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had flexed its muscles, in a sense, that was all. Thinking of the Great God, the mountain, it had flexed its muscles to see what would happen.
It thought of its condition much as Tenzin did: It was like an infant, in this instance a huge and mighty infant, poorly coordinated, its perceptions ill-defined, grasping its situation only vaguely and partially.
Also like an infant, it wanted what it wanted, without qualification.
Certain things it did know, automatically, as a function of its bodiless existence. Thus it had found in itself the ability to cover its thoughts—to “screen”—a development that disturbed the man who probed it. That man, the prober, would have been more disturbed if he’d known that the demon could recognize him. For Tenzin and the members of his Circle had ceased to be mere swirls in the Sigma Field. The demon not only recognized each mind, but now saw the faces and figures that accompanied the minds. Even though its new perceptics had nothing to do with electromagnetic radiation. Thus it perceived the geshe as a human would: a man of slender frame, small-boned and narrow-faced.
The demon had not yet learned, though, to find and connect with a mind whose owner was outside its field of focus. The owner must first come to it and enter that focus.
But once affixed to a consciousness within that field, the demon could follow it. Once it had followed a servant out of the gomba, and after a bit through the Great Gate and out of the Dzong to a market in Miyun. There it had lost the servant in a crowd, and for a few minutes of worry bordering on panic, had feared it couldn’t find its way back to the people of power. Where it sensed that its opportunities lay. But after a time, Tenzin had reached to probe again, and at the touch, the demon had snapped back to the House of Power as if on some giant elastic band. Or more correctly to the Sigma Field location congruent with the House of Power.
Subsequently its field of focus had been a bit larger,
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as if the adventure had broadened its range. And it had decided to bide its time—to wait and learn, growing in knowledge and power. Though by its impatient nature, that would be a hard decision to stay with.
Now Tenzin touched it lightly. But firmly, not tentatively; shaken though he was, the geshe knew better than to be tentative. The demon lay still, waiting, sensing that something unusual, perhaps pivotal, was about to happen. It coiled itself, so to speak, ready to withdraw further from the interface. Or to resist, or attack.
Tenzin too was wary. Adept though he was—superbly adept—he was not, in his soul, a master. In fact he was fearful. He valued and guarded his physical life more than any true master would.
The demon sensed this fear—it was not the sort of thing that screening hid—and briefly was tempted to strike and hurt. But it let be. The prober was its principal contact and teacher, and also he wasn’t sure what revenge, if any was possible to the man’s allies. None, he suspected, but lacked confidence in it.
Then there came another, unfamiliar touch! And a thought with it: “My child, I am your god come to guide you, and to make you my right arm.”
The demon focused, looked, and what it saw was human. A tall strong man, still rather young, with a shaven head, long jaw, prominent cheekbones, rich brown skin with a pink undercolor, eyes slanted beneath black tufts of eyebrow. In its way a handsome man, by the demon’s own past cultural concepts and many others. And clearly a compelling, potent man, a magician, a wielder of powers, Before the Great God had transformed him, he would have been strongly impressed by such a man. Now—Now he was the stronger! But the other ruled; he sensed that. He ruled outside, in the material world. Ruled with the help of those who sat in a circle. If he could possess such a man . . .
The demon coiled more tightly.
“Do not fear your god, my child,” the thought went on. “Open yourself to me.”