Servant of the Bones

"The chore proved easy enough. I had only to knock about the servants to send them flying and in three journeys back and forth I was able to transport the entire library to my Master. It was hard, however, with great bundles of scrolls to pass through doors. I couldn't envelop them with my spirit and pass through the particles. But I got better at this as time passed on. Indeed, I learned something he hadn't told me, that I might make my body diffuse and large as I passed through the solid walls and doors, that way better enveloping the scrolls and then contracting again to the normal size of a fleshly man as I walked on with my bundle of goods.

"To be open and fair with him, I did this on my last trip, coming through the wall of his study, with a very large cache of loot, making myself very big and then contracting to lay down the bundle itself.

"He gave me a steady look, and I realized something. All day and night since I had come, I had been amazing him. And he masked it with this look. He showed no fear.

" 'I don't feel any fear of you,' he .said, answering my thoughts, 'but you're right; it's not my habit as a magus or a scholar or a man to look startled and to shout.'

" 'What now, Master?' I asked.

" 'Go into the bones, and do not come out until you hear me . hear my voice, calling you. That I dream of you or think of you is not enough.'

" 'I'll try, Master,' I said.

" 'You'll disappoint me if you disobey; you're too young and strong to run rampant. You'll hurt my soul if you try to come out when I think of you.'

"Again I felt the ready tears. 'Then I won't do it, Lord,' I said. "I went into the bones. For one moment before my eyes closed I saw the casket itself and that it had been moved to a hiding place, a niche within the wall, but then came the velvet sleep, and the thought, 'I love him, and I want to serve him.' And that was all.

"The next morning I waked but didn't move. It was a long time, lying in the darkness, feeling nothing of the physical at all, waiting, and then when I heard his voice very distinctly, I answered the call.

"The bright world opened up all around me again. I was seated in the garden, among the flowers, and he was on a couch there, reading, mussed and yawning as if he'd spent the night under the stars.

" 'Well, I waited this time,' I said.

" 'Ah, then you felt yourself wake before I called you?'

" 'Yes, but waited, so that you'd be pleased. Some bit of memory came back to me, or has come at this moment, enough to ask a question.'

" 'Ask. If I can't truly answer I won't make anything up.'

"I laughed and laughed at that! I had some firm conviction in my utter forgetfulness that priests and Magi lied ferociously. He nodded in satisfaction at this.

" 'Your question?'

" 'Do I have a destiny?' I asked.

" 'What a strange question. What makes you think anyone has a destiny? We do what we do and we die. I told you. There is but one Creator God and his name does not matter. Our destiny, for all of us, is to love and to gain greater appreciation and understanding of all around us. Why should yours be any different?'

" 'Ah, but that's just it. I should have a special destiny, should I not?'

" 'The belief in a special destiny is one of the most rampant and harmful delusions on earth. Innocent babes are lifted from the teats of nueens and told that they have a special destiny-to rule Athens, or Sparta, or Miletus, or Egypt, or Babylon. What stupidity. But I know what lies behind your question. And you'd better listen now. Go get the Canaanite tablet and don't break it. If you break it, I'll have to put it back together and I'll make you cry.'

" 'Hmmm. It's easy for you to make me cry, isn't it?' " 'Apparently,' he said. 'Get the tablet. Hurry. We have a journey ahead of us today. If you can take me to the steppes of the north, to the mountains where the great mountain of the gods is supposed to stand high above all else, then you can take me other places too. I want to go home to Athens. I want to walk in Athens. Go on, powerful spirit. Get the tablet. Hurry. Ignorance is of no use to anyone. Don't be afraid.' "

13

I laid hands on the Canaanite tablet, though it filled me with revulsion and hate. Indeed, I rocked with hate. I was so full of hate that for a moment I couldn't move. His voice called me back, with the command that I was not to break it. The writing was very small, he reminded me, and one chip would hurt the contents, and I must know it all.

" 'Why should I?' I asked. I gestured towards the pillows inside the room. Might I bring one out, so that I could sit at his feet without soiling my robes? He nodded.

"I crossed my legs. He was on his couch, one knee up, which seemed his favorite position, and he had the tablet now where he could read it clearly in the sun. This memory is so vivid to me, perhaps because the wall was white and covered in red flowers, and the olive tree was twisted and old, and many-branched as they get, and the green grass sprouting between the marble squares of the garden was soft. I loved to run the palm of my hand over it. I loved to lay the palm of my hand on the marble and feel the sun's heat.

"And of course I remember him with love, in his loose, long, baggy Greek tunic, the gold threads worn off the edging, looking rather scrawny and content and ageless as his blue eyes moved over the tablet, and he drew it close to his face now and then and then moved it far away. I think he must have read every single little word carved on it, in its long narrow columns of cuneiform. I hated it.

" 'You escaped into the spirit world at the hands of idiots,' he said. 'This is an old Canaanite incantation to call up a powerful evil spirit, a servant of evil as powerful as the spirits of evil that might be sent to it by God. It is to create for a magician a mal'ak, strong as the yTal'ak which Yahweh sent to slay the firstborn of the Egyptians.'

"I was stunned. I didn't answer him. I knew many translations of the story of the flight from Egypt and I knew an image of the Mal'ak, the shining angel of the Lord's Wrath.

" 'This information was regarded dangerous by the Canaanites and sealed in this tablet, if the date is correct, a thousand years ago. This was black magic, bad magic, magic like that of the Witch of Endor, who brought the spirit Samuel up to speak with King Saul.'

" 'I know these stories,' I said quietly.

" 'The magician here would make his own mal'ak which could be as strong as a Satan or fallen angel or evil spirit that had once participated in the power of Yahweh Himself.'

" 'I understand.'

" 'The rules are very strict here. The candidate for the mal'ak must be thoroughly evil, opposed to God and all things good, one who had despaired of God in contempt for God's cruelty to man and the injustice He allowed into the world. The candidate for the mal'ak is to be so determined and angry and evil that he would fight God himself if he could or is called upon to do so. He should be able to meet any Angel of the Lord hand to hand and fight him down.'