by Wilbur Smith
The greatest of these temples was that of Marduk the Devourer. Trok found this to be not only a mine of precious metal and jewelry but a place of endless fascination.
Ishtar was a disciple of Marduk, and as a young man had studied the mysteries in this same temple under the high priest. As he had not yet been paid his reward, he stuck as close to Trok as a tick to the belly of a lion. He instructed Trok in the worship of Marduk, and Trok remarked, “Marduk has tastes very close to those of my own familiar, Seueth. They might well be brothers.”
“As always, Your Majesty is perspicacious. However, Marduk had a far greater appetite for human sacrifice than Seueth. And he is particular about how it is presented to him.”
He led Trok through the maze of passageways and corridors, through gardens, courtyards and echoing halls into the holy of holies deep in the heart of the temple, which was a small city in itself. They came at last to the furnace complex.
When they stood above the main sacrificial chamber, Trok gazed down into the gut of it in total fascination. He was amazed by the design and the construction. “Describe it to me,” he ordered Ishtar.
“There are two furnaces, not a single one, one behind each of those walls.” Ishtar pointed down at the walls of shining copper. “When the charcoal fires are lit they are fanned with great bellows, until the metal walls glow like the rising sun with the heat. The walls are movable. By means of pulleys the priests are able to roll them forward, or pull them apart…”
When Ishtar had finished his explanation, Trok thumped his mailed fist into the palm of his other hand. “In the names of Seueth and Marduk, I have never heard the like. I must see it demonstrated. If it is as you describe, I will have the same contraption built in my own temple in Avaris. Order the priests to fire up their infernal furnaces. We will celebrate my victory with a sacrifice to Marduk.”
“It will take several days for the furnaces to reach the desired heat,” Ishtar warned him.
“I have several days,” Trok said. “I have to supervise the consignment of the booty, and also I must see to the contentment and well-being of twenty of Sargon’s young wives.” He rolled his eyes. “A most arduous task. In any event, my ruffians are still busy sacking the city. It will be some time yet before I can bring them back to their senses.”
Three days later Trok held a victory banquet for his senior officers on the upper terrace of the great palace. The guests reclined among groves of orange trees growing in huge clay pots, all in full blossom, so the air was filled with their sweet perfume. Around them the fountains tinkled and burbled. The banquet table was covered with silken carpets. The bowls and vessels were of silver and gold and set with precious stones—they had been taken from the temple offertories. The stools on which the guests sat were Sargon’s wives, kneeling naked except for their golden chains. Later when the flagons of foaming beer and the sweet wine had taken effect, the living stools were used as pillows and mattresses.
In the midst of this revelry Ishtar crept to Trok’s side, and whispered in his ear, “Pharaoh god, who swallows the seas and eats the stars, the furnaces are ready.”
Trok staggered to his feet and clapped his hands. “Gentle brethren!” he addressed his officers, and they roared with laughter at the jest. “I have an entertainment to offer you. Follow me!” And he made unsteadily for the staircase with his men crowding after him.
They lined the parapet of the gallery, and looked down into the sacrificial chamber. Smoke shimmered from the twin chimneys above their heads, and they began to sweat in the heat reflected from the glowing metal walls.
“We are gathered here today to make sacrifice to the great god Marduk, who has given us his city as a prize of war,” Trok told them, imitating the sing-song, sanctimonious tones of a high priest. They cheered him delightedly.
“What better sacrifice can we offer than a king and his royal family?” They cheered again.
Trok waved to Ishtar, who darted down the stairway to the chamber below where a hundred slaves stood at the windlasses ready to activate the mechanism. At a signal from the high priest they began to chant a hymn to Marduk.
The priest stepped out onto his pulpit above the open chamber with its glowing walls. With the chanting slaves as a background, he lifted both arms and began to sing a prayer to the god in a reedy falsetto voice.
At his signal a small door opened in the fixed stone wall of the furnace chamber, and another priest led in a file of human beings. They were clad in simple white tunics, and wore no adornment other than the halters around their necks.
