Servant of the Bones (39 page)

“All right, you’ve made your point!” he said bitterly. “So he despises me, so he did as soon as I questioned him. By twelve I was hurling my questions at him, and by thirteen gone from his house, and dead and buried in his Court.” He shivered all over. “He saw you and he passed the bones to me. He saw you!”

“That’s right,” I said.

He grew calm with amazing speed. His face took on renewed confidence and he pondered, easily shoving aside hate and hurt, as I knew that I had to do.

“Will you give me some simple facts?” he asked. His voice went lower. He was radiant with his pleasure. “When did you first see me or anyone connected with me? Tell me.”

“I told you. I came alive with Billy Joel Eval, and Hayden and Doby Eval on their way to kill the rich girl. They stuck their picks in her before I knew it. I went after them. I killed them. She saw me as she died, she said my name. Her soul went right up into the light, as I told you. Next I saw you was in the room of the Rebbe, no, as you approached, as you came towards it out of your car, with your guards all around you. I followed you into the room. The next night I did the same. And here we are. The rest I’ve explained. I became visible to the old Rebbe. I became flesh as I am now, and he struck his bargain.”

“You exchanged words with him?” he asked, looking away as if this hurt was something he couldn’t quite fight.

“He cursed me, he said he would have no traffic with demons. He wouldn’t help me. He wouldn’t have mercy on me or answer my questions. He wouldn’t recognize me!”

I left out the part that the old man had made me disappear the first time, and that on the second occasion I had left on my own.

His face truly actually changed for the first time.

That is, his next expression seemed a great leap from where he’d been in his feelings and intentions. Something was stripped away from him. It was not the humor, it was not the jubilation, it was not the strength. It certainly wasn’t the courage. But something was uncovered in him that was ruthless, and it made me think of my own fingers when they had tightened around the wooden handle of the pick and when I had shoved it into the soft swishy stomach of Billy Joel, right beneath his ribs.

He turned and walked a few steps away from me, and again I felt nothing. I watched; I felt my blood run through my veins.

I felt the flesh of my face tighten as I myself smiled a tiny secret smile that aided my thoughts.

All of this is illusion, Jonathan, but the details meant it was very good illusion! As good as now, as I sit before you. Now, it takes strength, great strength, to do it, as you know. And though by the time I came to you, Jonathan, I was used to that strength; I was not so used to it then.

Yes, I’m independent of him, I thought with a great surge of courage, but what about the bones? How does it all figure? Could it be true, that I had been destined for him? In a moment Gregory would realize that the zaddik’s seeing me and passing me on did not really contradict Gregory’s own theory that I was intended for him.

“Right,” he said suddenly, answering my thought. “He was merely the instrument. He had no idea. No idea at all that it was for me that he kept the bones. And Esther’s words, that’s what made the link. Esther gave me the link as she died; she sent me to him to get the bones, and to get you from him, you see. You are destined for me, and worthy of me.”

He paced and stroked the flesh beneath his lower lip with his finger. “Esther’s death was inevitable, necessary. I didn’t realize it myself. She was the lamb. And she brought you to me. It is I who must make plain to you your full destiny.”

“You know, maybe you do have something,” I said, “with this talk of my being worthy of you. I mean, perhaps you are worthy of
me
. You are so surprising. I wonder.”

I paused, then went on:

“Those masters, maybe they weren’t worthy of me.”

“They couldn’t have been,” he said with chilling smoothness. “But I am. And now you’re beginning to understand, and you’re helping me to understand. I am the Master, but only in so far as I’m your destination, I’m your…your.…”

“Responsibility?” I said.

“Ah, yes, perhaps that’s exactly the word.”

“That’s why I don’t kill you now, even though you sanctify the murder of that poor girl with some fancy babbling?”

“It’s facts. She brought you to me, through my grandfather. She sent me to you, and you to me! She did it! That means the
plan will work, the plan will be realized. She was a martyr, a sacrifice, and an oracle.”

“God guides in all this?” I asked derisively.

“I will guide things as I think God wants me to,” he answered. “Who can do better?”

“You
would
seduce me to love you, wouldn’t you? You are so used to love, love from people who open your doors and pour your drink and drive your car…”

“I have to have it,” he whispered. “I have to have the love and recognition of millions. I love it. I love it when the camera shines on me. I love when I see my grand scheme ever expanding.”

