodhisattva in a niche. A low desk and a mat were the only other furniture, except for a compact metal heating unit and a cushion obviously there for Rudi's convenience. The old man bustled about pouring tea for his guest; Rudi had come to actually like it with the salty yak-butter added. And it certainly helped keep you warm in this upland winter, where your body burned fuel as a bonfire burned wood.

  "Thank you for spending so much of your time with me," he said, when Dorje had seated himself again. "Though frankly, there's little I can do but talk at the present!"

  Dorje gestured at his own body. "When you reach my age, my son, you will find that talking and thinking are the pleasures that do not fade… although silence is still greater, and more lasting. As for the time"-he shrugged-"there is little pressing business until spring. If the gods have given us time to pursue wisdom, it is prudent to use it. Refusing such a gift brings no fortune."

  Rudi nodded, collecting his thoughts. "Teacher-"

  Dorje held up a hand: "Please. You can teach someone how to grow barley-I have done so. Wisdom is another matter. Concerning that nothing can be taught, although the learner easily can be assisted to discover what is in himself. Other than which there is no knowledge of importance, except this: that what is in himself, is everywhere."

  Rudi grinned with a trace of impudence and quoted from the Charge of the Goddess:

  "For if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without. For behold: I have been with you from the Beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."

  Dorje laughed delightedly. "Yes, a… how shall I put it… borrowing."

  "Or could it be that all who make wheels, make them round," Rudi said, and they shared the joke. Then he sobered: "But someone… Someone… has been teaching the masters of the CUT, I think."

  "Yes," the Rimpoche said soberly. "And they are become the most knowledgeable fools on all the earth. A certain poet-and he was no fool-bade men take the cash and let the credit go. I find this good advice, albeit difficult to follow. Nevertheless, it is easier than what those men attempt who seek the aid of Malevolence. They try to take the cash and let the debt go, and that is utterly impossible; for as we sow, we reap. Men who sell their souls invariably make a very bad bargain."

  Rudi shivered a little, remembering the eyes and the dead hands squeezing his throat.

  "I've had more to do with the gods since I started this trip than ever before in my life, but I know less than I did when I started out! The more I'm told, the less I understand!"

  "And knowing that, you know more than you did," Dorje said. "There is a saying of my people: that around the virgin daughter of a king are guardian walls, and before the walls are fierce men. So is it wonderful that God should cause His secrets to be guarded by ferocity, and that of many kinds?"

  "The other side seems to get more help!" Rudi said, baffled. "Not that I'd take that aid if it were offered on a golden plate. Why would anyone do that to themselves?"

  Dorje made that expressive shrug. "Why do men steal, and violate, and kill when no need drives them? And the lusts of the body are as nothing to the unmastered cravings of the mind. Subdue the body, and still the lusts of the spirit may consume you like fire. Death pursues life. Is there anything without its opposite? Can light exist without shadow? So, I tell you that when you seek to do the will of the gods, and help men rise through the cycles, your very inmost thoughts awaken hosts of enemies that otherwise had slept. As sound awakens echoes, so the pursuit of wisdom awakens the devil's guard."

  "As above, so below," Rudi said, and his face went grim. "I have to fight them, then. But… how, that's the question!"

  "I cannot advise you on matters of statecraft; not beyond this valley and its surroundings, at least. But I do say that if you are in league with gods to learn life and to live it you shall not only find enemies. You shall find help unexpectedly, from strangers who, it may be, know not why. Has this not already been the case?"

  Hmmm, Rudi thought. That it has. Sort of an equal and opposite thing.

  "And I have my friends," Rudi said; which was a comfort. "It's a lonely thing, having so much depend on you."

  Dorje's chuckle was dry. "My son, when you have come to a decision between right and wrong, then act, not waiting on approval. If you do right it will add no virtue to the right that friends gave their assent beforehand. Be your own judge. But commit no trespass, remembering that where another's liberty begins your own inevitably meets its boundary."

  "Can't we help each other, then?" Rudi said.

  "Oh, most certainly! But though you strive in friendship, be that friendship as ennobling as the gods' good will, I tell you that each must enter one by one. But of the three, faith, hope and friendship, the last is not least. To him who truly seeks the Middle Way, the Middle Way will open. One step forward is enough."

  "Then I'd like to ask your help," Rudi said. "For my comrade Ingolf. He was a prisoner of the Cutters for a long while, and I think they… did things to him. To his mind. Things that leave him vulnerable."

  "Ah," Dorje said, leaning forward slightly. "Tell me more. With this, we may be of assistance."

  "Father…"

  "Yes, my child?" Ignatius said, controlling his breathing and suppressing a stab of irritation.

  He bowed to the monk with whom he'd been sparring and returned the practice sword to the wall. Edain was trying another fall with the instructor in unarmed combat-who was extremely good-and Odard, Ingolf, the twins and Fred Thurston were taking turns at sword-and-buckler. He judged his own condi
tion clinically; he was fully recovered in strength and flexibility from their time in the mountains, but still a little behind in endurance. It would be hard to build that again while the snow kept them inside.

  And I am still disturbed in spirit by the things which we saw with the Cutters, he knew. I must think and pray and meditate. But a soul in need is always a priest's task.

  He sat on a bench, and Mathilda joined him. "I've been reading in their library here," she said. "And… it's a bit odd."

  "What is?"

  "It's odd how much of it seems, well, similar to what the Church teaches. Not the devas and whatevers and layers of being and Western Paradises and everything, but the stuff you're supposed to do, and what's good and bad."

  "No, it's not odd at all," Ignatius said. "It's only to be expected. Why do you think our pagan friends"-he nodded towards them-"speak of their god as dying and reborn, and renewing the land with his blood?"

  "Well, that's just a pagan myth!"

  "Exactly. But the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord are also myths."

  At her shocked look, he went on: "But they are true myths. Myths that have become history; not in some timeless land of legends, but in a particular place and a specific time."

  "Then why should people like the Mackenzies or the Buddhists get the… the same answers as we do from something that was real?"

  "Because those events are so real that they cast their shadow forward and backwards through all time, whenever men think of these matters at all. Even if they are mired in ignorance, they will see.. . fragments of the Truth, as men imprisoned in a cave see shadows cast by the sun. Likewise, all men derive their moral intuitions from God; how not? There is no other source, just as there is no other way to make a wheel than to make it round. In Scripture, He tells us directly what He wishes of us… but simply by being, by being His children in His world, we hear a whisper of the logos, the divine Word."

  He saw her frown thoughtfully. "That makes sense," she said, then smiled; it made her strong-boned face beautiful for a second. "Thank you, Father."