of Babylon. If the priests will let you take the statue, what's it to do with me? Have you heard some rumor, Majesty, that I can control the god or turn him against you? You need a golden idol for your work! It's there, over there in the chapel.'
" 'No, my son,' said Cyrus, 'all that might have worked just fine if you had had a procession year after year with the god, and if the people had seen the golden idol, as you call him, and they had cheered him and your King Nabonidus, but those processions were not held, and the precious statue is not going to enter into any procession with me now, even if I wanted it to. What I need is the ceremony as it was done of old.'
"A chill passed through me. Marduk looked at me and said, 'I know little of what he is talking about, but all spirits see far, and I see horror for you. Don't speak. Just wait.'
"Meantime the priests were in a commotion. They had brought in on a bier a great heap of something, which was draped in linen and, now bringing it near to our table, with several torchbearers, they drew away the linen and we all gasped at what we saw.
"It was the processional statue and it was broken, and out of its rotted inside stuck bones which appeared to be those of a man, rotted, too, and half the skull showed where the thick gold-plated enamel had turned to dirt, and the whole mess lay a disgrace and an insult.
"The High Priest glowered at me. He folded his arms. 'Did you do this, Hebrew?' he asked. 'Did you cause Marduk to leave the statue! To leave this city? Was it you rather than our King here whom we have so accused?'
"I understood a great deal in a moment. I looked at my god who sat staring coldly at the heap of ruin.
" 'Are those your bones, my Lord?' I asked Marduk. " 'No,' he said, 'and I only vaguely remember when they were put there. The spirit of that young one was weak, and I vanquished it and continued my reign. Perhaps it invigorated me that I was to be replaced? I don't know, Azriel! Remember, those are the wisest words I have for you. I don't know. Now they mean to put you in my place, that much we both know.'
" 'What do you want, Lord?' I asked Marduk.
" 'For you not to be hurt, Azriel,' he said. 'But do you want to become what I am? Do you want your bones encased three hundred years in that! Undo it then crumbles and another young man must be lured for the sacrifice? But let me get to your point.' He leaned towards me.
" 'I forget how large your heart is, Azriel. You ask for my sake. I can tell you this, I can come and go as I wish. I banished the last replacement with a wave of my arm, and back into the fog he went. For a mortal man to be murdered in this fancy way does not necessarily make him either a god or a strong spirit.' He shrugged. 'Think of yourself and yourself only. What I am is ... is what you know.' Then the sadness of his face shocked me. 'I don't want you to die!' he whispered.
"The High Priest could stand this dialogue no longer. He couldn't see or hear Marduk. He was sputtering with fury. But Asenath was hearing it all and looking from me to the god with great curiosity, and Remath the sly one wouldn't give himself away, but he knew something sat in the empty chair. He knew it. He understood something of what it said also.
" 'You're speaking of a statue of gold,' my father spoke up. 'You can't make a statue of gold without my son?' he asked.
" 'The bones are the bones of the god!' declared the High Priest. 'This is why our city is as it is, why we need the Persian deliverer. The god is old, the bones are rotten, the statue will not stand, and there must be a new god.'
" 'But the statue in the High Sanctuary?' my father asked, which was a childish question.
" 'That can't be carried through the streets,' said the priests. 'That's a mere hunk of-'
" 'Metal!' said the prophet Enoch with a cruel smile.
" 'You are wasting time,' said Cyrus. 'The ceremony