(Cont.)
Now the multitudes set off on their travels. They left the hill that was the home of the wild man with the goat eyes, and they walked on foot for three days, looking for a place to rest; for they were immediately tired. And the folks in the vanguard carried the ark, which served as a portable museum, on whose lid stood the sculpture of Yahweh that Bryan had made.
And the fire and smoke from the vortex of the wild man was with them always, in the midst of the multitudes, because the Volcano was now a part of the people, and he trekked right along with the masses.
Now it happened that, whenever the armies of travelers were parked, if the Volcano desired to begin driving forward, Moses would yell to the ark “Gyah! LIGHTSPEED, my Leviathan!” and the vanguard would arise and recommence shuffling Indiaward, with the wild man among them, smoking and flaming with his vortex, while the multitudes followed after.
And whenever the traveling armies were in motion, if the Volcano desired for them to stop, Moses would put on the brakes by yelling to the ark “Whoa, milord!” and the caravan would halt.
§
Now the traveling multitudes grew hungry. This is the first lesson that Yahweh had to learn about human beings: they require sustenance. That’s why the wild man caused the heavens to rain down bread, which the people could gather every morning. I told about this matter in my previous novel – there, the people gave this sky-bread the nickname ish. It is a semi-transparent oleo-gum resin. If you don’t understand what that means, just think of a plant exudation consisting of 100% animal fat – like what angels use for margarine. Or like a coriander seed the color of bdellium. Anyway, the hungry multitudes would go out and gather this stuff, which appeared with the dew on the ground all around them; and they would grind it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and bake it in pans, and boil it, and make cakes of it. And it had the flavor of creamy fat. And the people loved it; they never tired of it.
After more than a year of feeding them nothing but sky-bread, the Volcano asked the multitudes if they would like more variety on their menu. And although the people were content with their usual ish, they answered in the affirmative; so Yahweh offered to slaughter all their flocks and herds, and also to gather all the fish out of the sea for the masses, to suffice them. And he also had several loaves of bread, which he could easily multiply. Then the people answered that they would be happy with whatever seemed best to him. So the wild man caused a strong wind to blow quail to the camp (again, just like he did in my last novel); and he caused the birds to be exhausted by the time they arrived, so they were easy to catch and kill. And the fire from the vortex leaped out and burned them, to cook them for the people. So that was nice.
Another minor matter worth noting is that the goat-eyed wild man offered a class in prophecy, which consisted of a series of lectures, because he liked how his prophet Moses had become so successful, and he saw that Moses’ own prophet Bryan was successful as well; thus Yahweh desired to increase the number of prophets among the multitudes. “My dream is for ALL the people to be prophets,” he said. And it turned out that seventy elders attended his class.
§
Now, Bryan was Moses’ ghostwriter and alter ego; and Bryan was married to a black panther named Myala. And Bryan himself could transform into a burning tyger. (Lo, is it not written in the storybook Bryan the Tyger?) And although they had been adventuring together for years, it was at this point in the journey that Myala began to question the identity of Moses:
Recall that Moses had wed an Ethiopian woman named Zipporah. Now Myala drew Zipporah aside and said to her: “Behold, I have developed a theory about your husband. Consider how he is ex Egyptian royalty with a very hot temper – the reason he joined the cause of the working class, in fact, is that he had impetuously murdered a taskmaster in the Empire and thus needed to flee from the secret police: That’s how he met you, among the goatherders of the outlands, correct? Yes, and he was known to worship Monotheos Aton: the one and only living GOD. But now, look at your man, as he stands before us today: this Moses here is a meek herdsman who pays fealty to Yahweh the volcano demon from the Midianite pantheon. Here’s my point: I think that, somewhere along the way, your royal husband of the Egyptian intelligentsia was made consubstantial with this lowly goatherd, this local guru. Two opposite personalities have been edited together.”
Now, as Myala was delivering the above speech, the fiery vortex of the wild man with the goat eyes came down in a pillar of clouds and stood nearby. And when Myala had finished speaking, before Zipporah could reply, the wild man approached the women and said:
“I could not help overhearing what you were talking about. Let me explain. Up till now, if there was a prophet among the workforce, I the volcano of potential would make myself known to him in a vision, and would speak to him in a dream. But with Moses, everything changed: now I deal differently. With him I have spoken mouth to mouth, clearly and logically, not in hazy sayings and parables that are hard to understand. For now I have chosen to live among you, as one of the people in the laboring class. And, to make possible this adjustment in the way that our respective species interact, it was necessary for me to create a crossbreed, a synthetic being, by fusing a high-born scientist with our poetic hill-dweller: however, this was done to the pre-birth soul, not as a reactive cleanup. It was all according to plan. For I knew that, once I grew accustomed to dealing with a hybrid on close terms, I would acquire immunity to the aspects of mankind that might aforetime have caused me to break forth. (You would not want the Volcano to be constantly in danger of breaking forth upon his people, believe me.) So it was necessary for me to ‘edit’, as you say, this split personality together; but, again I stress: the revision was executed ahead of time, as a preventative measure, in accord with my foreknowledge. Before I formed him in the belly I had refined Moses; and before he came forth out of the womb I sanctified him, and I ordained him a prophet unto the Empire: all this was accomplished so that I might live among the workforce in peace and harmony; for safe travels though the wild.”
When the Volcano’s speech concluded, Myala narrowed her panther eyes and answered: “I don’t buy it.” And she smiled as she said this. “What I suspect happened,” she added, “is that, partway through the epic, you accidentally allowed Zipporah’s husband to expire – whether he was killed by the mob, or at your own hands, no one remembers – therefore you needed to replace him, but you tried to cover up this mistake by hastily merging the two figures in the scriptural record. And this you performed in the laziest fashion by leaving both biographical accounts as-is while giving their subjects the same name.”
Thus the Volcano was frustrated in his attempt to explain away this snag in his prophet’s identity. So, in retaliation against Myala’s ingenuity, he decreed that she should remain a black panther throughout this adventure: that is, she was deprived of her ability to transmogrify back and forth between human form and feline. And he instructed Bryan to rewrite her part in this present novel as well as the previous one, so that Myala should only ever appear as a cat. This must be done (the wild man explained) for her own edification, so that she might understand the tedium that results from consistency of character.
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