Near a river stood a huge handsome tree whose thick foliage extended irregularly outward and cast a deep shade. It seemed to be a fig tree.
Brother Paul walked toward it. Could this be the Tree of Life? That would be as sure a route as any to the God of Tarot. His companions had disappeared, but he knew they would reappear when summoned for their roles.
Beneath the tree sat a man who might have been in his mid-thirties. It was hard to tell, because he seemed small and old before his time. He was emaciated. His hair and beard had been shaved, and he was garbed in rags. He did not avert his eyes as Brother Paul approached.
"May I join you?" Brother Paul inquired.
The little man made a gesture of accommodation. "Be welcome, traveler. There are figs here enough to sustain a multitude, and water is in the river."
Brother Paul sat down beside him and crossed his legs. He picked up a fig when the man did so and chewed its somewhat tough flesh slowly. "You are an ascetic? I do not mean to intrude on your privacy if you prefer to be alone."
"I tried asceticism until I very nearly wasted away," the man said. "I gained no worthwhile insights. I decided it was useless to continue starving and torturing myself. Then I discovered that when I ate and drank, and became stronger, my thoughts became clearer. I realized that the teaching which says that a man must starve himself in order to gain wisdom must be wrong. It is the healthy man who is best able to perceive the world and contemplate religious truth." He glanced at Brother Paul. "By this token, you must be a very perceptive man, for you are the healthiest I have encountered. May I inquire your name?"
"I am Brother Paul of—a distant culture. And you?"
"I am Siddhattha Gotama, once a prince, now a beggar-monk."
Siddhattha Gotama—the man known to history as the Buhhda, the Awakened One, the Enlightened. The founder of one of the greatest religions of all time, Buddhism. He had indeed been a prince and had renounced his crown voluntarily to seek revelation.
"I—am honored to meet you," Brother Paul said humbly. Though he regarded himself as Christian, he had deep respect for Buddhism. "I too am a seeker of truth. I have not yet found it."
"I have looked for seven years for enlightenment," Siddhattha said. "Often I have been sorely tempted to desist from begging and return to my wife and son. Always I remind myself that I could never be happy again in the palace, so long as I knew others existed in hardship and misery. Yet I seem to draw no closer to any insight how to enable others to be happy."
This, then, was before the Buddha had attained his revelation. "Have you inquired of teachers, of wise men?"
Siddhattha smiled ruefully. "I visited the great teacher Alara. 'Teach me the wisdom of the world!' I begged him. He said to me 'Study the Vedas, the Holy Scriptures. There is all wisdom.' But I had already studied the Vedas and found no enlightenment. So I wandered on until I encountered another great teacher, Udaka, and I asked him. He told me 'Study the Vedas!' Yet I knew that in them was no explanation why the Brahman makes people suffer illness and age and death. I am also doubtful that one can attain wisdom by hurting himself or sitting on sharp nails."
"In my culture," Brother Paul agreed, we are told much the same. 'Read the Bible.' Yet human warfare and misery continue, even among those who profess to hold the Bible most dear. I suspect we shall not find the ultimate truths in any book. Yet life is often a difficult tutor."
"That is true," Siddhattha agreed reminiscently. "When I was a prince, I went out hunting. I saw a man, all skin and bones, writhing in pain on the ground. 'Why?' I asked. 'All people are liable to illness,' I was informed. But in my sheltered life I had not been exposed to this, and it made me very sad. Next day I met a man so old his back was curved like a drawn bow, and his head was nodding, and his hands trembled like palm leaves in the wind so that even with the aid of two canes he could hardly walk. 'Why?' I asked. 'He is old; all people grow old,' I was told. Again I was saddened, for I had known only youth. Next day I saw a funeral procession, with the widow and orphans following behind the corpse. 'Why?' 'Death comes to all alike.' This horrified me, for I had never contemplated the reality of death in man. I knew so little of life and of people; I had spent my life in foolish pleasures. Why was I so well off, while others suffered? I understood now that I was the exception and that the great majority of people in the world were ill and poor. This did not seem right. Yet even as I contemplated this, my lovely wife was giving a party with many pretty girls singing and dancing, and that music only heightened my confusion. When my family observed this, it was assumed that the entertainment was not sufficient, and so the girls were made to perform with such vigor and endurance that they dropped from exhaustion. How their loveliness had changed! Next day I went to the market place, and there among the merchants I saw an old monk dressed in coarse yellow robes, begging for food. Though he was old and sick and poor, he seemed calm and happy. Then I decided to be like him."
