Nakhaš, the first chimera

Middle East, 987 BC

King Solomon held his best friend's body close to him as if he were a defenseless child. Big tears trickled down his skinny cheeks and the broken voice repeated a low litany, too light to be heard by anyone other than the corpse who was held so close to him, so tight as to prevent it from running away, from running towards the Kingdom of God.

Levi had died that morning in one of the many battles in which the Jewish people had had to find themselves involved and, since his body had been brought back to the palace, Solomon had not stopped crying and despairing like a little boy.

He knew for himself that, sooner or later, someone would have come to tear that body from his arms, but he was still not ready to let go of the man who, drunk, moved around the hall of that place the previous evening, singing with passion, dancing and flirting with some of the servants, alive. He could still hear his voice reciting verses of songs learned by children, accompanied by the light jingle of his jewels - while now, from his pale mouth, no other sound came, except a heartbreaking silence.

That young soldier and the son of David were born in the same month of the same year, raised side by side as brothers and, now, the God who they had served so much in that existence had taken away the life that was dearer to the King.

No, it couldn't be true.

His Lord could not have really asked the soul of Levi, he could not have chosen him to increase his offspring of Angels. It was petty, a horrifying act! But it was also the evidence he had long sought: confirmation of all the suspects who had gradually filled his head.

Dozens of men, from the most disparate areas of the known earth, had come to his court and had spoken to him about other cults, of fearsome or amiable divinities, of chilling rituals and of feasts similar to those which they indicated there, in Israel, in honor of their Father. All the wayfarers who had presented themselves had slowly fed a question into the King, the heretical doubt that there was no one above their heads to watch over them or that, instead, there was the wrong God, a creature who magnanimously possessed nothing. And now, the fact that whoever was there, besides the blanket of clouds in the sky, had decided to take Yoel's son, seemed to give credit to each of the rumors brought into the walls of the house of the great Solomon by foreign visitors.

And if that entity had been so merciless, what stopped him from being just as reckless? What forced him to follow the righteousness that had distinguished him for years?

Nothing.

The Sovereign's whispered moans stopped abruptly, plunging the room into a strange silence. With a wave of his hand the man called Tamar and Yael to himself, the only ones he had allowed to attend the pitiful spectacle of a King who bowed under such an emotion as human as suffering, shattering his mask of untouchable, powerful and divine creature, chosen by the Lord, who had long worn.

The women gave themselves a doubtful look, apparently unable to understand what was about to happen, to explain to themselves why their monarch had suddenly stopped sobbing and squeezing his friend's body. In truth, no one could understand his thoughts, his actions - only that dead man who, now, could no longer reveal anything.

Solomon gave them a stern look, hard as the stone with which the palace was made, gray and penetrating like a stormy sky: "Bring me my most beautiful python, a sharp silver blade and water with salt" he commanded in a voice hoarse, yet no longer broken by sobs as might have been thought.

Tamar swallowed, visibly disturbed by that request. Unlike Yael, who had arrived at the palace only two winters before, she had been in the graces of the King for many years and something about him she had been able to discover - things that perhaps she should not have known, secret and fearsome, capable of costing her the life.

With large eyes of uncertainty she turned to the other, hesitating about what to do. Anyone could have seen in Solomon's gaze that point of feverish madness, a warning against what would follow shortly and to which, in all probability, nobody would have wished to attend.

"Move!" the man thundered, gritting his teeth because of a sudden urgency.

The more mature servant jumped in fright, surely feeling her heart jump in the throat - she was not used to those ways, especially by a man like her King had always been: handsome, calm, kind and charitable. Such an imperious order clashed in Solomon's vocal cords and for that reason troubled anyone who could suffer it.

Tamar should have rebelled against that command, her experience was certainly shouting out to her, but the love she had had for that young man, crowned prematurely, forced her to ignore the conscience, turn on her heels and go in desperate search for those objects, dragging her partner behind.

Common sense tried to rebel persistently, making her stop from time to time along the corridors. She had to let go of the order given to her and not go back to the Sovereign's rooms until he had calmed down and a group of men had taken away the body, but every moment she lost, stopping to look over the shoulders, had to be lived by the skivvy as a kind of little betrayal; for that reason the pauses became shorter and shorter.

Tamar was aware that not many winters before, persuaded by eclectic travelers, David's son had approached strange practices from the lands east of his kingdom, thus beginning to cast spells worthy of the great wizards of the Orient. It all started with small successes: a spark, a blossomed flower, a cloud dissolved in the sky - but then it got worse, coming to perform increasingly powerful magic.

