Servant of the Bones

9

Now, I begin the story of my two masters and what they taught me. And I assure you that this will be the briefest part of my tale. I am eager to get on to the present. But I want this known and written down by you, if you will be so kind. So…

“Zurvan announced himself to me dramatically. As I told you, I had gone into the bones. I was in darkness and sleep. There was an awareness in me, and there always is, but I can’t express it in words, this awareness. Perhaps I am like a tablet in my sleep upon which history is being written. But that image is too clumsy and concrete.

“I slept, I knew neither fear nor pain. I certainly didn’t feel trapped. I didn’t know what I was or where. Then Zurvan called me:

“ ‘Azriel, Servant of the Bones, come to me, invisible, your tzelem only, fly with all your might.’ I felt I had been sucked up into the sky. I flew towards the voice that called me and as before, I saw the air full of spirits, spirits in all directions, and spirits through which I moved with great determination, trying not to hurt them, yet deeply dismayed by their cries and the look of desperation in their faces.

“Some of these spirits even grabbed onto me and tried to stop me. But I had my command, and I threw them off with wondrous strength, which made me laugh and laugh.

“When I saw the city of Miletus below me, it was midday; the air was clearing of spirits as I neared the earth, or at least I was now moving at a different rate of speed and they weren’t visible lo me. Miletus lay on its peninsula, the first Ionic or Greek colonial city that I had ever beheld.

“It was beautiful and spacious, containing wondrous open areas and colonnades and all the perfection of Greek art even at that early age. The agora, the palaestra, the temples, the amphitheater…it seemed all of it to be like a hand open to catch the summer breeze.

“And on three sides of it was the deep sea, filled with Greek and Phoenician and Egyptian merchant ships, and the harbor swarming with traders and with long lines of slaves in chains.

“The lower I dropped, the more I saw the beauty of it, which of course was not entirely unfamiliar to me in Babylon, but to see a city with so much splendid marble, to see it white and shining and not barricaded against the desert winds, that was the spectacle. It was a city where people went outdoors to talk and walk and gather and do the business of the day, and the heat was not unendurable, and the desert sands did not come.

“Into the house of Zurvan I came immediately and found him sitting at his desk with a letter in his hand.

“He was Persian, maybe I should say Median, black-haired, though with plenty of gray on his head and in his beard, though not too old, and with large blue eyes that looked up at me at once, perceiving my invisible shape perfectly, and then he said,

“ ‘Ah, make yourself flesh; you know how to do it. Do it now!’

“This was exactly the tack to take, I guess, because I took great pride in calling for a body. And I didn’t really know any words then other than what had been on the tablet. But I had the body made and well made within seconds, and he sat back laughing with delight, his knee up, looking at me. I suppose I looked as I do now.

“I remember being too astonished by this lovely Greek house with its courtyard and doors open everywhere, and paintings on the wall of slender, big-eyed Greek persons in sinewy flowing garments that made me think of Egypt, but were definitely Ionic, unto themselves.

“He put his foot down on the floor, turned his folded arms, and then stood up. He was dressed in the looser, more naked Greek manner of clothing without fitted sleeves as we always wore, and he wore sandals. He studied me fearlessly as my father might have studied a piece of the silversmith’s craft.

“ ‘Where are your fingernails, spirit?’ he asked. ‘Where is the hair on your face? Where are your eyelashes! Be quick! Hereafter you need only say “Bring to me all those details which I require at this moment” and nothing more. Fix an image and you’ve finished your work. That’s it. That’s it.’

“He clapped his hands.

“ ‘Now you are plenty complete enough for what you have to do. Sit there. I want to see you move about, walk, talk, lift your arms. Go on, sit down.’

“I did. It was a Greek chair, graceful with high arms and no back. Everywhere around me the light seemed glorious and different; outside, the clouds were piled higher. The air was clearer.

“ ‘That’s because you are on the shores of the sea,’ he said. ‘Do you feel the water in the air, spirit? That will always aid you. That is why the addle-headed ghosts of the dead and the demons like damp places, they need the water, the sound of it, the smell of it, the coolness creeping into them, in whatever form they possess.’

“He made a long stroll about the room. Arrogantly I just sat there, showing him no respect. He didn’t seem to care.

“A Babylonian or Persian full suit would have been more flattering to him with his thin old legs and feet. But it was too warm.