"I think you found much enlightenment at that moment," Brother Paul said. "Maybe the ultimate truth can be found only in one's own heart." That was the Quaker belief, he recalled.
Siddhattha turned to him. "That is a most intriguing thought! I wonder what I might find, if I simply sit here under this Bo Tree until I have plumbed in my own soul this truth."
The Bo Tree! Now Brother Paul remembered: it was called the Tree of Wisdom, for it was where the Buddha had spent his Sacred Night and attained his crucial Enlightenment. "I had better leave you alone, then."
"Oh, no, friend! Stay here with me and search out your own truth," Siddhattha encouraged him.
Well, why not? This might be the most direct route to his answer. The God that Buddha found—that had to be a major contender for the office of God of Tarot.
Dusk was rising. The sun descended. But they were not allowed to meditate in peace. A group of people approached the Tree, and it was obvious that they intended mischief. Three were young and quite pretty women; the rest were motley ruffians of assorted appearance.
Brother Paul jumped to his feet, about to warn off the intruders, but Siddhattha stopped him. "These are the cohorts of Mara, the Evil One, who seeks to dissuade us from our pursuit. For seven years he has followed me. But he cannot harm us physically so long as we remain under this Tree. Do not try to fight him; that is what he wants. It is futile to oppose evil with evil."
Could this be true? Brother Paul backed off, yielding to the Buddha's judgment. Mara the Evil One—the Buddhist Devil. This was to be no ordinary encounter!
Sure enough, the crowd stopped just beyond the spread of the Tree. But now there came an elephant, overwhelmingly tall, its measured tread shaking the earth, and riding it was a large, somewhat paunchy man bearing a sneer of pure malice. This, surely, was the Evil One.
"Come out, cowards!" Mara bawled.
Siddhattha remained seated. "The Evil One has eight armies," he explained to Brother Paul. "They are called Discontent, Hunger, Desire, Sloth, Cowardice, Doubt, and Hypocrisy. Few can conquer such minions; but whoever is victorious obtains joy."
Brother Paul wrinkled his brow. "I believe that's only seven armies. Not that those aren't sufficient!"
Siddhattha's brow wrinkled in turn. "I always forget one or two. Evils are not my specialty." Surely the understatement of the millennium!
Now the three women came forward. They were seductively garbed and moved their torsos in a manner calculated to enhance their sexual appeal. "Come meet my daughters," Mara cried. "They are experts in the pleasing of men." And, acting as one, the three beckoned enticingly.
Brother Paul felt the allure. Somehow the Animation had produced a triple image of Amaranth, and she was good at this type of role.
"Now I remember Mara's other army!" Siddhattha exclaimed happily. "Lust!" But he seemed to be pleased only by the intellectual aspect; these lush bodies did not tempt him.
The women turned about and left with a final triple flirt of the hips. It was obvious they had failed. Siddhattha would not be corrupted b
y sex. And why should he be? He had a wife and son at home, along with a crown, and probably a full harem, if he ever felt the need.
Now armed men came forward, dressed in animal skins, gesticulating wildly, screaming. They resembled demons. The sun was now down, but the moonlight illuminated them with preternatural clarity. Siddhattha was not alarmed. "Mara personifies the triple thirst for existence, pleasure, and power. The satisfaction of selfishness is Hell, and those who pursue selfishness are demons." And the demon-men could not touch him.
"A most apt summary," Brother Paul agreed. He liked this man and found nothing objectionable in his philosophy. But how was he to be certain whether the Buddhist God was or was not the God of Tarot?
"You and I can sit here and reflect on the Ten Perfections," Siddhattha said.
