The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales

"— —" repeated the students.

Bhamkh explained: "The mantra — — assures that, should you meet with a fatal accident in the practice of your brotherhood, you will be reborn at one of the ten points of space."

He continued to instruct his class in ideal, inaudible sounds. Bennett found it harder and harder to keep his faculties with him. He was not exactly sleepy, but his mind seemed bent on wrapping itself into a fuzzy, trancelike state.

Bennett tried to concentrate on Bhamkh's instructions, but that only made it worse. He tried the multiplication table, but that did no good. He was not alarmed; merely curious and a little peeved, as he was when he found himself to have drunk beyond his modest capacity, that his mind would no longer behave as he wished it to.

The thought drifted through his mind again: what a swell picture the old guy would make! At once the mists cleared a little. Bennett, with the still-conscious part of his mind, felt relief. If it was as easy to escape as that, there was nothing to worry about. He let himself slip a little further into the trance again. He noted with lack of much interest that the four girls were all leaning forward with glassy eyes.

Shri Ramanuja Bhamkh straightened up. "Enough instruction," he said. "We are now ready for the climax of our meeting; the consummation of our contact with the reality of which the world illusion is but the shadow; the worship of the female creative principle!"

That brought the tiny, still-conscious fragment of Bennett's mind up standing. Whatever worship of the female creative principle was, Alan Bennett did not like the sound of it

But it was so hard to, think, and his body refused utterly to obey the feeble commands of that two per cent of a mind ...

Bhamkh looked the audience over, ending with Pauline Edge. "You," he breathed, "as the newest member of our circle, shall officiate this time!"

Bennett frantically turned on his knowledge of art. The lighting and composition would make a swell magazine cover—

Slowly his mind came awake, feeling for all the world like an arm to which the circulation is returning after having been cut off.

Bennett pushed himself out of his chair, inch by inch. He croaked "J-j-just a m-m-minute—"

Shri Ramanuja whirled. "What is this? You interrupt the Master?" He took two steps forward and did not say the mantra "— —!"

Bennett reeled backward as from a blow. Bhamkh followed.

"— —!"

Bennett felt the floor leave his feet.

"— — — — !" A great wind whipped at Bennett's bony form. He slid toward the door, faster and faster, down the stairs, and through the glass doors at the entrance to the building. He went through the glass, not by any mystical process, but with a loud crash and tinkle.

He picked himself up. There was a small cut on his wrist. A couple of pedestrians were looking at him. He lunged back at the doorway. As soon as he stepped inside it that wind—which did not seem to blow anything but him about—caught him, and the floor became slippery under his feet.

He gave up that attack. You needed fire to fight the Devil. And the best fire merchant lived only two blocks away.

Shri Motilal Bhulojna unwound himself and looked up at the panting Bennett when the latter burst in without knocking. The Yogi said with the faintest hint of querulousness:

"You have interrupted my concentration. Why?"

Bennett told his story.

"Ah, well," said Bhulojna. "I could have told you that Bhamkh was a secret Tantrist, and a left-hand one at that. If you had persevered in your study of Yoga to the attainment of even a fraction of my powers, you would have been able to deal with him."

"Can you?" said Bennett.

"Yes. That is, I could have up to last week."

"You mean you've forgotten how?" cried Bennett.

"Not at all. It is merely that I have mastered the Yoga of Patanjali, the great Yoga of inaction. I shall return to India and devote myself to the highest form of my philosophy, the doing of nothing."

"But ... but—you don't want this guy Bhamkh to ... uh ... do whatever he's going to do?"

"I do not want anything. The word and all that is in it are utterly unimportant to me."

Bennett danced with frantic anxiety. "But ... but—"

Bhulojna said thoughtfully: "There is one thing I can do. I will not thwart this Tantrist personally, as that would involve action on my part. But I will summon a fellow adept, who may be able to help you, heretical Mahayanian though he be."

Bhulojna closed his eyes. He remained absolutely still, not even breathing, for one minute, while Bennett fidgeted.

There was a glow at one side of the room. Through the wall glided a small yellow man in an extremely dirty yellow robe. He was sitting on nothing in the lotus posture.