My original intent had been to cut out as much of Asher's training as possible to get to the 'super-powered' part as quickly as I could but I found that it was both too fast and ended up giving the supporting cast too little air-time. Without some opportunity to get to know them, it seems that the readers have little reason to worry about the fate of each member of the Seven. This is my attempt at filling both those gaps.
But have I done enough?
I could easily imagining stretching some of these encounters into longer ones, or having Asher meet angels and take part in an exorcism. Would these be good additions or is this enough as is?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
As Asher watched the sun dip in the sky, he found himself astonished that he was not as terrible at Hebrew grammar as he had always supposed. Two months in, he was really getting the hang of it, conjugating verbs like a master (or so he thought), beginning to read full sentences and complex ideas. The pattern of it seemed to make sense to him - there was a kind of music about it that made it stick somewhere deep inside in a nonsense poem of verb formation. I killed, you killed, you (f.) killed, he killed, she killed… Everybody killed.
But in the growing frenzy of preparations for the oncoming shabbat, he couldn’t help but hope for some more peaceful verbs to work with.
In the kitchen, Ostar surged around the counters, mixing ingredients together furiously to prepare the meal before the sun set and all preparations had to be complete. Even without his gleaming armour, the manifestation of Netzach, Divine Victory, was an impressive sight a bulking figure that seemed to fill the entire small urban kitchen, smiling and laughing out loud at his own near-unending jokes, even as the sweat started to gather on his brow. Mercury, the embodiment of Hod, Divine Splendour, and, as Asher had learned only a month prior, Ostar’s wife, was slicing carrots while drilling him on his verb forms, her long dark hair tied neatly behind her head..
“What was that?” she said, never looking up from the silver blade that effortlessly divided the vegetables.
“Um, Tik-tal-na?” he said.
“No, think again,” Mercury responded.
“Tiktolna.”
“Very good, now once more from the top.”
“Really, my dear? It’s two hours to shabbes and I think Asher’s skills might be put to better use than conjugating theoretical verbs of destruction.” Ostar cut in, winking conspiratorially at Asher as he did so.
“He is not ready,” she replied simply, “and the Sitra Achra is coming. Not today, perhaps not tomorrow - but soon, and with Virgo in Netanya we have to do the best we can.”
“I know but come on, give the guy a break.”
“I think I’d actually like to switch to something else if you don’t mind,” Asher cut in, suddenly feeling that perhaps he’d reached his grammatical limits after all.
“Oh yes?” Mercury said, pouring the carrots into the slow-cooker to blend with the brisket, kidney beans and potatoes that was destined to be lunch the next day.
“I know what you need!” shouted Ostar suddenly, depositing his bowl on the counter and sweeping up a Bible from the shelves.
“Careful of the…” began Mercury as Ostar spread margarine from his fingers to the leather cover.
“Careful of what my dear?” he asked innocently, stopping in his tracks.
“Nothing at all, my love,” she said, and gave him a gentle peck on the lips even as she wiped the fat from the cover with a cloth.
Ostar smiled and sat beside Asher on the couch, waving the book in his direction.
“Now where were we?” Ostar asked.
“Laws of impurity, I believe” Asher said, with a small groan as he remembered the archaic section they had been learning together.
“Ah yes - so… what’s it all about?”
Asher struggled to marshal his thoughts; he remembered insects and dead bodies, menstrual flow and gonorrhoea, washing and scraping and cleaning, but just could not piece it together.
“Unholiness?”
“Good, good,” nodded Ostar, “you’ve got it - now take a look at Numbers 19:14.”
He opened to the page and read out loud in Hebrew, before translating into clumsy English “This is the law, a person that he dies in the tent…”
“Brilliant!” Ostar exclaimed, gesticulating wildly as he got more excited, “and what is the significance of a tent in the Torah?”
And so the next couple of hours passed, with technical grammar and points of Jewish law from Mercury, woven into the flow of the Torah with occasional mystic insights as they flashed into Ostar’s mind. But slowly Asher managed to turn the conversation around, and by the time Mercury had lit the candles to welcome the sabbath, he had ended the lessons altogether. “Any news from Virgo?” he asked, after Ostar and Mercury had kissed each other shabbat shalom.
“Not since yesterday when you last asked us,” Ostar said with a grin.
“What does that mean?” Asher said.
“Nothing, Asher, nothing,” said Mercury, a taste of a smile on her lips.
“Just noticed that you’ve been asking after her a lot, that’s all.” Ostar was still grinning, finding the whole situation hilarious.
“I’m just concerned, that’s all,” said Asher.
“Of course - it’s normal,” Mercury said.
“As a friend!” he protested.
“I completely understand,” Ostar declared broadly, putting a strong arm around Asher’s shoulders, “have I ever told you how I met Mercury?”
“Only half a dozen times,” Asher said.