The demon soldiers retreated. Mara was furious. "I tried to be gentle with you, " he cried, "but you would not have it. Now taste the wrath of my magic."
No more Mr. Nice Guy, Brother Paul thought, almost smiling.
Mara raised one hand. Immediately a whirlwind blew, forming an ominous black funnel that swept in to encompass the entire Bo Tree. But in the center was the calm, and not a leaf stirred. Brother Paul looked out at the whirling wall of dust in amazement and with not a little apprehension, but Siddhattha ignored it. "It is only air," he murmured to Brother Paul.
The whirlwind vanished. "Well, try water, then!" Mara screamed. A terrible storm formed, and rain pelted down, causing instant flooding all about the area. But not a drop penetrated the foliage of the Bo Tree, and Siddhattha sat serene and dry. Instead, Mara's elephant trumpeted and splashed its feet in the water like a skittish woman, upset.
"Earth!" Mara cried. And the storm converted to a barrage of rocks, sand, and mud. Yet again these things had no effect on the seated man, who had not changed his position since Brother Paul appeared in the scene. The few stones that penetrated the Bo Tree fell to the ground like harmless flowers. Those that struck the elephant, in contrast, made havoc; the poor creature danced cumbersomely about, trying to protect itself.
Mara was livid. "Fire!" he cried. And live coals came down, setting fire to the grass and brush outside the Bo Tree and hissing into the river. Siddhattha was not afraid, and so he was inviolate.
"You have conquered the attack of the four elements," Brother Paul said. "You have beaten the Evil One."
"No, the battle has just begun. Now he will lay siege to my spirit."
Mara gestured, and the bright moonlight went out, making the world black. But a glow arose from the Bo Tree, restoring visibility there. From the darkness beyond, Mara bawled: "Siddhattha, arise from that seat! It is not yours, but mine!"
The seated man only shook his head in mild negation.
"I am the Prince of the World!" Mara said. "I hold the Wheel of Life and Death!" Light returned, revealing him standing just beyond the Tree, clutching a huge wheel with five spokes so that only his head, feet and hands showed around its rim. His body, oddly, did not show behind it at all; the center was filled with moving images.
"The Wheel of Becoming," Siddhattha agreed. "The hand of death is on every one who is born. Yet I shall not die, O Evil One, until my mission in life has been accomplished."
"And what is that mission, O Ignorant One?" Mara demanded with a sneer.
"To spread the Truth," Siddhattha replied simply.
"What Truth?"
Siddhattha, who had been doing so well before, was unable to answer. Brother Paul saw this as another variation of the Dozens, with the Buddha turning away insults by soft replies. But now he was in trouble.
Mara advanced, bearing his Wheel forward. It was an impressive and sinister thing, its various aspects turning in opposite directions, confusing the eye. "If you cannot answer, O Shriveled Ascetic, the victory is mine!" The role-player was Therion, of course, and he was enjoying this.
Siddhattha looked at Brother Paul beside him. "Friend, I fear I have lost the battle, for the Truth has not yet come to me, and Mara must have his answer." There were tears in the man's eyes.
"But the Evil One will bring only evil upon the world!" Brother Paul said, as though that could help. "He controls the Wheel of Becoming, and he is the Prince of the World. Only your good can stop him!" He put his hand on Siddhattha's frail shoulder.
With that contact, something happened. "I feel—the spirit of God," Siddhattha said wonderingly. "Are you a messenger from—?"
"No, no!" Brother Paul said hastily. It had been the contact of auras the man had felt. "I am only another Seeker."
Still the thing grew. What had been quiescent in Siddhattha all his life was now awakening. He was becoming conscious of his aura—and it was an extremely powerful one. "The spirit of God—is in me," he said, certainty coalescing. "And now—I have found the key to Wisdom, the First Law of Life! It was within me all the time, awaiting this moment."
Siddhattha stood. He was not tall, but his new enhancement gave him stature. "Listen, Mara, and damned: FROM GOOD MUST COME GOOD, AND FROM EVIL MUST COME EVIL."
