The printing press was rediscovered in a place called Keenset, by the river Vedra. Experiments with sophisticated plumbing were also going on in this place. Two very fine Temple artists also appeared on the scene, and an old glasscutter made a pair of bifocals and began grinding out more. Therefore, indications were that one of the city-states was undergoing a renaissance.
Brahma decided it was time to move against Accelerationism.
A war party was raised in Heaven, and the Temples of cities adjacent to Keenset sent out the call to the faithful to be ready for a holy war.
Shiva the Destroyer bore only a token trident, for his real faith lay with the wand of fire that he wore at his side.
Brahma, of the golden saddle and silver spurs, bore a sword, a wheel and a bow.
The new Rudra bore the bow and quiver of the old.
Lord Mara wore a shimmering cloak, which changed colors constantly, and none could tell what manner of weapons he bore or what sort of chariot he mounted. For to stare upon him overlong was to feel one’s head swim, and things changed their shapes about him, save for his horses, whose mouths constantly dripped blood, which smoked where it fell.
Then, from among the demigods were fifty chosen, still struggling to discipline erratic Attributes, eager to strengthen Aspect and gain merit through battle.
Krishna declined battle and went off to play his pipes in Kaniburrha.
He found him lying upon a grassy hillside beyond the City, staring up into the star-filled sky.
“Good evening.”
He turned his head and nodded.
“How goes it with you, good Kubera?”
“Well enough, Lord Kalkin. And yourself?”
“Quite well. Have you a cigarette upon your most impressive person?”
“I am never far from them.”
“Thank you.”
“Light?”
“Yes.”
“Was that a jackbird that circled the Buddha before Madam Kali tore his guts out?”
“Let us speak of pleasanter matters.”
“You killed a weak Brahma and a mighty one has replaced him.”
“Oh?”
“You killed a strong Shiva, but an equal strength replaces his.”
“Life is full of changes.”
“What did you hope to gain? Revenge?”
“Revenge is part of the illusion of self. How can a man kill that which neither lives nor dies truly, but which exists only as a reflection of the Absolute?”
“You did a pretty good job of it, though, even if, as you say, it was only a rearrangement.”
“Thank you.”
“But why did you do it? . . . And I’d prefer an answer to a tract.”
“I intended to wipe out the entire hierarchy of Heaven. It would seem now, though, that this must go the way of all good intentions.”
“Tell me why you did it.”
“If you’ll tell me how you found me out. . .”
“Fair enough. Tell me, why?”
“I decided that mankind could live better without gods. If I disposed of them all, people could start having can openers and cans to open again, and things like that, without fearing the wrath of Heaven. We’ve stepped on these poor fools enough. I wanted to give them a chance to be free, to build what they wanted.”
“But they live, and they live and they live.”
“Sometimes, and sometimes not. So do the gods.”
“You were about the last Accelerationist left in the world, Sam. No one would have thought you were also the deadliest.”
“How did you find me out?”
“It occurred to me that Sam would be the number one suspect, except for the fact that he was dead.”
“I had assumed that to be sufficient defense against detection.”
“So I asked myself if there was any means by which Sam could have escaped death. I could think of none, other than a change of bodies. Who, I then asked myself, took upon him a new body the day Sam died? There was only Lord Murugan. This did not seem logical, however, because he did it after Sam’s death, not before it. I dismissed that part for a moment. You—Murugan—having been among the thirty-seven suspects, were probed and passed upon as innocent by Lord Yama. It seemed I had surely taken to a false trail then — until I thought of a very simple way to test the notion. Yama can beat the psych-probe himself, so why could not someone else be able to do it? I recalled at this point that Kalkin’s Attribute had involved the control of lightnings and electromagnetic phenomena. He could have sabotaged the machine with his mind so that it saw there no evil. The way of testing it, therefore, was not to consider what the machine had read, but rather how it had read it. Like the prints of the palms and the fingers of the hands, no two minds register the same patterns; But from body to body one does retain a similar mind-matrix, despite the fact that a different brain’s involved. Regardless of the thoughts passing through the mind, the thought patterns record themselves unique to the person. I compared yours with a record of Murugan’s which I found in Yama’s laboratory. They were not the same. I do not know how you accomplished the body-change, but I knew you for what you were.”