Peter Dickinson - Tulku

‘He is a sorcerer,’ said Lung. ‘Look, he is flying!’

Of course it wasn’t true, but even to Theodore’s eyes it seemed that the Lama was coming down the zigzag flights in a series of slow swoops with only the hem of his robe touching the steps. Once he was on level ground they could see his feet pacing beneath the robe, but still that sense of supernatural gliding remained.

‘He is a sorcerer,’ repeated Lung. ‘He is stealing her soul!’

‘No-one can do that,’ said Theodore. Not against her will, he added to himself.

They watched while the Lama performed the same ritual of prostration at the temple door and, welcomed by bells, floated into the dark. Lung groaned again.

‘She is not coming,’ he said.

‘She promised she would.’

‘Then why all this?’

‘She’s acting.’

‘She believes.’

‘What did she tell you last night? I woke up once, and you were still talking.’

‘She said she will come with us, but only because she is frightened about the birth of the child. If it were not for that she would stay.’

‘Well, that sounds certain enough, doesn’t it? And she hasn’t much time to change her mind.’

‘Six days,’ said Lung.

15

THE FESTIVAL WAS due to last for several days, during which the monks performed a series of dances, or plays – Theodore found it hard to tell which – acting out different bits of their faith. As usual it was difficult to get a coherent account from Major Price-Evans, because his enthusiasm kept reminding him of extra details, or of other parts of other ceremonies which could be compared with what he was describing. For instance he was trying to explain a dance in which somebody wearing the mask of a three-eyed bull and carrying a sword and a bowl of blood attacked an image made of coloured dough and cut it to bits, which were then scattered among the spectators, who ate them.

‘He’s the Lord of Death, of course,’ explained the Major. ‘Used to be a real human sacrifice, I shouldn’t wonder – lot of that sort of thing in Tibet before the Buddhists took over. Never seen a human sacrifice meself, though I’ve seen some rum things in my time. Suppose I would have had to try to stop it, in any case – British officer can’t just sit through a thing like that. All a bit like Communion Service, hey?’

He had sounded so far off and wistful, discussing the proper behaviour for a British officer who found himself in the audience at a human sacrifice, that it took Theodore a moment or two to grasp the meaning of the last sentence, especially as the Congregation’s name for the central Christian ritual was ‘The Lord’s Table’.

‘No!’ said Theodore explosively, ‘it’s nothing like.’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . . but I didn’t mean to put you out, me boy. My fault for describing it badly, hey? Wish I could tell you how stirring it all is, with the music, and the colour, and the masks and all that. No set places for the audience – not like a theatre, hey – happens right in among you, and suddenly you find it’s happening inside you – see what I mean?’

‘No. Don’t the people watching get in the way?’

‘Not at all. Fact I’ve seen ’em join in once or twice, become part of the show. Seen a scrawny little chappie stalk into the middle of a dance with a dagger stuck through both cheeks – no blood, of course – and tell them he was some demon they’d affronted, somehow. Not invited, I dare say, like the witch in Sleeping Beauty. All they did was put a bit into the dance apologizing to the demon, and the demon would leave the chappie, who’d take the daggers out of his cheeks and go and sit down and watch the rest of the dance as though nothing had happened. You can’t get away from it. The Gods are very close to us up here. Don’t you feel that, hey?’

‘Yes,’ said Theodore.

The energy of his own assent shocked him like a blow. The single syllable had exploded out of him with even more force than his rejection a minute or two ago of the Major’s idea that sacrifice of the dough giant had anything to do with the Lord’s Table. He startled the Major, who tried to peer at him, blind-eyed, then nodded thoughtfully in silence before he broke once more into rambling talk.

Theodore barely heard. He was thinking God is very close. He does not answer me, but he is very close . He felt a strange sense of movement towards a crisis, like the silky tension in a river’s surface as it flows into the last still reach above a fall.

During the next few days the memory of this almost violent moment of assurance came and went, but the sense of coming crisis endured, fed not only by the approaching flight but by the feeling of excitement that filled the valley, like a liquid brimming up to the jagged rims. The preparations for the festival produced a tauter rhythm in daily life, full of sudden little turbulences. The very day of his talk with the Major, Theodore came into one of the minor courtyards to find a team of monks there, prancing like frogs to the beat of a small drum. Evidently the Major was mistaken when he said the dances were performed without rehearsal.

Later still Theodore was passing along one of the balconies when he looked over the rail and saw that the paving of the small courtyard below was covered with monstrous faces, fresh-painted and laid out to dry, snarling or grinning, staring at the sky with huge, round, unwinking eyeballs. Most of them were much more than masks, structures like the shell of a lobster, made to cover the performer almost to the ground; eye-slits cut in their chests showed that when they were worn they must stand nine or ten feet high. Largest of all was a three-eyed monster, dark blue, crowned with a ring of little white skulls. Its mouth was made to move, and now it hung open at its widest, displaying clashing white teeth and a scarlet gullet. Theodore could just make out that it was supposed to represent a bull, presumably the one who would cut the dough-giant to pieces in the dance the Major had described. He told himself it was only a mask, stupid and ugly, but all the same he shivered. As he turned, a monk came and leaned on the railing beside him as if to see what he had been looking at, then grabbed his arm and drew him away from the railing. It was Lung’s friend, Sumpa.

‘You must not look at that one without due preparation,’ he muttered.

‘What is it? Why?’

‘Yidam Yamantaka. Death and slayer of death. That he should encounter one at the start of an enterprise . . . walk with me, and if we meet anyone I shall be expounding to you the meanings of Yama and Yamantaka . . . in two nights you must leave.’

‘I know. Lung told me. I don’t know if Mrs Jones knows. I only see her now when we’re at the Lama Amchi’s house. I don’t even know which is her cell . . .’

‘I will show you. But you are fully ready?’

‘Some other people have moved into our guest-house, so we’ve had an excuse to pack most of our things away.’

‘Good. Now listen. At dusk the day after tomorrow the Steward of the Guest-houses will send fresh guests to your house. The honoured Lung will protest that there is no room, and the steward will say that there is nowhere else available. I will then come and suggest that you and the honoured Lung move to a cell in the monastery, and you will accept this. Thus your disappearance from the guest-house will be accounted for. You must tell some story to your friend Achugla.’

‘Major Price-Evans? All right,’ said Theodore reluctantly. Deceiving the old man would be unpleasant.

‘What about the horses?’ he asked.

‘It is arranged. Your guide, whose name is Tefu, will take a paper to the groom who has looked after them, authorizing him to buy them. He will give the groom, who cannot in any case read, some money for himself. All that is not important, or if it is I shall have taken care of it. There is no time to discuss it now. Lean on the rail here and listen.’