Read The Magic Circle for Free Online Page B

and green and gold, had always been unreal to Joseph. They were the eyes of one accustomed to other, fantastical worlds.
    “ I have not changed,” the Master said sadly, with a smile. “It is the world itself that’s changing, Joseph. In such times of change, though, we must all focus upon the one thing that’s unchanging and imperishable. The day is now dawning that has been foretold since the time of Enoch, Elijah, Jeremiah. And just as I helped bring young Lazarus from the grave, it’s now our task to deliver the world into this new age: that’s why I’m here. I hope you will join me, all of you. I hope you will stay with me. Though you needn’t all follow me to where I must go.”
    Joseph didn’t understand this last remark, but he pressed on.
    “We’re all concerned about you, Jesua. Please listen. My fellow Sanhedrin members told me of your coming down from Galilee during the festival last fall. Jesua, you know that the Sanhedrin is your strongest supporter. I thought it was all arranged when I departed last year, that they would anoint you at the festival this coming autumn. They planned to anoint you themselves as mashiah —as our chosen king and spiritual leader! Why have you changed it all? Why are you trying to overturn all that was planned by so many wise men for so long?”
    The Master rubbed his hand across his eyes. “The Sanhedrin is not my strongest supporter, Joseph,” he said. His voice sounded weary. “My Father in heaven is my strongest supporter; I do His bidding alone. If His ideas happen to conflict with those of the Sanhedrin, I’m afraid they’ll have to take the matter up with Him.” Then he gave Joseph that same wry smile and added, “And as for what’s unchanging and imperishable—it’s a knotty problem.”
    The Master liked to hide secrets in riddles, and Joseph had noticed his constant reference to knots. Joseph was about to pursue that topic when the veil of vine tendrils surrounding them parted and Miriam was there before them, smiling the warm, sensual smile that always made Joseph weak with emotion.
    Her richly abundant hair, in a rainbow of colors, tumbled loose about her shoulders with the suggestion of wild wantonness that had driven the elders—and even many of the disciples—to consider her a politically costly and unnecessarily dangerous bauble within the Master’s entourage. Joseph thought there was something primal about her, like a force of nature. She was like that ancient Lilith whom the oldest of Hebrew texts called Adam’s first wife: a ripe fruit that spilled forth life, withholding nothing.
    “Joseph of Arimathea!” she cried, and flung herself into his arms in an enthusiastic embrace. “We’ve all missed you, but I have longed for you most of all.” She drew back to look at him gravely with those large grey eyes beneath a thick canopy of lashes. “The Master and I have discussed it often. When you’re here, there’s never any bickering or whining or complaining. You sweep it all away and make everything seem so simple.”
    “I wish I understood what it is that’s changed since my departure, for something surely has,” Joseph told her. “There was never any bickering in the past.”
    “No doubt he has told you that nothing has changed?” Miriam asked Joseph, glancing at the Master in mock irritation. “Everything’s going along nicely, thank you—was that what he said? Not so; he’s been in hiding for months, even from his own followers. And all so that he can make a triumphant entry into the city at Pesach next Sunday, surrounded by—”
    “You’ll not go into Jerusalem now, as things stand?” Joseph asked the Master, alarmed. “I don’t think it’s wise. The Sanhedrin will surely refuse to anoint you next autumn if you stir things up more now at the Passover.”
    The Master put one arm around Joseph and the other around Miriam, and drew them close to him as if they were his children.
    “I cannot wait until autumn. My time