“I drifted from looking at him. I was marveling at the mosaic floor. Our own floors at home had often been as colorful and as well crafted, but this floor was not full of stiff rosettes or processional figures, but with frolicking dancers and great clusters of grapes for ornament, and there was every kind of inlaid marble around its borders. The designs were fluid and jubilant. I thought of all the Greek vases I had handled in the marketplace, and how I had loved their graceful work. The murals on the walls were equally lovely and lively, and there were the repeated bands of color which utterly delighted my eye.

“He stopped in the middle of the room. ‘So we admire the beautiful, do we?’ I didn’t answer him. Then he said: ‘Speak, I want to hear your voice.’

“ ‘And what shall I say?’ I answered without rising. ‘What I want to say? Or what you tell me to say? What my true thoughts are, or some servile nonsense—that I am your spirit-slave!’

“I broke off suddenly. I lost all confidence in myself. I realized I didn’t know quite why I was saying these things. I struggled to remember. I had been sent to this man. This man was a great magician. This man was supposed to be a Master of his craft. I was a Servant. Who had made me that?

“ ‘Don’t make yourself dissolve with all this petty worry,’ he said. ‘You speak well and clearly, that’s what I wanted to know, and you think, and you are most powerful. You are perhaps the greatest angel of might I’ve ever seen, and nothing I’ve ever conjured has had your strength.’

“ ‘Who sent me? It was a King,’ I said, ‘But my mind is muddled suddenly, and it’s agony not to know.’

“ ‘It’s the trap of spirits, it’s what keeps them weak, it’s the hobbling of them provided by God, you might say, so that they don’t ever gain strength enough to hurt men and women too much. But you know who sent you. Think! Make yourself come up with the answer. You are going to start remembering things now, you are going to start paying attention. And first, let go of the raging scream in you. I had nothing to do with those who hurt you and killed you. And I suspect there was much bungling to the whole affair, which a weaker spirit than you might never have overcome. But you did overcome it. And the man who sent you? He did as you asked him to do, remember? He did what you asked.’

“ ‘Ah, yes, King Cyrus, he did send me to Miletus as I asked.’ It came clear and it was all the more clear when I tried to let the anger pass from me like so much air out of my lungs. I even felt my lungs. I felt myself breathe.

“ ‘Don’t waste your time on that,’ he said. ‘Remember the questions I put to you? Your fingernails? Your eyelashes? Details that are visible. You need no inside organs. Your spirit fills up the perfect shell that you are, which no one can tell from a real man. Don’t waste your strength making hearts for yourself, or blood or lungs, just to feel human. That’s stupid and foolish. Only now and then you’ll need to make a little blood flow from your body. That’s nothing, but don’t go hungering after your human form. You’re better now!’

“ ‘Am I?’ I asked, still slouching in the chair, ankle on my knee, as this older wiser man put up with my arrogance. ‘Am I good, or am I something to do evil? You said angel of might. I heard the King use those words. But then he also said demon. Or was it someone else?’

“He stood in the middle of the room, rocking a little, and composed, studying me through narrow eyes.

“ ‘I suspect you will be what you want,’ he said, ‘though others may try to make you what they will. You have such hatred in you, Azriel, such hatred.’

“ ‘You’re right. I do hate. I see a boiling cauldron and I feel terror and then hate.’

“ ‘Nobody’s ever going to be able to hurt you like that again. And remember, you rose above the cauldron, did you not? Did you feel the scalding gold!’

“I shuddered all over. I gave way to tears. I can’t even stand to talk now of it, and I didn’t want to talk to him. ‘I felt it for an instant,’ I said, ‘one instant I felt it and what it would mean to remain in it and die in that pain. I felt it…I felt it piercing through some covering on me, some thick numbing armor, but where it hurt me…was my eyes.’

“ ‘Ah, I see. Well, your eyes are fine now. I need the Canaanite tablet that brought you into being. I need the bones.’

“ ‘You don’t have them here?’

“ ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘A pack of fools stole them. Desert bandits. They set upon Cyrus’s party, slew them for every bit of gold they wore, and went off with the casket. They think the bones are solid gold. Only one Persian lived to reach the nearby village. Messages were sent. Now, you have to go and find the bones and the tablet, the whole casket, and bring it to me.’

“ ‘I can do this?’

