by Anne Rice
"You're alive," he said in a soft, even voice. "May the Lord God Bless you and Keep you." He was watching me. He said nothing. "What is it, Azriel?" I asked.
"Only that I like you," he said. "Forgive me. I knew your books, I loved them, but I didn't know...that I would like you. I foresee now what my existence is going to be...I see something of what God has planned, but never mind on that. We talk of the past, not God and the future..."
Part II
AESTHETIC THEORY
Contrive a poem out of ears.
Tell it
so that its petals unchocolate
like a brain in ajar.
Wax walnut, melting with thought.
Make it a poem almost
lewdly knowledgable
and make its knowledge
ooze, syrup from the punched trunk.
Make it snake up to the molecule whorey
and put its mouth
atomic against the mouth of its core.
Pull on its stem
to expose its foetus. Make it
have children with sleek ginger jaws,
make the dogs moan when it passes,
let it out of its jar,
make it lie with our corpse, our chaos.
Make it hungry, evil, enemy of Death.
Put it on paper. Read it. Make surgery
its sigh, and of such sting
the scorpions call it Jehovah & Who.
Make it now before you crap out.
Contrive it, sperm it, stroke it,
make it efficient, make it fit,
make it more poem than Poem can survive.
Stan Rice, Some Lamb 1975
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.'