Two ordeals

(Cont.)

Now, earlier, the man with the goat eyes and rust-hued body had prepared Moses and Bryan for certain challenges that he reckoned the King would pose during their upcoming meeting. And the wild man said:

“When the King tries to prove that you have no power in the world, by daring you to summon up the Devil from out of his grave, so that the Devil shall stand before you alive in the flesh, then here is what you shall do: Bryan, you shall wave the wand that Moses gave to you, and it shall cause the Devil to resurrect, and he shall defy death and stand before you in person.”

Then Moses and Bryan went to meet with the King in the throne room, and they did what the wild man had instructed: Bryan waved his magic wand, and the Devil appeared, hale and restored to his former glory.

But then the King invited all the necromancers from his intelligentsia to enter the room. Now, look: the King’s wizards cause the Devil to stand there as well. This is because every man consists of a self and its doppelganger; a spark and shadow; an evil twin and its alter ego. Likewise, there is a good Devil and a bad Devil. So the trick that Bryan and Moses had been instructed to perform was not enough to impress the King. Instead, their Devil now needed to beat the Devil of the necromancers in a duel; like the all-night contest that the patriarch Israel won, when the mysterious god who looked like Yahweh ambushed him in his apartment, yet Israel bested him; and this victory earned for Israel his title “the god of gods.”

So all the wizards had waved their wands, and each one had caused another Devil to rise: but, once the tournament began, Bryan’s Devil swallowed up all the Devils of the Empire.

And yet the King’s heart was hardened, so that he remained unimpressed with Moses’ and Bryan’s display of omnipotence; and he would not listen to them, just like the wild man had predicted.

And when the results of this attempt were relayed to the wild man, he said to Moses: “The King’s heart is hardened: he still refuses to release the workers. Go back there in the morning – look: he shall come out to bathe in the river. You shall be standing there at the shoreline to greet him. Now, remember the wand that I gave you – the one that caused the Devil to resurrect in the flesh: Take this wand in your hand, and say to the King, “The working people’s volcano of potential has sent me to you, to deliver this message: ‘Release my laborers; allow them an extended weekend to come and visit me in the backveld. And consider how, all along, you have continuously refused to grant my request.’ Now listen to the words of omnipotence: ‘Here is how you shall know that I truly am the Volcano. Watch: I will wave my wand in the water, and this whole river will be turned into lava. Glowing red-hot molten rock. – However, since I don’t want you to boil to death while you are bathing, because I am merciful, I will substitute blood for lava. So all the water in the river will be changed into blood, instead. And all the fish in the river will die, and the river will stink; and all the citizens of your country will strongly dislike the taste of the river, when they use its water for drinking or to cook with.’”

And the wild man further said to Moses: “Tell Bryan to take the wand and do everything that I instructed you. I want all the water in the country to turn to blood – so blood will be in the ponds and streams and pools and lakes and each river and tributary; and all the faucets of every home shall gush with blood, when you turn them on. If someone attempts to take a shower, blood will spray out of the nozzle overhead. And anyone who has a water-filtration system installed in their home shall find that it is clogged with blood, so that, when one tries to dispense clean water, only blood oozes out. And if one fails to clean up quickly any blood that has spilled, it will coagulate and leave unsightly stains.”

So Moses and Bryan did what the volcano of potential instructed: Bryan waved the wand in the water, right when the King was taking his bath, and all the King’s counsellors were there too, so they saw it: and all the water in the river turned to blood. And all the fish that were in the river died and went belly-up and floated there congesting the stream, and the whole country stank. And the population could not find any water to drink – for there was only blood everywhere. It was a vampire’s wet dream.

But the sorcerers of the King’s intelligentsia were able to replicate this powerful display, and they accomplished the very same trick with their spells that they cast. So the King’s heart remained hardened against Moses and Bryan, and he still refused to listen to their prayer: it was just as the wild man had said that it would be.

And the King simply turned and went back into his palace, paying no attention to the disaster.

And all the people of Egypt ended up digging new wells and aqueducts, in order to find fresh supplies of drinking water; because the water in the river remained contaminated like this for a full seven days, once the Volcano had befouled it.