Servant of the Bones Read Online Free

her blood on three, their blood on the one chosen by someone to do away with them.
    “I suppose I thought it was part of his plot, then,” I said. “She was killed by terrorists, he said, and he had disposed of those henchmen so that he might make the he bigger and bigger.”
    “No, those henchmen were to
get away
, so that he could make the lie of the terrorists bigger and bigger. But I came there, and I killed them.” He looked at me. “She saw me through the window before she died, the window of the ambulance that came to take her away, and she said my name: ‘Azriel.’ ”
    “Then she called you.”
    “No, she was no sorceress; she didn’t know the words. She didn’t have the Bones. I was the Servant of the Bones.” He fell back in the chair. Quiet, looking at the fire, his eyes fierce and thick with dark curling eyelashes, the bones of his forehead strong as the line of his jaw.
    After a long time he cast on me the most bright and innocent boyish smile. “You’re well now, Jonathan. You’re cured of your fever.” He laughed.
    “Yes,” I said. I lay back enjoying the dry warmth of the room, the smell of burning oak. I drank the coffee until I tasted the grounds in my teeth, then I put the cup on the circular stone hearth. “Will you let me record what you tell me?” I asked.
    The light shone bright in his face again. With a boy’s enthusiasm, he leant forward in the chair, his massive hands on his knees. “Would you do it? Would you write down what I tell you?”
    “I have a machine,” I said, “that will remember every word for us.”
    “Oh, yes, I know,” he said. He smiled contentedly and put his head back. “You mustn’t think me an addlebrained spirit, Jonathan. The Servant of the Bones was never that.
    “I was made a strong spirit, I was made what the Chaldeans would have called a genii. When brought forth, I knew all that I should know—of the times, of the language, of the ways of the world near and far—all I need to know to serve my Master.”
    I begged him to wait. “Let me turn on our little recorder,” I said.
    It felt good to stand up, for my head not to swim, for my chest not to ache, and for most of the blur of the fever to have been banished.
    I put down two small machines, as all of us do who have lost a tale through one. I checked their batteries and that the stones were not too warm for them, and I put the tape cassettes inside and then I said, “Tell me.” I pressed the buttons so that both little ears would be on full alert. “And let me say first,” I said, speaking for microphones now, “that you seem a youngman to me, no more than twenty. You’ve a hairy chest and hair on your arms, and it’s dark and healthy, and your skin is an olive tone, and the hair of your head is lustrous and I would think the envy of women.”
    ‘They like to touch it,” he said with a sweet and kindly smile.
    “And I trust you,” I said for my record. “I trust you. You saved my life, and I trust you. And I don’t know why I should. I myself have seen you change into another man. Later I will think I dreamt it. I’ve seen you vanish and come back. Later I won’t believe it. I want this recorded too, by the scribe. Jonathan. Now we can begin your story, Azriel.
    “Forget this room, forget this time. Go to the beginning for me, will you? Tell me what a ghost knows, how a ghost begins, what a ghost remembers of the living but no…” I stopped, letting the cassettes turn. “I’ve made my worst mistake already.”
    “And what is that, Jonathan?” he asked.
    “You have a tale you want to tell and you should tell it.”
    He nodded. “Kindly teacher,” he said, “let’s draw a little closer. Let’s bring our chairs near. Let’s bring our little machines closer so that we can talk softly. But I don’t mind beginning as you wish. I want to begin that way. I want for it all to be known, at least, to both of us.”
    We made the adjustments as he asked, the arms of our