“ ‘Certainly. You came when I called you. Go back to that place, or to the place from which you came. See, this is the secret of magic, my son. Be specific. Say I wish to return to the very place from which I came. That way, if the bandits have wandered ten miles from where you were when you heard my summons, you’ll apprehend them. Now when you reach that place, remain corporeal and kill these thieves if you can. If you are not strong enough to do this, if they combat you with physical weapons which make you stagger, if they hurl charms at you that frighten you—and I warn you there isn’t a charm on earth that ought to frighten the Servant of the Bones—then become incorporeal, but take the bones with you, gather them to yourself as though you were a funnel of desert wind, gather them and bring them to me. I will deal with these thieves later. Go, bring the bones to me.’

“ ‘But you do prefer that I kill them?’

“ ‘Desert bandits? Yes, kill them all. Kill them easily with their own weapons. Don’t bother with magic. It would be a waste of strength. Grab their swords and cut their heads off. You’ll see their spirits for a moment, shout at them to frighten them, believe me you won’t have any trouble. Maybe that will soothe your pain. Go on, get the bones for me and the tablet. Hurry.’

“I stood up.

“ ‘Do I have to tell you what to say?’ he prodded. ‘Ask that you be returned to the place from which you came, and that all the articles of your present body wait at your beck and call to surround you and make you visible and strong when you reach the location of the bones. You’ll love it. Hurry. I estimate this will take you until suppertime. I will be dining when you get back.’

“ ‘Can anything happen to me?’

“ ‘You can let them frighten you so that you fail and I can laugh at you,’ he said with a shrug.

“ ‘Could they have powerful spirits?’

“ ‘Desert bandits, never! Look, you’ll enjoy it! Oh, and I forgot to tell you, when you begin your return, of course become invisible. They’ll all be dead, you’ll hold the casket tightly inside your spirit body, like so much wind surrounding it. I don’t want you walking back here in a body with that casket. You have to learn to move things. If anyone sees you, ignore that person because you’ll be gone from the sight of that being before he begins to make sense of what he’s seen. Hurry.’

“I rose to my feet and with an immense roaring in my ears, I reappeared with the whole shell of the body in a small thick desert house, where a group of bedouins were gathered around a fire.

“At once they leapt to their feet and screamed at the sight of me and drew their swords.

“ ‘You stole the bones, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘You killed the King’s men.’

“I had never felt such pleasure in all my human life; I had never felt such prowess or such utter freedom. I think I gnashed my teeth with happiness. I took a sword from one of them and hacked them all, every one, to pieces, easily cutting off the hands that tried to defend them and slicing some heads from some bodies and kicking their limbs about. I stared at the fire. I dropped the sword and I walked into the fire, and then back out of it. It didn’t hurt this body, or its appearance of humanity! I gave out a roar that must have been heard in Hell. I was hysterically happy.

“The place stank of blood and sweat. The death rattle came from one of them, and then he lay still. The door came open, two armed bedouins flew at me, and I grabbed one of them and twisted his head off his neck. The other was now on his knees. But I killed him the same way too—easily. I could hear the noise of the camels outside and shouting.

“But the room was now empty of living beings, and I saw a great heap there covered by rude wool blankets. Throwing them back I discovered the casket of my bones and looked inside. This I have to admit was not a pleasure. It broke the stride of my lusty killing. I looked and saw the bones, and then I sighed and thought, ‘Ah, well, you knew you were dead. So what?’ There was much other treasure there, too. Sacks of it.

“I gathered everything up into the blanket, clutched it with both arms, and said, ‘Leave me, particles of this body. Allow me to be invisible, swift, and strong as the wind, and keep these precious articles safe in my arms, and take me to my Master in Miletus from whom I was sent.’

“The great treasure was like an anchor, a stone, which made my travel slow but delicious. I felt the ascent with exquisite pleasure as I reached the clouds and then came down over the shimmering sea. I was so stunned by the beauty I almost dropped everything, but then I got stern with myself and said, ‘Go to Zurvan now, idiot! Return to the man who sent you now.’

“I and the casket landed in the courtyard. Dusk. The sky was filled with a glorious fresh-colored light. The clouds were tinged with it. I was lying there, in manly form, apparently simply by wishing it, and the treasure was there, the casket, now broken from my having crashed, and another box of letters, thrown open.

“Out into the garden came my new Master, who at once started to pick up the letters. ‘These miserable bastards; all this is from Cyrus to me! I hope you killed them.’

