“I am sorry for the delay. Lord Murugan. Our personnel had become involved in the wedding preparations.”
“They are out reveling, when they should be preparing my new body?”
“You should not speak. Lord, as though it is truly your body. It is a body loaned you by the Great Wheel, in response to your present karmic needs—”
“And it is not ready because the staff is out reveling?”
“It is not ready because the Great Wheel turns in a manner- – ”
“I want it by tomorrow evening at the latest. If it is not ready, the Great Wheel may become as a juggernaut upon its ministers. Do you hear me and understand, Lord of Karma?”
“I hear you, but your speech is out of place in this—”
“Brahma recommended the transfer, and he would be pleased for me to appear at the wedding party at Milehigh Spire in my new form. Shall I inform him that the Great Wheel is unable to comply with his wishes because it turns exceeding slow?”
“No, Lord. It will be ready in time.”
“Very good.”
He turned and left.
The Lord of Karma made an ancient and mystical sign behind his back.
“Brahma.”
“Yes, goddess?”
“Concerning my suggestion . . .”
“It shall be done as you requested, madam.”
“I would have it otherwise.”
“Otherwise?”
“Yea, Lord. I would have a human sacrifice.”
“Not. . .”
“Yes.”
“You are indeed even more sentimental than I had thought.”
“Shall this thing be done, or shall it not?”
“To speak plainly—in the light of recent events, I should prefer it this way.”
“Then it is resolved?”
“It shall be as you wish. There was more power present in that one than I had thought. If the Lord of Illusion had not been sentinel—well, I had not anticipated that one who had been so quiet for so long could also be as—talented, as you have put it.”
“Will you give unto me the full disposition of this thing, Creator?”
“Gladly.”
“And throw in the Monarch of Thieves, for dessert?”
“Yes. Let it be so.”
“Thank you, mighty one.”
“It is nothing.”
“It will be. Good evening.”
“Good evening.”
It is said that on that day, that great day, the Lord Vayu stopped the winds of Heaven and a stillness came upon the Celestial City and the wood of Kaniburrha. Citragupta, serving man to Lord Yama, built a mighty pyre at Worldsend, out of aromatic woods, gums, incenses, perfumes and costly cloths; and upon the pyre he laid the Talisman of the Binder and the great blue-feather cloak that had belonged to Srit, chief among the Kataputna demons; he also placed there the shape-changing jewel of the Mothers, from out the Dome of the Glow, and a robe of saffron from the purple grove of Alundil, which was said to have belonged to Tathagatha the Buddha. The silence of the morning after the night of the Festival of the First was complete. There was no movement to be seen in Heaven. It is said that demons flitted invisible through the upper air, but feared to draw near the gathering of power. It is said that there had been many signs and portents signifying the fall of the mighty. It was said, by the theologians and holy historians, that the one called Sam had recanted his heresy and thrown himself upon the mercy of Trimurti. It is also said that the goddess Parvati, who had been either his wife, his mother, his sister, his daughter, or perhaps all of these, had fled Heaven, to dwell in mourning among the witches of the eastern continent, whom she counted as kin. With dawn, the great bird called Garuda, Mount of Vishnu, whose beak smashes chariots, had stirred for a moment into wakefulness and had uttered a single hoarse cry within his cage, a cry that rang through Heaven, stabbing glass into shards, echoing across the land, awakening the soundest sleeper. Within the still summer of Heaven, the day of Love and Death began.
The streets of Heaven were empty. The gods dwelled for a time indoors, waiting. All the portals of Heaven had been secured.
The thief and the one whose followers had called him Mahasamatman (thinking him a god) were released. The air was of a sudden chill, with the laying of a weird.