by Brian Godawa
He had to make his move.
He tried to break the rhythm of the attackers by blocking with his axe instead of dodging.
Unfortunately, their strength was incredible and he could feel their hits ring through his whole body to its core. He almost lost his grip on his own axe. That strategy would not work for long.
On top of all this, Urshanabi, the little bugger, had come near enough to keep shouting invectives at Gilgamesh as he fought, though careful to stay out of reach. Gilgamesh did not know what would wear him down first, the axes of the rock warriors or the annoying tongue of their shrill commander.
“Die, you piece of Mesopotamian filth! Kill him! Kill him NOW, you stupid blockheads! Why have you come for me mercenary?!”
Gilgamesh yelled back, “I did not come to kill you!” He dodged another swing, and clanged his blade against the other.
“Well, why are you here?!” shouted Urshanabi.
“Call them off and we can talk!” Gilgamesh shouted back. Clang! Another near miss. He was tiring. Maybe he would not take these warriors out so easily after all.
“Oh, sure,” yelled Urshanabi, “that is just what you want, so you can kill me and drag me back for the bounty!”
So that was the reason for his hostile reaction. He must have been hiding out from justice. After all he had been through, Gilgamesh was about to be killed at the screeching commands of a two-bit outlaw.
Another dodge. And this time, he felt the blade nick his chest and draw blood.
But it threw the Stone One off balance just a little. Enough for Gilgamesh to see that this would be his last chance before succumbing to fatigue and their blades.
He stepped in toward it and brought his blade down on the shaft of the other axe. Connection! The shaft cut in half.
And then Gilgamesh spun around in a full circle to maximize his impact and brought the blade right at the neck of the Stone One. If he had hit it anywhere else, it would have shattered the blade with a mere chip off the old rock. But the neck was the thinnest part of the earthen warrior.
The blade connected with a resounding CRUNCH and severed the head from the body. But it also mangled Gilgamesh’s blade into a useless crumpled piece of metal. The impact was so hard, he fell to the ground.
He looked up to see the now lifeless body of the Stone One falling down upon him like an avalanche. He rolled.
The Stone One fell to the ground shaking the earth and missed crushing Gilgamesh by inches.
But then Gilgamesh looked up only to see the other Stone One with blade raised high, swinging down to cleave him in two.
Instinctively, Gilgamesh rolled again and the blade buried deep into the ground by his head.
The Stone One had not calculated for the gnarly tree roots in the earth and his blade was instantly entangled in the pliable maze.
Gilgamesh jumped up, ran up the shaft and the arms of the Stone One as it struggled to wrench it free. He flipped over its head, grabbing its neck on the way down.
He was now hanging on the back of the Stone One off its neck. It tried to reach behind to grab him, but its arms were too bulky. Rock was not very flexible.
It spun in a circle trying to grab him, and Gilgamesh noticed that they were headed straight for a tree. He was going to be crushed like a bug.
He hung on with one arm and drew his dagger with his other. It would be utter foolishness to think he could cut the throat of a golem made of stone. But he was not going to cut the throat.
He dug the blade into its mouth and leveraged the lips open. The Stone One spun further, whirling violently. He hit a tree. Gilgamesh lost his breath. And he could feel a couple of his ribs crack under the impact. He screamed out in pain and almost lost his grip.
But he held on. The Stone One reached up and grabbed Gilgamesh’s dagger wrist and was about to rip his limb off his body, when Gilgamesh reached around its neck with his other hand and felt inside the mouth of the monster.
His probing fingers touched the parchment, grabbed it and yanked it out of the mouth.
The Stone One froze instantly, its hand still grasping Gilgamesh.
It had worked. Pulling the written spell out of its mouth had sucked the life out of the creature. It was living stone no more.
Gilgamesh wrested his hand from its grip and jumped down to the ground. He grabbed his back in pain and with a big growl heaved and pushed the Stone One onto the ground on its face with a thud, breaking it in several pieces.
