The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu [79]
'The College of Occult Sciences in Lhassa is the highest institution of occult knowledge and practice that exists in Thibet. Few but the best of scholars from the great monastic universities are admitted; and that too only after a rigorous and thorough investigation of each candidate. Every twelve years, when the calendar of the twelve beasts makes a full round, the college holds a great examination. In the year of the Water Monkey (1873), the College produced two of the greatest adepts of the occult sciences that the country had beheld for more than a century — ever since the Laughing Yogi of the Grey Vulture Peak covered the barley fields of Tsetang with his hand and saved them from a hailstorm.
'Great honours were bestowed upon them. The Grand Lama himself — the twelfth sacred body — attended their final examinations and afterwards invested upon them (with his own blessed hands) their white cloaks of occult mastery. Their fame spread beyond the frontiers of the Land of the Great Snows, even to the court of the Emperor of China; and they were invited to Pekin to hold services for the well-being of the Emperor and his subjects, and the protection of his hills and streams.
'It was there, Mr Holmes, that certain demonic ministers of the Emperor lured one of them into the ways of evil. With great cunning they filled his mind with every kind of filth and abomination — and even with the unthinkable ambition to take the Grand Lama's throne and rule Thibet. On returning to Lhassa both received suitable appointments at the Grand Lama's court. With the cunning of a serpent, the Dark One managed to conceal his foul intentions from nearly everybody, but inadvertently aroused some slight suspicions in the mind of his colleague, the Gangsar trulku, the former abbot of a small monastery in southern Thibet. This astute lama had noticed some slight but disquieting changes in the Dark One's behaviour in China.
'On the eve of the Great New Year's Festival, when everyone was busy preparing for the coming ceremonies, Gangsar trulku saw the Dark One enter the Grand Lama's chapel — the very one the assassin entered tonight — and strike His Holiness with a sword. The loyal trulku rushed in to save his master, but he was too late. In his brave struggle with the Dark One, he lost his life. Unfortunately for this incarnation of evil, the Grand Master of the College of Occult Sciences appeared upon the scene. Before the Dark One could strike again, the Grand Master projected a surge of mental energy which nearly destroyed him. His mind was partially shattered, and he lost his memory and most of his former powers. He was incarcerated in one of the deepest dungeons in the Potala. The Amban, however, on instructions from the Imperial court in Pekin, managed, through extensive bribery and coercion, to get him secretly released from his prison, and smuggled out of the country to China. Since then, we know not what became of him, for distance weakens telepathic waves. It is possible that he has recovered some of his old powers and put up some kind of mental screen.'
'How can you be sure that it is him?'
'I cannot, Mr Holmes — not absolutely, anyway. But I can feel his presence in my bones. Your description of the way in which the swords flew sounds very much like his handiwork.'
'In what way?'
'The Gangsar trulku was impaled from behind by a flying sword as he grappled with the Dark One.'
Although I had witnessed something of the sort tonight, my scientific training rebelled against accepting such superstitious magic without at least adducing some natural causes for the event. 'Cold steel should not levitate of its own volition, Sir,' I protested. 'There must be some scientific explanation for such unusual aviational phenomena.'
'The power of the human mind is limitless, Babuji,' the Lama Yonten attempted to explain. 'The only barriers that prevent its fulfilment are our own ignorance and sloth.