Servant of the Bones

" 'You speak of good angels?'

" 'Yes, good and bad; you were to be the equal of them and you may be. You are a mal'ak, not an ordinary spirit at all. But as I said, the one who would become this must be evil to the core of his heart, he must have no patience any longer with God and want to serve the rebellious spirit in mankind, that which has refused to accept God's rules. This spirit is not being created to serve a Devil or Demon, but to be one.'

"I gasped.

" 'You seem rather young to have been so wretchedly evil ... at least in the form you've chosen on your own, which does seem the perfect emanation of what you were when you were alive. Were you Aat evil? Did you hate God so much?'

" 'No, at least, I don't think I did. If I did, I didn't know.' 'Did you choose to become the Servant of the Bones?'

" 'No. I know I did not.'

" 'More bungling. You weren't evil, you weren't willing, and yon did not make a vow to serve whoever would own the bones, did you?'

" 'Certainly not!' I tried to remember. It was so difficult now, the past grew bright, then faded, but I could push back to Cyrus's bed-chamber, I could remember that Cyrus had sent me here to Zurvan and I could remember something before that... a priest dead on the floor.

" 'I killed the one who would be Master,' I said. 'I killed him and there was death all around me, I was dying when I was made. Only a little flame remained in me. I was to die. The stairway to heaven was to come down perhaps, or I was to go into the light and be part of it. I don't know which happened. But whatever the case, I was not willing to be the Servant of the Bones, I tried to escape ... I remember running and calling for help, saying this was a Canaanite curse, but I don't remember to whom I appealed. Only afterwards I brought my bones in a sack into the bedchamber of the King.'

" 'So he's told me. Well, according to this, you should have been an expert on evil and cruelty before you were chosen, and you should have begged for the privilege of eternal life equal to God's angels, and you should have been willing to endure a terrible death. At the moment when the pain became too great for you, your spirit should have separated from the body, and watched the body be boiled down to bones. But only once the pain became too great. Only then. You were to endure the boiling cauldron of gold for as long as you could to perfect your hatred of God that he had made men sentient beings, and then and only then you should have risen free, aware of the power of your triumph over death, and your hatred of God, who made death, and your desire to be the mal'ak who is as strong as Yahweh's cruel heart when he turned it against those whom Saul or David or Joshua would slay.

" 'You are to be the avenger of Adam and Eve, that they were foully tricked by your God. What does that say to you?'

" 'It was all a blundering affair, as you said. I can't remember being in the cauldron, only a terrible, terrible fear of it. I think I escaped my body before the pain came, I think I couldn't endure it, all was confusion, I was surrounded by weak and self-seeking individuals, all grandeur had gone. All majesty had gone. I had done something, mething that others wanted me to do, but it seemed tainted, horribly tainted and I'd been confused.'

" 'And there had been majesty in this tainted act?' " 'Well, I think there had. I can remember at sense of great sacrifice purpose. I can remember rose petals and a sleepy slow death whose worst pain was knowledge that it was irreversible and would take its time, but not be changed. I don't know why I said majesty.

What did Cyrus say of me to you?'

" 'Not enough, I don't think. But according fro this tablet, you cannot be destroyed. If the bones are destroyed them you are loosed upon the world to take vengeance on everything living, like a pestilence.'

"Despair descended on me. It descended off me utterly, a despair that would have been impossible for the spirit X had been only a few hours ago. When I wandered upwards towards those with joyous faces, when I saw the gleam of light, I hadn't known despair! I hadn't known it any more than a child being turned away from a plate of sweets. Now I knew.

" 'I want to die,' I whispered. 'I want to truly7 die as I was supposed to die, before they did this to me, misguided fools that they were! Before they tried this fearsome magic. Ah, idiots!' Ah, God!'

" 'Die?' he asked, 'and wander among the stupid dead? Become a demon growling among other spirits, become a great foul enemy of all that is good, a bringer of death and torment!'

" 'No, just die, die as if in my mother's arms, die as if to lie in my Mother Earth, and if I become light and if there is Heaven so be it, but if not, then simply to die, and to live on give me memory of anything good I ever did for anyone, any good act, any act of kindness and love, and . . .'

" '. . . and what?'

" 'I was going to say that I wanted to live on in memory for the acts I had done in praise of God, but I don't ? care about that now. I just want to die. I would rather God would leave me alone.' I stood, I looked down at him. 'Did Cyrus tell you who I was in life? How he came to know me?'

" 'No, you can go read his letters for yourself. He said only that your strength was too great for any magician but myself, and that he owed you a great debt, that your death haftd been his doing.' He stopped, thinking, pulling on his beard. 'Of course the King of all the world is not going to add to a letter that he was personally frightened of a spirit and wishes to get it as far from him as possible, but there was that, shall we say, tinge to the letter. You know, "I cannot command this spirit. I dare not. And yet I owe him my Kingdom?"'

" 'I can't remember his owing me anything. I remember asking to be sent ... I remember . . .' " 'Yes?' " 'Being forsaken by all.'

" 'Well, these fools haven't made a demon. They have made something more like an angel.'

" 'Angel of might,' I said. 'You used those words yourself. Cyrus used them. Marduk used them . . .' I stopped. Stumped by the name Marduk, and seeing nothing to surround the name or make it plausible in my speech.

" 'Marduk, the god of Babylon?' he asked. " 'Don't mock him, he suffers,' I said, amazing myself. " 'You want vengeance on those who did this to you?' " 'I took it. I can't remember anyone else who is not dead. It was the priest's doing, and he ... and the old woman, she died, the witch, the seer. I can't remember ... I knew only Cyrus could help me and I knew that I had a right to walk into his bedchamber, that I would make him listen to me. No, I don't want vengeance. No. I don't remember anything enough to want it, any more than I hanker after life. I don't. There is something I want... to die ... to rest, to sleep, to be dead in the sweet-smelling earth ... or to see the light as I become one with it, one tiny spark of the light of God returned to his flame. I want death most. . . even more than the light. Just the quiet of death.'