Servant of the Bones

"During Zurvan's life, he made a better casket for the bones. He made it of very strong wood, plated inside and out with gold, and he made a carved-out space for the bones to rest in their curled position, as that of a child asleep. He had carpenters work on this because, in truth, the work of his spirit familiars was not exact enough for him. Those who know the material world work with greater respect for it, he said.

"On the outside of this casket which was a rectangle just long enough to contain my skeleton, he carved the name of what I was and how I was to be called, and he carved the stern warning that I must never be used for evil, lest that evil descend upon the one who calls. He cautioned against the destruction of my bones, lest all restraint upon me go with it.

"He wrote all this in the form of incantation and sacred poetry in many languages all over the casket.

"He put a Hebrew symbol or letter which means life on the casket. "It was very good that he did all this early, because his death came quite by surprise. He died in his sleep, and I was called forth only when his house in Syracuse was being raided by petty thieves and people of the village who knew he had no kin and were in no fear for him. And as he had left no demons to guard his body, they sacked the house, found the casket, spoke of the bones, and I awoke.

"I slew everyone present, down to the smallest child who rummaged through Zurvan's clothes. I slew them all. That night, the villagers came to burn the house of the Magus in hopes of dispelling its evil. I was glad of this because I knew that Zurvan, being Greek by birth, though a man of no nation or tribe by choice, wanted his remains to be burnt, and I had arranged them within the house so that they burnt first and fast.

"I journeyed back to Miletus, and then on towards Babylon though I didn't remember why. I grieved for Zurvan. I thought only of Zurvan. I was in pain night and day, invisible, in the flesh, frightened to go into the bones to rest lest I never come out of them, and lugging my skeleton with me through the desert sands.

"At last I came to a city of Babylon but found myself repelled by it and hating it, and walking in pain with every step. I saw nothing that sparked a memory, only a feeling. I left very shortly after I'd come and I went back to Athens, which had been the birthplace of Zurvan. And finding a little house, I made a safe hiding place for the bones far, far beneath it, and then I went into them. And all was blackness.

"Much later I awoke with faint memories of Zurvan, yet remembering all his lessons, but it was another century. And maybe I always remembered his lessons. I think that may be the key to my eventual rebellion, that I remembered his lessons and loathed the perversion of them.

"Whatever the case, I was called forth in Athens. The soldiers of Philip II of Macedon had come down on Athens and beaten the Greeks, and Philip the Barbarian, as they called him, was looting the city, and in the process the bones were unearthed.

"When I came forth it was in the tent of a Macedonian magician, and he was as amazed to lay eyes on me, as I was on him.

"I remember almost nothing of him. What I remember is the vibrant quality of the world, the lure of being solid once more, of tasting water, and of wanting to be a living and breathing thing even if only an imitation. I knew also my great strength, kept this secret from this Master, and only quietly obeyed his largely petty and foolish commands. He was a small magician.

"I was passed by him to another and another. My next distinct memory is only because Gregory Belkin wakened it in me . . . that I was in Babylon when Alexander the Great died. How I got there, whom I served, I don't remember. But I remember dressing myself, making my body into that of one of Alexander's soldiers so that I might pass before his bed and see him signal with his hand that he was dying.

"I remember Alexander as he lay on his bed, that he burnt with an aura as bright as that of Cyrus the Persian. Even in dying he was very beautiful and strangely alert. He was observing himself die, and he was not fighting to live. Not desperate to live. It was as if he knew this was to be the end of his life. I don't recall him knowing that a spirit had walked past him, as I was solid and very complete. I do recall going back to my Master of the moment and telling him, Yes, the conqueror of the world was dying, and it seems this Master was old and Greek, too, and that he wept. I recall that I put my arm around him to comfort him.

"I wouldn't remember that much if it weren't for Gregory crying out the name of Alexander with such fury in New York and declaring that Alexander was the only man who had really ever changed the whole world.

"I could struggle now through other masters . . . bring up out of the cauldron of memory bits and pieces. But there is no dignity or magic or greatness that calls to me, that makes me long to recount it. I was an errand boy, a spirit sent to spy, to steal, sometimes even to kill. I remember killing. But I don't remember feeling remorse. I don't remember ever serving anyone whom I thought was unspeakably evil. And I do remember that I slew two masters at various times upon waking, because they were evil men.

"But this is hazy, as I said, unclear to me. What I remember next and most vividly, what I remembered only weeks ago when I awoke in the cold clear New York streets to witness the murder of Esther Belkin, what I remembered immediately with any clarity was the last master, Samuel of Strasbourg-named for the prophet, of course.

"Samuel was a leader and a magician among the Jews of Strasbourg. I only remember loving him and his five beautiful daughters, and I remember not the details of the beginning or the middle, but only the last days when the Black Death had come, when the city was in an uproar, and the word came down from the powerful Gentiles that all of us Jews should get out, because the local authorities might not be able to protect us from the mob.

"The last night shines before my eyes. Samuel was the only one left in the house. His five daughters had been smuggled out of Strasbourg to safety, and he and I sat in the main room of his house, a very rich house, I might add, and he made it known to me, that no matter what I said or did, he would not flee the wrath of the mob.

"Many poor Jews could not escape what was about to happen. And Samuel, much to my amazement, had conceived of the notion that someone of his tribe or clan might need him at the end, and that he must remain. He had not always been so self-sacrificing by nature, yet, he had chosen to remain.

"I was frantic, slamming my fists, ranging out and coming back to tell him that the entire neighborhood was surrounded, that the entire population of this district would shortly be burned.

"The history of the world was no mystery to me and neither was Samuel; the substance of the man was vivid then and is now; I'd gotten gold for him in abundance; I had spied on his connections in business and banking; I had been the source of his immense and ever increasing wealth. Killing, that was something I had never done for him because he never thought of anything so crude; he was a merchant Jew, a banker Jew, and clever and beloved and respected by the Gentile community for his good rates of interest and his reasonableness when it came to the payment of debt. A kindly man? Yes, but a worldly man, though a bit mystical, and now he sat in this room, as the mob and the fire drew closer, as the city of Strasbourg turned into hell around us, and he quietly refused to leave.