your vessel, dead before it was entombed, your spirit trapped within to wait out the years, the centuries? Your heart had not died, I know that.
So tired, so exhausted. Sleep will be welcome. Yes, yes, even eternal sleep.
It's cold in this chamber beneath the earth. And damp. Yet why can't I shiver? Why can't I move?
Oh yes. I know why.
So finally he believed. Halloran finally accepted the truth of it all. A triumph in some ways, wouldn't you say?
But why didn't I understand that he was the one conditioned to ruin me? Why, with all my perceptive powers, didn't I realise it was Halloran who was the threat? Is that the one weakness that comes with the gift of seeing, O Lord? The vulnerable point, the blindness to one's own destiny, the unforeseeableness of one's own fate? Is that your answer to me? Quite a joke really, don't think I don't appreciate it.
Even funnier if it was something more than that. It couldn't be, could it Lord, that he came at my own invitation? Surely not. That would be nonsense, too perverse for words. Yet we enjoy perversity, don't we? Well, don't we? Constant evil can be wearing, don't you agree? But I tried, I did my best for you.
The decades were so long though, Bel-Marduk. Surely you, above all, can appreciate that? But that doesn't mean I'd close my mind to my own impending demise, does it?
Does it?
DOES IT?
No, I was happy with the task you set me. Evil for evil's sake. Harm for the sake of doing harm.
Corruption for you! Entirely for YOU!
It doesn't hurt yet. What Halloran has done to me doesn't hurt. Not yet. And it shows he believes, he believes in you! I wonder if the drugs were his idea of mercy, maybe to demonstrate he isn't as wicked as me. He seemed to understand, though, when I told him there are no absolutes, that no one—not even I—could be totally evil. Nor totally good. Yes, that appeared to make sense to him. Perhaps that was why he softened my pain with drugs, perhaps he'd already realised that.
(And was that imperfection in me my failing, O Lord? Did I fail because I was not perfectly evil? But I tried, oh I tried.) It had to be someone like him, didn't it? The other Lord, your eternal enemy, had to send someone like Halloran. Someone who could be cruel, someone who would carry it through. And someone who might seek a kind of redemption—shit, how I detest that word!
And I was the one who told him how. Should I be laughing, Bel-Marduk? Are you disappointed in me, will l be punished when I finally succumb? Or will we laugh together throughout eternity?
Ah! A twinge of pain at last! Sweet though, very sweet. I wonder which will kill me first? The loss of blood or the agony when the drugs wear off?
At least I'm not lonely here. I have my servants around me, just as you had yours in the secret sepulchre, their lives willingly given up to be with you always. But my servants were not so willing. No, they gave themselves up grudgingly. Still, their reluctant spirits are with me now. Listen how they whine.
Will I have to wait as long as you, Dark Lord, before my body is discovered? This, my own sepulchre, is well hidden, as was yours, and I don't have the strength to call others to it. In fact, I have no strength, no power, at all. I'm sure Halloran sealed the entrance well, and no one would hear me even if I could scream.
Aaaah! Hurting!
And it's darker now. Are the candles burning low? Will I be left on this altar in total darkness; unable to see, unable to move . . .
Spare me this pain, please Lord. Take me before the opiums weaken. Forgive me for failing you.
If I turn my head I can see the knife he used on me. Its blade is rich with my own blood. Isn't it funny, Lord? If I could reach it, I could use it against myself, I could hurry along my death. But see there, one of my severed arms lying in a puddle next to it? The other is probably close by. And my legs. Where are they, I wonder? It's not important.
Can there be another time for me, O Lord?
No. Of course not.
What good is my limbless form to you, with my spirit forever entombed inside, my body now my soul's own sepulchre. Say you'll forgive me!
Darker now. Becoming very dim. I can still see the eyes though, those huge unblinking eyes watching from the shadows. They'll watch over me forever, won't they?
Even when the darkness is complete, they'll still be there.
Watching . . .
