Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (55 page)

     In this way will your servants go unto the heaven in the heavens.

     The sky-arrow must have a house within [it] for one hundred people and journey-animals for food and drink and their fodder. We must carry the sacred [literally, “force of the Night-gods”] serpents for ritual in the heavens.”

     “Do then what the Lord of the Night-gods commands”, [said] the King unto Krani-mhrod.

     It was done.

     Akri-mun-zi was 500 years old, and Krani-mhrod was 147, [he was] yet young when the sky-arrow was completed.

     Within it was the house for men and beasts, much food and water, and devices for replenishing [literally, “making-again”] water and air.

     There was a sacred place for the serpents.

     Three moons passed and day unto day the servants filled the sky-arrow with goods for the journey.

     Yet all men were in fear of the journey, for none before had returned in the small sky-arrows that did fly.

     Krani-mhrod said unto them:

     “It is the will of the Lord of the Night-gods that you depart,

     For this is to shame the sky-god [our] enemy.

     You will not return, but you and your women and your offspring will live

     In the heaven in the heavens. And I shall go with you.”

     Still, the people were in fear.

     Then did the serpent head appear after long absence from the mouth of She-Who-Sees-Far

     In the temple of the Lord of the Night-gods.

     The serpent said:

     “You shall not die. You shall live.

     Marvels I will show you. Above the blanket is a wondrous sea, and you will go upon it as wind fills the sails of the river-boats.

     The earth is round as fruit of the vine, the blanket is thin.

     It is not [a] wall made by the sky-god [your] enemy. It is but water.

     In the heaven in the heavens you shall be as the Night-gods and walk to and fro among us.”

     Then did the people take heart [literally, “strength came into them”].

     They filled the ship until full.

     Then did the Ap-kalu of those times speak unto the King:

     “Now you must command the people to enter the sky-arrow.

     No longer is it to be called a sky-arrow, for it must have a name.

     Its name shall be after the beast in the swamp-forest that is sacred to the Lord of the Night-gods.”

     “I will name it as he commands”, said the King unto the Ap-kalu.

     A great [indecipherable]
⁸
was captured by men in the swamp-forest, and brought unto the city. Many died in [its] capture[ing].

     Great roaring it made, and its breath was fire without flame, for the drops of it burn holes in flesh. [Its] claws cut into pieces a bull given unto it, [though] the beast was caged [literally, “bound in iron-house”].

     It was mighty. It was [obscure pictograph]
⁹
unto the Lord of the Night-gods.

     In the seventeen[th] day after the full moon, in the month of departure [literally, “ship up-going”], word was brought unto the King: “O King, we bear tidings of amusement [literally, “bring laughter to the mouth”] [said] the message-bearers. “A man builds another sky-arrow.”

     “What sky-arrow is this?” [said] the King. “I have granted no permission for it.

     There is but one and it is the heavens-ship named [pictograph of the beast].”

     “This is so, O great King, [yet] he builds it”, [said] the message-bearers.

     “Where does he build?” [said] the King.

     “He builds it in a place of no-waters, in the forest beyond the mountains”, they answered the King and trembled.

     Then did the King consult She-Who-Sees-Far and the Ap-kalu.

     These two said as one voice:

     “The sky-god is shamed. He is angry.

     The sky-god has spoken unto a fool in the forest,

     Commanding him to build a ship in mockery of the great heavens-ship.”

     And the King said unto the seers:

     “This makes insult to the Lord of the Night-gods. Break up [its] metal as salvage [literally, “find-save”] for my forges.”

     “It is great in size, O King, and made of wood”, said the Ap-kalu [in] his own tongue. It was not the god speaking through him.

     “Then I send a host of my men”, said the King. “They will burn it.”

     Once again the Night-god spoke in the mouth of the Ap-kalu:

     “Many [hand within circle] times many [hand within circle] men must you send forth to burn it. Slay the fool in the forest, you must. Slay also
¹⁰
his woman and his sons and their women. When you have burnt the ship, O King, you must bury the ashes in a pit and cover it with stones [so that] nothing remains in memory [of it.]”

