Free Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice

to the public gardens. I like to see you eat and drink.’
    “We went to his favorite place, a huge public garden right on the Euphrates, down away from all the docks and the shipwrights and the commotion. In fact it was where one of the many canals came in, and it was more on the canal than the river itself which was always busy. This garden was filled with big drooping willow trees, just like in the psalm, you know, and there were a few musicians out there playing their pipes and dancing for trinkets.
    “Marduk sat down opposite me and folded his arms. We really did look so much alike that we could have been brothers. It occurred to me that I knew him better than I knew any of my brothers. And by the way, I didn’t hate my brothers the way Hebrews are always hating their brothers in the stories. Forget that. I loved my brothers. They were a little tame, when it came to drinking and dancing. I had more fun with my father. But I loved them.”
    He stopped. It seemed out of respect for the dead brothers. He was now beyond beautiful in the red velvet, and these pauses brought me back visually to him in a way that was seductive. But then he began to talk again:
    “Marduk started in on me right away. ‘Look, I am going to tell you the truth and you pay attention. I have no memory of my beginnings. I have no memory of slaying Tiamat the great dragon and making the world out of her belly and the sky out of the rest of her. But this does not mean that it didn’t happen. I walk most of the time in a fog. I see the spirits of the gods and the roaming spirits of the dead and I listen for prayers and I try to answer them. But this is a dreary place where I live.When I retreat to the temple for the banquet it’s a great pleasure because the fog clears. You know what clears it?’
    “ ‘No, but I can guess…that the priests see you, that powerful seers see you.’
    “ ‘That is it, Azriel, I can become solid and visible for witches, for sorcerers, for those who have eyes to see, and then I drink up the libations of water, I inhale them and inhale the fragrances of food and this puts me in the mood of life. Then I go into the statue, and I rest in darkness and time means nothing to me, and I listen to Babylon. I listen. I listen. But the myths of the beginning, I don’t remember, you see what I’m saying?’
    “ ‘Not entirely,’ I confessed. ‘Are you telling me that you aren’t a god?’
    “ ‘No, I am a god and a powerful one. Were I to draw on my will, I could clear this marketplace, this garden now, with a great forceful wind. Easy to do. But what I am saying is that gods don’t know everything, and this story of how Marduk became the leader of the gods, how he slew Tiamat, how he built the tower to heaven…well, I’ve either forgotten it, or I am growing weak, and I can’t remember. Gods can die. They can fade. Just like Kings. They can sleep and it takes much to wake them up. And when I awake and am fully alert, I love Babylon and Babylon loves me back.’
    “ ‘Look, my Lord,’ I said, ‘you’re weary because the New Year’s Festival hasn’t been held in ten years, because our King Nabonidus has neglected you and your priests. That’s all. If we could get the addlebrained old idiot to come home and hold the Festival, you would revive; you would be filled with the life of all of those in Babylon who would see you on the Processional Way.’
    “ ‘That’s a nice idea, Azriel, and there’s some truth in it, but I have no love for the New Year’s Festival, for residing in the statue and holding hands with the King. I get tempted in the very middle of it, to knock the King down and away from me and right to the gutters of the Processional Way. Don’t you see? It’s not what they tell you! It’s not!’
    “He then went silent with a gesture to me to ponder thesewords and then he said he wanted to try something. These next few moments were to have a crucial influence over my own destiny as a