“ ‘With great joy,’ I said, I stood up, lifted the half-broken casket of the bones, and stood ready for any help he would need. He piled my arms with a few soft sacks that apparently held jewels, I wasn’t sure, it felt like it, and that was all I’d brought with me, other than the casket and the letters, and he cast aside the blanket.

“To my utter amazement the blanket just drifted off, as if wafted on a draft, and then went over the walls, snarling in the breeze, and disappeared.

“ ‘Some poor hungry person will find it, and do something with it,’ he said. ‘Always remember the poor and the hungry when you cast aside what you don’t want.’

“ ‘Do you really care about the poor and the hungry?’ I asked. I followed him. We went back into the great room, which was now lighted by many oil lamps. I noticed for the first time shelves of tablets and lightly built wooden racks for the scrolls which the Greeks preferred. This had all been behind my back when I’d been slouching about before.

I set down the broken casket on the floor, and opened it. There were the bones, all right.

“He took the letters and the sacks of jewels to his desk, sat down, and at once began to read all the letters, quickly, leaning on his elbows, and only now and then reaching for a grape from a silver disk beside him. He opened the sacks, dumped out great clumps of jewelry, most of it looking Egyptian to me, some of it Greek obviously, and then he went back to reading.

“ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘here is the Canaanite tablet with the ritual that created you. It’s in four pieces, but I can put it together.’ He assembled the four pieces and he made the tablet whole.

“I think I was relieved. I’d forgotten all about it. It had not been in the casket. It was small, thick, covered in tiny cuneiform writing, and seemed perfect, as if it had never been broken.

“He looked up suddenly and then he said, ‘Don’t just stand about. We need to work. Look, lay out all the bones in the form of a man.’

“ ‘I will not!’ I said. My wrath came up so hot I felt it even in this shell. It didn’t make me melt. But it gave me a shimmer of heat which I could almost see. ‘I will not touch them.’

“ ‘All right, suit yourself, sit down and be quiet. Think, try to think of everything you know. Use your mind which is in your spirit, and never was in your body.’

“ ‘If we destroy these bones, will I die?’ I asked.

“ ‘I said for you to think, not talk,’ he said. ‘No, you won’t die. You can’t die. Do you want to end up a tottering idiot of a spirit mumbling in the wind? You’ve seen them, haven’t you? Or a stupefied angel roaming the fields trying to remember heavenly hymns? You’re of this earth now, forever, and you might as well forget any bright ideas of simply dispatching the bones. The bones will keep you together, literally. The bones will give you a badly needed resting place. The bones will keep your spirit formed in a manner that will allow it to use its strength. Listen to what I’m telling you. Don’t be a fool.’

“ ‘I’m not arguing with you,’ I said. ‘Have you finished reading the Canaanite tablet?’

“ ‘Hush up.’

“I sighed angrily and sat back. I looked at my fingernails. They were splendid. I felt my hair, thick and the same. What was this like? Being alive in perfect health at a perfect moment of wakefulness and energy, untouched by hunger, fatigue, the remotest discomfort…a seemingly perfect physical statue. I smacked the floor with my slippered feet. I had on my favorite embroidered robes, naturally, and velvet slippers. The slippers made a good noise.

“Finally he put all the tablets aside and said, ‘All right, since you are so reluctant to touch your own bones, finicky, cowardly young spirit, I’ll do the work for you.’

“He came to the center of the room. He dumped all the bones out on the floor. He stood back and he stretched out his hands and then he lowered himself slowly, bending his knees, and out of his mouth came a long series of Persian incantations, murmurings, and I saw from his hands something coming forth, like heat perhaps from a fire, but nothing more visible than that.

“To my amazement the bones assembled themselves in the form of a man laid out for burial, and now he continued his exhortations, and making a whipping gesture with his hand, as though sewing, he brought to him an immense spool of heavy wire, copper, or gold, or what, I couldn’t tell, and now with the gesture repeated over and over he made the wire thread the entire skeleton together as if it were beads. He hooked bone to bone with this wire, without ever touching anything, merely making the motions, and he let his hands linger long over the hands and feet of the body which had so many little bones. Then he moved to the ribs and the pelvis, and finally, with a long sweeping gesture of his right hand, he laid out the spine of this skeleton and connected it to the skull. He now had it all threaded together. One could have hung it from a hook to jangle in the wind.

