Ashtaru the Terrible
Fantasy Fiction – February, 1953
(1953)*
Poul Anderson

Ashtaru was a terrible god who could work mighty miracles—as he was the first to admit. But his wants were simple — a temple, five thousand slaves, and all the bourbon whiskey he could drink.

-

	"Burlap! Cotton wool! Bah!" said the god.

	Henry ' Martinmas dropped him as if he had suddenly turned red-hot.

	"I'll have you know there was a time when they wrapped me in silk," went on the god, pulling strings of excelsior off himself. He was about a foot high in his cross-legged sitting posture and looked rather like a bearded and petulant Buddha. "Excelsior!"

	Henry Martinmas thought wildly about banners with strange devices and said in feeble tones, "This won't do. It won't do at all. You've got no business talking."

	"And why not?" asked the god truculently.

	"Because you're just a terracotta image buried in Mesopotamia for the last twenty-six hundred years, that's why," said Henry indignantly. "You've got no business claiming to be alive. Stop it this instant."

	"If you'd been buried in the sand for the last twenty-six centuries, I'll wager you'd want to say a few words too," answered the god. "I'm not going to stop, because I am a wrathful god and ruler of heaven and earth, so there!"

	He stood up in the packing case, balancing his pot-bellied form on spindly legs, and glared at the archeologist.

	"You're nothing of the sort," insisted Henry, grabbing for sanity with both hands. "You're a typical minor local deity, and you know it. If you don't shut up, I—I'll tell Marduk on you."

	"Marduk!" sneered the god. "That big lout!" Nevertheless, he abandoned his aggressive stance.

-

	The knowledge began seeping slowly through Henry's gibbering brain that he was actually having an argument with a Babylonian idol. "No!" he moaned. "As if I didn't have troubles enough."

	"Why, what's the matter?" asked the god, suddenly sympathetic. He had a rusty bass foghorn of a voice.

	"I'm going insane, that's what," said Henry. He sat down on the floor and buried his face in his hands.

	The god walked over to the edge of the packing case, jumped up, and sat there swinging his legs. "That's too bad," he murmured. "When did it start?"

	"Just now," said Henry. "I thought a statuette sat up and spoke to me."

	"Hmmmm." The god stroked his beard. "Odd symptom."

	"I didn't like it," babbled Henry. "It scared me silly."

	"Delusions of persecution," nodded the idol. "Tell me, when you were a child did you hate your father?"

	"No. I liked my mother, too. I've always liked everybody except ... well, I don't care for Richard Macalester."

	"Ah. Symbolism." The god rubbed his hands together. "Was there a statue in your home when you were young? Maybe you spoke to it once and it didn't answer. That could be traumatic."

	"I don't remember—HEY!" The man realized to whom he was talking and scrambled to his feet.

	"By gosh, that's right," agreed the idol, surprised.

	He sprang to the floor and waddled over and patted Henry on the shin. "There, there, don't be frightened. I know I am a very terrible god, but believe me, I won't hurt you."

-

	Henry tottered to his desk, extracted a bottle of bourbon, and raised it to his lips.

	"Aren't you going to pour me a libation?" whined the deity. '

	"I suppose so," shuddered Henry, and splashed a few drops of whiskey on the floor.

	"Not that way!" The god hopped with rage, shaking his fists. "In a glass, you idiot!"

	Dumbly, the man found a tumbler and poured out a finger or two. The god swallowed it and sighed. "Aaaahhhh! That's more like it! Fellow gets awfully thirsty, lying in the sand for twenty-six hundred years."

	Henry began to accept the situation. There' wasn't much else he could do, and the initial shock had worn off a little. The whiskey helped. He sat back in his chair, put his feet on the desk, and looked down at the idol.

	"Okay," he said a bit shakily. "How did it happen, anyway? I'll accept your reality, provisionally at least—"

	"You'd darn well better," grumbled the god, "or I'll blast you with lightning."

	Henry sighed. He was a tall and lean young man, with rimless glasses on a face rather like that of a scholarly horse. "All I know," he said, "is that the college—this is Barron College in Southmeadow, Minnesota—the college has a man, Craigie, the head of our archeology department, with the Rupert expedition in Mesopotamia. I'm acting head while he's away, so he sent me a crate of specimens. You were in it. When I began unpacking you, you sat up and spoke to me. That's all." He shivered. "That's enough, too!"

	"My name," said the god in a formal tone, "is Ashtarulalek-benetil Torglatannesarmishkidu the Terrible. But you may call me Ashtaru," he added graciously. "I was a mighty god in holy Babylon. They trembled at the mention of my name."

	For fear of breaking a jaw, thought Henry.

