who is as strong as Yahweh's cruel heart when he turned it against those whom Saul or David or Joshua would slay.
" 'You are to be the avenger of Adam and Eve, that they were foully tricked by your God. What does that say to you?'
" 'It was all a blundering affair, as you said. I can't remember being in the cauldron, only a terrible, terrible fear of it. I think I escaped my body before the pain came, I think I couldn't endure it, all was confusion, I was surrounded by weak and self-seeking individuals, all grandeur had gone. All majesty had gone. I had done something, mething that others wanted me to do, but it seemed tainted, horribly tainted and I'd been confused.'
" 'And there had been majesty in this tainted act?' " 'Well, I think there had. I can remember at sense of great sacrifice purpose. I can remember rose petals and a sleepy slow death whose worst pain was knowledge that it was irreversible and would take its time, but not be changed. I don't know why I said majesty.
What did Cyrus say of me to you?'
" 'Not enough, I don't think. But according fro this tablet, you cannot be destroyed. If the bones are destroyed them you are loosed upon the world to take vengeance on everything living, like a pestilence.'
"Despair descended on me. It descended off me utterly, a despair that would have been impossible for the spirit X had been only a few hours ago. When I wandered upwards towards those with joyous faces, when I saw the gleam of light, I hadn't known despair! I hadn't known it any more than a child being turned away from a plate of sweets. Now I knew.
" 'I want to die,' I whispered. 'I want to truly7 die as I was supposed to die, before they did this to me, misguided fools that they were! Before they tried this fearsome magic. Ah, idiots!' Ah, God!'
" 'Die?' he asked, 'and wander among the stupid dead? Become a demon growling among other spirits, become a great foul enemy of all that is good, a bringer of death and torment!'
" 'No, just die, die as if in my mother's arms, die as if to lie in my Mother Earth, and if I become light and if there is Heaven so be it, but if not, then simply to die, and to live on give me memory of anything good I ever did for anyone, any good act, any act of kindness and love, and . . .'
" '. . . and what?'
" 'I was going to say that I wanted to live on in memory for the acts I had done in praise of God, but I don't ? care about that now. I just want to die. I would rather God would leave me alone.' I stood, I looked down at him. 'Did Cyrus tell you who I was in life? How he came to know me?'
" 'No, you can go read his letters for yourself. He said only that your strength was too great for any magician but myself, and that he owed you a great debt, that your death haftd been his doing.' He stopped, thinking, pulling on his beard. 'Of course the King of all the world is not going to add to a letter that he was personally frightened of a spirit and wishes to get it as far from him as possible, but there was that, shall we say, tinge to the letter. You know, "I cannot command this spirit. I dare not. And yet I owe him my Kingdom?"'
" 'I can't remember his owing me anything. I remember asking to be sent ... I remember . . .' " 'Yes?' " 'Being forsaken by all.'
" 'Well, these fools haven't made a demon. They have made something more like an angel.'
" 'Angel of might,' I said. 'You used those words yourself. Cyrus used them. Marduk used them . . .' I stopped. Stumped by the name Marduk, and seeing nothing to surround the name or make it plausible in my speech.
" 'Marduk, the god of Babylon?' he asked. " 'Don't mock him, he suffers,' I said, amazing myself. " 'You want vengeance on those who did this to you?' " 'I took it. I can't remember anyone else who is not dead. It was the priest's doing, and he ... and the old woman, she died, the witch, the seer. I can't