To the Land of the Living (12 page)

Holding his hands raised high, he went forward.

The caravan folk were slow to overcome their suspicions. Their leader, a burly, big-bellied man named van der Heyden, who had two ammunition belts slung over his middle and a weapon jutting under each arm, questioned them for a long while, asking where they had been, where they meant to go, whether they had companions to the rear. “We are only wandering huntsmen,” Gilgamesh replied, “and there are none of us but what you see.”

“Hunters? Out here? What’s to hunt out here?”

“We would have taken a more easterly track, but we were urged by the nature of the road into this canyon.”

“Then Brasil’s not your destination?”

“Hardly,” said Gilgamesh. “We wish to avoid it.”

Van der Heyden chuckled. “Not much chance of that now. This canyon comes out just to the mainland side of Brasil. You’ve got no way of avoiding it now.”

“What if we turn back?” Enkidu said.

“Then you’ll find yourself where you just were. And it’s a long hungry walk to get there.” The burly man’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t
look
like fools, either of you. But why would anyone want to be traveling like you are in a place like this? There’s got to be more to it than that.”

“What you see,” said Gilgamesh, “are two men who care nothing for the life of the cities, and seek only solitude – which proves harder to find in this part of the land than we had expected. We are not spies and we plan no treacheries. If you like, we’ll join you and give you whatever assistance you require until we emerge from this canyon, in return for our food and a blanket to cover us at night. If not, well, we’ll move on ahead, and make shift by ourselves.”

Van der Heyden considered that a moment.

“Can you fight?” he asked, at length.

“What do you suppose?” Enkidu said, grinning down from his great height.

“With what? Swords? Bows and arrows?”

“We do well with those,” said Gilgamesh. “But we have mastered your weapons also. If we are not wanted, though –”

“No,” van der Heyden said. “Come along with us. We can use a couple of fellows your size, I think.”

“In that case,” Gilgamesh said, “you should know that it is some days since last we ate anything.”

“So I suspected,” said van der Heyden.

The caravan was bound for Brasil out of the Outback city of Lo-yang, bearing a cargo of goods to sell in the city ruled by Simon Magus. Van der Heyden was careful not to specify the nature of the goods, nor were there any clues apparent. Plainly, from the heavy-set man’s close-mouthedness and from the uneasy way that the merchants had greeted the two Sumerians, the cargo was a precious one, and there were fears of brigandry in this area. But Gilgamesh asked no questions. His plan was only to travel with van der Heyden to the mouth of the canyon, and then to turn away, whether to north or south he did not know, in the hope of finding a route back into the unpopulated areas.

It was slow going. The canyon was barely wide enough to let the wagons pass, and in places it seemed impossible that they would get through at all; but van der Heyden had a trick of tipping the wagons up first on the left-hand wheels, then on the right, and somehow maneuvering them around the jutting bosses of rock that blocked the way in the narrowest places. Gradually the canyon grew wider; and the wind was softer and more moist here, a sure sign that they were approaching the coast. Now the canyon walls sloped outward instead of rising sheerly, and there was some vegetation on them. And there was game to be caught. Though the caravan had provisions of its own, van der Heyden evidently had intended to supplement them with animals taken along the way, and the Sumerians earned the price of their transport by going out on hunting expeditions along the slopes.

Generally Gilgamesh and Enkidu hunted together. But on one occasion Gilgamesh went alone, and a great error it proved to be.

The lead wagon had thrown one of its wheels that day. It lay yawed over practically on its side, having cut a deep rut with its bare axle in the powdery red earth. Van der Heyden pounded its sides in perplexity; and then, turning toward the massive Sumerians, called out, “Here! You two, lend us a hand!”

“We’re going out hunting,” said Gilgamesh. “Those hills up there are rich with game.”

“Well, one of you go, then, and the other give us some help. We’ve got to lift the damned wagon, don’t you see?”

Gilgamesh hesitated. A surge of anger ran through him. Lifting wagons out of ruts was no work for one who had once been a king; and there was good hunting waiting for him. He would have replied hotly to van der Heyden, but Enkidu, as if sensing what was about to happen, put his hand quickly to his friend’s arm and said to the other, “I’ll help you with your wagon. My brother Gilgamesh will go to seek the game.”