	"Nobody dared affront me," went on Ashtaru. "They brought me the treasures of the land. They danced before my shrine and burned incense and implored my condescension that I would reveal unto them my will. When my voice of thunder spoke, Tigris and Euphrates shook. People worshipped other gods only because I was kind enough to permit it."

	"Nice of you," said Henry.

-

	Sarcasm was lost on Ashtaru, who droned on. "Oh, they sent from afar to bedeck my fane, cedar of Lebanon and sandalwood of Punt and spices of mystic eastern lands, gold and elephants and the fairest maidens in the world. Princesses rejoiced to serve me, for I was the ruler of the lightning and the earthquake, the dreadful master of armed men and brazen chariots, shaker of the land and toppler of cities, glorious in strength and beauty, Ashtaru the Terrible!"

	"And then what happened?" interrupted Henry.

	"When Babylon rose against the yoke of Sennacherib, the Assyrian hosts came down like a—like a—"

	"A wolf on the fold?"

	"Thank you. Like a wolf on the fold. Their armies darkened the land. Their arrows nighted the sky. They went as a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Men trembled to see the fist of Assur crashing down on them. But then I rose in my wrath, I unleashed my lightnings against the blasphemous invaders, I smote them hip and thigh—"

	"What happened?" asked Henry, interested.

	"Nobody paid any attention," sighed Ashtaru. "The Assyrians razed the city. I was buried under a falling wall. Later the desert came in and covered me." He bristled with indignation. "Fine way to treat a god!"

	"Didn't you get bored, lying there for twenty-six hundred years?" asked Henry, tilting the bottle again.

	"It was kind of dull," admitted Ashtaru. "How about another libation?"

	Henry gave him one. "Then when Craigie dug you up—why didn't you speak to him?"

	"There was nothing but desert ground. No chance for me to get proper treatment. But I sensed he was from the richest land on earth, the new Babylon, so I bided my time. Now I'm here." Ashtaru looked at his terra-cotta body and sighed again, heartrendingly. A tear dropped from one obsidian eye. "All my lovely paint, all that gilt and silken raiment—gone! Why, I'm naked!"

	Henry shook his head, marvelling. A real god! A genuine live simon-pure hundred-per cent Babylonian god! Even if Ashtaru was a very minor god, so small that there was no record of him, it was quite a find. He wondered how to write it up for the journals.

	"Well, don't just sit there!" boomed Ashtaru. "Worship me!"

	"Sorry," said Henry. "You're a graven image."

	The god clucked woefully. "No respect," he said. "No feeling for the finer things. This younger generation!"

	Henry scratched his head. It wouldn't be easy to report his discovery. How the devil do you convince the editor of a scholarly journal that you have a living god in your office?

	"Can you really work miracles?" he asked with a sudden rush of crazy hopefulness.

	"It depends," said Ashtaru cautiously. "What do you want?"

	"Look, I've got troubles," said Henry. "It'll take a miracle to solve them, too."

	Ashtaru resumed his cross-legged position. "Tell me all about it," he invited genially. "I can read your mind, but that's too much trouble."

-

	Henry took off his glasses and rubbed a weary hand over his eyes. "It's like this," he said. "Barron College isn't so terribly large. It has an archeology department simply because of Craigie. Distinguished man, you know, greatest living authority on ancient Mesopotomia."

	"Bah! No man who wraps me —me—in burlap is an authority on anything. But go on."

	"The president, Muttonhead —um, I mean Dr. Wilkes—established the department just so Craigie would come here. Which he did. I joined him as assistant professor a little over a year ago, after getting my own Ph.D. They do say my thesis on the origins of the Havasupai was a good job."

	"Who on earth," wondered Ashtaru, "wants to write about a bunch of Indians when they can write about me?"

	"I didn't know about you then," said Henry diplomatically.

	"Well, anyway, I like it here. I have—um—apart from the fact that archeologists don't have too easy a time finding jobs, I—" He blushed. "I've got personal reasons for wanting to stay in Southmeadow."

	"A woman," nodded Ashtaru. "It always is."

	"More like an angel," said Henry reverently. "Eileen Wilkes, the president's daughter. She's divine. She's so beautiful it hurts me to look at her."

	"You haven't a chance," said Ashtaru. "Nobody who takes that attitude ever does. Never mind, you have me. I'm also divine and beautiful."

	Henry ignored the remark. "She doesn't seem to be—approachable, if that's what you mean," he admitted. "Oh, she's nice and friendly, but she goes pretty steady with Richard Macalester. He's assistant professor of physics. The husky extroverted type. Star halfback in his undergraduate days. Handsome. Personable. Energetic. He'll go far. I hate his guts."

	"I need another libation," said Ashtaru.

	Henry poured it for him. The god hiccoughed. "Strong stuff," he rumbled, rubbing his stomach. "But good, good. Wouldn't Marduk like to be swilling some of this now? The big lout!"

