“Ball,” said the girl.
He picked up the block and held it before her again. “Ball,” she repeated.
Yama dropped it.
“Help me, Kubera,” he said.
“I will, Yama. If there is a way, we will find it.”
He sat down beside him and raised his hands. The spoon came alive with spoon-ness and the ball with ball-ness and the block with block-ness, and the girl laughed. Even the puppy seemed to study the objects.
“The Lokapalas are never defeated,” said Kubera, and the girl picked up the block and stared at it for a long time before she named it.
Now it is known that Lord Varuna returned to the Celestial City after Khaipur. The promotion system within the ranks of Heaven began to break down at about this same time. The Lords of Karma were replaced by the Wardens of Transfer, and their function was divorced from the Temples. The bicycle was rediscovered. Seven Buddhist shrines were erected. Nirriti’s Palace was made into an art gallery and Kama Pavilion. The Festival of Alundil continued to be held every year, and its dancers were without equal. The purple grove still stands, tended by the faithful.
Kubera remained with Ratri in Khaipur. Tak departed with Olvegg in the thunder chariot, for an unknown destination. Vishnu ruled in Heaven.
Those who prayed to the seven Rishi thanked them for the bicycle and for the timely avatar of the Buddha, whom they named Maitreya, meaning Lord of Light, either because he could wield lightnings or because he refrained from doing so. Others continued to call him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He still preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and continued to call himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, of course, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Also, he did not remain with his people for a sufficient period of time to warrant much theological by-play. Several conflicting stories are told concerning the days of his passing.
The one thing that is common to all the legends is that a large red bird with a tail thrice the length of its body came to him one day at dusk as he rode upon his horse beside the river.
He departed Khaipur before sunrise the following day and was not seen again.
Now some say the occurrence of the bird was coincidental with his departure, but in no way connected with it. He departed to seek anonymous peace of a saffron robe because he had finished the task for which he had returned, they say, and he was already tired of the noise and fame of his victory. Perhaps the bird reminded him how quickly such brightness passes. Or perhaps it did not, if he had already made up his mind.
Others say that he did not take up the robe again, but that the bird was a messenger of the Powers Beyond Life, summoning him back again to the peace of Nirvana, to know forever the Great Rest, the perpetual bliss, and to hear the songs the stars sing upon the shores of the great sea. They say he has crossed beyond the Bridge of the Gods. They say he will not return.
Others say that he took upon him a new identity, and that he walks among mankind still, to guard and guide in the days of strife, to prevent the exploitation of the lower classes by those who come into power.
Still others say that the bird was a messenger, not of the next world, but of this one, and that the message it bore was not meant for him, but for the wielder of Thunderbolt, Lord Indra, who had looked into the eyes of Death. Such a bird as the red one had never been seen before, though their kind is now known to exist upon the eastern continent, where Indra had held battle against the witches. If the bird bore something like intelligence within its flaming head, it might have carried the message of some need in that far-off land. It must be remembered that the Lady Parvati, who had been either his wife, his mother, his sister, his daughter, or perhaps all of these to Sam, had fled to that place at the time the phantom cats looked upon Heaven, to dwell there with the witches, whom she counted as kin. If the bird bore such a message, the tellers of this tale do not doubt but that he departed immediately for the eastern continent, to effect her delivery from whatever peril was present.