The Seven Gifts (12 page)

He fell to the ground, spent. The stone
seemed almost to swell visibly with all its sudden accumulation of
the philosopher's painstakingly acquired knowledge. It didn't
speak.

After a surprisingly short while the
philosopher rose to his feet. Drained of all that his brain had
stored over the years, he stumbled away through the woods, like a
child.

The next day the magician arrived, appearing
suddenly in front of the stone.

“Well," he said abruptly, “where is it?"

“It's all right in here," gloated the stone
just before it shattered into a myriad tiny shards, spreading like
motes of dust through the dappled sunbeams filtering down from
between the branches of the old oak trees.

The magician walked slowly away, a little
smile playing on his lips. It was funny, he mused, how a stone
could drain a man's brain, and a man could drain a stone's brain,
but a man couldn't drain a man's brain.

If he had been a philosopher,

he might have wondered about that.

o ------------------------
o

The young boy closed the
book on the Fifth Gift

and remained a while with
his thoughts

in the lonely tower at the
end of the beach

And the Angel watched over
him

o ------------------------
o

Get Thee Behind Me

IT WAS late in the evening when the boy
finally went in search of the Angel. He had spent a long time
struggling with this fifth story. Intelligence? Knowledge? But
something did not quite fit. He felt there was something missing;
as though the story were incomplete. The magician appeared to have
triumphed, which did not seem right; and yet there was a clear hint
at the end that he had not. The magician had obviously overlooked
something; and that something would seem to be the clue. The boy
had clearly missed it as well.

He found the Angel in her cottage, snug
beside a cosy fire; for it was a cold night. The boy was glad to
join her and he drew up a chair into the warm glow thrown out by
the crackling logs. The Angel made tea for them both.

“There is something missing in that story,"
he said, when he had warmed up. He sat crouched over the cheerful
fire, clutching his mug of tea in both hands. “Something I missed
anyway," he added.

The Angel peered into the flickering,
dancing flames, and thought for a moment. “Yes," she agreed, a
trifle reluctantly it seemed to the boy. “It is a little
inconclusive in a way." She paused, stirring her tea; then seemed
to come to a decision. “Would you like to hear the rest of the
story - what happened to the magician afterwards?"

“Yes," said the boy, “I would. Presumably he
now has in his brain all the knowledge and wisdom that the
philosopher accumulated over the years of his life?" It was a
question.

“Presumably," the Angel concurred. Her mind
seemed far away. She got up and pottered about the cottage -
trimming the lamps, stirring the stew, replenishing the
wood-basket. Then she made some more tea and sat down to pick up
the story.

“The magician went home, convinced, as you
say, that he now had all the knowledge and wisdom from the
philosopher's brain. And he was a happy man. For he wanted power,
and he knew that supreme intelligence and knowledge, such as
possessed by the philosopher, would give him that power.

He lived in a strange land, peopled by
wizards and warlocks, witches, werewolves and all those who follow
the left-hand path of Lucifer. Many of these creatures had great
power, derived from pacts negotiated with the Devil; but the
magician wanted to rule them all. And he was cunning enough to know
that wisdom gained from other than Satan would be peculiarly
powerful in this land, free as it would be from the obligations and
restrictions with which the Devil controlled the powers of his
acolytes. The Devil would brook no competition from mortals.

And so the magician came home, and
immediately began to work on a plan that would enable him to
control the whole of the land, and stand even against Lucifer
himself. He pored over his ancient books of spells and magic; he
scoured the forest at the full moon for powerful herbs and plants -
digitalis, amanita, the screaming mandrake. He scrawled cabalistic
signs over the walls of his house and chanted strange mantras. He
mixed potions and spells, consulted with witches and bats, and
studied the Tarot cards to find the most decisive moment to
strike.

Finally, he was ready. He had the right
potion mixed, the finest conjurations prepared, the correct pattern
of pentacle designed. The moon was almost full, and his horoscope
confirmed the Tarot's indication that he was now at his
strongest.

