'For God's sake, why, Kline? I'm here to protect you.' Still Halloran did not raise his voice. A coldness was in him, one he knew so well. A deadness of emotion.
'God? God has nothing to do with this. Not your God. Only mine.' The wheezing breath, a movement in the shadows. Then he said: 'You killed the Keeper.'
'The gate-keeper? He was dying, he'd lost control of the dogs - the jackals. They tore him to pieces. But how did you know he ;? was dead . . . ?'.
'You still doubt my abilities?' Kline was shaking his head. 'More than just our minds were linked, Halloran. He was surrogate for my ills, my weaknesses. He took my years. Through him I was allowed to live without blemish, without ageing, free to use my faculties without hindrance.' -'The old man said you'd used him.'
'I was allowed that gift.'
'Allowed?'
'The power to discharge those physical things we all dread, the disadvantages that come with the years and with debility, was bestowed upon me. Now that power is waning. Something has happened and nothing is right any more. You killed my Keeper, you broke the link.'
'I told you he was dying before the jackals got to him. The strange thing is he seemed glad to be dying.'
'He was a fool.'
'Listen, Kline, I want you to tell this idiot to take the wire away from my neck.'
'After what you did to Monk?'
'I'm going to hurt him if he doesn't.'
'I don't think so, Halloran. I don't think you're that good. Besides, you want your curiosity satisfied, don't you'? You want to learn some more history. Last night I only meant to whet your appetite.'
'Kline . . .' Halloran warned.
'Be quiet!' Kline's hands clenched over the chair arms. He shuddered, as if it had hurt to raise his voice.
'You're going to pay for what you've done. You're going to help stop what . . . what's . . . happening to me.' He slumped back, and Halloran could see the rise and fall of his narrow shoulders, could hear the squeezing of his breath.
When he spoke, Kline's voice was low again, the sudden verve gone. He sounded ancient, like the old man in the lodgehouse. 'Be patient and listen, Halloran, because I want you to understand. You deserve that at least. Let me tell you about the god who walked this earth three thousand years before the Christ God. I'm sure you're no devotee of the Scriptures, but no doubt you had them drummed into you by your Catholic priests when you were a boy in Ireland. Let me make some sense. of their fairy-tales, allow me that.'
'Do I have a choice?'
'Yes. Youssef could kill you now.' Halloran said nothing.
A dry snigger from Kline. 'How precious time becomes when there's little of it left, even for those who have lived so tong . . ' The candle flames swayed as though a draught had swept in.
'The man-god was called Marduk by his chosen people, the Sumerians,' Kline began, while Halloran wondered how long the Arab could keep the garotte tensed. 'He civilised the Sumerians, advanced them, taught them the written word, revealed to them the secret of the stars, instilled order into their society. It was from him that they learned to cure by cutting into the human body, how to forge metals dug from rock, to make tools and instruments, to use vehicles for carrying. Was that evil? How could it be? It was knowledge. But for those mortals who ruled, such learning was regarded as a threat, because it usurped their power. That was the fear of the Sumerian kings and certain high priests. And hasn't that always been the fear of your Christian God?' The question was put slyly, Kline's tenor changing constantly, a shifting of character that Halloran had become used to, but the change never before as abrupt as this. It was as if Kline had little control over himself.
'But perhaps it was the other knowledge that these rulers feared most, because that gave power. I mean the knowledge of magic, the ways of alchemy, the understanding of the Cabala, the art of witchcraft.
'For more than a thousand years he influenced them, and how the Sumerian people enjoyed his control.
All he asked in return was their worship, their veneration of his ways. Burnt offerings pleased him, the roasting of men, women and children. Defilement of the other gods he demanded. The torture of innocents was an appeasement to him, for they also feared Marduk as much as their rulers did. The kings and princes, the other high priests, were powerless to act against him. Until King Hammurabi, that is, who united all the state leaders against Marduk, whom he declared was an evil god who should be known forever more as Bel-Marduk.' Halloran glanced up at the stairway. He thought he had heard movement in the passage.
'The king denounced Bel-Marduk as a fallen god,' Kline went on in a voice that lurched with anger.
'Much later the Jews referred to him as the Fallen Angel.' Halloran frowned.
'Ah, I see a glimmer of understanding,' Kline remarked. 'Yes, I do mean the Fallen Angel of the Bible, later to become known as the Devil.' The lilt of Irish was in Halloran's mild comment. 'You're crazy, Kline.' A silence.
Then a low chuckle.
'One of us might be,' said Kline. 'But listen on, there's more to tell.' The staring eyes of the stone effigies around the shaded figure seemed threatening. Halloran tried to close them from his mind.
'Bel-Marduk was destroyed for preaching the “perverted message”. His limbs were torn from him, his tongue cut out, so that his immortal soul would be trapped inside a body which could only lie in the dirt.
The priests rendered him as a snake, and they called him Serpent.' The dark figure leaned forward. 'Does it sound familiar to you, Halloran? Didn't your Catholic priests teach you of Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, who was cursed to crawl in the dust as a snake for his corruption of the innocents, for revealing the secrets of the Tree of Life to the unworthy? Don't you see where those stories of the Bible come from? I told you last night that the traditional site of the Garden of Eden was the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in Sumeria from where, according to tablets found in Mesopotamia, the Jewish race originated. It was from Ur of the Chaldees that Abraham led his tribe north into Syria, then through Canaan into Egypt. They took with them stories that later became the myths of their Bible. The Great Flood, the baby Moses found among bulrushes—borrowed history! The Hebrew account of the Creation and the first chapters of Genesis—they were based on old Sumerian legends. Legends because the old kings had ordered all records of their early history to be destroyed, their way of ensuring Bel-Marduk's corruption would not be passed on to other generations. But they didn't understand how, evil can be inherited, not learned from the written word.' There were figures at the top of the stairs, but Kline appeared not to notice.
'We Jews even adopted the Cabala as our own, claiming it was passed on from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, who initiated seventy elders into the mysteries during their years of wandering in the wilderness. Bel-Marduk's teachings were never discontinued, nor was his revenge on mankind! Even the other man-god, Jesus Christ, who chose the Jews as his people, couldn't stem the flow! He came to undo the Serpent's work, the only way of redeeming earth's people. And look what happened, Halloran.
He was executed, just like his predecessor, Bel-Marduk! Makes you wonder why he bothered, doesn't it? Look around you today, Halloran, and you'll see the conflict still goes an. You're part of it, I'm part of it.' Kline leaned forward once more. 'The question is,' he said craftily, 'on which side of the struggle are you?' Halloran could give no answer.
Kline pushed himself back into the chair. 'Bring her dawn!' he called out.
There was movement from above and Halloran raised his eyes to see Cora, flanked by Palusinski and the other Arab, descending the stairway. She wore her bathrobe, its belt tied loosely at the front, and her step was unsteady. When she reached the bottom and looked around the soft bewilderment in her eyes was obvious. He wondered if the drug had been forced upon her.
'Liam . . .' she began to say on seeing him.
'Concerned for your lover, Cora dear?' came Kline's voice from the shadows. Now there was fear as she looked to-wards the source.
'What are you going to do with her, Kline?' Halloran demanded.
'Nothing at all. Cora won't be harmed. I haven't groomed her for that. But I need a new ally, you see, someone who'll watch for me. I always knew a replacement would be necessary one day; I just didn't realise how imminent that day was.'
'You can't make her take his place.'