Gilgamesh looked at the spell. It was pretty high level sorcery that he could not fully understand. But he folded it and tucked it away in his belt pouch for future use.
Then he turned and glared at Urshanabi who stood staring back at him in fear, no longer hurling invectives as fast as his mouth could move.
Gilgamesh trounced over to Urshanabi and then complained with a whining voice, “What were you thinking? I told you I was coming in peace! I said I had the blessing of Shiduri! Do you not listen to people?”
Urshanabi looked downcast at the forest floor and said, “I am sorry. I am a tad hot headed and impulsive.”
“A tad?” exclaimed Gilgamesh. “I almost got crushed to death by your block heads! You call that a ‘tad’?”
“I was afraid!” blurted Urshanabi. “You are a Gibborim! Should I not fear for my life?”
Gilgamesh stopped. He had a point.
“How can I make it up to you?” asked Urshanabi.
“Oh, you will make it up to me,” said Gilgamesh. “You will take me to Dilmun to the Land of the Living where Noah ben Lamech lives.”
Urshanabi sighed. “That, I am afraid, is no longer possible.”
“What do you mean no longer possible?” said Gilgamesh. “You are Noah’s boatman and your boat is docked on the shoreline.”
“Yes, you speak the truth,” said Urshanabi, “but you just destroyed the only oarsman capable of getting us to Noah: The Stone Ones.”
Gilgamesh sighed. The day was not going well.
Urshanabi explained, “You see, in order to travel to Dilmun, we must cross the cosmic sea for three days. But the waters that surround the island are called the Waters of Death.”
“I have heard of them,” said Gilgamesh.
“For any human, touching the Waters of Death is instant death. A mere splash of the water while rowing will kill you. So I always took one Stone One to be my oarsman through the Waters of Death. They were not humans so they could not die.”
“Well, that is just great, boatman,” said Gilgamesh. “You had better put that impulsive nature to good use and give me one good reason why I should not crush your skull for your incompetence that just ruined my search for immortality.”
“Wait,” interrupted Urshanabi. “You are seeking immortality?”
“Yes,” said Gilgamesh.
“Is that why your face looks sunken, your jowls hollow, and your mood wretched?” said Urshanabi.
Sunken face? Thought Gilgamesh. You should talk, skeleton man.
“My friend, Enkidu, whom I loved deeply,” started Gilgamesh. But then he stopped himself. “I am not going to rehearse for you my reasons. Noah ben Lamech is my distant relative and I seek his audience. Now, how are you going to help me get there?”
Urshanabi thought for a moment, then brightened up.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Go into the forest and cut me three hundred punting poles, each, one hundred feet long.”
Punting poles were used to propel a boat along in shallow waters.
“Since no human hand can touch the Waters of Death, then you can use each pole once to propel the boat forward, and leave it in the water. That way, you need never touch the deathly seas.”
It was genius. It would get Gilgamesh to his destination.
And it was a lot of hard work.
“Three hundred?” complained Gilgamesh. He had just exerted every ounce of energy he had taking down four rocky brutes and now he would have to cut down, trim, and furnish three hundred poles with two broken
ribs and no strength left?
Urshanabi gestured to his own scrawny figure and said, “I would help you, but I think you would be waiting a long time before I would be of any benefit.”
Gilgamesh chortled in agreement, picked up an ax and was about to embark on his new exhausting task, when Urshanabi dropped a big egg on him.
“But you had better hurry. It takes three days for us to get there and the new moon arrives in four days.”
“So, what is the problem?” asked Gilgamesh.
“It is spring tide season. At the full moon the tide will be so low, we could get stranded in the Waters of Death. We would be unable to get out and wade the waters without perishing.”
“But do not tides change from low to high every twelve hours?” said Gilgamesh.
“Not in Dilmun,” said Urshanabi. “In Dilmun, its every fifteen days.”
Gilgamesh gave him a skeptical look.
Urshanabi turned defensive. “It is a magical island. Do not blame me.”