“Well,” Ostar said, “since it’s shabbes I’ll tell you again… I was sitting in the university grounds, looking out over the campus, when I saw her - perfect, flawless, totally put together - the absolute opposite of me. And I knew then, that she was too good for me…”
“You know you’ll never be good enough,” Li said icily, “why bother trying?”
Asher refocussed his mind, seeing the black letters of the divine name configure and reconfigure in his mind, then switching the vowels and doing it again, every possibility in correct order, visualised completely in the dark fire that symbolised strict justice. At least that was what Li told him he was supposed to be doing, using the four letters of God’s name to enter into some kind of mystic state.
To be honest, it sounded like so much bullshit but he would be damned if he would let Li know just how hard he was finding it.
“Now reverse the process,” ordered Li, her voice crackling like fire.
He did his best, trying to imagine the same letters in the inverse order, hay and vav and hay and yod, morphing, shifting, flowing into one another as they burned black and bright.
Li got up - “Terrible,” she said, “you are as bad a student as I suspected.”
Asher opened his eyes, seeing her gaze down on him condescendingly, a sneer all over her face. “How do you know I’m doing it wrong?”
“It is written all over your face, there is no holiness, no perfection, only useless thoughts and self-consciousness.”
He felt his blood rise to his face - how could she judge him after just a few minutes? She’d missed half their other sessions with one excuse or another, and now she was standing there accusing him of vanity and folly. He was doing his best, despite all the weirdness, all the strange demands, he was trying.
Asher did not get up but his eyes narrowed as he felt his heart beginning to pound in his chest.
“Are you quite finished?” he asked, a little coldly, “because I’ve just about had it up to here with you.”
“Ah,” Li said, flashing a sarcastic half-smile, “now the young lion bares his teeth - hear him roar.”
“You have never given me a chance, not from the moment I arrived. Every time I said anything you told me to be quiet, to respect my betters - well now I won’t be silenced.”
“Oh yes, I see that. And what great words of wisdom would you impart upon me?”
“I am better than you know, better than everything you’ve seen or thought about me, I can do it.”
“Interesting,” Li responded, “you’re looking at me, but you’re speaking to your mother.”
Asher’s face instantly paled like silver. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“Just an observation,” Li answered, taking her seat once more on the hard earthen floor. “Your rage is impressive, Asher, it burns within like black flame. Now I shall endeavour to teach you to channel that fire into more ‘productive’ channels.”
“You’re going to teach me to shoot fire?” Asher asked incredulously.
“Perhaps,” Li said, “but for now we shall simply concentrate on the letters of the divine name. Now concentrate, and focus your anger.”
“Let it all go,” Rahko said, “just feel the swirls and eddies of the water coursing around you, pulling you whichever way it wills. You are no longer the master of yourself or your life, the water controls you - the force that nourishes all life, the essence of all creation, the beginning of all and the end of all. Relax and feel the currents - empty your mind and feel the waves.”
Asher was floating in a lake somewhere in Switzerland or Italy - Rahko, the embodiment of Compassion, had told him that borders did not much matter. He felt the cool breeze on his face, hands and toes that peeked above the calm surface of the water, as the cold depths moved him to an unseen command. If this was studying, he didn’t want a holiday.
“Good, very good. Now you can feel the pain flowing from your limbs, feel the warmth of the sun begin to kiss your skin, as your mind empties of all that makes you distinct, all the makes you separate from creation. You are part of everything and everything is part of you, the universe courses through your veins as your blood pumps through the milky way.”
Rahko continued to speak, his warm melodic voice wafting gently on the air like petals in the breeze, and Asher found himself slowly drifting to sleep.
When he awoke, he found himself sitting beneath a tree on top of a mountain, looking down at mountain peaks far below, each tipped with clouds. He knew that he should have been startled but surprised himself by being totally relaxed - he sighed, and stretched.
“Good,” Rahko said, and smiled with his sparkling eyes, drops of water still hanging from his thin beard. Even here his grey robes seemed to flow without end, curved and recurved around itself without end.
And then Asher suddenly remembered why Rahko had seemed so familiar when they first met, where he had seen him before.
“You were at my father’s funeral,” he said, without accusation, merely a statement of fact.
“Indeed,” Rahko replied, “I was wondering when you would remember that. You are doing well, already your understanding of the universe is deepening, soon you will begin to manifest your potential.”
Asher nodded sleepily, enjoying the sunshine, but then remembered that he still had a question. “Why?”
“Why what?” Rahko rejoined, lying back on the lush grass that seemed to sprout all around him at his touch.
“Why were you there? Why did you say…?” His mind went blank, he just couldn’t remember.
“For you, Asher. You were lost in the depths of Malchut, the Kingship that knows only division and disunity - I thought that you might need some help to find your way back. I don’t know if I helped, but I had to try. Still, the past is gone, and all is the present. Feel the air on your skin, you are part of the divine creation, the supernal unity of all…”
Asher lay back and closed his eyes. Something didn’t quite make sense, he knew, but his mind was not present enough to notice, and soon he was once more soaring with the waves, with the clouds, with the universe.
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