	"Craigie's contract, like mine, expires in a couple of months," said Henry. "He could renew it, of course, but he wrote that he isn't going to. Has a better offer from the University of Istanbul. Therefore, no Craigie. Therefore, I'm the whole archeology department, if it lasts. If Wilkes—he runs everything, the trustees are just his yes-men— if Wilkes renews my contract, I'll be the new head, at a higher salary of course. Salary enough to get married on."

	"Hiccup!" said Ashtaru.

	"If she'd marry me, that is," said Henry morosely. "But to go on. Wilkes isn't very enthusiastic about continuing the department, now that he won't have a Big Name to list in the catalogues. He as good as told me, when Craigie's letter arrived, that I'd better start looking for a new job. There's an added influence pushing him in that direction. Macalester is around the house all the time, squiring Eileen and buttering up the old man. He wants Wilkes to discontinue my department and apply the money to the physics section. Especially to giving everybody over there a raise, so that an assistant physics professor will have enough to get married on."

-

	He spread his hands. "Okay, that's my problem. If you're a god, go on, solve it for me."

	"Brother," said Ashtaru, "it's insoluble. You're licked before you start."

	"Fine god you are!" snorted Henry.

	"Never mind," said Ashtaru consolingly. "There are plenty of women. I can furnish you as many slave girls as you want. Pull 'em out of time, you know. Forty fabulous Phoenicianettes!" He leered and hiccoughed again.

	"It's illegal," said Henry. "Anyway, I only want one girl. The girl."

	"Whaddaya wanna stick in this crummy job for, anyway?" bellowed Ashtaru. "I been reading minds on the way here. I learned about, um, town further west called Ellay. We'll go to Ellay and start my cult going again. You can be high priest. Sacrifices! Offerings! Fertility ceremonies! Whoops! Gimme another libation."

	"You've had too many already," said Henry. He got up and picked Ashtaru off the floor.

	"Let me down!" bawled the god, kicking in the air and hammering the man's arm with his tiny fists. "Let me down before I smite you with lightnings, you —you—blasphemer!"

	"Now you listen to me," said Henry. It was as if the frustration and resentment in him came to a sudden focus. He shook the idol till the bass trumpetings quieted. "You shut up and listen to me! You may be a god, I don't know. I'm ready to believe anything now. Only you've got to prove it. This is a skeptical era. People don't just take things on faith anymore. You've got to show them.

	"Okay, so you're a god. So you can work miracles. Prove it! Work me a miracle."

	There was a cunning glitter in Ashtaru's beady eyes. "I can do it, all right," he said. "I can make this girl fall all over you. I can blast this Macalaster character into a greasy ash-heap."

	"No, no, that's illegal," said Henry hastily.

	"I can pull any damn miracle you want out of thin air," said the god. "Only I don't work for nothing, you know. I'll stop the earth in its course—for the right price."

	"What do you want?" asked Henry resignedly. "No human sacrifices, now."

	"You get me a temple," said Ashtaru. "You get me a temple such as I had in holy Babylon. I was an important god, I was."

	"Then how come nobody's ever heard of you?"

	"I was so important they were afraid to write my name down. But I had a temple, and I want one like it. A terraced courtyard, with gardens and singing birds and fountains. Fountains of whiskey. The temple had columns of malachite and walls of jade and beams of cedar covered with beaten gold. My altar was crusted with diamonds. I had five hundred—no, five thousand priests and slaves, fifty elephants, a thousand horses. A ton of incense was burned to me every year, a ram was sacrificed daily—"

	"If I could do all that," said Henry wearily, "I wouldn't need you."

	"No temple, no miracles," said Ashtaru smugly.

	Henry set the idol on his desk. "Look, I've got to go out for a while," he said. "Be a good god and wait here for me, will you? Don't go running around outside. We—we'll say this is your temple till I can get a better one. Okay?"

	"Oh, all right." Ashtaru toddled over to the edge and lay on his belly to slide open the drawer below. He reached down and pulled out one of the Havana cigars which were Henry's only expensive vice. "Ah, incense!"

	"Hey!" yelped Henry.

	Ashtaru bit the end off the cigar. An almost invisibly small jag of lightning crackled out of nowhere and lit it. Another needle-thin thunderbolt brought a passing fly to earth. He inhaled luxuriously and leaned back against the inkwell.

	"All right," he repeated. "Now that my temple has been duly sanctified with incense and a sacrifice, it will be suitable for the time being. You may go, priest."

	"Thanks," snarled Henry. He strode from the office and slammed the door after him.

	Ashtaru grinned fatly and gestured with the cigar. The forgotten bottle of bourbon floated up and settled in his hands.

-

	It was one of those incredible mid-April days with which, on alternate years, Minnesota tries to atone for its climate. The early afternoon sky was soft and clear overhead, feathery clouds sailing lazily on a whisper of breeze, a sweet drunkenness of spring in the sunny air. The campus was broad and green and gracious, a sweep of grass and arbors between mellowed brick walls down toward the small lakes where a few canoes drifted. Undergraduates littered the grounds, a few making some pretense of study, most simply lapping up sunshine and the sight of passing coeds. Barron is a rich man's college and as such draws more than its share of good-looking female, students, which in turn, some cynics maintain, accounts for the touching loyalty that brings old grads back year after repetitive year.

	Henry slouched along the walks, hands in pockets, head down, unaware of the greetings of his colleagues as they went by. He'd come out to think, an operation which seemed impossible in Ashtaru's presence.

	So he had a god on his hands. An authentic, live, honest-to-Marduk Babylonian god. What in hell was he going to do about it?

	He couldn't have drawn Shamash or Nabu or any of the other big ones whose habits were known to be reliable, he thought bitterly. Oh, no, not he! He had to get Ashtaru, the most incompetent blabbermouth this side of Elysium. A cheapskate who bummed cigars and refused to work even a little miracle without payment in advance. A lecher who wanted to hold public fertility ceremonies. It hadn't helped his troubles a bit, simply added an extra one.

	It isn't bad enough that I'll be fired, he thought. I have to be Ashtaru's high priest too! Well, my father always wanted me to enter the ministry, though I doubt if this is quite what he had in mind.

	He grinned at the reflection, paused, and fished a cigar from his coat pocket. The smoke soothed him, blended with the faint murmur of whiskey in his veins and brought a certain calm. Ashtaru had irritated him beyond rationality, but now he began to see possibilities.

	He sat down under a tree and smoked out the cigar, turning his thoughts over in his mind. After all, even if Ashtaru was of no intrinsic use he was still a major discovery. The very fact of his existence as a living entity would bring big changes in archeological theory—and for that matter, he supposed vaguely, the physical sciences. The person who extracted all the information which Ashtaru implied would be famous.

	And I, he thought with a rising tingle of excitement, I'm in on the ground floor!

	By Nergal! He slammed a fist into his open palm. Why was he sitting here feeling sorry for himself? All he had to do was show old Muttonhead the god. A talking Babylonian idol was spectacular enough to get anybody's contract renewed.

	He glanced at his watch. Been gone over an hour—so long? Maybe he'd better hunt up Wilkes now. He rose, dusted off his pants, and went with hurried stork-strides toward the administration building.

	Someone else was coming the other way, approaching him, a party of three—He halted and stood with his heart beginning to race hotly in his breast.

	Eileen Wilkes was tall, but the print dress clung to a figure which was the envy of every coed on campus. Her hair, beneath a broad white hat, was the color of tarnished gold, and her eyes were deeper and brighter blue than the heaven of April, and her voice was a low laughing melody. She walked with the gallantry of a young dryad in the first morning of the world, her chin lifted pridefully; she had a stubborn will but humor and compassion and intelligence to temper it. Of course, Henry was somewhat prejudiced.

	As is often the case, her family was a bit of a drawback. President Wilkes was on her left, a rotund pompousness with a florid look and manner that years of commencement addresses and after-dinner speeches had developed almost beyond human endurance. Eileen could tell him what to do, but she was the only living being who was able.

	Henry's joy was a little cooled by the spectacle of Richard Macalester. The young physicist looked disgustingly breezy and distinguished in a vibrant, intense way. He was clad in white flannels, and Eileen was on his arm.

	"Hi, Hank!" he boomed. The archeologist shuddered. "What's new in ancient Rome?"

	"Ah, Dr. Martinmas," said Wilkes rather stiffly to him.

	"Hello, Henry," said Eileen. She smiled at him, leaving his knees boneless, but her cool voice was heartbreakingly friendly—merely friendly. He shifted from one foot to another, acutely aware of his own gauntness and rumpled clothing.

	When he first came here, he remembered wistfully, Eileen had been more companionable than simple politeness required. She'd come around to his office and sat on the desk, swinging one trim leg and listening with interest to his accounts of the evolution of Havasupai stonework. She'd gone to dances and movies with him, had him over for dinner—Oh, he'd had his hopes, he'd laid his careful plans. Never done a thing or said a word to offend her, always the perfect gentleman— asked her what she'd like to do, deferred to her whims—even after that magic night dancing on the pavilion by the lake, drunk with moonlight and her, he'd carefully shaken her hand at her door, venturing only to hold it somewhat longer than necessary.

	Well, she was going about with Macalester now and there wasn't much he could do. Unless somehow, through Ashtaru—

	"Dr. Wilkes," he said, forcing steadiness into his tones, "I've been going through Craigie's last shipment and made a really astonishing discovery. I wonder if you'd care to come have a look at it."

	"Well, thank you, thank you, but I am a little busy now," answered the president. "If you wish to make an appointment with my secretary-—"

	"Oh, let's go and see it, Dad," said Eileen. "It'll only take a minute, and I've always been interested in the old remnants."

	"Sure," said Macalester. He grinned at Henry, with a frank and manly smile. "Can't take too long, old fellow. Eileen and I are going out on the lake, you know. Really, Martinmas, if you don't have classes, you shouldn't waste a day like this dusting off broken pottery."

	Henry clenched his teeth. "I thought you were doing important research," he said. "You were telling us about it all afternoon at Mrs. Wilkes' tea last week."

	"Of course, of course." Macalester waved an airy hand. "Field theory applied to atomic nuclei. I really think I've latched onto something big. May change all history once it's put to engineering use. But we're human too, aren't we, Eileen?"

-

	They were walking toward Henry's office now. The girl turned to the archeologist: "What is this thing you've suddenly found?" she asked.

	He smiled, stretching the moment out, savoring his triumph. "Wait and see," he chortled. "Wait and see. It'll change a lot of ideas in a lot of fields. Better hold up on that, uh, nuclear theory till you have the information on this, Macalester."

	The physicist laughed and squeezed Eileen's arm in humorous intimacy. "So now you find the Chaldeans knew more about the atom than we do, eh?" he chuckled. "I suppose they got their knowledge from Atlantis."

	"Atlantis," said Henry stiffly, "was invented by Plato in his Critias. I have some observable facts to show you."

	"Um—it is really revolutionary, eh?" Wilkes stroked his ample chin. "Hm, most interesting if you're right, most interesting. Ah—might it be possible to get a preliminary report out soon? The catalogues will be going to press and it doesn't hurt a bit, you know, it doesn't hurt a bit, hah, hah; hah!" He laughed in Henry's direction as one man of the world at another.

	"Hah, hah, hah!" echoed Henry dutifully.

	They entered the cool dimness of Stockton Hall and went down the inside stairs for the basement level to which Henry had been relegated.

	"Be prepared for a surprise," he said hastily. "You won't believe it at first."

	"We trust our own senses, Dr. Martinmas," said Wilkes. It was not clear whether he was using the plural or the regal we.

	"Even if you see a live Babylonian god?" challenged Henry.

	"Certainly! I know when— what?"

	They stopped dead still, looking at him with uncomprehending eyes. "I knew you wouldn't believe it," laughed Henry. "You think I'm seventeen kinds of polka-dotted liar, don't you?" Confidence swelled in him. "Eileen and gentlemen, I am the high priest of Ashtaru the Terrible!"

	"You are not!" fumed Wilkes. "Members of the faculty can't hold outside posts without permission."

	"Look, old man," said Macalester in an offensively soothing voice, "you feel all right, don't you?" He pushed Eileen back with one arm, muttering dramatically, "Better get behind me."

	"Come on in, folks, and meet a god," Henry bowed. He was a little lightheaded.

	Eileen thrust Macalester aside and came up to the archeologist. There was a shining look about her which he had never seen. "Henry," she whispered, "Henry, is it true? It can't be."

	"Come see for yourself," he invited grandly.

	She backed away a step, a tiny frown between her brows, and he realized that a sensitive nose could probably catch a whiff of bourbon on his breath. Oh, well —just wait!

	They went down the hall toward his office door. Wilkes was puffing. "This is most irregular," he said, "Most irregular! How does one address a god? Where does he sit at table? To whom does one say grace then? Must he register as an alien?" He caught himself and harrumphed. "Dr. Martinmas, we appreciate your little joke, but I am a busy man and—what's that?"

	Henry stopped dead in front of his door. Then they all heard it, drifting out of the office and the storeroom behind the office,

-

	Somebody was whanging a gong. Somebody else was playing a whole orchestra of flutes, and it was the most lascivious, abandoned music" which had been heard since Nero. Tambourines were rattling, bells were jingling, lyres were plunking, and lusty drum-thumps beat a suggestive undertone to the teedle-eedle-eedle of the flutes. And there was a chorus of female giggling, and a masculine voice like a drunken foghorn was singing the unprintably vile Cathusalem in tones that shook the walls.

	"Oh, God, no!" screamed Henry. "I forgot that whiskey! He's blotto!"

	He opened the door and peered in with a hideous premonition. The reality was worse. Ashtaru was throwing a Babylonian orgy.

	He sat on the desk, crowned with vine leaves and melted butter, waving the fatal bottle in one hand while the other explored the person of a dancing girl. Casks of wine were heaped on the floor, many overturned and spilling their contents. A swarm of slaves was playing the music, stopping occasionally to refresh themselves with a drink or a girl. The dancers had by now shed almost everything except a few beads and were going into contortions which Henry would have sworn were physically impossible. It was like a fever dream by DeMille.

	"Come in, come in!" roared Ashtaru. "I been savin' one f you!"

	"You bloody bum!" howled the archeologist. "You bungler! You sot!"

	The god stiffened with wrath. "A bum, am I?" he shouted. "All right, then! You take care o' this 'f you so smart!" He grew rigid. The assorted male and female slaves shrank back in mute terror from his displeasure.

	Macalester pushed Henry aside and thrust himself into the room. There he stood in frozen awe while the other two entered behind him. Eileen screamed. Wilkes clutched his heart.

	"It's that damned god!" wailed Henry. "He's responsible!" He rushed over to the idol. "Ashtaru, put this mess back where it came from!"

	"Won't," said the god without moving his lips.

	Macalester whistled and shook his head. "Man, oh, man," he breathed, "when these quiet ones break loose they sure go all the way, don't they?"

	Wilkes found a gasping breath. "Martinmas," he bellowed, "take those creatures away this instant!"

	"I can't," cried Henry desperately, "Ashtaru brought them here. If I'd known, sir—"

	"Henry," sobbed Eileen, "Henry, how could you?"

	"It was easy," said Ashtaru behind the archeologist's back.

	"Shut up!" yelled Henry.

	"Oh!" Eileen shrank back against the wall.

	"No, not you!" Henry danced in his torment. "You!"

	Wilkes lifted his pince-nez to his eyes. "This is the most reprehensible spectacle I have ever imagined a depraved mind could even dream," he choked. He still managed somehow to be sonorous. "That anyone should even wish to look at something so revolting—" He riveted his gaze on the most lissome of the dancers. "Incredible!"

	"Ah, dry up, Muttonhead, grab one an' le's get on with the party," said Ashtaru impatiently.

	"Martinmas!" Wilkes' voice rose to a howl. "You dare cap your insolence by addressing me as—as—".

	"Muttonhead," supplied Ashtaru helpfully.

	"Thank you. As Muttonhead— What am I saying'?" Wilkes stormed over to Henry and shook his fists in the young man's agonized face. "This settles it!" he shouted. With an effort, he added more calmly, "Needless to say, the police will be here as soon as I can summon them." He looked back at the dancers and readjusted his pince-nez. "Revolting!"

	"Come, Eileen," said Macalester, taking her about the waist. "Let me bring you out of all this."

	She turned those glorious eyes back on the petrified Henry. Ashtaru must have made some signal, because a dark-haired Babylonian wench was just in the process of throwing herself into the archeologist's arms. With a little cry, Eileen turned and ran out of the door.

	Wilkes went last, going backward and keeping 'his eyes on the dancers, presumably lest they attack him. "Good-bye, Martinmas!" he snapped, and stamped out. A moment later he stuck his head back in the door and swept the room with a final look. "Disgusting!" he said.

-

	Henry slumped in his chair before the desk and buried his face in his arms.

	"Now d'you see I c'n work miracles'?" said Ashtaru belligerently.

	"I see you can ruin my career and my life," groaned Henry.

	"I'm uh god!" Ashtaru thumped his chest. "I'm Ashtaru the Terrible, an' I do what I wanna!"

	He coughed sharply.

	Henry sat up, pushing the insistent Babylonian dancer away. "You're a fake!" he snarled bitterly. "All you're good for is lousing things up. You should'a stayed buried. Ashtaru the Ass!"

	The god drew himself up to his full eighteen-inch height. "Be careful," he boomed. "Guard you' tongue, mortal, lessh you bring the ligh'nin's o' Ashtaru down to consume you wi' fire."

	Henry grabbed the bottle from his hands. "Gimme that!" screamed Ashtaru.

	"Fake.". Henry took a long drag. "Bazaar-god! Pot-god! Bungle-god! If you were fighting for Babylon, it's not strange Sennacherib won."

	The amorous slave-girl sidled up on his left. He pushed her back. "Go 'way," he said petulantly. "Don't bother me now."

-

	"Have a care, mortal," growled Ashtaru. "The patience o' me ish great, but the wrath ish terrible."

	"If you're so smart, why didn't you conjure things like th's up in the desert to while away the time?" asked Henry.

	Ashtaru looked embarrassed. "Well, I do need uh shrine an' uh high priesh or I got a'mosh no power," he admitted. Then, ominously: "But there's no reason now why I can' slay muh priesh 'n' fin' me 'nother."

	"Go ahead," jeered Henry. "I dare you."

	"I might conshume all thish town," hedged Ashtaru. "I mi' make the earth shwallow up thish whole nation. When I get angry I don' know m' own shtrength."

	"Horse maneuvers!"

	"All right!" bellowed Ashtaru in a drunken boiling of rage. He stamped his feet. "All right, you ashed for it! Now shall the unleashed wrath o' Ashtaru the Terrible ut-ter-ly conshume you wi' fire an' bring all the worksh o' you' days down about you' ashes. Come ligh'nin'! Come rain an' wind! Come earsh-quake! Deshtroy him!"

	A miniature thunderclap pattered overhead, and Henry felt a mild electric shock as small blue bolts leaped crackling about the room. The floor trembled just the tiniest bit. A little black cloud formed over the desk and poured about half a bucketful of rain down.

	The slaves screamed in panic and crowded into the farthest corner. Henry grinned mirthlessly and upended the bottle again. "Go ahead," he invited. "Bring on your lightning."

	"Tha'sh it ri' there!" chattered Ashtaru. "Can' you see?"

	"Sure. A few volts, maybe. I could do better with an automobile battery. I told you, Ashtaru, you're a very small god."

	Suddenly the idol collapsed on the desktop, screaming and beating it with his fists and kicking it with his feet. Henry took another long luxurious swallow of bourbon.

	"It was obvious enough," he said. "The ancient world was full of little local gods like you. Gods of a town, a street, a house, mildly helpful or harmful and therefore to be humored with an occasional short ritual or cheap offering. No wonder your name hasn't been recorded. Nobody outside your owner's house ever heard anything about you!"

	"That isn' so," gulped Ashtaru, rubbing the tears from his eyes. "I had uh whole street, I did."

	"Pot-god!" said Henry bitterly. "Alley-god! All you could do was get me in trouble, you—you —you idol of the marketplace!"

	Ashtaru burst into fresh weeping. "Go ahead," he sobbed. "Beat me. Abuse me. I'm jus' a li'l bazaar-god. I haven' any thin' t' shay. Ever'body picks on me. You might ash well."

	"You're drunk," said Henry. "You're a drunken swine." He took another long pull.

	The girl came behind him and threw her arms about his neck. He shuddered. "Ashtaru, get this evidence out of here before the cops come!"

	"You're k hell of a party-pooper," snuffled Ashtaru.

	"Well, save some wine," said Henry. "We'll need that."

-

	Ashtaru waved his hands and with small cracks of displaced air the slaves were gone. A few scattered veils, flutes, and blossoms lay among the wine-puddles.

	"And now," said Henry, "you've prevented my arrest, I suppose. But that's not going to give me my job back. It's not going to convince the girl I love I'm not a rounder. What'll you do about that, huh? What?"

	"I can' do any thin'," sobbed Ashtaru. "Go on, bawl me out. Kick me. I got it coming. An' I'm helplessh. You're free to bully me."

	He blew his nose. "I'd hoped f sho mush," he whimpered. "I didn' really expec' to get that temple, Dr. Martinmas. Honest I didn'. I jush' thought there wouldn' be no harm in tryin'. But it's cold an' lonesome out in the deshert, Mr. High Priesh, sir. All I really want is uh li'l shrine, an' maybe some offers now 'n' then, jush' flowers 'n' things. I don' need mush. But a god's got to have uh home the same as anybody elshe."

	Henry was beginning to feel the alcohol. What the devil—-he'd never had a chance with Eileen anyway. And Southmeadow was a hole, he'd be glad to shake its dust off his feet. Sure, what the heck, Ashtaru was a stranger in a strange land, lonely, scared, he'd wanted to give a party for his only friend and it wasn't his fault that notions of propriety had changed.

	He patted the god on the shoulder. "Cheer up," he said. "It's not that bad. We'll make out."

	"My friend," blubbered Ashtaru sentimentally. "My dear ol' pal."

	Sirens wailed outside. The entire Southmeadow police force, accompanied by the sheriff and the fire department, poured into the office.

	"Where are they?" barked the chief.

	"Where are who?" asked Henry innocently.

	"Where are those dancing girls?" cried the sheriff.

	"Dancing girls?" Henry raised his eyebrows. "Dancing girls?" He looked at the idol.. "Do we know any dancing girls, Ashtaru?"

	"The very thought!" Ashtaru lifted his hands in pious horror.

	"You've hidden them, you selfish rat!" accused the fire chief.

	"Any dancing girls you find, you can have," said Henry.

	"That's better," said the sheriff. "Start looking, boys!"

	Half an hour later, they had to leave. A few scraps of transparent silk are not evidence.

	"Poor Dr. Wilkes," sighed Henry to the police chief. "But these brilliant men always seem to crack early." He extended one of the several clay wine-jugs which Ashtaru had kept. "Have a nip."

	They had several nips before departing. Then man and god settled down to some serious sorrow-drowning.

-

	Hours later, the party was going good. Henry still firmly declined dancing girls, but there was no harm in pulling a few congenial Babylonians, Egyptians, and Minoans out of the past, swapping stories and song with them—Henry confirmed a suspicion that the standard dirty jokes are of prehistoric origin—and forgetting that there ever had been an outside world and a girl named Eileen.

	He was teaching Sam Hall to Pharaoh Amenhotep III when a thought struck him. He leaned over and shook Ashtaru.

	"Hey!" he said.

	"Oh, my name it is Sam Hall, it is Sam Hall," boomed Ashtaru.

	"Hey! Wake up! Listen!"

	"Yes, my name it is Sam Hall, it is Sam Hall."

	"Ashtaru!"

	"Oh, my name it is Sam Hall, "And I hate you one and all—

	Hugh, whuzzat? Whassamattuh?"

	"Ashtaru, these men 're from diff'nt ages—diff'nt languages —howinell we talkin' t' each other?"

	"Yes, I hate you one all and all, damn your eyes." "Ashtaru!"

	"Hm? Oh, uh, wuzzamuzza— Taught you, 'course. Ain't I uh god? I'm Ashtaru the Terrible. I c'n do anything. Oh, I killed a man, they say, so they say—"

	"You taught us? How? How?"

	"Mazhic, son, mazhic." Ashtaru bowed unsteadily and shook his hands together above his head. I know all'a lang'ages ever spoke, I do. Didn' have nothin't' do f' twenty-six hundred years but lie—lay—lie in 'at al' desh-ert, readin' minds—learned ever' lang'age ever was spoke—" Ashtaru blinked owlishly at the man. "How y' think I knew English, huh?"

	"Their alphabets, Ashtaru? Their alphabets?"

	He picked up the idol. "Ashtaru," he shouted, "Ashtaru, we're on our way!"

	"Party-pooper," grumbled the god, but dismissed their guests.

-

	Henry shook his head. The vision was clear, he was suddenly quite sobered by excitement though the exaltation remained.

	"Archeology," he whispered. "The puzzles no one has ever solved. The whole lore of the past! Why, I can crack the Cretan alphabet, the Etruscan, the Mayan—"

	"Would 'ey b'lieve you?" mumbled Ashtaru.

	"Certainly. I'll publish the key, they'll try it, see that it works— and I'll always know where to dig—Ashtaru, I'm famous! I'm rich!" Henry kissed the terracotta face.

	The god wiped himself with distaste. "Dancin' girls do better," he said grumpily.

	"Come on, Ashtaru, let's go!"

	Henry tucked the god under one arm and raced out of the building, babbling happily.

	Eileen was sitting on the little wharf with Macalester. They looked up in some confusion as the wild-eyed figure bounded up to them, and rose uncertainly.

	"Eileen!" cried Henry. "Eileen, I've done it!"

	"I'll say you have," snapped Macalester. "Now see here, Martinmas—"

	Henry thrust him aside and grabbed the girl and kissed her with enormous heartiness. "Eileen," he chattered, "Eileen, my darling, I've cracked every unknown alphabet in the world! I'm the new Champollion!"

	"You're the new maniac!" Macalester seized him by the shoulder and whirled him around. "Look here, Martinmas—"

	Macalester was picked up by an invisible force, shaken thoroughly, and dropped ungently on the grass.

	"He's insane!" screamed Macalester and began to run.

	"When I don't waste power on earthquakes," said Ashtaru, who seemed a little sobered by his wild ride, "I sling a pretty mean thunderbolt. Let's see now—"

	A long, thin, jagged blue streak reached out and singed Macalester in the seat of the pants. He howled and doubled his speed. A small rainstorm formed over his head and followed him out of sight.

	Henry turned back to the shrinking Eileen and held her with a sudden firm gentleness. Ashtaru climbed down his trousers to the wharf.

	"I'm not crazy, Eileen," said the man earnestly. "I wouldn't hurt you for—oh, darling, I've just made the discovery of the ages and it's excited me, that's all. If your father won't reinstate me, it doesn't matter. I'll be getting offers from Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Istanbul. And I love you. Will you marry me?"

	She studied Ashtaru doubtfully. "You mean it was the truth? You really have a Babylonian god?"

	She regarded him narrowly. Her voice began doubtfully, rising to a slow fury. "That was a mighty wild party he was throwing for you," she said. "Henry Martinmas, if you ever try that sort of thing again—"

	Henry opened his mouth. Ashtaru growled at him in Minoan: "If you ever bother to explain to her, man, then you are crazy!"

	Henry shut his mouth again and pulled her close. She struggled fiercely but not long.

	Ashtaru politely turned his back. He was sure now of a mantelpiece shrine, with incense and plenty of libations.

The End
sleipnir 2/29/2012