The Boy Apprenticed to an Enchanter

by Padraic Colum

Again Zabulun, my master, sat in the King’s presence, and the ancient dwarf and I attended on them. The dwarf’s head hung down where he stood, and he muttered. The King’s voice was low when he spoke, but Zabulun spoke loudly. Also his yellow eyes shone as he twisted around his finger a purple strip that had been torn off the King’s robe.

And suddenly there came the mighty roaring of beasts in the King’s gardens. The dwarf looked at the King, and the King spoke to the dwarf, and there was astonishment on both their countenances, for no command had been given to have the beasts stirred up. The King rose from where he sat and went to the doorway. I, too, saw what he saw. The doorkeepers, and even the soldiers who had naked swords in their hands, were fleeing as before some terror. The King shouted his commands, but no one heeded them. I looked upon the King, and the King’s wrath was terrible to behold.

And then I saw the King himself draw back in fear. What was it that approached? I, too, looked, and there, O King Manus, as I declare to you, I saw Harut and Marut, the giant guardians of Babylon, come through the outer courts and toward the chamber where the King stood.

They were naked but for their great beards and their flowing hair. They came with great strides, but their heads and their hands were swaying about like the heads and hands of men suddenly waked out of a deep slumber. The ancient dwarf saw them approach, and he screamed out and fled.

The King went out of the chamber and into the hall where the great pillars were. I called to my master, and he arose from the cushions where he sat, and he looked upon the two who came nearer. Along the line of the pillars Harut and Marut came, but Zabulun the Enchanter looked upon them without fear.

The King fell upon his knees as they came near him. My master’s face did not become fearful, but he, too, went down on his knees as if powerful and unseen hands had forced him down. His eyes did not lose their look of scorn, but he knelt even as the King knelt. The King and the Enchanter were both Princes of Babylon, and when Harut and Marut showed themselves in their might, there was that within them that forced them to sink down on their knees.

And nearer and nearer Harut and Marut came, their heads swaying about and their arms hanging down. Nearer and nearer they drew. They touched the head of the King, and the King lay prone on the ground as though the life had left him. They came to where Zabulun the Enchanter knelt. But not on Zabulun’s head did they lay their hands. They took him by the arms and they held him. Turning around they dragged him along the line of the pillars. I saw him being drawn across the outer court and through one of the great doorways of the King’s palace.

And then it seemed that I was the only one left in the palace of the Kings of Babylon. The King did not stir where he lay prone, and the dwarf did not return, and the doorkeepers did not show themselves any more. I ran from the chamber, and out through one of the great doors, and into a place where branches of trees seemed to shield me from the terror that had fallen upon the palace. And I did not know then that I was running from terror clear into the mouth of danger.

For dire things had happened outside as well as within the palace of the King. The beasts that were in the gardens had broken out of their pits and their cages. I saw the beasts and I felt them all around me. I saw the hippopotami as they lay with their backs against the crimson wall of the palace. I saw the zebras stamp between the yellow wall and the blue wall, and ostriches run between the black and the white walls. And when I looked back from where I was in the gardens I saw monkeys climb on the golden and silver walls, frightened by the lions that went roaring through the courts of the palace. I ran on and on, down the great avenue of palms and toward the lake where the King’s blue herons flew or rested.

I ran on. But I had gone aside from the avenue of the palms, seeing a great buffalo that stood in my way. Something caught at my feet as I ran on the clear ground, and being pitched I fell into a deep pit. I lay there, and I looked to the sky, and I saw that the pit narrowed to the top, and for that reason was hard to climb out of. It was higher again by my own height, as I saw when I stood upward thinking of a way that might get me out.