They were of both sexes, and all ages. Some were mere infants carried in their mothers’ arms; some were toddlers; others were on the verge of adolescence. But the tallest was a lean white-haired man with the carriage of a king and a warrior.
“Hail, Sargon, mighty ruler of heaven and the sacred earth between the two great rivers,” Trok mocked him. “I am about to do for you what you did not have the courage to do for yourself. I am sending you as a messenger into the loving arms of your god, Marduk the Devourer. Because I am a compassionate man and I do not want your wives, your little sons and daughters to mourn you, I am sending them with you to keep you company on the way.” He paused to let the laughter of his men subside. Then he went on, “Give this message to Marduk, when you stand face to face with him. Tell him that Trok, his divine brother, greets him, and demands his good favor.”
Sargon gathered his sons around him and did not deign to look up at Trok or to reply to his words.
Trok looked across at the high priest. “Now, priest, show us how this machine of yours works.”
The high priest began to sing again, but a different prayer, harsh and primitive. In the room behind him the slaves sang with him, and in unison took a step forward, then brought their bare soles down on the stone slabs with a sound like a clap of thunder. One step at a time the windlass began to turn.
At first nothing appeared to change, then Ishtar whispered, “Observe the burning walls, mighty Trok, greatest of all hero kings. See how they begin to move toward each other, slowly. Oh, so slowly. Until they meet at last, and the sacrifices crisp and blacken like moths in the lamp flame.”
Trok leaned forward, his face bright with sweat and anticipation.
Marduk is pleased,” Ishtar announced, looking up from the bowl. “The sacrifice that you made to him in the furnace was most acceptable to him.”
Trok nodded. “Tell my brother Marduk that I am pleased he is pleased.”
Trok knelt on a pile of leopardskins spread on the stone floor in the inner sanctum of the temple before the altar of Marduk the Devourer. The golden image of the god was of a comely youth, with a smiling countenance. The statue was three or four times life-sized. The only characteristics that distinguished the god from a mortal, other than his size, were tiny goatlike horns on each side of his curly head and cloven hoofs instead of feet.
“You told me that Marduk was a terrible god, crueller and fiercer than any other in the pantheon, more ferocious even than Seueth,” Trok had challenged Ishtar when first he had seen the image, “yet this is a pretty boy.”
“Divine Pharaoh, be not deceived!” Ishtar had warned him. “This is the face that Marduk shows the world of men. His true aspect is so hideous that any man who looks upon it is instantly rendered blind and slobbering twitching mad.”
Sobered by that thought Trok had knelt before the image and remained silent while the priests had brought in twin newborn infants, and offered them to the god. Ishtar had slit their throats so skilfully that they made hardly a cry as they bled into the golden divination bowl that he held beneath them.
When the small exsanguinated bodies were dropped into the marble chute that led to the furnace beneath the sanctum, Ishtar had placed the golden bowl before the altar and lit the incense braziers. Chanting and mumbling, he threw handfuls of herbs on the flames until the vault filled with wreaths of blue smoke and the air became fragrant and enervating. After a while Trok found it diff
icult to think clearly and his vision became distorted so that the shadows seemed to waver and dance, and he heard the sounds of distant, mocking laughter. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the lids. When he opened them again he saw that the sweet smile on the face of the god had become a leer so obscene and frightening that his skin crawled as though poisonous insects were creeping upon it. He tried to look away but found he could not.
“The great god Marduk is pleased,” Ishtar repeated, reading the auguries reflected in the surface of the blood-filled bowl. “He deigns to answer your questions.”
“Tell Marduk that I honor him as my peer. I shall send a thousand more sacrifices into his furnace.”
“Marduk hears you.” Ishtar picked up the bowl and peered into it. After a long silence he began to rock gently back and forth with the bowl in his lap. He looked up at last. “Behold Marduk, the great god of Babylon! Speak to us, dreadful one, we entreat you!”
He opened his arms to the golden statue, and the god spoke in the voice of a child, lisping and mellifluous.