     Then did the King send a great company of men unto the forest.

     There they found the ship and its makers at work with wood,

     With mallet and axe and teeth-saw in the old way.

     They dropped their tools and stood silent when they saw

     The host that ringed them all about.

     The eldest, white of hair, knelt on the earth, and all his offspring and their wives did as he.

     “You plead for my mercy”, said the Captain of Hosts. “Yet no mercy shall be granted, for I come at the bidding of the King, and he bids you [to] die.”

     The old man lifted his head and he said:

     “Not to you, do I kneel, O Captain of the King, but to the one who bade me make this ship.”

     “This is a ship upon dry land”, said the Captain. “It is a fool’s ship, for it is too wide for the river or the lake, and too heavy for bearing to [those] waters.”

     “Soon, O Captain, the waters will come to the ship”, said the old man.

     And all the host laughed.

     “Before you die, tell me who bade you make this thing”, said the Host-Captain.

     The old man said:

     “The one who is above the blanket of waters. The one who made the flames in the heavens and this earth and all living things that move upon it.”

     The Host-Captain answered:

     “The Lord of the Night-gods made them. He did not bid you make this wood-ship.

     The Lord of the Night-gods commands that you will die.”

     The old man said:

     “I do not speak of that one. He who you name makes only death and confusion [literally, “mix-thoughts”] in the minds of men. Your god is not seen with the eyes, yet his serpent shows him well enough.”

     Then did all the host fall into rage at this insult.

     The Host-Captain gave command, and the men moved to enclose the ship and its makers with fire-torch and sword and other diverse weapons.

     Yet they stopped and could make no near step; they could move no closer than a spear-throw.

     Some hurled their spears, but they fell short.

     And the Host-Captain and the host departed,

     For consultation with the King and the seers.

     When they had come unto the King, the King said:

     “Is the fool in the forest no more?”

     “O Great King,” said the Host-Captain, “a hand unseen stops us and the fool yet lives.”

     “What hand unseen is this?” said the King.

     “I do not know”, said the Host-Captain. And the King slew him in the court of the palace.

     Then did the King consult She-Who-Sees-Far and the Ap-kalu.

     These two said with one voice:

     “The sky-god is shamed. The sky-god is angry. Yet he is small.

     He bids a mouse to build a box of wood to mock the great ship.

     The mouse will die and all his offspring with him.

     Go now and make great sacrifice in the face of the fool and his ship.”

     This the King did.

     The King and all his host, and many others of the city went down unto the forest.

     There they found the fool and his offspring at work with wood

     And mallet and axe and teeth-saw.

     When they saw the great numbers of the King-Host, they fell to their knees and bowed their heads.

     “You plead for my mercy”, said the King unto them. “Yet no mercy shall be given to you,

     For you mock the Lord of the Night-gods and you mock the great ship and you mock me who am the King of all the lands. Now you must die.”

     The old man stood and looked from afar at the King, yet his voice was strong.

     He said:

     “O King, I work with my hands.

     At the bidding of the one you call sky-god,

     The one who is the Sky-father over all.”

     When [they] heard [it], the seers fell into a frenzy, and the King fell into a rage.

     The old man in his folly spoke onward:

     “There is but one God and he is Sky-father.

     There is but one God, and he is maker of all things.

     There is but one God, and he shall crush the serpent.”

     At this, the King gave command, and the host rushed forward to slay the fool and all who dwelled with him, and [to] burn the ship.

     But they fell back, and none could account [for it].

     Then did the Ap-kalu speak:

     “The sky-god makes a wall not seen by the eyes.

     The sky-god is shamed. He is angry. Yet he is small.

     We must make the sacrifice.”

     And all men withdrew a ways and the sacrifice was prepared.