“I saw a skeleton laid there as though in an open grave. I pushed aside all memory of the cauldron, of the pain, and I merely looked at it.

“Meantime he had rushed into another room and now returned with two short little boys, boys about the age of ten, which I realized in an instant were not real, but spirits, barely corporeal. They carried with them another casket, smaller than the first, rectangular, smelling of cedar, yet heavily plated in gold and silver, thick with jewels. He opened this casket. I saw a bed of folded silk. He told the little boys now to take this skeleton and to arrange it as if it were a child in its mother’s womb, with its arms drawn up, and its head bent down, and its knees to its chin.

“The little ones obeyed these commands. They both stood up and looked at me with ink-black eyes. The bent-up skeleton just fit into the casket. It hadn’t an inch to spare.

“ ‘Go!’ he said to the little ones, ‘and wait for my next command.’ They didn’t want to. ‘Go!’ he roared.

“They ran from the room, and stood peeping at me from the far door.

“I stood up and came towards the casket. It was like an old burial now, one found in the hills, from the ancient times when they buried men like this, in the womb of Mother Earth. I looked down at it.

“He was brooding. ‘Wax,’ he said. ‘I want a great deal of melted wax.’ He stood up and turned. At once I felt a shock of fear. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he demanded.

“His two servants appeared again, eyeing me cautiously and carrying a big bucket of the melted wax. He took the kettle from them, for that’s what it was, more or less, and he poured the wax all around the bones, so that as it hardened before my eyes, it fixed them in place. It was a soft, white fixture for them. And then he told the little ones to go again, get rid of the kettle, and that they could play in the garden for an hour in their bodies if they didn’t make noise. They were overjoyed.

“ ‘Are they ghosts?’ I asked.

“ ‘They don’t know,’ he said, still staring at the bones now fixed in wax. Obviously the question didn’t interest him. He shut the casket. It had strong hinges and a strong lock. He tested this and opened it. ‘In time,’ he said, ‘though I won’t wait too long, being as old as I am, I will make a tablet of silver to go with this, containing all that is needed from the Canaanite tablet, but for now, the bones are as they should always be. Go into them and come back out.’

“Naturally I didn’t want to do it. I felt a loathing for the bones, and a rebellious temper. But he waited me out like a wise teacher, and I did it, dissolving, feeling the smooth calm darkness, and then being sucked out of it in a whirl of heat and finding myself standing beside him, embodied again.

“ ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Excellent. Now tell me all you remember of your life.’

“Now that request on his part began one of the most unpleasant arguments of my entire immortal existence. I couldn’t remember anything of my life. No matter how he badgered me I couldn’t remember. I knew I feared a cauldron. I knew I feared heat. I knew I feared bees and the wax had made me think of them. I knew that I had seen Cyrus, King of Persia, and that the favor I had asked of him had not been unreasonable. Other than that? I knew only general things.

“Over and over he demanded I try. Over and over I failed. I wept. Finally I told him to leave me alone, what did he want of me, and he touched me on the shoulder and said, ‘There, there, don’t you see, if you don’t remember your life, you can’t remember its moral lessons.’

“ ‘Well, what if there were none!’ I said ominously. ‘What if all I saw was treachery and lies.’

“ ‘That is simply impossible,’ he said. ‘But you do remember Cyrus, and you do remember what you did today?’

“All that I could remember—coming to him, all he’d said, being sent to slay the bedouins and enjoying it, and coming back to him and all that had happened since. He threw at me a few random questions about details…such as what had the fire been made of round which the bedouins camped: camel dung was the answer. Had there been any women? No. Where was the place? I had to think and extract an answer, as I had taken no note, but it came to me to his satisfaction, fifty miles from where the desert begins due east of Miletus.

“ ‘Who is King now?’

“ ‘Cyrus of Persia,’ I said. He then went into a whole series of questions. I answered them all. Who were the Lydians, the Medians, the Ionians, where was Athens, who was Pharaoh, what was the city where Cyrus had been declared King of the World. I answered and answered and answered.

“He asked practical questions about colors and food and air and warmth and heat. I knew all the answers. I knew everything general, but nothing pertaining to my own life. I knew lots about silver and gold and could tell him that—he was impressed. I looked at the emeralds the King had sent him and told him they were most precious and especially beautiful and which was better than another. I told him the names of flowers in his garden. Then I felt tired.