“I greet you, my brother Trok,” said this strange voice. “You wish to know about the fledgling falcon that spreads its wings and sharpens its talons in the desert places.”
Trok was startled not only by the disembodied voice but also by the accuracy of this statement. Indeed, he had intended asking for counsel on his plans to attack and destroy Nefer Seti. He tried to reply, but his throat was closed and as dry as the wrappings of an ancient mummy.
The sweet, childlike voice went on, “You have had good counsel from my loyal servant Ishtar the Mede. It was as well that you hearkened to him. If you had not done so, if you had marched on Gallala when you purposed to do so, you would have encountered a disaster even greater than the khamsin winds that destroyed and buried your legions.”
Trok recalled bitterly how Ishtar had dissuaded him from leading another army into the eastern desert to attack Nefer Seti and to capture Mintaka, his runaway woman. Long ago his spies had reported to him the exact whereabouts of the pair at Gallala. He had assembled another force of chariots and foot soldiers for the expedition. He knew that if he did not rid himself of this challenge to his throne, if he did not crush the boy Pharaoh before he attained his full strength, then soon the rebellions and insurrections would spread through his entire realm. Once that happened he knew that the dynasty he was founding would end in destruction and extinction. As much as he longed to rid himself of the challenge and the threat of Nefer Seti, he longed much more to recapture the only woman who had ever humiliated and defied him. His hatred for her surpassed any other of his emotions.
Ishtar had prevented him from marching. With predictions of dire consequences, with warnings of disaster and death, Ishtar had persuaded him to divert his forces into this joint expedition with Naja to the fabled city of Babylon. Although, thus far, the expedition had turned out to be a triumph, although the booty and the slaughter had been beyond counting, still Trok felt himself unfulfilled.
He spoke as much to himself as to the golden god when he growled, “I must have Nefer Seti. The double crown will sit uneasily on my head until I kill him and throw his body on the flames so that he will never know resurrection. Already I have expunged his name and the name of his sire from every edifice and monument in Egypt, but I must destroy him and his memory forever.”
In his anger and hatred he sprang to his feet, and shouted at Ishtar and his god, “You have cheated me of my destiny once before with your ill omens and baleful warnings. Now I address you as your peer, your equal, and not as a worshipper. I demand that you deliver the person and the soul of Nefer Seti to me, in justice and retribution. I will not accept another refusal from you and your minion here.” In his fury and frustration Trok aimed a kick at Ishtar. The Mede saw it coming and rolled aside. Trok’s bronze-cleated sandal caught the divining bowl and the blood of the babes splattered across the flags and down the front of the altar.
Even Trok was appalled by what he had done. He stood frozen before the image waiting for the reaction of the god.
“Sacrilege!” Ishtar wailed. “Trok Uruk, now your enterprise is surely doomed.” Then he prostrated himself in the puddle of blood, so terror-stricken that he could not raise his eyes to the image.
A dreadful hush had fallen over the sanctum. The faint rumble of the flames of the sacrificial furnace under the stone floor on which they stood seemed to enhance it.
Then there was a sound, soft but unmistakable. It was the sound of breathing, like that of a sleeping child to begin with but then growing harsher and stronger. Now it was the breathing of a wild beast, then of some monster that echoed through the temple. At last it became the furious sound of an outraged god, roaring like all the storms of the heavens, thundering like the galeswept waves of the ocean. So terrible was it that even Ishtar the Mede whimpered like a child.
“The god will never allow you to succeed now. You dare not march against Taita and his protégé, not until the Warlock is dead,” Ishtar whispered.
Then a terrible voice spoke, so harsh and unearthly that it raked Trok’s nerves and made him shudder. “Hear me! Trok Uruk, you mortal man who claims to be part of the godhead!” The thunder echoed and rolled around the dark recess of the sanctum. “You know that you are no god. Hear me, blasphemer! If you march against Gallala in defiance of me and my prophet, Ishtar the Mede, I shall destroy you and your army just as I buried your other army in the sands of the desert. This time you shall not escape my wrath.”
