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led him to the couch of purple cushions, with soothing and solicitous words, and had sherbet fetched for him.
    By midnight the king was raving, with brief periods of clarity wherein he struggled for understanding. Atrahasis sat beside him, wiping the sweat from his brow. The king’s guard crowded in the corridor, watched from the doorway.
    “If he dies, we will kill you,” said their chief, in an almost conversational tone. The king jerked and shuddered at the sound; Atrahasis rose in fury, but by the time he had turned and approached the mortal, there was nothing in his face but meek sorrow.
    “Speak softly, if you love him,” he whispered. “He has the fever, but why should he die? Enna-aru is not like other men.”
    The mortal looked past him uncertainly, into the golden circle of lamplight where the king lay marked with black sores. “You have poisoned him,” he said, but without conviction.
    “Fool. Those are the marks of fever, and you know it,” said Atrahasis. “What man commands disease? The gods alone send it, to punish whom they will. But the gods have no power over Enna-aru the king, surely. He will live.”
    “He is not like other men,” admitted the chief. “Yes, surely he will live.”
    He left quietly. Atrahasis returned to the bedside of the king, and sat. Enna-aru opened his eyes, the glaring eyes of a hawk, lucid and suspicious.
    “This is not punishment,” he said thickly. “Nothing but fever.”
    “Merely a touch of fever,” Atrahasis agreed, and put a wet sponge to his cracked lips. “Undoubtedly the result of traveling. The fever will break. What shall we do when you’re well again? Shall we take our wings and ride the night wind, my brother? How cool it will be, up among the white stars.”
    Before dawn the king was lucid for an hour, though he had gone blind; but he summoned his generals and his bodyguards, and turned his face to their voices as though he could see them. He gave orders that there was to be no rioting, no slaughter. There was still command, even in the hoarse ruin his voice had become; they backed out of his presence and went down to maintain good order in the streets.
    Just as the sun rose, Enna-aru stopped breathing. Atrahasis sat patiently waiting for him to resume, but he never did.
    He was still sitting, staring at the king, when Security Technical Vidya came in an hour later. Vidya looked at Enna-aru, and smiled.
    “Good work, sir. That’ll impress them. Shall we display the body, sir?” Atrahasis said nothing for a long moment.
    “I wonder if this is what I would look like,” he said at last.
    Vidya cleared his throat.
    “What are your orders, sir?”
    Atrahasis did not look up. “Tell the people to pray for the king. Tell his generals to obey him.”
    “So … you don’t want this announced right away,” said Vidya.
    “No. And send for his chief bodyguard.”
    The mortal came swiftly, and bid his lieutenants wait in the corridor. He stopped, aghast, at the sight of Enna-aru the king.
    “You see how it is,” said Atrahasis quietly. “Had he any heirs?”
    “No,” said the mortal. “He was only a young man! How could he die?”
    Atrahasis said nothing. The mortal lifted his eyes to the window, looked out, at the city with its shops and warehouses, at the green and yellow fields stretching to the river. He looked sidelong at Atrahasis.
    “You are thinking this is a rich place,” said Atrahasis. “You are wondering who will rule here now. And it has just occurred to you that you might be king.”
    The mortal blinked, opened his mouth to deny it—then went pale.
    “How did you hear my thoughts?”
    Atrahasis smiled. He rose, standing his tallest, and put every cheap trick of theater he knew into his reply.
    “Did you think we gods were really so easily defeated, mortal man?”
    The mortal backed away a pace, staring. Then he threw himself to the ground, in terrified self-abasement.
    “Great Enlil, forgive us! Do not punish us! We were