“Well, maybe you won’t get it from me for very long. Before I ever saw Esther die, I was damned tired of being a ghost! I’m tired of serving masters. I don’t see any reason for me to do what it says on the casket!”

Anger again. Heat. But it was no more than might come from the body of a man.

I stared at the casket. I ran back my own words through my head. Had I said such a bold thing? Yes, I had, and it had been
true
, and it had been no curse or supplication to anyone.

Silence. If he said anything I didn’t hear him. I heard something, but it was a cry of pain, or worse. What’s worse than pain? Panic? I heard a cry that was right between the ultimate agony one can feel and the madness which is about to obliterate all sense of it. I heard a fine scream, you might say, right there between the light and the dark, like a vein of ore on a horizon.

“You saw your own murder?” He was talking to me. “Azriel, perhaps now you will come to see the reason for it.”

I could hear the fire beneath the cauldron. I could smell the potions thrown into the boiling gold!

I couldn’t answer. I knew that I had, but to speak it, to think on it, was to realize and remember too much. I couldn’t. I had tried before. I had memory upon memory of trying to remember and not being able to remember at all.

“Listen, you miserable creature,” I said to him in a fury. “I’ve been here forever. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I don’t
remember. Maybe I was murdered. Maybe I was never born. But I am forever and I’m tired. I’m sick to death of this half death! I’m sick of all things that stop short of the full measure!”

I was flushed. My eyes were wet. The clothes felt rich and embracing, and it was good to fold my arms, to clutch at my shoulders with my crossed hands, and to look up suddenly and see the faintest shadow of the tangle of my own hair, to be alive, even flooded with this pain.

“Oh, Esther. Who were you, my darling?” I asked aloud. “What did you want of me?”

He was enrapt and silent.

“You ask the wrong person,” he said, “and you know you do. She doesn’t want vengeance. What can I do to convince you, you were destined for me?”

“Tell me what you want of me. I am to witness something? What? Another murder?”

“Yes, let’s proceed. You have to come with me into my secret office. You have to see the maps for yourself. All the plans.”

“And I’ll forget about her death, forget about avenging her?”

“No, you’ll see why she died. For great empires somebody must die.”

This sent a rivet of pain through my chest. I bent forward.

“What is it?” he asked. “What good would it do to avenge the death of one girl? If you’re an avenging angel, why don’t you walk out there in the streets? There are deaths happening now. You can avenge them. Come out of the pages of a comic book! Kill bad guys. Go ahead. Do it till you’re tired of it, the way you’re tired of being a ghost. Go on.”

“Oh, you are one fearless man.”

“And you’re one tenacious spirit,” he said.

We stood glaring at one another.

He spoke first:

“Yes, you are strong, but you’re also stupid.”

“Say this to me again?”

“Stupid. You know and you don’t know. And you know
I’m right. You gather your knowledge from the air, the way you do the matter that creates your clothing, even your flesh perhaps, and the knowledge rains on you too fast. You are confused. Is that the better word? I can hear it in your questions and your answers. You long for the clarity you feel when you talk to me. But you’re afraid that you need me. Gregory is necessary for you. You wouldn’t kill me or do what I don’t want.”

He drew in closer, eyes growing wide.

“Know this thing first before you learn any more,” he said. “I have everything in the world a man could want. I am rich. I have money beyond counting. You were right. I have money the Pharaohs never had, nor the Emperors of Rome, or even the most powerful wizard who ever bombarded you with his Sumerian poetry! The Temple of the Mind of God I invented, whole and entire and worldwide. I have millions of followers. Do you know what the word means? Millions? What does this mean? It means this, Spirit. What I want is what I want! Not some fancy, or longing, or need! It’s what I want, a man who has everything.”

He looked me up and down.

“Are you worthy of
me
?” he demanded. “Are you? Are you part of what I want and what I’ll have? Or should I destroy you? You don’t think I can. Let me try. Others have gotten rid of you. I could get rid of you. What are you to me when I want the world, the whole world! You’re nothing!”

“I will not serve you,” I said. “I won’t even stay here with you.”

He had been all too right. I was beginning to love him and there was something deeply horrible in him, something fiercely destructive which I’d never encountered in any human.