Even though he was befuddled by the poisonous smoke of the incense braziers, and fearful of the rage of Marduk that filled the temple, Trok was still cunning enough to sense some false note in Ishtar’s protestations, something not convincing in the force of Marduk’s fury.
He gathered his courage, which had been scattered by the supernatural manifestations of the god, and tried to identify exactly what had given him pause. He realized that the sound of the bestial breathing and the thunderous voice issued from the belly of the golden statue. He stared at it hard and saw that the navel of the god was a dark slit. He took a step toward the statue and Ishtar raised his head in alarm and cried, “Beware, Pharaoh! The god is angry. Do not approach him.”
Trok ignored him and took another step forward, staring at the god’s belly button. He saw a faint gleam in the depths of the aperture, a shadowy movement. Often in battle he had sensed the exact moment when the fates had swung in his favor and he felt it now. He steeled himself and shouted, above the awful sound of the god’s breathing, “I defy you, Marduk the Devourer! Strike me down if you are able. Heap your temple fires upon me, if you can!”
Suspicion became certainty as that glimmer showed again in the slit in the god’s belly, and the breathing faltered. Trok drew his sword and, with the flat of the blade, knocked Ishtar out of his way. Then he ran forward, darting behind the golden image. Quickly he examined the back, tapping the metal with the tip of his blade. It sounded hollow as a drum, and when he looked more closely he discovered a removable panel that fitted almost perfectly.
“A trap-door!” he growled. “It seems that there is more in Marduk’s belly than ever went in through his mouth.”
He ducked back and peered into the slit in the god’s belly. A human eye looked back at him. The pupil widened with astonishment, and Trok gave a mighty shout: “Come out of there, you slime of the great beast!” He placed his shoulder against the idol and heaved with all his strength. The statue wobbled on its stone base, and Trok heaved again. Slowly the image went down with a crash onto the stone flags. Ishtar screamed and leaped out of the way as it threatened to crush him.
The head of the god was bent at an angle by the fall, and in the silence after the shattering impact there was a scrabbling sound, like startled rats, from the interior of the fallen idol. The trap-door flew open and a small figure crawled out. Trok seized it by its thick head of curls. “Mercy, great King Trok,” the girl pleaded, in that honey-sweet voice. “It was not I who tried to decei
ve you. I was doing the bidding of others.” She was such a lovely child that, for a moment, Trok felt his rage subside. Then he snatched her up by the ankles and dangled her upside down in one fist. She was weeping and writhing in his grip.
“Who ordered you to this?” Trok demanded.
“Ishtar the Mede,” she wept.
Trok swung her twice in a circle around his head, building up speed and momentum, then dashed the child against the temple column. Her screams were cut off instantly. Trok let her corpse drop in a crumpled heap on the altar.
He turned back to the golden idol and thrust his sword into the opening of the trap-door, rummaging around in the belly of the god. There was another squeal and a grotesque creature shot out of the opening. At first Trok thought it was a huge bullfrog, and jumped back in alarm. Then he saw that it was a hunch-backed dwarf, even shorter and smaller than the girl he had just killed. The dwarf bellowed with a voice like a bull, the deafening roars out of keeping with his diminutive stature. He was the ugliest man Trok had ever laid eyes upon, with eyes out of kilter and of disparate sizes. Clumps of black hair bushed out of his ears and nostrils, and from the huge moles that hung from his face.
“Forgive me, that I tried to deceive you, mighty god and King of Egypt!” Trok slashed at him with the sword, but the creature ducked and dodged and leaped nimbly about the sanctum, roaring with terror in that outlandish voice. Trok found himself laughing at his antics. The dwarf shot behind the curtains at the back of the chamber and disappeared through a secret doorway.
Trok let him go and turned back to Ishtar, just in time to seize a handful of his stiff-lacquered hair as he tried to flee from the chamber. He flung him full-length on the stone floor and kicked him in the ribs, belly and back. “You have lied to me.” Trok was no longer laughing, and his face turned dark purple with rage. “You have deliberately misled me. You have diverted me from my purpose.”