That one skill, if it had stopped within the limits dictated by their commandments, would certainly have been well seen in the eyes of the subjects: a ruler able to practice the Ars would no longer have any rival, all the enemies would have been afraid of him, agreeing that God himself proclaimed him Sovereign of all Sovereigns.

It's just a pity that the rituals that Solomon had approached, and with passionate time, required anything but innocent components, elements capable of making the skin crawl even to the most reckless man and that no Divinity would ever accept were used in his name.

Yes, because blood was the basis of everything. Without that, Tamar soon understood, nothing could have been created or destroyed.

It was therefore obvious that once the secret was discovered, the people would no longer be able to see the magic of the sovereign in a good way, but more as opposed to any law imposed by their God of Mercy.

A terrifying thought, at that point, crossed her mind: that the King wanted to give himself to get back a simple General?

She had heard him repeatedly complaining about how difficult, if not nearly impossible, it was to open the gates between life and death to bring a soul back, but she had also seen him do such a feat; just a few times and on completely insignificant creatures - sparrows, lizards, snakes and some stray cats - of course, but never on a human body. What if it meant losing him too? What if that aberrant sin had deprived Israel of its King?

She bit her lip, continuing to keep Yael in the dark about her macabre thoughts. She was too young to understand what she would tell her, too innocent not to tremble with fear in the face of such a truth.

Solomon played continuously with that dark art, she had seen him learn from every foreigner who came to the palace, look for writings and teachers ready to feed his voracious curiosity, but never had he gone so far as to want to challenge death and subvert the rules of life - because she was sure, what would happen that night was the worst of the prospects that was appearing in her mind.

She had spied on him for many evenings, hidden behind thick curtains or ajar doors. She had silently observed the way in which, with silver and blood, her Sovereign had drawn large circles and symbols on the stone of the floor of which she did not know the meaning. She had seen him turn objects into gold, scorpions into stone and more. She had seen him experiment with shapes and blends and it had been beautiful at first, but then Solomon's obsession had started to frighten her.

Tamar had always known that he was a cultured and curious man; that he was sweet and kind-hearted, outside the throne room and away from his father's eyes, she had discovered it for herself, between a caress and another, but she would never have imagined him so crazy.

Their God would not have forgiven such an act, he would have done all he could to send that insolent servant of his to the burning flames of Hell, together with his abomination and all demons of the Hermetic Cabal.

Although magnanimous, he would never have accepted a resurrection, even if it had been done at the hands of a man chosen by him.

Tamar would have liked to find within herself the strength necessary to stop him, to prevent the King from staining himself with a sin of such magnitude, but she was unable to block her steps, thus continuing to wander the palace - too silent on that night of mourning and suffering, as if it were waiting. After all, how could one denied an attempt to the loved one? How could anyone forced him to give up on someone so dear? Also, Solomon was a monarch, while she was her skivvy.

With Yael at her side and after running through all the corridors and rooms needed, the two women returned to the Sovereign. They held the material requested by the man in their arms and, in a tightly closed straw basket, they had segregated the snake, pitch black. His eyes, just as dark and as big as grape seeds, had stared at her for a few moments before she could put him inside the container with which she was now holding him up and, for a moment, she thought he was pleading, asking for her to let him live, but she had not pitied her - she was not ready to disappoint Solomon and be denied by him and his thalamus.

Crossing the threshold, what Tamar saw was his beloved still close to the friend's body. The expression on his face, which by the time she left him was nothing but a mask of pain, had now changed and his eyes, initially only red, had gone blank, as distant as those of General Levi's corpse.

The agitation caught the servant off guard, making her hesitate again.

She knew what was right to do, yet she did not know how to fight the reverence she had for the man before her.

She wondered how correct it was to give rope to such a heresy, if that would have cost her as much as the King. By helping him, would Heaven have foreclosed to her? And would the love for him have been enough to make her endure Hell?

Yael squeezed her arm, clinging to her with obvious concern on the face. They looked at each other while the long moments of silence seemed to freeze that istant in time, block it in the infinite that would never end.

It was all so wrong, Tamar thought tightening the grip on the basket, yet she had no will to oppose him. Save together, she told herself, or sentenced in the same way.

She would not have betrayed him in a situation of that magnitude, she would not have turned her back on his needs - even if they seemed insane -, so she advanced, dragging the young girl behind her.

But that was the last night she saw the face of the man she fell in love with, the last night she repeated the intensity of her love. It was the last moon that caressed theirs alabaster bodies and who saw the two women move around a building that would never be the same. There, their lungs took the last breaths of air and their hearts beat once again, but it was also the first evening and the place where Levi Nakhaš, the King's chimera, opened his eyes on the world.