flying ever northward, until nothing lay below us but mountains, mountains capped with snow, and occasional fields, snowy and empty, where flocks grazed and men rode horses, and then it would be mountains again.
" 'Meru,' he said, 'Find it. Meru.'
"I set my mind to this completely and was only slowly aware that I couldn't do it. 'There is no Meru that I can find,' I said.
" 'It's as I thought. Let us touch down on the earth, down there in the valley where the horses are running, let us touch down there.'
"We did, and I kept him swathed in blankets and surrounded by my invisibility, and realized that in this state I could press my face right beside his face.
" 'It's an old story, an old myth of the great mountain,' he said. 'It is the mountain which inspires ziggurats and pyramids among the tribes that have only a dim memory of it. It is the mountain that inspired the high temples of all lands. Let me go now, Azriel, make yourself flesh and arm yourself well with weapons against these warriors of the steppes. Don't let them harm me. Kill them if they try.'
"I did this, and left him standing, shivering in his blankets. Only a few of the herdsmen had seen us, and they fled at once to the armed men on horseback of whom there were perhaps six, scattered about in some sort of guard. The snow around us was beautiful, but I knew it was cold, I could feel his cold, and I wrapped my fleshly arms around him, commanding myself to be warm and to warm him, and this seemed to give him immediate comfort.
"Meantime the six warriors, stinking worse than their horses, filthy men of the steppes, came riding in a circle around us. My Master called out to them in a language I hadn't heard before, but which was understandable to me, and he asked where was the mountain that was the navel of the world.
"They were taken aback and began to argue, and then all pointed re or less in the same direction, which was north, but no one knew for certain and no one had ever seen it.
" 'Become invisible, lift me and take me away from them. Leave them befuddled. They can't harm us, and what they see is no concern of ours.'
"Once again we were moving north. The wind was now unbearably cold for him. I didn't think I could protect him any better, I had summoned skins to enclose him and I made my heat as strong as I could but then this began to hurt him. I had gone too far.
" 'Meru,' he said. 'Meru.'
"But this gave us no direction, and suddenly he said, 'As fast as you can do it, Azriel, take me home.'
"There was a great roaring noise as I accelerated, and the landscape virtually vanished in a burst of whiteness, and it seemed that spirits ran at us from all directions, falling back as if blown off their course by our strength. My vision was flooded by the yellow of the desert, and then once again, the city of Miletus was plain to me, and we were in his living room and I picked him up in his blankets and skins and carried him in and laid him on the bed.
"The host of little spirits stood around in awe.
" 'Food and drink,' he said to them. And they scurried to obey, bringing him a bowl with some broth in it, and a golden goblet of wine. The goblet was Greek and very beautiful, as all Greek things were then, seemingly more graceful and less rigid in form than things Oriental.
"But I feared for Zurvan. He lay there, frozen it seemed, and I lay on top of him, warming him, swirling around him, then hugging him and then finally when he had turned the proper color of a living being, and his eyes were wide and blue, I let go, laying out the covers.
"His flock of little spirits helped him to sit and even brought the spoon to his lips and the cup to his lips.
I sat at the foot of the bed. I had no need of broth and was proud 01 it. Released. I was also very strong. After a long time he looked at me.
'You did well," he said. 'You did wondrously well.'
" 'I never found the mountain.'
"He laughed. 'And you probably never will, nor I, nor anyone else.' He banished all