by Anne Rice
"I was thunderstruck. I just looked at him, at his tearful eyes, and I said, 'You know, Father, you are perhaps right, at least insofar as this. I could forgive you anything. Because I know you, and you wouldn't do evil to me, you wouldn't do that.'
" 'No, I wouldn't. Azriel, do you know what it means to me that you are to be taken from me, you and your future wife and future sons and daughters? Oh, it doesn't matter. Forgive me, son, for what I do. Forgive me. I beg you. Before it begins, before we go to the palace, and hear the lies and look at the map, forgive me.'
"He was my father. He was sweet and kind and overcome with grief, terrible grief and pain. It was an easy thing for me to put my arms around him as if he were my little brother and say, 'Father, I forgive you.'
" 'Never forget that, Azriel,' he said. 'When you are suffering, when the hours are dragging by, when you are in pain, forgive me...not just for my sake, son, but for yours!'
"A knock came. Priests were here from the Palace.
"We got up at once, wiped our faces, and then we went into the courtyard.
"Remath was standing there, and as soon as I saw him, I did remember him as my father had said. I had never spoken much with him as he was a real malcontent; I mean he hated Nabonidus beyond belief for not giving Marduk's temple what it should have, but he also hated everybody else. He usually stood around the palace and the temple, doing nothing. But he was clever. I knew that. And he was very restless. He was young and smart.
"He studied us now, his eyes very deep set and seemingly better sculpted in his white skin, and his long thin nose gave him a disdainful look. All the rest was the usual mass of curly black hair...and priestly robes very fine, down to his jeweled sandals, and then he drew near my father and he said, 'Did Asenath give it to you?'
" 'Yes,' said my father. 'But that does not mean that I will give it to you.'
" 'You're stupid not to. Your son goes into the earth otherwise. What good is that?'
" 'Don't call me names, you heathen, my father said. 'Let's get on with it. Let's go.'
"In the anteroom stood other priests waiting for us, and as we went outside, we found that there were brightly adorned litters for us and we were taken to the palace, each alone in his own litter, and I lay back trying to figure this out.
" 'Marduk, are you going to help me?' I whispered.
"Marduk answered, 'I don't know what to tell you, Azriel. I don't. I can see what is bound to happen. I don't know! I know this, that when it is over, one way or another, I will still be here. I will be walking the streets of Babylon in search of eyes that can see me, and prayers and incense that can arouse me. But where will you be, Azriel?'
" 'They're going to kill me. Why?'
" 'They'll tell you. You'll see it all. But I can assure you of this much. If you refuse to do what they want, they'll kill you anyway. And they'll probably kill your father, because he knows the plot.'
" 'I see. I should have realized that. They need my cooperation and if I don't give it, well, then it would have been better for me had I never been asked.'
"There came only silence from him but I could feel his breath and I knew he was close. He wasn't material, but it didn't matter; we were even closer in the darkness of this litter, being carried with the curtains drawn through Babylon's hollow paved streets.
" 'Marduk, can you help me get out of this?' I asked.
" 'I have been thinking of that for hours and hours, hours since your prophet spewed out all his filth at me. I have been asking myself, "Marduk, what can you do?" But you see, Azriel, without your strength, I cannot do what I want to do. I can't. I can be the gold god on his throne and that is all. I can be the standing statue carried in procession. Those objects or encasements they already have. And if I were to run with you...if we were to escape, where would we go?'
"A strange sound filled the little curtained compartment. He was weeping. Then suddenly, 'Azriel, tell them no! Refuse their filthy designs. Refuse them. Don't do it, not for Israel, not for Abraham, not for Yahweh. Refuse.'
" 'And die.'
"He didn't answer.
" 'Well, either way I shall die, no?'
" 'There's a third way,' he said.
" 'You're speaking of Asenath and the tablet.'
" 'Yes, but it is terrible, Azriel. It's terrible. And I don't know if there's truth in it. It is older than I am. It is older than Marduk and older than Babylon, that tablet; it came from the city of Uruk. Maybe from before. It is very old. What can I tell you? Know your own mind. Take your chance!'
" 'Marduk, don't leave me,' I said. 'Please.'
" 'I won't, Azriel, you are the dearest friend of my heart that I have ever had. I won't leave you. Make me appear if you need me to frighten them or stop them. Make me appear and I will try. But I won't leave you, I am your god, your own god, your god, and I'll be with you.'
"We had come to the palace. We were being brought in by a private gate, and now we were welcomed out of our little compartments so that we might walk on the grand stairway of gold and glazed brick, through the magnificent veils that separated one giant room from another, and we did, we walked, in silence, my father and I, we walked, following the priest, and they took us into the royal chamber where Belshazzar, listening to cases, made a farce of justice every day, and where his wise men told him hour after hour what the stars were saying to them, and we went beyond that into small and fine apartments that I had never seen.
"I saw that a seal had been broken, an ancient seal, as the doors had been opened. But the servants had come. For everywhere was luxury, fine carpets, pillows, the usual veils, and everywhere the lamps hung from the beams of the ceiling and the oil was sweet and the light was bright.
