He nodded impatiently as though he would have protested. Then he sat down, struck a bronze shield and called for wine. “You are very pale,” he said. “Do you feel weak?”
My head swam and my limbs trembled with weakness but I tried to assure him that all was well. It was a great honor to be summoned before him in his own house and I did not wish to destroy the pleasure by complaining. We drank the wine and I felt better. But all the while he stared at the girl lying on the couch and she returned his gaze expectantly.
Soon the dark-faced Lucumo of Volterra entered and greeted us. The old man poured him some wine and as he raised the cup to his lips the Volsinian pointed suddenly to the girl.
“Arise, child, and walk.”
To my inexpressible amazement the girl’s face brightened, she began to move her legs and carefully placed them on the floor. Slowly, holding onto the couch, she rose to her feet. I tried to hasten to her lest she fall, but the old man restrained me without a word. The three of us stared at the girl. She swayed badly but took one step and then another, holding onto the painted wall.
Weeping and laughing she cried, “I can walk, I can walk!” Extending her arms toward me she staggered across the floor, fell before me and kissed my knees. “Lucumo,” she whispered devoutly. “Lucumo.”
I was as surprised by her sudden recovery as the girl herself. Trying her withered muscles, I shook my head and declared, “This is a miracle!”
The old Lucumo laughed benevolently. “You performed it. The strength came from you, Lucumo.”
I raised my hands in protest. “No, no. Do not mock me.”
The old man nodded to the Volterran Lucumo, who went to the door. “Come and show us your eyes, you who believe.”
The man who sat in the entrance hall came in, his hands over his eyes. Time and again he lowered his hands, looked around and again covered his eyes. “I can see,” he said finally. Humbly he bowed his head before me and raised his arm in a divine greeting. “It is you who have done this, Lucumo!” he exclaimed. “I can see. I can see you and the radiance around your head.”
The old Lucumo explained, “This man has been blind for four years. He was defending his vessel against pirates when it seemed as though a gigantic bearded creature struck him a fearful blow on the head. Since then he has seen nothing.”
The man nodded eagerly. “Yes, the vessel was saved, but since then I have seen nothing until you touched my eyes, Lucumo.”
I looked around in bewilderment, thinking surely I was intoxicated from the wine. “You mock me,” I said accusingly. “I have done nothing.”
Both Lucumones spoke at once. “The power and the strength are in you and of you if you but will it. Admit to yourself that you were born a Lucumo. We do not doubt it.”
Still I could not realize it. I looked at the young girl’s admiring face, at the eyes which but shortly before had been blind. “No,” I said again, “I do not ask for such power. I do not want such strength. I am only a human, and I am afraid.”
The old Lucumo spoke to the two who had been healed. “Go and offer thanks to the gods. Whatsoever you do unto others will happen unto you.” Absently he extended his hand in a blessing as they left, the girl tottering on her own feet and the seeing one supporting her steps.
When they were gone the Lucumo turned to me. “You were born into a human body,” he explained, “and that is why you are a human. But you are also a Lucumo if you will but admit it to yourself. The moment has arrived. Fear no more and do not flee from yourself.”
The younger Lucumo said, “Wounds are healed and blood ceases to flow when you touch the wound, you returned who are yet to return. Acknowledge yourself to yourself.”
The old man declared, “A Lucumo can even arouse the dead for a moment or a day if he believes in himself and feels his power. But such an act shortens his own life and oppresses the deceased by compelling the spirit to return to a body smelling of death. Do it only when you must. You may summon spirits if you wish and give them form so that they may speak and reply to you. But that torments the spirits. Do it also only when you must.”
Realizing that I swayed between certainty and doubt, the old Lucumo said, “Do you not know what I mean?” He took a piece of wood, held it before my eyes and urged, “Watch.” Then he tossed the wood onto the floor and said, “Behold, it is a frog!”
Before my eyes the piece of wood changed into a frog which gave a few frightened leaps and then paused to blink at me with round protruding eyes.
“Take it in your hand and feel it,” the old Lucumo urged with a laugh when he noticed how suspiciously I looked at the living thing he had created. Ashamed of my doubt, I nevertheless took the frog in my hand and felt its coldness and sliminess. It was a live frog that struggled in my hand.
“Release it,” the old man said, and I allowed the frog to leap from my hand. As it touched the floor it again changed into a dry piece of wood before my very eyes.
The Vokerran Lucumo picked it up in turn, showed it to me and said, “I summon not an underground creature but an earthly one. Behold how a calf becomes a bull!”
He tossed the piece of wood onto the floor and before my eyes it became a new-born calf which, still wet, rose on tottering legs. Then it began to swell. Tapering horns appeared on its head and its size increased until it finally filled the entire room and could not have squeezed through the narrow doorway. I smelled the bull and saw the bluish flash of its eyes. It was a terrifying bull.
The Lucumo snapped his fingers as though tired of the play. The bull disappeared and on the stone floor was again just a gray piece of wood.
“You also can do that if you wish,” said the old Lucumo. “Be brave. Take it in your hand. Say what you wish to have born and it will be born.”
As in a dream I stooped to pick up the piece of wood and turned it in my fingers. “I summon neither the earthly nor the underworld but the heavenly, and the dove is my bird,” I said slowly, looking intently at the piece of wood. At that very moment I felt the feathers, the downy warmth and rapid heartbeat of a bird in my hand. A snow-white dove took wing, circled the room and returned to my hand as lightly as air, flapping its wings so that I felt the caressing touch of its claws.
The Vokerran Lucumo extended a hand to stroke the dove’s feathers. “What a beautiful bird you have created. It is the goddess’s bird. Snow-white.”
The old man asked, “Now do you believe, Turms?” The bird disappeared and in my hand was again a piece of gray wood.
Undoubtedly I must have looked astonished, for they both laughed and the old man said, “Now do you understand why it is better for a Lucumo to find and acknowledge himself only at the age of forty? If you were a boy and discovered your ability you would be tempted to play and create innumerable forms, would alarm the people around you and would perhaps begin to compete with the mutable herself in creating shapes that have not previously existed. That is tempting the gods. If you are alone and depressed, you may create a pet animal to lie at the foot of your bed or warm you with its body. But do it only when you are alone and don’t show it to others. It will return when you summon it.”
Power radiated from me. “What of a human?” I demanded. “Can I create a human for a companion?”
They looked at each and then at me, shook their heads and said, “No, Turms, you cannot create a human. You can make only a vanishing shape and for a moment conjure into it a spirit that will reply to your questions. But there are both evil and good spirits and the evil may arrive to deceive you. You are not omniscient, Turms. Remember always that you were born into a human body which restricts you and determines the bounds of your knowledge. Learn to know the walls of your prison, for only death will tear them down. Then you will be free until you must be born again to another time, another place. But in between your rest will be blissful.”