Gilgamesh sighed and said, “Well, it does not surprise me. I have had one pain in the rear end after another. And I am sure they are not going to stop after this.”
Chapter 43
It took Gilgamesh a little longer than he had hoped to cut down his punting poles and trim and furnish them for the trip to Dilmun and the Waters of Death. He shackled Urshanabi to a tree to insure that he did not try to run away. Unfortunately, Gilgamesh wished that he had run away because his relentless croaking critical voice was insufferable. He critiqued almost every move Gilgamesh made. First, his chop was sloppy; then, his poles were not trimmed straight enough; then he was not applying a thick enough varnish of bitumen on them. Finally, Gilgamesh decided to shackle Urshanabi’s mouth so he could finish his task in peace. He stuffed some leaves into his cake hole and wrapped a piece of cloth around his mouth to keep them from coming out.
When he finished piling the poles on board the craft, he released Urshanabi and ungagged him.
But before Urshanabi could begin a new string of complaints, Gilgamesh held up his finger to his face to shut him up and said, “Urshanabi, I am done with your belligerent faultfinding and calumny. You will not speak unless spoken to or I will cut out your tongue. Am I understood?”
Urshanabi nodded his head yes. He was trembling with terror because he knew Gilgamesh would do it.
“Now, how many days did you say we have before low tide?” asked Gilgamesh.
Urshanabi was afraid to answer.
“It is all right. I spoke to you,” said Gilgamesh, trying to calm his fears.
Urshanabi kept it concise as he was thinking of losing his most valued appendage to the blade. “Three.”
Gilgamesh had taken a full day to accomplish his task.
Gilgamesh smiled. “Well done, boatman. A single word answer, and that without complaint or provocation. I am proud of you.”
Gilgamesh slapped him on the back. His larger than life personality was contagious. Urshanabi gave a half smile and caught his breath that was almost knocked out of him.
“I packed the beer and food as well,” said Gilgamesh.
Urshanabi raised his hand like a humble schoolboy.
“What?” smiled Gilgamesh.
Urshanabi said darkly, “It is a five day row.”
“I thought you said three days,” said Gilgamesh.
“For a Stone One who does not have to rest,” said Urshanabi. “You did not stipulate.”
They were already a day behind when Gilgamesh began his task and it had taken him the better part of a full day to cut, trim, and finish all three hundred punting poles now in the boat.
He thought to himself for a moment. He could not stand fifteen days with this unbearable bellyaching malcontent, waiting for the next high tide. Keeping him gagged for those fifteen days would only breed bitterness and revenge that would backfire on Gilgamesh. He would simply have to push himself to the limit, double his efforts and row a five day trip in three days, while suffering complete exhaustion from the previous two days of fighting Stone Ones, breaking ribs, and cutting three hundred punting poles.
“Well, it should not be too difficult,” said Gilgamesh. “We had better get cracking.”
They pushed off to sea in the fifty-foot long “square boat,” a common design for Mesopotamian water craft for both river and sea. It was crescent-shaped with high prows both forward and aft. It contained a large comfortable canopied throne lounge in the center, obviously for the self-important Urshanabi to be rowed around by his stone crew. The boat was made of fresh water reeds that were tightly bound and covered in and out with bitumen pitch for sealant against the water. It was a sturdy sea-worthy vessel that was reinforced in order to support the extra weight of a single Stone One as oarsmen on each trip. The punting poles were laid on both sides with their extended lengths sticking out the back of the boat into the air.
Urshanabi got in and sat on his throne.
Gilgamesh pulled off the canopy and rolled it up.
He quipped, “So sorry to inconvenience you from the perilous rays of the sun, but we are going against the wind so this canopy will slow us down.”
Urshanabi just gulped and nodded. He was grateful that Gilgamesh did not trust his scrawny muscles to any of the rowing.
“By the way,” said Gilgamesh, “how will we know when we have arrived at the Waters of Death?”