“Enkidu –”

“It’s all right, brother. I’ll put their wagon to rights, and if there’s still enough light by the time I’m done, I’ll follow your trail and join you in the hills. Go. Go, now, while the game’s still in your grasp.”

“But –”

“Go,” Enkidu said again.

Gilgamesh watched, still angered, as Enkidu went to join the group straining at the wagon. Putting his shoulder to the wagon’s side, Enkidu gestured to Gilgamesh to take his leave; and after a moment, scowling, the Sumerian nodded and stalked away. It was already late in the day for hunting. Quickly he clambered up the slope of the canyon wall, clinging to the twisted, gnarled trunks of the almost leafless shrubs that sprouted here. Some white-furred creature not much larger than a goat came bounding out suddenly, looked at him in amazement, and took off in frantic leaps toward the top of the wall. Gilgamesh at once gave chase, never taking his eyes from the dazzling whiteness of the beast as he ascended. The meat would be tasty, perhaps; the hide would make a splendid cloak, beyond any doubt. Up he went, and up still farther, and through a cleft in the flank of the canyon wall, and onward, and onward, tirelessly following the flash of white.

In the end he lost the creature entirely, to his great annoyance. But he prowled more deeply into the secondary canyon that he had come upon, thinking he might find another that was like it. That proved a hopeless quest, and he had to settle for smaller and less pleasing game. As the shadows began to deepen
Gilgamesh retraced his steps, emerging from the little canyon into the main one, and starting downward then toward the place where the caravan had halted.

The caravan was shielded from his sight by a dip in the canyon wall. He was unable to see it until he was halfway down; but what he saw then, before any of the wagons came into view, was a plume of black smoke that somehow did not seem like the smoke of a camp-fire. Gilgamesh raced forward to the far side of the dip, and looked over the edge.

“Gods!” he cried.

The wagons lay scattered and overturned on the valley floor as though they had been tossed about by the hand of the king of the demons. Some were ablaze. All had been split open and ransacked. And everywhere about them lay the merchants, weltering in their own blood. Gilgamesh saw van der Heyden lying on his back, eyes staring rigidly. There was a great wound in his chest. Others had fallen face down, or had managed to scramble halfway under one of the wagons. No one was moving.

“Enkidu?” Gilgamesh called.

He let slip the animals he was carrying and ran in wild skidding strides down to the floor of the valley. At close range the scene was one of even more frightful devastation than he had thought. They were all dead here, the men, the women, the children, even the pack animals, all but one big brindle dog, Ajax by name, who ran up and down, barking furiously. And they had been slain with a ferocity and a vehemence that even battle-hardened Gilgamesh found repellent: a terrible butchery, a ghastly slaughter. The wagons had been ransacked and utterly destroyed.

And Enkidu? Where was Enkidu?

The sense of his absence rang in Gilgamesh’s mind like the tolling of a terrible bell.

Frantically he searched behind this wagon and under that one, and with all his great strength he roared the name of his friend; but of Enkidu there was no sign at all, neither of his person nor of his weapons. That was puzzling. Had the attackers carried him off? So it would seem – unless Enkidu had not been here at all when the attack took place, unless he had set out into the hills in search of Gilgamesh, and somehow they
had missed each other’s path when Gilgamesh had returned from the hunt –

No. In this narrow canyon it was impossible that Enkidu would have failed to find and follow Gilgamesh’s trail. And Gilgamesh’s echoing cries – surely Enkidu would have heard those, no matter how far he had wandered –

“Enkidu! Enkidu!”

Gilgamesh went on bellowing his friend’s name until his voice was in shreds, but to no purpose. Night was falling now. Enkidu would certainly come down from those hills as darkness approached, if he was up there at all. Gone again, then? Dead? Carried off into slavery?

Baffled, sorely troubled, Gilgamesh hauled the smoldering wagons together to form a pyre, and threw the mutilated bodies of the dead on them, and stood by, uttering the words that were proper, while the flames blazed upward. Then he turned and walked away, heading swiftly westward in the gathering shadows. He did not want to spend the night in this place of death. His soul felt empty. He had had so little time, this last reunion, before Enkidu was snatched away once more. Gods, thought Gilgamesh, are we never to be allowed to remain together?

The dog Ajax followed him. Gilgamesh waved him back, but the dog, barking in such a frenzy as if he were struggling to speak in words, would not be dismissed. Gilgamesh had no wish for a dog; and yet he realized he could hardly abandon the animal here to die. In any case sending the dog away appeared impossible. “Come, then,” Gilgamesh told him, and they walked on together through the night.

