Mercury Rises Read Online Free PDF Page A

good."
    Mercury nodded in assent. "It was lucky that Babylon opened up after Marduk got caught using alchemy to prop up the economy. If he had melted down those solid gold pigs before trying to sell them to the Egyptians, the muckety-mucks at the SCSP might never have caught him."
    "Marduk!" Tiamat spat. "What a horse's ass. Have you heard what he's up to these days?"
    "I'm sure I have no idea."
    Tiamat peered at him suspiciously. "Mercury."
    "What?"
    "You know something."
    "No, I swear," Mercury insisted. "I don't know where he is."
    "Uh-huh. Tell me what you do know."
    Mercury threw up his hands dismissively. "Oh, you know how the guys talk at the jobsite. They've got this whole mythology they've built up about you and Marduk. Crazy stuff. Just talk, you know."
    "What are they saying, Mercury? Tell me. Now."
    "Well, they've got this nutty idea that you're, you know, evil."
    "Evil!" she howled. "Evil! No one accuses me of being evil! Tell me who it was and I'll throw him off the ziggurat! Never mind, I'll throw them all off the ziggurat! It's not like the lazy, incompetent, slandering fools are doing any work anyway. But first, I'll boil their children in oil while they watch! Call me evil, will they? I'll show them!"
    "Yes, and as you've noted," Mercury went on, "Marduk hasn't been around much lately, so you get all the blame for, you know, throwing people off the ziggurat and whatnot..."
    "Lies!" Tiamat hissed. "Scandalous lies! Tell me who it was and I'll throw them off the ziggurat!"
    "Meanwhile," Mercury continued, "they've built up this exaggerated image of Marduk as some sort of conquering hero who's going to come back and save them."
    "Save them!" Tiamat cried. "From what? Gainful employment? The chance to be part of history? The excitement of knowing that at any moment you could be thrown to your death from a ziggurat?"
    "I told you it was crazy," Mercury said.
    "So," Tiamat asked, "what do they say the great Marduk is doing these days, while his worshipers await his triumphant return?"
    "Well, supposedly he's preparing for battle with you," Mercury said. "Of course, as you know, he's been away for longer than anyone expected, so the stories of his preparations are getting pretty involved.
    "Involved?"
    "Yeah, they asked me to write it down for them because they were starting to lose track of it all." He felt around in his satchel until he found a scrap of well-worn parchment. "Ah, here it is. OK, first Marduk has to make a bow, which takes a while, then he has to make the arrows for it, then he has to get his mace...Don't ask me how he's going to use a mace and a bow at the same time; maybe he's got like six arms in this scenario or something. Let's see, he throws lightning before him, fills his body with flame...wow, that's a good one, huh? Filling his body with flame. Nice. Makes a net to encircle you, gathers the four winds, creates seven new winds, such as the whirlwind, tornado, um, I don't seem to have the others written down, but they were all pretty similar. Dust devil, funnel cloud, that sort of thing. Oh, and they just added this one, the rain-flood. That's as far as they've gotten. Crazy stuff, like I said."
    "Insolent fools," Tiamat muttered.
    "It's just talk," assured Mercury. "I wouldn't take it too seriously. Anyway, now that I've told you all this stuff, you're probably going to want to finally level with me about what we're doing here in Babylon."
    "We're building a great civilization," chided Tiamat.
    "Right, sure," said Mercury, nodding. "But I can't help think how much greater it could be if we didn't spend thirty percent of our GDP on ziggurats. I mean, I get the national pride angle, but seriously, we've got like eighteen of these things now. What's the point?"
    "The point," Tiamat growled through gritted teeth, "is to keep building them until we get it right!"
    Her statement was punctuated by a distant rumble of thunder. "What the hell?" Mercury exclaimed. "I've been trying to get it to