wearing large glasses, Rabbi Peter should’ve looked like a college professor. But there was something in his eyes; they brimmed with curiosity and excitement, and instead of an aging academic, Rabbi Peter resembled an eager young student.
He saw us and paused.
We stood up.
Rabbi Peter cleared his throat. “Um . . . welcome! Welcome, of course, what can I do for, eh, you, Kate, and, eh . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know how I am supposed to address you.”
Curran’s eyes sparked. If he told the rabbi to call him Your Majesty, we could kiss cooperation with the Temple good-bye.
Curran opened his mouth.
I elbowed him in the side.
“Curran,” he said, exhaling. “Curran will do.”
“Wonderful.” The rabbi offered him his hand. Curran shook it, and then I did. “So what may I do for you?”
“Are you familiar with Elijah the Unbeliever?” I asked.
“Of course. Here, why don’t we go into my office. We’ll be much more comfortable there.”
We followed the rabbi down the hallway. Curran rubbed his side and gave me an evil look. I mouthed “Behave” at him. He rolled his eyes.
The rabbi led us into an office. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, bordering the single large window so tightly that it looked cut out of the thickness of books.
“Please sit down.” The rabbi took a seat behind his desk.
We landed in the two available chairs.
“Would you like anything, tea, water?”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Coffee, black if you got it,” Curran said.
“Aha! I can do that.” The rabbi rose and took out two cups and a thermos from a cabinet. He unscrewed the cap, poured black brew into the cups, and offered one to Curran.
“Thanks.” Curran drank it. “Good coffee.”
“You’re welcome. So Elijah the Unbeliever. Which particular part are you interested in, or is it the whole thing?”
“We need a certain fable,” I told him. “The Man on the Mountain and the Wolf.”
“Ah, yes, yes, yes. A very philosophical piece. In essence, the man on the mountain encounters a wolf who wants to be rid of his savagery. The man turns him into a dog through the sharing of his blood. There are several interpretations. We believe that when God created Adam and Eve, he made them using his own essence; this essence,
Peter slid his glasses up his nose. “There is a second interpretation, based on the teachings of Maimonides, who believed in the necessity of balance. According to Maimonides, one should always walk the King’s Road, staying away from the extremes, neither surrendering completely to one’s emotions nor rejecting them entirely. The wolf, being enraged, walks the extreme path, and to return to the King’s Road, he ties himself to the man, becoming a dog. The dog still retains his primal savagery, but his rage is now tamed, so he achieves his balance. Were you looking for a particular interpretation?”
“We were looking for the exact wording. Do you happen to have a copy of the recording here in the Temple?”
“Unfortunately, we do not.”
Damn it.
Rabbi Peter smiled. “But I happen to have studied the tapes extensively. Elijah is my area of study. I’ve committed the tapes to memory, so if you have a few minutes, I can recite the fable for you if you would like.”
“Very well.” The rabbi reached into the desk and produced three white candles. He struck a match, lit the first candle, and used it to light two others.
“Why the candles?” Curran asked.
“It is traditional when reciting Elijah’s words. In one of the recordings, Elijah states that a candle is synonymous with one’s wisdom. If you use one candle to light another, your light is now twice as bright. Just so when a teacher shares his wisdom with a student, both minds are enlightened. Since I am about to share Elijah’s words with you, I shall light two new candles and our light shall be three times as bright.”
The rabbi arranged the candles in the corner of the desk. “Now then. Fable number three. There once was a man of wisdom who lived upon a mountain. One day a rabid wolf blocked his path. The wolf was suffering, for he was full of rage and it drove him to murder and violence. The wolf begged the man to take away his rage, at any price. The man denied him, for it was too dangerous and could cost both of them their lives. The next day the wolf returned and begged the man once more to take away his rage. The man denied him again, for rage was in the wolf’s nature. Without it, the wolf would no longer be a wolf. On the third day, the wolf returned once more and refused to leave. He followed the man, begging and crying, until the man took pity on him. He agreed to free the wolf of his bloodlust, but in turn the wolf would have to promise to serve the man till the end of all time.
“On the fourth day, the man and wolf climbed to the top of the mountain. The man chained the wolf to a rock with chains of silver and iron. Then the man cut open his arm and let his blood run free while a rain of needles fell upon the mountain. Seeing the blood, the wolf had become mad with rage and struggled to break his chains, but they held him fast. The man sliced the wolf’s throat and pulled the living blood from the wolf’s body into his hand. As the wolf lay dying, the man mixed his own blood with the fiery core of the wolf’s soul. Then the man thrust the mingled blood back into the wound, spoke the words that bound the wolf to obey him forever, and fell to the ground, weakened. The man’s blood purged the rage from the wolf. He sat by his master, guarding him while he rested, and when the man awoke, he found that the wolf had become a dog. That’s the end of the fable.”
The rabbi sipped his coffee. “The fable’s philosophical value can’t be denied; however, in recent years some scholars, myself included, have speculated that the fable is based on actual events. A large percentage of Elijah’s teachings, first taken as allegories, proved to be fact. The fable has all the characteristics of such a teaching. It offers specific if somewhat cryptic details: the rain of needles, the mixing of the blood, the chains of silver and iron, where fables conceived as fiction typically speak in general terms. But of course, daring radicals such as myself have to resign ourselves to scorn from our colleagues.” He smiled.
My aunt made flesh golems by pulling the blood out of her victims, infusing it with her magic, and somehow inserting the mixture into new flesh, creating monstrously powerful automatons completely under her control. Roland had done almost the same thing. He’d pulled the blood out of the shapeshifter’s body, seared it with his magic, and put it back. And somehow both he and the shapeshifter had survived.
I didn’t even know where to start. Roland had a hell of a lot more power than I did and it wiped him out, which meant I’d need a power boost. Just like the volhv who teleported Adam out of his workshop. I would not resort to sacrifice. Even for Julie. It was out of the question.
“Was it something I said?” Rabbi Peter murmured. “You look shocked.”
“No,” Curran said. “Everything is fine. Thank you for your assistance.”
I forced the words out of my mouth. “We appreciate it.”
The rabbi took off his glasses, cleaned the lenses with a soft cloth, and put them back on his nose. “Since I have shared my knowledge with you, perhaps you’d share yours with me. Why do you need the fable?”
I rose. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that. But I could tell you the name of the wolf.”
Rabbi Peter rose from his chair. “This is beyond intriguing. Yes, I would be most interested in learning the name.”
“He is called Arez. The Sumerians knew him as Enkidu. He was the first preceptor of the Order of Iron Dogs, and he conquered most of Africa and a third of Eurasia for his master. He lived for four hundred years and would’ve conquered more, but the ancient Greeks began praying to him, and their prayers turned him into their god of war.