That night he went out shortly before
midnight to a particular spot in the forest, where he marked out
the specially designed pentacle in the soil with a stick he had
carefully prepared, steeped in a broth of chickens’ entrails and
bats' livers. He stood in the centre of the star, drank his brew,
then walked slowly round the inside of the pattern seven times
widdershins, chanting the most powerful invocation to the Devil
that he had been able to find.

At precisely midnight, in the streaming
silver light of the full moon, he held up his arms and called on
Lucifer himself to appear. And in the silver-dappled blackness
under the trees where the cold light of that full moon picked out
slivers and patches of dead leaves carpeting the forest; where all
the rustling and whimpers of nocturnal animals had ceased; in the
middle of that dead, cold, dark silence, something began to
move.

The ground itself began to move, but no
leaves rustled. The trees seemed to back away from the five-pointed
star in which the magician stood, clearing a path for something.
The earth began to rumble. Black clouds fled across the face of the
unsmiling moon, as though running from something. And that cold,
milky light flickered and danced, faded, then flickered again,
picking out the tumbling dead leaves, heaving on the ground as
though on the back of a gigantic surfacing mole.

And a patchy mist arose, from the ground and
from the sky, to meet in swirling fronds around the head of the
magician. He stood firmly in the centre of his pentacle, holding
his little black wand to the sky, chanting still, calling for the
presence of the mighty Lucifer. There was no wind, but dead leaves
and broken twigs whirled around the magician, caught up in that
twirling mist. A deep sighing seemed to emanate from the
surrounding trees, then suddenly Lucifer himself stood before the
magician - a vision so horrific that he flung up his arm to shield
his eyes. His eardrums reverberated with the deep sound of the
Devil's voice - a sound that seemed to come from and spread into
the earth itself.

‘Who dares summon the dreaded Lucifer?'

The magician stood rooted to his pentacle,
hardly able to move, the presence of his adversary was so
overwhelming. His wand shaking like the branches of the nearby
trees, he quickly ran over the spell in his mind - the spell that
he had calculated would put the Devil under his power. Now, with
the confrontation here, he was suddenly not so sure. With the
Devil's next words, he was even less sure.

‘I demand once again, and only once, to know
who dares summon me - Lucifer, Asmodeus, Satan, Prince of Darkness,
Guardian of All Evil, King of All This Land.'

The magician stammered nervously.

‘I-I-It is I - the magician - who summon
thee.' He sprinkled some powder around the edges of his pentacle
and made a sign with his wand. It seemed to give him strength to go
on.

‘It is I, Oh Lucifer, I who am the greatest
magician in this land, the most powerful man between all its four
corners; I, with power beyond even thee, who both summon and
challenge the Prince of Darkness.' And rapidly he muttered his
spell.

He was not quite sure what would then
happen, but he certainly had not envisaged what did: the Devil
laughed.

The trees shook; even the moon seemed to
shiver as the Devil laughed. The magician certainly shivered;
things did not seem to be going quite according to plan.

‘You dare challenge me? Ho-ho-ho!' roared
the Devil. Then he stopped laughing, and the magician started
shaking.

‘You dare challenge me, miserable magician!'
The Devil's voice was cold, thin, ghastly. ‘Me - the Lord of All
Evil. What gives a worm of a magician the power to challenge Satan
himself?'

‘I-I-I have power and knowledge, wisdom that
is denied you. With that I challenge you for the rule of this
land.' But it lacked conviction, even to the magician himself.

‘Stolen from the philosopher,' said the
Devil, and he spat in disgust.

‘From the philosopher you have stolen
nothing I do not already possess. All knowledge and all
intelligence is mine, including that of the philosopher. Only the
philosopher's wisdom - that you thought you had taken - can
withstand me.