"A table stood in the middle of the room. Men were seated at it. And behind them stood my uncles, two of them, including the one who was deaf, may he have no name, and the Elders of Israel in Captivity, and Asenath and Enoch the prophet as well.
"Only gradually did I let myself look down at those seated at the table, though we were being placed opposite, the servants hustling to draw back the golden chairs.
"I saw our miserable regent, Belshazzar, and he looked stupid with drink and terrified, and was mumbling to himself something about Marduk, and then I realized I was looking at Nabonidus, old Nabonidus, our true King who had been gone almost half my life. Our true King sat there in his full raiment, though not on a throne, merely at a table, and his big watery eyes were dead and empty already, and he merely smiled at me, and he said, 'Pretty, pretty...you have chosen one that is so pretty...pretty as the god.'
" 'Pretty enough to be a god!' said a voice, and I looked directly opposite at this fine handsome man, taller than anyone there, thinner in build than any of us, with black curling hair but hair that was cut shorter than ours, and a trimmed mustache and a shorter trimmed beard.
"This was a Persian! The men beside him were Persians. They were in Persian robes, very like our own, but in royal blue, and they were crusted with jewels and gold embroidery, and their fingers were covered with rings, and the goblets before them were our temple goblets!
"These were men from the Persian empire which was conquering us, which was killing us. All the strange predictions of Enoch came back to me and I saw him glaring down at me, with a near impish smile, and Asenath seemed filled with wonder.
" 'Sit down, young one,' said the tall robust man with the big laughing eyes, the handsomest man, the man who gleamed with power. 'I'm Cyrus, and I want you at your ease.'
" 'Cyrus!' I said. Cyrus was the conqueror.
"The full details of the man's accomplishments were sharpened in my mind. This was Cyrus the Achaemenid King who already ruled half the world. He had united the Medians with the Persians, the man who meant to take Babylon. The man who had scared all the cities around us. This was no longer tavern talk of war. This was Cyrus himself sitting here before us.
"I should have prostrated myself before him but no one was doing anything like that before anyo
ne, and he had said in a clear voice with an excellent command of Aramaic that I was to be at ease.
"Very well. I looked at him directly. After all, I thought, I'm going to die. So what. Why not?
"My father took the empty chair beside me.
" 'Azriel, my boy, my beautiful boy,' said Cyrus. The voice was crisp, full of good humor. 'I have been in Babylon for days. There are thousands of my soldiers throughout Babylon. They have come in by many gates over a long time. The priests know. Here, your beloved King--and may the gods keep him well always--Nabonidus himself knows.' He gave a generous nod to the suspicious and dying old King. 'All your King's regents and his officials know that I am here. Your Elders, you see. Don't feel fear. Feel joy. Your tribe will be rich and they will live forever, and they will go home.'
" 'Ah, and this depends then on what I do?' I asked.
"I wasn't sure then and am still not today sure why I was so cold and disdainful of him. He was compelling but he was human, and young. And also, no matter what he'd done so far, he was a heathen to me, and he wasn't even Babylonian. So, I was cold to him.
"He gave a silent measuring smile.
" 'So it depends then on what I do?' I repeated the question. 'Or your will, Lord, has your will already been decided?'
"Cyrus laughed, with crinkling cheerful eyes. He had the vigor of kings all right, and not yet the total madness. He was too young and he'd been drinking up the blood of Asia. He was full of strength. Full of victory. 'You speak boldly,' he said to me generously. 'You look with a bold eye. You are your father's eldest, aren't you?'
" 'For the three days required,' said one of the priests, 'he must be very strong. To be bold is part of it.'
" 'Put another chair at this table,' I said, 'with your permission, My Lord King Cyrus, and My Lords, King Nabonidus and Lord Belshazzar. Put it here at the end.'
" 'Why, for whom?' asked Cyrus politely.
" 'For Marduk,' I said. 'For my god who is with me.'
" 'Our god is not at the beck and call of you!' roared the High Priest. 'He won't come down off the altar for you! You have never seen our god, not really, you are a lying Jew, you are--'
" 'Close your mouth, Master,' said Remath in a small voice. 'He has seen the god and he has spoken with him and the god has smiled at him, and if he invites the god to this chair, the god is most likely to come.'
"Cyrus smiled and shook his head. 'You know,' he said, 'this is truly a marvelous city. I am going to love Babylon. I wouldn't hurt a stone of such a place. Ah, Babylon.'
"I might have laughed at that, at his wiliness, his disrespect for the elders and the old priests, his ruthlessness and his wit. But I was past laughing. I looked at the light of the lamps and I thought, 'I am going to die.'
"A hand touched mine. It was vaporous. No one could see it. But it was Marduk. He had taken this chair to my left; invisible, transparent, golden, and vital. My father sat to my right and my father just put his hands up to his face and cried and cried.
"He cried like a child. He cried.
"Cyrus looked with patience and compassion at my father.
" 'Let's get on with it,' said the High Priest.
" 'Yes,' said Enoch, 'let's get on with it now!'