When there was light enough for him to see again, Gilgamesh realized that he had come to the mouth of the canyon. The walls had opened here and were so low that they were nothing more than an embankment, far off on each side. To the north and south rose great mountains that belched flame and smoke that stained the sky. Ahead of him lay a broad plain, strangely dotted with ghostly twisted masses of pink stone something like the stalagmites one sometimes sees in caves, rising by the hundreds and seeming for all the world to be a multitude of petrified souls set close by one another. Behind these he saw a camp of tents, with people moving about them; and still farther in the distance was a shimmering body
of water, and a ship with a scarlet sail riding at anchor just off shore. He had reached the White Sea of the far west.

Breaking into a steady loping trot, Gilgamesh ran forward through the field of strange stone shapes toward the place of the tents. Men in costumes that seemed Roman to him looked up as he approached.

“Who are you?” a sentry demanded.

“Gilgamesh of Uruk is who I am. I seek my friend, Enkidu by name, who –”

“Come with me.”

“You know where Enkidu is?”

“Come with me,” said the sentry again, impassively.

Wearily Gilgamesh let himself be led along into the group of tents, and to one that was larger than the rest, made of fabric of great richness and many colors. Within, sprawling on a sort of wooden throne, was a man of late middle years, balding, portly, fleshy-faced, his face mottled with red blotches, his eyes red-rimmed from too much wine and too little sleep.

The sentry said, “We found him wandering around near the Frozen Souls, your majesty. He calls himself Gilgamesh of Uruk, and he says that he’s looking for –”

The man on the throne waved the sentry to silence. Leaning forward, he studied Gilgamesh with keen curiosity.

“Uruk?” he said. “You come from Uruk?”

“It was the city of my birth.”

“Indeed. Gilgamesh of Uruk.
Uruk
, truly?”

“Of Uruk, yes,” said Gilgamesh with some irritation.

“That city of great treasure,” the other said, and a misty look came into his eyes. “That city so dear to my soul. How remarkable, to meet one who comes from Uruk! And have you been there lately, my friend?”

Gilgamesh stared. “How could that be? Uruk is long gone, and all but forgotten.”

“Is it? No, I think not. Neither gone nor forgotten, but merely hard to find, according to the reports I hear.” The man on the throne gave him a long slow look. “Yet perhaps we could find it, you and I.”

“Uruk was a city of the other world.”

“It is a city of this world also. With many people of your kind living there.”

“It is?” said Gilgamesh, bewildered. “There are?” That was impossible. In all his years in the Afterworld he had heard nothing of that. “A new Uruk, here? Who says? Where? What are you telling me?”

“Where? Ah, that is something I hope to learn. For I would like greatly to find this place Uruk, you see. Its wealth is beyond counting. Its treasure fills storehouse upon storehouse. You and I could find it together, I think. We are in need of a grand adventure, we Brasilians, and what could be more splendid than to go in quest of Uruk, eh? Does that interest you, friend Gilgamesh, to journey with me in search of Uruk?”

In rising annoyance verging on anger Gilgamesh cried, “Who are you? What is this all about?”

“I? Did no one tell you?” The blotchy-faced man laughed. “I am the master of the isle of Brasil, Simon Magus by name. That is my ship in the harbor. We will be sailing soon for my city, which lies just across the bay. Will you come with us? Yes, Gilgamesh, come with me to Brasil.” He beckoned a servant. “Some wine for Gilgamesh! Gilgamesh of Uruk!” Again Simon laughed. “Come with me to Brasil, yes. And let us speak of finding the treasures of long-lost Uruk, you and I. What do you say, Gilgamesh? What do you say?”

There was fire everywhere: red fire in the sky, blue fire in the water, green fire dancing along the rim of the shore that receded behind the swiftly moving boat. The air had the stink of sulphur about it, and worse things. The clouds here were thick and heavy, with fat gray bellies that scraped against the nearby mountains. And the mountains themselves were demons in stone: a dozen angry volcanoes that were spewing fumes and flame up and down the coastal plain as far as Gilgamesh could see. Out here on the western edge of the Afterworld, beyond the bleak plains of the Outback, it seemed to the
Sumerian that the whole world must be burning, down to its deepest roots.