" 'Get away!' I roared. And at once the entire cloud dispersed, but the howling pierced my ears and hurt me, and when I looked again I saw that Marduk's face was alien to me, and no longer afraid, but neither trusting nor gentle as always before.

"I turned, walking easily and light as a man would walk to the body of the fallen Asenath, and I took from her the tablet. The text wasn't easy for me. It was a form of Hebrew, yes, but a dialect from the time before my time. I stood reading to myself.

"I turned around. The priest had withdrawn to the farthest corner and the god merely stared. I, read the words as best I could:

" 'And having seen his death, and having seen the fluids of his body, and the flesh and the spirit and soul boiled into the bones, and sealed in the bones in gold forever, let him be called down into the bones, made to enter them, and made to remain in them, until his Master should call him forth.'

" 'Do it,' Remath cried. 'Go into the bones.'

"I looked down at the tablet. 'And once these bones are assembled, they shall forever contain his spirit, passing from one generation to another, to serve the Master by ownership and by power, to do the Master's bidding, and roam only at the Master's will. When the Master shall say, "Come," the Servant of the Bones will appear. When the Master says, "Take on flesh," the Servant of the Bones will take on flesh, and when the Master says, "Return to the bones," the Servant of the Bones will obey him, and when the Master says, "Kill this man for me," the Servant of the Bones shall kill that man, and when the Master says, "Lie quiet and watch, my slave," the Servant of the Bones shall do it. For the Servant and the Bones are now one. And no spirit under heaven can rival the strength of the Servant of the Bones.'

" 'Well,' I said, 'that is quite a story.'

" 'Into the bones,' he declared. 'Go into the bones.' He stood trembling, clenching his fists and bending his knees. 'Return to the bones!' he declared. 'Lie quiet and watch, my slave!' he declared.

"I did nothing.

"I studied him for a long moment. Nothing changed in me.

"I saw the linen he'd pulled from the couch. There was a sheet, fresh, changed from when I'd last slept here, and I picked it up now, and formed a sack out of it, and into it I put the tablet, and then the bones. I picked up the thigh bone, and the leg bone, and the arm bones, and the skull, my very own skull, still hot and gleaming with gold, and I gathered every tiny fragment of what had been Azriel, the living man, the fool, the idiot. I gathered the teeth, I gathered the bones of the toes. And when I had all of this in a small sack, knotted, I slung it over my shoulder and then I looked at him.

Advertisement..

" 'Damn you into hell, go into the bones!' he roared.

"I went forward towards him and I put out my right hand and broke his neck. He was dead before he hit his knees. I saw a spirit rise blundering and in terror, gauzy and soon shapeless and then dispersed and gone.

"I looked at Marduk.

"'Azriel, what will you do?' he asked. He seemed utterly confounded.

" 'What can I do, Lord? What can I do, but find the strongest Magician in Babylon, the one strong enough to help me learn my destiny and my limitations, or shall I simply wander as I am? I am nothing, as you see, nothing, only the semblance of the living. Shall I wander? Look I am solid and visible, but I am nothing, and all that is left of me is in this sack.'

"I didn't wait for his answer. I turned and I left. I turned my back on him as it were. I dismissed him, sadly, I think, and rudely and thoughtlessly and I had a sense of him hovering near me, watching me, as I went on.

"I went through the temple, in the convincing shape of a man, challenged again and again by guards whom I threw off with my right hand. A spear passed through my back. A sword passed through my body. I felt nothing, but merely looked at the perplexed and miserable assailant. I walked on.

"I walked into the palace and I walked towards the chambers of the King. His guards fell on me and I stepped through them, feeling this no more than a shudder and saw them stumble behind me, and then I looked up and saw Marduk watching from afar.

"I went into the King's chamber. Cyrus was in bed with a beautiful harlot, and when he saw me, he leapt up naked from the bed. " 'Do you know me?' I said. 'What do you see?' " 'Azriel!' he declared, and then with genuine joy he said, 'Azriel, you've cheated death, they've saved you, oh, my son, my son.'

"This was so heartfelt and honest that I was stunned. He came towards me but as he put his arms around me he realized I was nothing, only the appearance of something solid, as a shell more or less, 01 even lighter than that, a bubble on the surface of the water so light ii could explode. But it did not. I did not. I merely felt his heavy strong arms around me and then he backed away from me.

" 'Yes, I am dead, Lord King,' I said. 'And all that is left of me is here in this sack, and covered with gold. Now you must repay me.'

" 'How, Azriel?' he asked.

'Who is the greatest sorcerer in all the world? Surely Cyru knows. Is the strongest and wisest of wise men in Persia? In Ionia? Or he in Lydia? Tell me where he is. I am a horror. I am a horror coven Marduk fears me now! Who is the wisest man, Cyrus, to whom you would trust your own damned soul if you stood here as I do!'

"He sank down on the side of the bed. The harlot meantime had covered herself with the sheets and merely stared. Marduk came silently into the room, and though his face was no longer cold with suspicion it lacked the warmth we'd always shared.

" 'I know who it is,' said Cyrus. 'Of all the wizards ever paraded before me, only this man had true power and simplicity of soul.'

" 'Send me to him. I look human, do I not? I look alive? Send me to him.'

" 'I will,' he said. 'He is in Miletus, where he roams the markets daily, purchasing manuscripts from all the world, he is in the great Greek port city, gathering to himself knowledge. He says the purpose of all life is to know and to love.'

" 'You are saying then that he is a good man?'

" 'Don't you want a good man?'

" 'I hadn't even thought of it,' I said.

" 'What about your own people?'

"The question confused me. In one instant I knew a whole list of names and I could smell skin and hair, and then the identity of these beings was gone. 'My own people? Do I have people?' I tried desperately to backtrack, to recover my memory. How had I come to this room! I could remember the cauldron. I could remember that woman but what was her name, and the priest I'd slain, the god, the good gentle god who stood there, invisible to the King, who was he?




Most Popular