" 'For these men, these elders, these priests, this prophetess, get stools for them to be comfortable,' said Cyrus amiably and cheerfully. He smiled at me. 'We are all in this together.'
"I turned to look at Marduk. 'Are we?'
"They all watched me in silence speaking to my invisible god.
" 'I can't tell you what to do,' said Marduk. 'I love you too much to make a mistake, and I have no right answers.'
" 'Stay then.'
" 'Throughout,' he said.
"The stools and chairs were quickly brought in and the Elders allowed in very casual fashion to sit all about us and this conquering Persian King, this monarch who had driven the Greeks crazy all over the world and now wanted our city and had everything we had but the city.
"Only the priest Remath remained standing, at a distance against a gilded column. The High Priest had told him to leave, but he had ignored this command and apparently been forgotten. He was watching me and my father, and then I realized that he could see Marduk. Not so clearly. But he could see him. Remath moved his position slightly so that he could see all three of us, going to a farther column behind Cyrus where Cyrus's soldiers, by the way, stood poised to become butchers. And there Remath stared at the seemingly empty chair with cold and conniving eyes, and he looked at me."
5
Well, my lord, what do you want of me?' I asked. 'Why am I, a Hebrew scribe, so important so suddenly?'
" 'Listen, child,' said Cyrus. 'I want Babylon without a siege, I want it without a death. I want it the way I have taken the Greek cities when they have been smart enough to let me do it. I don't want ashes behind me and ruins galore! I don't come with a torch, and a bag for loot, a thief. I will not rape your city and deport your populations. On the contrary, I will send home to Jerusalem all of you, with the blessing to build your own temple.'
"Enoch now stood up and laid down before us a scroll. I reached for it, and read it. It was a proclamation freeing all the Hebrews to go home. Jerusalem would be under Cyrus's benevolent protection.
" 'He is the Messiah,' said Enoch to me. And what a change of tone from the old man. Now that Cyrus the Great was talking to me, my own prophet was talking to me. Now, by Messiah he meant 'anointed one.' Later on the Christians made a big deal of this word, but that's all it meant then. But still, it was a strong word.
" 'Add to that proclamation,' said Cyrus, 'gold, gold beyond your imagining,' he said, 'and permission to take all that you possess with you, to reclaim your vineyards, your lands, and be loyal to a powerful empire that will let you build your Temple to Yahweh.'
"I looked at Marduk. Marduk sighed. 'He's speaking the truth, that's all I can tell you. He's going to conquer one way or another.'
" 'I can trust him, then?' I asked my god.
"Everyone was shocked. 'Yes,' said Marduk, 'but to what degree...keep listening. You have something they want, your life, there may be a way, who knows, for you yet to escape with it.'
" 'Ah no,' cried Asenath, 'God Marduk, you are wrong. There is but one path for him to escape and he should take it for it is better than life itself.'
"I realized she could see him, at least partially, and hear his words.
"He turned to her. 'Let him be the judge. Death may be better than what you have in store for him.'
"Cyrus watched all this in amazement. Then he looked at the priests gathered all around, the High Priest of Marduk, and the wily Remath standing over by the pillar.
" 'I need the blessing of your god,' said Cyrus, 'you are right, you are more than right,' he said humbly, but also rather cleverly, since this was just what these priests wanted to hear.
" 'You see, Azriel,' said Cyrus, 'it's this simple. The priesthood is strong. The temple is strong. Your god, if he sits with us, and I must confess I am prepared to worship him, is strong. And they can turn the city of Babylon against me. All the rest of Babylonia, I hold, but this is the jewel, this is the Gate of Heaven.'
" 'But how could you hold all the rest!' I said. 'Our cities are safe and secure. We knew you were coming, but someone is always coming.'
" 'He's telling you the truth,' said Nabonidus, and when he spoke all eyes turned to him. He wasn't addled or stupid. Just very old and tired. 'The cities are taken, every one has collapsed into Cyrus's arms. The fire-signal towers have all fallen to him, and the signals being sent are sent by Cyrus's men, to lull Babylon, but the cities are fallen and the signals are false.'
" 'Look,' said Cyrus, 'I'll send back to those cities all the gods which have been sent here for refuge. I want your temples to thrive. Don't you see? I want to embrace you! I didn't lay waste Ephesus or Miletus! They are Greek cities still and their philosophers are arguing in the agora. I want Babylonia in my embrace, not her destruction.'
"He then turned sharply and stared at the 'empty' chair. 'But your god Marduk must take my hand,' he said, 'if I am to conquer this city without fire. And then I shall send home all the gods of Babylonia as I promised.'
"Marduk, unseen by him, only listened to him and said nothing. But the High Priest lost his temper. 'There is no god in that chair! Our god is neglected by our king and has gone into a deep sleep from which no one can wake him.'
" 'Look,' I said, 'why call me into this? What have I to do with it? You have right here in Esagila the statue of Marduk that you need for the procession. You ride with him on the great wagon, and you hold his hand, and he holds your hand and you are King 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.