'Julian,' I said. 'I say this to you as a friend, with only your interests at heart, and I pray you take no offense.'
Julian smiled. 'When have you ever minced words with me? Sometimes you're like the voice of my conscience, Caesarius, but I would have it no other way. Please — say your piece.'
I hesitated. 'Your comrade Maximus is… an unusual sort. He has rather affronted some of the palace staff and set the eunuchs unreasonably against him. Is he so important that he requires unrestricted access to the palace and to you?'
He looked at me cautiously for a long moment, as if seeking to guess my intent; then he slowly stood up, crossed the small room, and closed the door. A feeling of dread came over me, as one feels when about to be informed of a friend's death, and indeed Julian, as I knew him, died that day, in a way. He resumed his seat and his intense gaze at me, and then sighed.
'Caesarius,' he said, 'not everything an emperor does is public knowledge. My entire boyhood, for example, was a very private one, despite the fact that I was closely related to the Emperor and was a nephew of Constantine himself. I spent many years in seclusion, shuttling between banishment and acceptance, never for reasons of my own doing, but because of passing political winds. My tutor Mardonius and I moved several times, between Constantinople, Nicomedia, my remote estate at Macellum, back to Constantinople-'
'Julian,' I interrupted, 'your moves and your devotion to study are well known to all. You needn't explain them.'
'Just so,' he said. 'But the following events you did not know. In my twentieth year Constantius sent me to the academy at Nicomedia, to distance me from the distractions of Constantinople. I quickly learned all I was able from the instructors there, and pleaded to the Emperor to allow me to travel further, to expand my horizons. In the end he relented, provided that I continued to travel with Mardonius, who was ordered to send in regular reports.
'During my travels I resolved to visit Pergamum, for I had heard of its famous center for Asclepian studies and I had in mind that I might wish to investigate the healing arts. You needn't furrow your brows at me that way, Caesarius, I know your feelings about the Asclepians, and in any case I ended by doing nothing to pursue that course of study. There will be plenty for you in a moment to make your brows furrow, and worse.
'In Pergamum I fell in with Aedesius the mystic. Aedesius was ancient, and at the time failing in bodily strength, but he had developed about him a circle of extremely vigorous disciples, including Eusebius and our friend Maximus. Caesarius, the first time I attended one of Aedesius' gatherings, I confess I couldn't leave; like those in the legend who are bitten by the "thirsty-serpent," I longed to gulp down huge mouthfuls of the wisdom the old man had to offer. Aedesius wouldn't allow it, however. He claimed that since he was so feeble, he would be unable to do justice to my thirst for knowledge, and he recommended instead that I look to his disciples to satisfy my questions. Perhaps he also feared the consequences if Constantius were to hear of my growing curiosity for mysticism. Yet the old man promised me: "Once you have been admitted to their mysteries, you will rise above your base physicality, far beyond human nature, to become one with the spirits." How could I resist — could you, if you had been you in my place, Caesarius?
'Thus at the old man's request, I took up my studies under Eusebius, as Maximus had gone away to Ephesus. I worked hard, though I was still dissatisfied with the fact that I seemed to have fallen in with Eusebius merely as a matter of circumstance, rather than because he was the most appropriate teacher. In fact, I learned that there were considerable differences between the disciples. Maximus, for example, was a student of the occult sciences and theurgy, while Eusebius claimed that such practices were the work of charlatans, prestidigitators, and the insane, who had been led astray into the exercise of certain dark powers. They were both students of old Aedesius, but they had rather poor opinions of each other's work. I asked Eusebius about the discrepancies between their beliefs.
'"Maximus is Aedesius' oldest and most brilliant disciple," he said. "Because of his standing with the old man, and his own overwhelming eloquence, he feels he is beyond all rational proofs in these matters. Let me offer you an illustration.
'"A short while ago," Eusebius continued, "Maximus invited several of us to visit him at the temple of Hecate, goddess of the moon and witchcraft, patroness of doorways and crossroads, the deity who delights in sacrifices of dogs. The temple was abandoned, practically a shambles, with all the furnishings long stripped by thieves but for the massive statue of Hecate herself. There Maximus boasted that he was one of the goddess's favored few, and how far he surpassed ordinary men in her eyes. As he talked, he burned a bit of incense, and even sang a hymn of praise in his own honor. And then, Julian, it happened, we all saw it. The enormous statue began to smile, even to beam at him, and finally to actually laugh out loud in joy. We were alarmed, but Maximus calmed us by saying he was in complete control of the situation, and as proof he would ask for more light, so we would not be trembling in near darkness. In a loud voice, he called to Hecate to provide greater light, and lo, the torches the goddess was holding in her hands burst into flame, casting a bright, dancing light on all around us. We were struck dumb, both by Maximus' power and by his mastery of such black arts, and we left the temple in great fear. I tell you this privately, Julian, out of earshot of my old master: you do not want to become close to Maximus."'
'It was with good reason that Eusebius was skeptical of the man's work,' I interrupted. 'This Maximus is clearly a charlatan like those you have described. That is the nature of the theurgists, Julian. They pretend to be able to control the order of nature, to define the future, to command the loyalty of the lower demons, to converse with the gods, to disengage the soul from its physical bounds — but they are false, they abuse your credulity. Those old tricks of talking statues have been used for centuries to fool the simpleminded out of donations they could ill afford to make. They are nothing that can't be replicated with a length of copper tubing and a voice funnel.'
Julian bristled at my skepticism. 'Maximus,' he declared, 'has led me to the True Faith.'
I was dumbfounded. 'But, Julian,' I said, 'how can that be? Maximus is not a Christian, and you were already well versed in Christianity long before you made his acquaintance.'
'I said he led me to the True Faith,' he repeated, slowly and emphatically, his steely eyes fixed on me. 'I said nothing of Christianity.'
Julian's face was dead serious, and he had lapsed into silence, waiting for my reaction. I realized the abyss opening before me, and turned my face to the side. I was horrified, and grew only more so as the evening wore on and he impassively recounted to me his initiation into Maximus' mysteries.
'I set out for Ephesus and stayed for a year,' Julian continued, 'undertaking a regular course of study in theurgy and divination. Of course I still worshiped at the Christian churches, and counted many devout Christians among my closest friends. I could hardly have done otherwise, with Constantius' spies peering at me from every direction. Still, I found time and the occasion to meet secretly with Maximus and his followers, and in the end was officially initiated into the theurgic mysteries. You look pale, Caesarius' — he smiled, a combination of wickedness and indulgence I once saw on the face of an executioner when answering some pitiful procedural question from his victim before the deadly act — 'have you heard enough to satisfy your curiosity, or shall I tell you more?'
I stared at him, open-mouthed, and nodded wordlessly, which he took as my consent to hear the remainder of his story.