Urshanabi answered, “When the island is in sight, and the waters glow.”
Gilgamesh sat and held the oars. He took a deep breath and a sigh.
And he began to row.
And row.
And row.
He achieved a kind of meditative state that helped him to dissociate from his body of pain into flights of fancy, not unlike what he did in the Path of the Sun with his bruised shin. He rowed for almost eighteen hours straight before he took his first of only two half hour naps.
Urshanabi woke him and he began to row again without pause. He had become like a Stone One, soulless automaton of work. The thought had passed through his mind that this was not much different from what every life amounted to anyway. Live, work, eat, and die. And the dreams and hopes and pursuits of human passion amounted to a temporary hallucinogenic state of imagination before it ended — for everlasting unto everlasting.
They arrived at the Waters of Death with about six hours left before low tide would strand them to their deaths. The island of Dilmun was in sight, but it was still a distant speck to his reckoning. All around them the water glowed an iridescent greenish blue. It was the normal color of water, but with a shining that almost dared one to dive in. These shining waters guarding the Land of the Living reminded Gilgamesh of the shining Cherub guarding the Garden of Eden that he had heard of in stories during his youth.
Gilgamesh stopped rowing before they hit the glowing waters. He put the oars away. The act of rowing caused too much splashing to be able to make it to the island alive. He pulled out his first punting pole and said the Urshanabi, “Is there anything else I need to know before I place this pole in the Waters of Death and jeopardize my life?”
“Just do not let the water touch your hands,” said Urshanabi. “Leave the pole behind you without raising it out of the water, and use the next one.”
“Easily spoken, not easily done,” said Gilgamesh. “You better pray to Enki, because your life depends on my life.”
“I do not mean to be critical, but we are still behind time,” said Urshanabi. “We have got about three hours left, but we need about six.”
“Now see, Urshanabi,” said Gilgamesh. “That is the difference between you and me. You avoid the impossible because it cannot be done. I seek the impossible because it cannot be done.”
“I guess that explains your search for eternal life,” said Urshanabi.
Gilgamesh smiled and put his first pole in the water with the words, “It does indeed.”
But Urshanabi had been wrong. Gilgamesh once again caught them up on time with double speed. But it was
not time that they would run out of, it was punting poles. Gilgamesh had come within a mile of the island of Dilmun and he had but two poles left in the boat. He stopped. These would glide them another few hundred feet or so, and they would be stranded in the Waters of Death with no means of propulsion. They would not make it after all. Urshanabi had miscalculated.
Gilgamesh glared at him.
“You think I want to die out here with you?” said Urshanabi. “I thought three hundred poles were more than enough to make it through the waters. Even these changing winds cannot push us far enough in time. Can we please put the canopy back up, so at least I can die without a sunburn?”
Gilgamesh lightened up. “You are right. The winds have changed. They are now at our back. Now, see, Urshanabi, within your own words lay the solution to our dilemma, but you could not see it because you refuse to face the impossible.”
Urshanabi was confused. He watched as Gilgamesh rummaged through the bottom of the boat and pulled out the large canvas canopy that he had taken down at the start of their journey.
He took out his dirk and cut some holes in the ends of the canopy. Then he cut some lengths of rope and began to tie the canopy to one end of a punting pole. When he finished, he did the same thing with the other side of the canopy on the other punting pole.
Gilgamesh smiled and said, “We cannot punt our way in, but we can sail.”
Urshanabi filled with hope.
Gilgamesh said, “Urshanabi, grab the tiller. There is not much time.”
Urshanabi grabbed it and began to steer while Gilgamesh held up the last two punting poles with canopy tied between them. It was a makeshift sail. It caught the wind and they began to glide over the Waters of Death.
Gilgamesh had to lean into the wind with all that was left in him. His arms were stretched out wide holding the poles, and the wind created a driving air pocket that sailed them toward Dilmun.
Chapter 44
They arrived at the small port harbor of Dilmun just as the waters were beginning to draw back into the sea.