[Now follows a description that is heavily loaded with hieroglyphs, indicating ritual significance. The ratio of pictograph and ideograph to straight text increases fourfold in this final portion of the codex. It is dominated by the signs for blood-letting, the serpent, the name of the Lord of the Night-gods, and sexual intercourse. The following is an approximation.
—D. I. Mirza
]

     In the place of no-waters, the Lord of the Night-gods made victory

     Over the small god, the sky-god.

     With us he made victory, for we gave unto him

     First three children [literally, “the small who speak”]

     And ten more cut from the womb [literally, “mother-belly”], [undecipherable pictograph] in pieces.
[Undecipherable text] their scream[ing] is the chant of praise.

     The King gave the fruit of his body, one son and one daughter from his house, man and woman grown, unto the fire.
[Undecipherable text] their scream[ing] is a chant of praise.

     Then the host did [pictographs for sexual intercourse and bloodletting] upon one hundred children.
[Undecipherable text] their scream[ing] is the chant of praise.
And their bodies [undecipherable pictograph] unto the fire.

     Unrobed, [literally, “flesh-without-cloth”] in the light of flame-torches and the sacrifice fires, we circled the wood-ship.

     We made the serpent-dance. All the host made the coil from the time of light-fade until the blanket awoke.
¹¹

At this point, Dariush broke my concentration when he reached over and took the next two sheets of paper from my hands, leaving me with several still to be read.

“Pardon me, Neil”, he said with a note of severity. “What follows is extremely graphic in describing the ritual activities. I think there is no need for you to focus on it. The foregoing indicates well enough what occurred.”

“May I proceed?”

“Yes, please continue.”

     When the sky-blanket awoke, all the host lay down upon the ground.

     They slept unrobed, their bodies with blood and ash anointed,

     And full of the fruit of the vine.

     The King slept in his tent [literally, “journey-sky-cover”].

     Krani-mhrod and Nih-kri-zi slept with him in the tent.

     The Ap-kalu alone, and one other, stood with eyes open,

     With eyes upon the wood-ship.

     I who write this was the other. I am Ti-shmi, the scribe [literally, “he who keeps the King’s memories”].

     Ap-kalu and Ti-shmi saw the fool come forth with his sons.

     They came near to us, and the unseen wall did not stop them.

     We cried the alarm, but none of the host awoke.

     Then did the fool and his sons dig a pit in the midst of the camp, [while] all about them slept.

     From the coming of the light until it began to fade, they dug [it].

     Ap-kalu and Ti-shmi, [we] two sought to rouse the King, [but] he slept and would not awake.

     As the light grew less, the fool and his sons gathered the bodies from the sacrifice stone [possibly “altar”] and placed them in the pit.

     This was insult to the Lord of the Night-gods,

     For many bodies were yet unburned, and the Lord of the Night-gods commands burned flesh, for it is sweet to him.

     All the pieces they placed in the pit.

     With buckets, they gathered the pools of blood and poured them

     Into the pit. The day was [very]
¹²
hot.

     We sought to stop them, [but] the arms of the Ap-kalu are old

     And the arms of Ti-shmi are not-strong; one is withered.

     And still none awoke.

     The fool and his sons covered the body-pit with soft-soil.

     They knelt upon the ground and made many tears and loud cries.

     The Ap-kalu and Ti-shmi cursed them by the power of the Night-gods [but] no closer did we approach; there was the wall of the sky-god.

     When they were done, they turned their backs to us.

     The fool looked not our way. He shielded his eyes

     And went back unto the wood-ship.

     The Ap-kalu and Ti-shmi this we saw; [we] two alone.

     The blanket night was upon us,

     And still the King and his hosts slept and nothing would awake them.

     When the blanket light returned,

     Then did all men arise and were hungry

     And they ate.

     To the King went the Ap-kalu and Ti-shmi and spoke

     [of what] the fool had done.

     Then did the Ap-kalu in the King’s presence and the presence of the lesser seers of the temple, go into a trance [literally, “the Night-god fills him-speaks”]