‘But you did not take his wisdom. You took
everything from his brain, but his wisdom does not lie there; his
wisdom lies in his soul. A man does not create thoughts with his
brain, O foolish magician, he simply stores them there; he creates
thoughts with his mind, and his mind belongs to his soul. Even I
cannot take away from a man's soul what the Lord God has put there;
even I, the Great Evil One, can do no more than blind a man to the
existence of that soul; I cannot separate him from it, nor from the
wisdom therein.'

The magician nearly fainted. Only abject
terror kept him standing, as it wildly pumped adrenalin through his
shattered body. He had made an horrendous mistake; and the Devil
never forgave mistakes.

The Devil pressed on relentlessly: ‘If you
had had the wisdom of the philosopher, you would have known that I
cannot be defeated. Only by the power of the Lord God when he so
chooses. A mortal is granted the strength to fight me, but he can
never defeat me.

‘He can resist me, but never bind me; banish
me, but never chain me. Only the Lord God will do that, and only
when the time comes. I reign a thousand years, and must be allowed
to do so; for how can a man know the glory of God without first
seeing me?

‘With the wisdom of the philosopher you
would have understood that, and you would not have challenged me.
You would have left me to lie in the darkness, for I claim only
those who seek me.

‘And you, magician, have summoned me. You I
claim as mine.'

The magician crumpled to the ground
clutching his head; and the Devil laughed again.

‘For so long you evade me, man of magic, and
now you are mine. All that you had, all that you sought, all that
you stole, all that you are, is mine.' Then the Devil vanished.

The forest returned to normal; except for
the magician, who lay slavering on the ground, his wand and
pentacle gone. His teeth seemed a little longer than they had been,
and tufty black hairs were beginning to sprout from his face and
the backs of his hands."

The Angel poked the embers and refilled her
tea.

“WISDOM
," she said, “was the fifth gift.”

o ------------------------
o

~
The Sixth Gift
~

George and the
Weed

AFTER THE disappearance of the Snow Queen on
her voyage to the strange planet her daughter, the Ice Princess,
was crowned Queen in her place. She became the seventh queen to
reign over the kingdom, and seemingly the most benign, despite her
cold nature.

The old rigid social mores and restrictions
were swept aside; rules relaxed and regulations rescinded. The
Queen's subjects were encouraged to express themselves, in the
arts, music and fashion, dancing and singing. Money flowed from the
royal coffers, jobs were provided for everyone, and no-one went
hungry.

The Queen looked after all. Her mighty army
of ministers built huge housing and entertainment complexes for the
people, roads and railways, dance halls and leisure centres. Every
household had a car and television, every man a wife, every child a
social worker. The land flowed with milk and honey; even the clouds
and the cuckoos were catered for. Only the Queen's gardener, a
grumpy old man named George, was unimpressed.

George was not a happy man. He had three
lazy sons who did nothing but preen themselves and go dancing. He
could never get them to help him in the garden. Which was fair
enough, but then they never did anything else either. And perhaps
that was fair enough too, for what else was there? Apart from
dancing and drinking and fighting in the streets. There were areas
in the city, the old man reflected, that seemed no longer subject
to law and order.

But then, order was frowned upon these days.
It 'stifled the creative instinct' he had heard some buffoon of an
intellectual say on television the previous night. Even he, a
simple gardener, knew what twaddle that was. He had spent his whole
life with plants, watching them grow and procreate. It was obvious
to him that order was the creative instinct. All natural creation
produced order. Any idiot could see that. Yet the greatest brains
in the land did not seem able to. Too simple and blatantly obvious
for them, he supposed. Their thoughts were like their clothes -
fancy, over-complicated and fashionable.

He could see no end to it all. Perhaps that
weirdo pop singer should have wrecked the whole city while he was
at it. Then all those pimps and parasites would have to face up to
a bit of real nitty-gritty. Even the Queen, plucked from her ivory
palace, might be forced to see life as it really was.