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In theHer death cah the words of another

1

THE BONES OF WOE

Golden are the bones of woe Their brilliance has no place to go It plunges inward, Spikes through snow

Of weeping fathers e drink and mother's milk and final stink We can dream but cannot think Golden bones encrust the brink

Golden silver copper silk Woe is water shocked by milk Heart attack, assassin, cancer Who would think these bones such dancers

Golden are the bones of woe Skeleton holds skeleton Words of ghosts are not to know Ignorance is e learn

Stan Rice, Some Lamb

This is Azriel's tale as he told it to ed me to bear witness and to record his words Call ht he appeared in my open door and saved my life

Surely if he hadn't co

Let me explain that I ay, and Suiven me at birth, but you won't find it on the jackets of my books, which the students study because they must, or because they love the mysteries of ancient lore as much as I do

Azriel knew this-the scholar, the teacher I hen he came to me

Jonathan was a private naether He had plucked it froes of my books And I had answered to it It beca all those hours as he told his tale-a tale I would never publish underfull well, as he did, that this story would never be accepted alongside my histories

So I am Jonathan; I am the scribe; I tell the tale as Azriel told it It doesn't really matter to him what name I use with you It only mattered that one person wrote dohat he had to say The Book of Azriel was dictated to Jonathan

He did knoho I was; he knew allHe knewin ht his fancy

Perhaps he approved that I had reached the venerable age of sixty-five, and still wrote and worked night and day like a youngever froet completely away from it

So it was no haphazard choice that made him climb the steep forestedonly a curled newsazine in his hand, his tall for below his shoulders-a true protective mantle for awinter coats that only the tall of stature and the ro indifference

By the light of the fire, he appeared at once a kind young e black eyes and thick proe cherub'shis coat wildly about hiin all directions

Now and then this coat becaed to ht with him

It was that miracle I saw early on, before I kneho he was, or that I was going to live, that the fever had broken

Understand I am not insane or even eccentric by nature, and have never been self-destructive I didn't go to the mountains to die It had seemed a fine idea to seek out the absolute solitude of my northern house, unconnected to the world by phone, fax, television, or electricity I had a book to complete which had taken me some ten years, and it was in this self-imposed exile that I meant to finish it

The house is mine, and was then, as always, well stocked, with plenty of bottled water for drinking, and oil and kerosene for its lamps, candles by the crate, and electric batteries of every conceivable size for the small tape recorder I use and the laptop computers on which I work, and an enorhout my stay there