“ ‘It’s an old story, an old myth of the great mountain,’ he said. ‘It is the mountain which inspires ziggurats and pyramids among the tribes that have only a dim memory of it. It is the mountain that inspired the high temples of all lands. Let me go now, Azriel, make yourself flesh and arm yourself well with weapons against these warriors of the steppes. Don’t let them harm me. Kill them if they try.’
“I did this, and left him standing, shivering in his blankets. Only a few of the herdsmen had seen us, and they fled at once to the armed men on horseback of whom there were perhaps six, scattered about in some sort of guard. The snow around us was beautiful, but I knew it was cold, I could feel his cold, and I wrapped my fleshly arms around him, commanding myself to be warm and to warm him, and this seemed to give him immediate comfort.
“Meantime the six warriors, stinking worse than their horses, filthy men of the steppes, came riding in a circle around us. My Master called out to them in a language I hadn’t heard before, but which was understandable to me, and he asked where was the mountain that was the navel of the world.
“They were taken aback and began to argue, and then all pointed more or less in the same direction, which was north, but no one knew for certain and no one had ever seen it.
“ ‘Become invisible, lift me and take me away from them. Leave them befuddled. They can’t harm us, and what they see is no concern of ours.’
“Once again we were moving north. The wind was now unbearably cold for him. I didn’t think I could protect him any better, I had summoned skins to enclose him and I made my heat as strong as I could but then this began to hurt him. I had gone too far.
“ ‘Meru,’ he said. ‘Meru.’
“But this gave us no direction, and suddenly he said, ‘As fast as you can do it, Azriel, take me home.’
“There was a great roaring noise as I accelerated, and the landscape virtually vanished in a burst of whiteness, and it seemed that spirits ran at us from all directions, falling back as if blown off their course by our strength. My vision was flooded by the yellow of the desert, and then once again, the city of Miletus was plain to me, and we were in his living room and I picked him up in his blankets and skins and carried him in and laid him on the bed.
“The host of little spirits stood around in awe.
“ ‘Food and drink,’ he said to them. And they scurried to obey, bringing him a bowl with some broth in it, and a golden goblet of wine. The goblet was Greek and very beautiful, as all Greek things were then, seemingly more graceful and less rigid in form than things Oriental.
“But I feared for Zurvan. He lay there, frozen it seemed, and I lay on top of him, warming him, swirling around him, then hugging him and then finally when he had turned the proper color of a living being, and his eyes were wide and blue, I let go, laying out the covers.
“His flock of little spirits helped him to sit and even brought the spoon to his lips and the cup to his lips.
“I sat at the foot of the bed. I had no need of broth and was proud of it. Released. I was also very strong. After a long time he looked at me.
“ ‘You did well,” he said. ‘You did wondrously well.’
“ ‘I never found the mountain.’
“He laughed. ‘And you probably never will, nor I, nor anyone else.’ He banished all the others, and they fled like slaves, and the room was clean of them. ‘Every man holds some myth sacred in himself, some old story told to him, which for him had the ring of truth, or maybe just the allure of beauty. So it was with me and the sacred mountain. And so with your power I have journeyed to the very top of the world and seen for myself that Meru is not a place, no more than I thought it was, but a thought, a concept, an ideal.’
“He rested, and the curious expression returned to him. Any disappointment or fatigue was swallowed by it. He looked at me and his eyes seemed to fill with delight.
“ ‘What did you learn, Azriel, on your journey? What did you see?’
“ ‘I learned first and foremost that such a thing could be done,’ I said. Then I told him all I’d seen, and how the cities looked like traps to lure the gods of Heaven to earth.
“This amused and interested him.
“ ‘They seemed,’ I said, ‘to have been designed especially to get the attention of the gods, to make the gods cease their ethereal flight and come down, as to the temple of Marduk. The mountain, as you said. They dotted the earth like so many open hands of invitation, or perhaps that is wrong, perhaps they looked like fancy entrances to earth, gateways, ah, that’s the word the priest would like, I’m sure, that Babylon is the Gateway of the Gods.’
“ ‘Every city,’ he said contemptuously, ‘is the gateway of some god.’
“ ‘What were the higher spirits I saw, the ones who looked joyous and ran to and fro, the ones who passed right through the middle spirits, the ones the dead could not see?’
“ ‘As I told you,’ he answered, ‘every magician will have a different explanation, but you saw what there is to see; you saw a great deal of it. Over time you’ll see more, but you saw your own power and how they respected it, you saw that the middle spirits, as you call them, could not hurt you, and the demon spirits are idiots, and you can rout them with a nasty face. You saw.’
“ ‘But what is it all, Master?’
“ ‘It’s what I told you yesterday. It’s all that we can know on this earth. The joyous ones ascend, the middle ones see, the pale and sorrowful dead become as the middle ones, and whence the demons? Who knows? Were they all humans? No, I think not. Can they possess and confuse men? Oh, yes they can But you, the Servant of the Bones, can see them in all their weakness, and you have nothing ever to fear from them, remember? Should they block your path, merely shove them aside. Should they come to invade a human under your protection, to penetrate his flesh and enliven him with their own intentions, reach out with your invisible hand and grab the invisible body of the invader and you will find you can lift it up and hurl it away from its human host.’
“He gave a great sigh. ‘I have to rest now, the journey was arduous for me. I’m human. Now, go and walk about the city. Walk in your fleshly body, walk as men do and see as men do. Do not walk through doors or walls, lest you frighten someone, and if the spirits come down to assault you, send them flying with your anger and your fist. If you need me, call out to me. But mostly, you walk now.’
“I was delighted at the prospect. I got up and went to the door. His voice called me back.
“ ‘You’re the strongest spirit I ever saw or knew,’ he said. ‘Look at you, in your splendid blue robes and gold, and with your hair shining as it falls to your shoulders. Look at you. Visible, invisible, an illusion, solid, it’s all possible for you. You could be the perfect instrument of evil.’
“ ‘I don’t want to be!’ I said.
“ ‘Remember that, remember that above all things. You were imperfectly made by bumbling idiots. And as the result you are stronger than any magician could have ever wanted, and you have what men have…’
“I started to weep. It was that same instantaneous and uncontrollable weeping that had come on me before. ‘A soul?’ I asked. ‘I have a soul?’
“ ‘I don’t know the answer to that question,’ he said. ‘I was speaking of something else. You have free will.’
“He lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Bring something back for me which hurts no one.’
“ ‘Flowers,’ I said, ‘a beautiful gathering of flowers, from this wall and that gate and this garden.’
“He laughed. ‘Yes, and with mortals, be gentle! Don’t hurt them. Even if they insult you, thinking you mortal, don’t hurt them. Be patient and kind.’
“ ‘I will, I vow it,’ I said.
“And I set out on my way.”
11
What Zurvan taught me in the next fifteen years was all an extension and elaboration of what was learned in the first three of our days. That I can remember them now clearly for the first time in all these centuries floods me with happiness. I want to tell you the details. Ah, God, that I remember being alive and then not alive that I can connect one memory to the other, this is…this is something more merciful than an answer to prayers.”
I told him I thought I could understand, but I said nothing more because I was eager for him to go on.
“After Zurvan released me to go wandering in the flesh, I didn’t return until called, which was midnight or