“A strange thing happened. I began to weep. I began to weep like a child. I couldn’t stop myself from it and any sense of being humiliated before him didn’t matter to me. Finally I looked up and saw him waiting with his bright, curious, and rather merciless blue eyes.

“ ‘Did you really mean it when you said, always remember the hungry and the poor?’ I asked.

“ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell you the most important things I know now. Listen. I want this repeated back to me whenever I ask you for it. Very well? You call it the lessons of Zurvan and long after I’m dead, you demand of your masters that they tell you what they know, and you keep it in your memory even if it is something stupid, and you’ll know when it’s stupid. You are a clever, clever spirit.’

“ ‘All right, bright-blue-eyed Master,’ I said angrily. ‘Tell me all you know.’

“He furrowed his brows at the sarcasm and insult. He sat brooding. He put one knee over the other. He looked bony in his tunic. His gray hair came to his shoulders and there broke off, but his face was most alert.

“ ‘Azriel,’ he said, ‘I could punish you for your impertinence. I could make you feel pain. I could pitch you into the cauldron you fear so that you do not know that it is not real! I can do that at any time.’

“ ‘And if you do, I will climb out of that cauldron and I will rip you limb from limb, magician!’

“ ‘Yes, that’s more or less why I haven’t done it,’ he said. ‘So let me put it to you this way. I want and expect courtesy from you, in return for all that I teach you. I am your Master at your pleasure.’

“ ‘Sounds all right,’ I said.

“ ‘All right. Now this is what I know. Don’t ever forget it. As long as you hate, and you roast in a hell of anger, there will be a limit to what you can do. You will be at the mercy of other spirits now and then and magicians. Anger is a confusing force, and hatred is blinding. So. You cripple yourself with this, you see, and that is why I would like to discipline it out of you, but that can’t be done.

“ ‘But here are the lessons. Accept what your hatred and anger will allow you to accept. First and foremost, there is one God, and his name does not matter. Yahweh, Ahuramazda, Zeus, Aten, it does not matter at all. How he is worshipped, how he is served, by what ritual, it doesn’t matter at all.

“ ‘There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world—its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That’s all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in “to love” or “to learn,” it does not have value.

“ ‘Thirdly, be kind. Always, if you have a choice, be kind. Remember the poor, the hungry, and the miserable. Always remember the suffering, and those who need. The greatest creative power you have on earth, whether you are an angel, a spirit, or a man or a woman or a child is to help others…the poor, the hungry, the oppressed. To ease pain and give joy are your finest powers. Kindness is a human miracle, so to speak. It’s unique to us humans, and our more developed angels or spirits, to be kind.

“ ‘Fourth, on the subject of magic. All magic of all lands and all schools is the same. Magic is an attempt to control the unseen spirits, and the spirit within the living, or to bring back the spirits of the dead which still surround the earth. That is all that magic is. Making illusions, doing tricks, bringing wealth, it’s all done through spirits, that is, beings without bodies who can move swiftly, unseen, steal, spy, transport, etc. That’s all magic. The words differ from country to country, from Ephesus to Delphi, to the northern steppes. But it’s all the same. I know all magic that can be known, and I continue my search for more. To learn a new incantation teaches me a new possibility. Now listen to me! It teaches me a new possibility, but it doesn’t increase my power, my power increases with understanding and will. All magic is the same. What I’m saying is, you can do most anything whether you know the words or not!

“ ‘Magicians are born for the most part, but some men become magicians…incantations school and direct them, but ultimately the words don’t count. To God all languages are one. To the spirits all languages are one. Incantations help the weak magician more than the strong. But you can see why, can’t you? You are very strong. You can do things without incantations. I’ve seen that today. So have you. Don’t let anyone ever convince you by any incantation that they can have power over you. A magician can have power over you, yes, but don’t ever be fooled by mere words. Confront the power if you would resist it. Rouse yourself and make an incantation of your own. Incantations frighten spirits and humans alike. Make a song of strength, a song of might, when you would have your way. Doors will open.’

“He snapped his fingers. He waited a moment, then proceeded.

“ ‘Lastly, no one human ever knows what lies beyond true death. Spirits can come very close to knowing; they can see bright stairways to heaven, they can see the fruit trees of paradise, they can talk to the dead in various forms, they can glimpse the light of God, oh, that is forever happening, these glimpses and glimpses of light, but they can’t really know what lies beyond true death! No one who really escapes the earth and its earthbound spirits ever comes back. They may appear to you. They may talk to you. But you can’t make them come from beyond death. Once they are dead, it is in their hands or God’s hands whether they appear here or not. So don’t ever believe anyone who tells you he knows all about Heaven. All of the realms of the spirits and angels that will ever be known to you or to me are of the Earth, not beyond Death. You understand?’

“ ‘Yes, I fear I do,’ I said. ‘But to love and to learn, why? Why is that the purpose of life? I mean how did it become so, why would one set out to do only those things with such dedication?’

“ ‘You’re asking a stupid question,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t matter why it’s that way; it’s that way: the purpose of life is to love and to learn.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s imagine answering the question for others…why is it so important to love and to learn? For a cruel, stupid man this would be a sufficient answer: “It is the safest way to live life.” For a great man this would be an answer: “It is the most rewarding and illuminating way to live life.” For a selfish, blind person, I could say, “It will bring you the greatest peace in the end if you remember the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, if you remember others, if you love, if you learn.”’ He shrugged. ‘To the oppressed themselves, the answer is, “It will alleviate your pain, your terrible pain.”’

“ ‘I see,’ I said. I smiled. I felt a great rush of pleasure. A great sweet rush of pleasure.

“ ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You do understand.’

“I started to cry again. ‘Is there no simple watchword?’ I asked.

“ ‘Such as what?’

“ ‘It isn’t always so easy to love and to learn; one can make hideous errors, hideous mistakes, hurt others. Is there no watchword! For example…in Hebrew the word “Altashheth”—Do Not Destroy.’ I could barely speak. I was choked with tears. I began to repeat the word over and over again. I said it in one final whisper. ‘Altashheth.’

“He considered, rather solemnly, and then he said, ‘No. There is no simple watchword. We cannot sing “Altashheth” until and unless all the world sings the same song.’

“ ‘Will that ever happen, that the whole world will sing the same song?’

“ ‘No one knows. Not Medians, not Hebrews, not Egyptians, not Greeks, not warriors from the north countries, no one knows. Remember. I’ve told you all that can be known. The rest is chant and rattle and stomp and laughter. Now give me your solemn word that you will serve me and I will give you my solemn word that as long as I live you will never know pain, if it is in my power to prevent it.’

“ ‘I give it,’ I said. ‘I thank you for your patience. I think in life I was kind once.’

“ ‘Why do you keep crying?’

“ ‘Because I don’t like to hate or to be angry,’ I said. ‘I want to learn and to love.’

“ ‘Good enough. You will love and you will learn. Now it’s night, I’m old, I’m tired. I want to read until my eyes close, as is my habit. I want you to sleep within the bones until I call you forth. Answer no call but mine. There will be none, most likely, but one never knows what demons are up to, what jealous evil angels may try. Answer only my voice. And then we will begin together. If you are called forth, come to me, wake me up. I’m not worried about you really…With your power, you can get me everything I want in this world.’

“ ‘Everything you want? But what do you want? I can’t…’

“ ‘It’s books, mostly, son, don’t get so excited,’ he said. ‘I have no use for wealth other than the beauty you see around me, which does indeed mean I am rich, but rich enough. I want books from all lands, to be taken to places, to caves in the north, and to the Egyptian cities in the south. You can do this. I’ll tell you everything, and by the time I die, you will be strong enough to resist those masters who aren’t worthy of your strength. Now go into the bones.’

“ ‘I love you, Master,’ I said.

“ ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘and I shall love you too, and some day you’ll have to watch me die.’

“ ‘But do you love me…I mean in particular…me…do you love me?’

“ ‘Yes, angry young spirit, I love you in particular. No more questions before I send you to sleep?’

“ ‘What question would I ask?’

“ ‘The Canaanite tablet by which you were made. You haven’t once asked me to read it to you, or to read it yourself, and obviously you can read.’

“ ‘I can read many languages,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see it. Ever.’

“ ‘Ah, well, I understand. Come into my arms, kiss me, that’s it, on the lips as Persians do, on the cheeks as Greeks do, and then leave me until I call you forth again.’

“The warmth of his body was good to me, so good, and I rubbed my forehead against his cheek, and then without waiting for a further command, I willed myself into the bones, and into darkness. I felt almost happy.”