I turned my back on him. I didn’t have to understand the loathing I felt or the rage. He was abhorrent to me and that was enough. I had no reason now, only pain, only anger.

I went to the casket, opened the lid, and looked down at the grinning skull of gold that had been me and still had me
somehow, like a flask has its liquid. I took the casket up into my arms.

He came after me, but before he could stop me I carried the casket and its loose cover to the marble hearth. I shoved it noisily on the pyre of wood, and watched the sticks tumble as the heap shifted to receive it. The lid fell to one side.

He stood right beside me, studying me, and then looking down at it. We were looking to the side at each other, each of us, to the side of the hearth.

“You wouldn’t dare to burn it,” he said.

“I would if I had a bit of flame,” I said. “I would bring flame, only if I bring flame I may hurt that woman, and those others who don’t deserve it—”

“Never mind, my bumbling one.”

My heart pounded. Candles. There were no burning candles in this room.

There came a snap. I saw the light in my eye. He held a tiny burning stick, a match.

“Here, take it,” he said. “If you’re so sure.”

I took the stick from him. I cradled the flame in my fingers. “Oh, this is so pretty,” I said, “and so warm. Oh, I feel it…”

“It’s going to go out if you don’t hurry. Light the fire. Light the crumpled paper there. The fire’s built up. The boys do it. It’s made to roar up the chimney. Go ahead. Burn the bones. Do it.”

“You know, Gregory,” I said, “I can’t stop myself from doing it.” I bent down and touched the dying flame to the edge of the paper, and at once the paper was laced with flame and rising and collapsing. Little burning bits flew up the chimney. The thin wood caught with a loud crackling sound and the blast of heat came at me. The flames curled up around the casket. They blackened the gold, oh, God! What a sight, the cloth inside caught fire. The lid began to curl.

I couldn’t see my own bones for the flames!

“No!” He screamed. “No.” He reached over, chest heaving, and dragged the casket and the lid out onto the floor, dragging some of the fire with them, but this was only paper fire, and he stamped it out angrily. His fingers were burnt.

He stood astride the casket and he licked at his fingers. The skeleton had spilt out, into a weak and gangling figure. The bones lay unburnt, smoking, glowing. The lid was charred.

He dropped to his knees, and drawing a white napkin from his pocket, he beat out all tiny bits of smoldering fire. He was muttering in his annoyance and rage. The lid was blackened but the Sumerian I could still read.

My bones lay amid ashes.

“Damn you,” he said.

I had never seen him really angry at all, and he was more angry now than most angry people I’d ever seen. He was raging inside, worse than the Rebbe had raged. He glared at me. He glanced down at the casket to make sure it wasn’t burning. It wasn’t. It was only very slightly scorched.

“The smell is bitumen,” I said.

“I know what it is,” he said. “And I know where it comes from, and I know how it was used.” His voice trembled. “So you’ve proved yourself. You don’t care if the bones are burned.”

He climbed to his feet. He brushed off his pants. Ashes fell to the floor. The floor was filthy with ashes. The fire in the fireplace burned on, consuming itself, purposeless, wasted.

“Let me throw them in the fire,” I said. I reached for the skull, and picked up the gangling dead thing.

“Enough, Azriel. You do me wrong! Don’t be so quick! Don’t do it!”

I stopped. That was all it took, and I too was afraid, or the moment had passed. Five minutes after the battle, can you still slice a man in half with a sword? The wind blows. You stand there. He is lying among the dead, but not dead, and he opens his eyes, and murmurs to you thinking you’re his friend. Can you kill him?

“Oh, but if we do it then we will both know,” I said. “And I would like to know. Yes, I’m afraid, but I want to know. You know what I suspect?”

“Yes. That this time it doesn’t matter about the bones!”

“Not even,” he said, “if they are crushed to powder with a mortar and pestle.” I didn’t reply.

“The bones have completed their journey, my friend,” he said. “The bones have come down to me! This is my time, and your time. This is what is meant. If we burnt the bones, and you were still here, solid, and beautiful and strong—impertinent and sarcastic, yes, but still here as you are now, able to breathe and see and wind yourself with shrouds of velvet—would that deliver you into my hands? Would you acknowledge the destiny?”