THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

He was cautiously probing the demon they’d admitted into the fabric of the Tao the night before.

Tenzin’s trance was not a power trance, nor was it the trance of meditation. It was simply a means of gaining access, and began with a directive, an intention. Nor did it still the mind. It began with stillness, but once sub­merged in that stillness, he perceived, analyzed, and made decisions. Thinly, he even felt emotions.

The demon was still somewhat numbed. It had no real notion of what had happened to it nor where it was. Like a week-old infant, it experienced its new environment

225

226

vaguely and with only a beginning of understanding. But there was that beginning.

Like a week-old infant. It had been “born” less than twenty-four hours earlier, in a trauma more severe than childbirth, and into a situation for which it had not evolved. Yet it felt to Tenzin that it might develop its potential rather rapidly.

He probed its nature, looking for weaknesses that he could exploit. He’d sensed almost at once that it was or had been human. A demon then, by his definition. He’d examined demons before, while exploring the lower astral realm. They’d been crafty but mostly weak, working their petty or occasionally ugly evils on humans of weakness.

This one had power. Power he and the Circle had given it by opening to it the fabric of the Tao.

Gradually he unraveled its nature by probing its mem­ories of what had brought or sent it there. Actually they proved to be the memories of many individuals—memo­ries consistent, memories primitive, memories brutal and degenerate. He was dealing with a compound demon!— a number of human psyches that had merged in a mo­ment of jubilation and terror and death. Death to all at once, in a unifying moment of ritual evil. A death that seemed to them stupendous and enormously meaningful. And—

They didn’t realize they’d died! To them it seemed a transformation without death!

That explained much of what he felt in contact with them: they thought they’d been taken up and trans­formed by their god. A concept of god which was not the Tao, but some phenomenon of nature, deified in their minds. At the moment they’d been terrified, but now it seemed like victory to them. Like success. Be­cause they could sense the power they’d been given, even if they didn’t know how to use it yet.

He continued to probe. Their unity was the result of one psyche, who as a man had been powerfully charis­matic, dominating the rest absolutely. Then, trapped in the fabric of the Tao, it had been he who’d begun to

227

function mentally. He who’d decided they’d been trans­formed by their god. And he who sensed their potential power. The rest, merged with him, had simply accepted.

And it would be he who learned, bit by bit, how to use that power; that much the geshe was sure of.

It seemed to Tenzin that what had been born was like a new organism. And its leader had become its sole functional mind.

He withdrew from his trance and from contact; the demon had sensed him dimly, sensed his probing. It was necessary now to plan, to find a means of removing it from the fabric of the Tao and send it as individual souls to the astral realm where they belonged. Until they could confront the physical realm again, and the karma they’d created, and be reborn to begin paying it off.

He also needed to inform the emperor. Something like this could not be hidden from Songtsan Gampo; he was too good a telepath. Better to tell him than have him discover it himself. But he would be angry.

Tenzin ate a supper of barley and vegetables, then went to report. He found Songtsan Gampo in an expan­sive mood. A member of the Korean royal family had agreed to take the throne there as the emperor’s tribu­tary. Even now his three sons were on their way to Miyun as the emperor’s wards—his proteges and hos­tages. While just that day, a courier had ridden in with the news that district headmen had begun to arrive in Seoul to pledge the new king fealty.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *