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flesh that had been ripped away, at her rivers turned to arteries of dust, at her rolling hills and green
fields slagged to greenglass and ashes. The voices of his mother and the mother that was Earth
became one, and mingled to become Snake’s voice telling him he was the one man in the world--the
last man in the world--who could end the terminal case the Earth had become.
Use the needle. Put the suffering Earth out of its misery. It belongs to you now.
Nathan Stack was secure in the power he contained. A power that far outstripped that of gods
or Snakes or mad creators who stuck pins in their creations, who broke their toys.
YOU CAN’T. I WON’T LET YOU.
Nathan Stack walked around the burning bush as it crackled impotently in rage. He looked at
it almost pityingly, remembering the Wizard of Oz with his great and ominous disembodied head
floating in mist and lightning, and the poor little man behind the curtain turning the dials to create
the effects. Stack walked around the effect, knowing he had more power than this sad, poor thing
that had held his race in thrall since before Lilith had been taken from him.
He went in search of the mad one who capitalized his name.
23
Zarathustra descended alone from the mountains, encountering no one. But when he came
into the forest, all at once there stood before him an old man who had left his holy cottage to look
for roots in the woods. And thus spoke the old man to Zarathustra:
“No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago he passed this way. Zarathustra he was
called, but he has changed. At that time you carried your ashes to the mountains; would you now
carry your fire into the valleys? Do you not fear to be punished as an arsonist?
“Zarathustra has changed, Zarathustra has become a child, Zarathustra is an awakened one;
what do you now want among the sleepers? You lived in your solitude as in the sea, and the sea
carried you. Alas, would you now climb ashore? Alas, would you again drag your own body?”
Zarathustra answered: “I love man.”
“Why,” asked the saint, “did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved
man all too much? Now I loved God; man I love not. Man is for me too imperfect a thing. Love of
man would kill me.”
“And what is the saint doing in the forest?” asked Zarathustra.
The saint answered: “I make songs and sing them; and when I make songs, I laugh, cry, and
hum: thus I praise God. With singing, crying, laughing, and humming, I praise the god who is my
god. But what do you bring us as a gift?”
When Zarathustra had heard these words he bade the saint farewell and said: “What could I
have to give you? But let me go quickly lest I take something from you!” And thus they separated,
the old one and the man, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone he spoke thus to this heart: “Could it be possible? This old
saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!”
24
Stack found the mad one wandering in the forest of final moments. He was an old, tired man,
and Stack knew with a wave of his hand he could end it for this god in a moment. But what was the
reason for it? It was even too late for revenge. It had been too late from the start. So he let the old
one go his way, wandering in the forest, mumbling to himself, I WON’T LET YOU DO IT, in the
voice of a cranky child; mumbling pathetically, OH, PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO GO TO BED
YET. I’M NOT YET DONE PLAYING.
And Stack came back to Snake, who had served his function and protected Stack until Stack
