The hook, in god-games, isn’t the destructive power or capriciousness. Sure, you can drop a volcano on Manhattan or fling your worshippers at distant islands, but so what? One might as well build a block city and kick it over in a raging second: fun, but not for long, and you have to clean it up.

No, Alejandro knows, it’s benevolence that addicts you. When else is doing good so easy, so clear, so quickly rewarded? If real kindness were like this, he thinks (drumming with pencils and wishing he was playing another turn), shit, he’d probably be a volunteer.