Brother Paul was troubled by this statement. From what he remembered of symbolic logic, a false hypothesis that led to a true conclusion was regarded as valid. That suggested that it was possible for Good to come from Evil. Obviously this man did not subscribe to that notion.
Mara gave a cry of pure anguish. He staggered back, seeking his elephant—but when he touched it, the beast collapsed. All his minions scrambled away from the Bo Tree in a rout.
Brother Paul stood watching, amazed. And realized that Siddhattha was now the Buddha, the Awakened One. And that, symbolic logic or not, the God of this man—could indeed be the God of Tarot.
But to be sure, he would have to survey the other great religions of the world and eliminate them from consideration. Maybe the Eightfold Path was the correct one, but that could not be certain yet.
"My business here is done," he said to the Buddha. "I hope we shall meet again." The Bo Tree faded out.
Brother Paul stood in a landscape whose sky contained three suns: a full-sized one and two little ones. The vegetation, however, was Earthlike to a degree: what looked like arctic fir was adjacent to tropic palm. The air was breathable though slightly intoxicating. Gravity was less than he was used to, but the terrain was so rough that he was sure the amount of energy he would have to expend to travel anywhere would counterbalance this.
In fact, he stood on a slanting ledge above a bubbling lava flow. A waft of fumes came up, and he hastily stepped back. His foot slipped in snow, and he half-fell into the ice of a stalled avalanche. A meter back from the boiling rock the freeze of winter was encroaching. No wonder the plants were narrowly confined! The spread from hard frost to perpetual warmth was within one to two meters.
But what had this to do with religion? He had intended to check one of the most modern and vigorous of the world's great faiths: Voodoo. It had originated in Black Africa and spread to the Americas with slavery. Christianity had been imposed on the nonwhite population, so these people had compromised by merging their native Gods with the Catholic Saints, creating a dual purpose pantheon that permitted them to satisfy the missionaries while remaining true to their real beliefs. The truth, were it ever admitted, was that there were more voodoo worshipers in Latin America during the 20th Century than legitimate Christians, and the depth of their religious conviction and practice was greater. Brother Paul had flirted with the Caribbean Santeria, or regional Voodoo cult, while on a quest for his black ancestry, and found it both appalling and appealing. The chicken-disemboweling rituals, roach-eating, and mythology of incest revolted his white middle-class taste, but the sincerity of the serious practitioners and the religion's obvious power over the masses satisfied his youthful need to belong. Later, as a Brother of the Holy Order of Vision, he had dealt on a professional level with Santeros, or Witch-Doctors, and found them generally to be as concerned and knowledgeable about the needs of believers as were Catholic priests, medical doctors, or psychiatrists. Folk me
dicine thrived on in Voodoo. The Holy Order of Vision did not hesitate to refer a troubled person to a reputable witch-doctor when the occasion warranted it. These were true faith-healers of modern times.
But this was an alien world! How had Animation produced this instead of the Voodoo Temple he had sought? Was it Precession again? His idea had been to bracket the religions of the world, to survey the extremes, and then work into the center, eliminating as much as possible. Fairly, of course. But if Precession had struck, there was no telling what he was into.
"Oh." It was a young woman, dressed in a strange half-uniform. One side was a well-padded shieldlike affair, covering her body from head to heel. The other side was—nothing. She was, in fact, half-nude.
"I seem to have lost my way," Brother Paul said.
"But where is your sub-fission?" she asked.
"I—fear I do not understand," he said, shifting about to ease the chill of his left side, too close to the snow. Suddenly he understood the rationale of her costume: her right side was insulated against the winter side of this ledge, while her left was comfortable in the summer side. Presumably, when she traveled in the other direction, she reversed sides. Apparently in this world the air was resistive to the convections of radical temperature change, so that extremes of climate could coexist without turbulence. Still, when storms did develop, they were probably ferocious.
"Where is your sister, your wife?" she asked.
"I have neither sister nor wife."
"I mean your sibling mate, in the eye of Xe Ni Qolz," she explained. "How is it you venture out in half?"