The End of the Magi

by Patrick W. Carr

“What are you?” Myrad mused. “Are you important?” A single voice came to him in answer, filling the heavens. “I am.”

A flame came alight in his heart. Sitting there, knowing himself to be pitiful and powerless, he vowed to exact a price from Phraates and Musa. “Great or small,” he whispered to himself, “somehow I will make you pay.”

A stab of grief caught Myrad by surprise, stealing his breath.

Myrad reached down to massage his foot and amended the thought. He would be hard to miss for anyone paying attention. He needed a disguise.

There are some things money cannot buy.” Longing filled the Hebrew’s expression.

the frantic schedule of a merchant rarely allows attendance, leaving me parched and hungry. The word of the Most High God is like bread and wine.”

Myrad told himself over and over he could do this; he could walk like a normal person.

“Thank you. I couldn’t make it.” “I know. I’ve seen men in battle when they come to the realization they’re going to die. You held that same look in your eyes.”

Alone, Myrad knelt to offer his prayers to the Most High, feeling Gershom’s absence as a wound.

Roshan spat. “His kind is everywhere. So concerned about whether or not you’re Hebrew, he never considers you as a person. You can no more change the circumstances of your birth than I can. If this ‘Most High God’ really exists, then he will look in your heart, not at your skin.” Roshan glanced down at Myrad’s leg. “Or your foot.”

No. I’m going to help him.” Even as he said it, doubt whispered to him. Is this what Gershom would want him to do? Walagash looked at him over his steepled hands. “Because you want revenge.”

A broken pot may be useful for a time, but when its usefulness has passed, it must be discarded.”

In an empire defined by ambition and murder, why should he care? If recent history was anything to go by, Phraates, Musa, and her son would all die violent deaths at someone else’s hand, who would go on to die a violent death in turn.

The magus laughed softly in the darkness, yet the sound seemed directed inward. “In the pride of my knowledge I thought I understood the ways of the Most High God, the rhythm and melody of His creation. Now I am reminded the stars are nothing more than grains of sand in His hand. It’s unsettling to know everything can be upended in a mere moment.”

Myrad nodded. “Foolish but brave. When she looks at me, I see the man I want to be reflected in her eyes. I’d like to live up to that image . . . someday.”

With a smile, he said, “Knowing of a thing and knowing the thing are very different. Many people know of the Most High God. The Hebrews have been scattered across the world by conquest like the wind sowing drifting seeds of grass. Whatever foreign soil we’ve fallen upon, there we’ve taken root, bringing the knowledge of the Most High to those around us. Many know of Him, but few know Him. The two are vastly different.”

“The ways of the Most High God are more than a little strange to me. He saved me from the desert, the floodwaters, even the rulers of empires. But why? I’m just a clubfooted Persian boy whom Gershom pitied. It’s almost as if God takes delight in accomplishing His ends in the most unlikely way possible.” A thought struck him then, and he made a gesture toward the western horizon. “The Messiah, the child who is to deliver Israel from the Romans, was born in a stable.”

“Sometimes. Concepts are like water, a certain volume but susceptible to influence by the language they are expressed in, the way a container molds the shape of the water.”