the Jews. Remember, the religion of Cyrus was not so terribly different from our religion. At heart, it was a religion of ... ethics, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes, and I know that under Persian rule Jerusalem prospered." "Oh, indeed, always, for hundreds of years, up until the rime of the Romans, actually, when the rebellions started, and then the final defeat of Masada. We speak of these things to remind ourselves. At the rime, I knew nothing of what was to come. But even I knew that Cyrus would keep his word, that he would send me on to Miletus. I trusted him from the first moment I ever laid eyes on him. He wasn't a liar. Well, not as much as most men."
"But if he had his own wise men," I said, "why would he let something so powerful ... I mean, someone so powerful ... as you slip from his grasp?"
"He was eager to get rid of me!" Azriel said. "And frankly, so were -j his wise men! He didn't let me slip from his grasp. Rather he sent me to Zurvan, the most powerful Magus whom he knew. And Zurvan was loyal to Cyrus. Zurvan was rich and lived in Miletus which had fallen to Cyrus and the Persians without even a skirmish as Babylon had. I Later on, of course, the Greeks of those Ionian ciries, they would rise against the Persians. But at this rime, when I stood there, glaring at the great King and begging that he send me to a powerful magician, Miletus was a thriving Greek city under Persian rule."
He studied me. I started to ask another question but he stopped roe.
"You went into the cold, you shouldn't have. You're warm now, and the fever has risen just a little. You need cold water. I'll get it for you. You drink it and then we'll go on."
He rose from the chair and went to the door. He brought a bottle from near the door. It was very cold, indeed, I could see that, and I was thirsty.
I looked down and saw that he was pouring the water into a silver cup. It wasn't an ancient silver cup. It seemed rather new even, machine-worked perhaps, but it was beautiful, and of course it got cold all over with the water. It was like the Grail, or a chalice or something a Babylonian would drink from. Or perhaps Solomon.
There was another cup just like it in front of the chair.
"How did you make the cups?" I asked.
"Same as I make my garments. I call together all the particles that are required, to come unobtrusively and without disturbance. I am not such a good designer of cups. If my father had designed these cups, they would be gorgeous. I merely told the particles that they were to make ornate cups of the style of this rime . . . There are many, many more words to it than that, much more energy, but that is the gist."
I nodded. I was grateful for the explanation.
I drank all the water. He filled it again. I drank. The cup was solid enough. Sterling. I studied it. It had a common Bacchanalian design to it, clustered grapes carved around the rim, and a simple pedestal foot. But it was very fine indeed.
I was holding it in both my hands, lovingly, I suppose, admiring the fluted shape of it, and the deep carving of the grapes, when I heard a faint sound emerge from it, and felt a riny movement of air beneath my nostrils. I realized that my name was being written on the cup. It was in Hebrew. Jonathan Ben Isaac. The writing went all around and was small and perfect.
I looked at him. He lay back in his chair with his eyes closed. He took a deep breath.
"Memory is everything," he said softly under his breath. "Don't YOU think we can live with the idea that God is not perfect, as long as we are assured that God remembers . . . remembers everything . . ."
"Knows everything, that's what you mean. We want him to forget our transgressions."
"Yes, I suppose."
He poured another cup of water for himself into his goblet, nameless but identical to mine, and he drank it. Again he rested, drifting staring at the fire, his chest heaving.
I wondered what it would be like to live in a world of figures such as his.
Was that what Esagila had been like? Robed and bearded men dripping